I saw NRBQ in Oyster Bay on Long Island and they opened their show with this song. And then they played it again, directly after. And then they played it a third time. My friends and I were pissing our pants laughing.
Had a good friend who was REALLY into these guys in the 80s. I was into the Dead and kind of baffled by these guys. He finally dragged me to a show at a small club in Philly and I realized I was overanalyzing it and letting my music snobbery get the best of me. There is nothing to GET, just a great pop band with many influences that loves to have a great time and can swing / groove with the best!
l grew up in MA. Everybody [meaning folks with divergent musical tastes] loved NRBQ, the New Rhythm & Blues Quartet. They were a musician's band. l have a friend who saw them repeatedly. They were always too drunk to play, and he still adored them! l saw them twicet. The Channel in Boston and a Greenville club years later. Terry is one of the most supernatural pianists l've ever seen. 'Nuff said
So typical of NRBQ and so damn funny! I love when the camera pans to the crowd. Some are taking it seriously and trying to get into it. Others are visibly bored or getting antsy. Most are drunk though and don't seem to care. And the radio jock at the end trying to stretch... and then the band comes back and starts that dredge all over again - HILARIOUS!
Love these guys. As a musician and former FM radio DJ, at a station that did many live radio simulcasts like this one…this is SO fkin hilarious. I could only hope it had happened at our station, so I could have seen our PD/engineer losing his mind over this stunt! Hahaha
The punkiest thing I've ever seen is Tila Tequila's performance at The Gathering of the Juggalos. They throw bottles and crap at her. She strips off her top and continues to perform. Disclaimer: I hate her and her music, but damn if I wasn't impressed by the punkish nature of that performance.
They did an encore - the same dam song. (Ha Ha Ha) In droll monotone with laughing and still faux protests of stuff flying at the band. Audience participation in the jest. Cast me as the ignorant one who clapped. (I digress...) Such a great band.
Al Anderson told me they once played a really bad version of this while opening for Bonnie Raitt. The audience went berserk and started throwing coins at them, which the band picked up because they were broke. Then Bonnie invited them to come out at the beginning of her set, and they played it again with Bonnie joining in.
The older vacuum tube amplifiers still sound better than the ones that are manufactured today. It's hard to tell because the video footage is grainy, but in this clip it looks as if they're using Fender tube amplifiers, presumably models that were manufactured either in the late 1970's or in the early 1980's.
@@ArkansasPilgrim - for one, all death is tragic. Life has endless suffering and difficulty. Reference every philosopher and religion since the beginning of time. Read Jordan Peterson. Funerals in some cultures are happy affairs with lots of dancing and singing. Why is that? Are they mocking death? You can eventually answer that question yourself. And when you do you may understand what NRBQ is doing. Come to terms with your own eventual demise. All living things die. Laugh or cry, both are responses. It's an individual thing. Maybe NRBQ is mocking gordon lightfoot's way of recounting the event, not the event itself. So many possibilities. Brainstorm a few with your friends and loved ones. Observe what happens to them and you.
@@tomjeff1743 You didn't of any explanation of "the joke" at all. I get joking about death, but I don't get this. People made jokes about starving people in Ethiopia back in the 70s. They made jokes about the Challenger explosion. They disgusted me. I get joking about death and tragedy to deal with it, but that's not carte blanche. They have the freedom to do this. They have the freedom to do things that are in bad taste. I have the freedom to comment on it.
@@ArkansasPilgrim I'm not sure that anyone who wasn't alive during the original song's heyday can get NRBQ's joke. I find this version hilarious even if I feel sad about the tragic itself.
Never in a million years did I think that I'd ever hear a version of this song that I'd actually enjoy listening to. It is because Gordon Lightfoot's original version (1976) is SO repetitive and so monotonous that NRBQ's cover is so brilliant !!
and this is their up-tempo version ... you ought see it when they sit on the floor and do it at half this tempo!... btw, the singer, Terry Adams, has perfect pitch and is NOT stoned, this is a BIG PUT ON...but not to insult the story/song as you think...there are other comedy reasons as to why for this routine
I've seen a lot of bands LIVE from the 60's & 70's. Allman Brother's Band, YES, Led Zeppelin, Emerson, Lake, & Palmer, Black Sabbath, Cream, Moody Blues, J. Giels Band, and so many more. Really good musicians. They all had something this group hasn't got; and that's talent. From the comments, I guess, this is supposed to be a funny performance. It isn't. It's just a sad, and long, performance. The song just isn't comedy material.
@Chuck Kistler Okay, Chuck. I'm over me. It's just, I was at work when the Detroit Maritime Cathedral rang those bells, once each, for the souls who were killed on the Edmund Fitzgerald. That? I can't get over that.
Half the band you named had more talent but the other half didn't. NRBQ was making fun of Gordon Lightfoot's overly errnest yet inaccurate song. I will point out that your list was bands that were largely without humor.
