Careening about: Rush, Wilco, Providence

Talk about a great week. This could be my early peak of the summer. I'm thrilled to see my piece on Buddy Holly in the Boston Globe travel section today. I spent four days last month tracing Buddy's roots in his hometown of Lubbock, Tx. and the Norman Petty Studio in Clovis, N.M. where he laid down his greatest hits with the Crickets. A trip of a lifetime for me. No one is a bigger Holly fan than yours truly. To think he died at age 22 is incredible. Hope you can check the story out.
Because I work part-time for WBOS (I've enjoyed every Thursday show I've done with afternoon jock John Laurenti), I still have ample time to pursue my passion for travel stories. This past Tuesday, I also went to Martha's Vineyard to interview Carly Simon for a series that the Globe has done on notable people showing us around their favorite places near their home. Carly was her chatty, convivial self, leading me and a photographer to such sites as a pancake restaurant in Vineyard Haven, a shipyard (where they built a boat for her ex, James Taylor), an art gallery, and a wild 'n' crazy, eclectic store called Midnight Farm (she's an investor in it, but what the hey; it's a deserving place). That piece should run in a couple of Sundays.
As for the concert beat, I hit the Rush show at the Tweeter Center on Wednesday. I was kidded about it by 'BOS program director David Ginsburg (who apparently wouldn't be caught dead at a Rush gig), but darned if Rush didn't give an excellent performance, at least to my warhorse-tarnished ears. Rush remains a definitive power trio with singer Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer Neil Peart, whose drum solos rank among the few in rock where you don't rush for a bathroom break. The 13,000-plus crowd (yes, about 75 percent guys on a boys-night-out bender) went delirious on the deep catlalog tunes (even esoteric stuff from the "Hemispheres'' album) and the light show was nothing short of Pink Floyd-like, including lasers, smokebombs, and triple Jumbotrons screens with enough crazy animation to induce flashbacks whether you were on psychedelics or not. Sure, it was a time warp, but a fun one.
On Thursday, I enjoyed a rootsy change-of-pace with Wilco at the Bank of America Pavilion. Some acts are having trouble packing seats this summer, but not Wilco. The sold-out audience was rabid from the get-go and I can't emphasize enough how much better Wilco is in concert rather than in the studio. Too many of their latter-day records have suffered from artsy pretension and simply too much Mensa Society fussiness. But live, these guys are at the absolute pinnacle of the biz right now. Singer Jeff Tweedy, another former miscreant who is now sober, has a renewed focus that easily made this one of the best shows of the year. He and gifted guitarist Nels Cline (who plays with a gutsy muscularity missing from some of cerebral studio work) drove the band all night and hit a head-rattling crescendo on "Handshake Drugs,'' which was the finest song on their live album from a couple of years ago and fulfilled the same role here. I can't wait to see this band again, but spare me the talk about how great their records are. They're most believable when on stage, pure and simple.
On Friday, I was back in the travel trenches, heading to Providence for a story on that city's nightlife for another upcoming Globe piece. I was blown away by how much Providence has changed in recent years. I used to go there a lot in the heyday of the Providence Civic Center (now Dunkin' Donuts Center), but there are far fewer shows there now (the Tweeter Center has grabbed many of them), so I didn't realize how much the nightlife scene has exploded. New dance clubs, live music venues, and the great AS 220 (a non-profit arts center with a music room, playhouse and outdoor cafe) have been added to the always-solid infrastructure of Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel. Get down there sometime. Just don't speed on Rt. 95. I got pinched by a robo-cop State Trooper for a speeding ticket (a $150 fine) and that stung. But, all in all, an exhilarating week.