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Concert impresario Peter Shapiro’s long strange trip to 10,000 shows
Most any concert regular will tell you that one of the reasons they keep going to shows is to obtain a dose of sustaining energy sparked by a magical night of live music. That buzz isn’t limited to the audience or the musicians. Leading indie concert promoter Peter Shapiro has always approached his job as a live music fan.
Shapiro says he’d much rather attend a live concert than write about it but when the opportunity arose to share his story, he saw it as a way to stay connected to live music during an extended period of silence.
With nothing but time on his hands during the pandemic when live shows weren’t possible, Shapiro took stock of his long strange trip to date by collaborating with writer, historian and professor Dean Budnick on the book “The Music Never Stops: What Putting on 10,000 Shows Has Taught Me About Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Magic” (Hachette Books).
Shapiro says he believes live music is needed now more than ever, and on a personal note, he needs several concerts per week just to feel normal.
“Live music empowers you but the energy I get from a live show only lasts about 72 hours then I need another one,” Shapiro said during an interview with The Maine Edge.
Shapiro’s book filters 50 of the more than 10,000 shows he’s presented to serve as touchstone moments that tell his story.
From his initial transformative live experiences with Phish and the Grateful Dead to later bringing those worlds together with the Dead’s 2015 golden anniversary Fare Thee Well shows, Shapiro’s love for the jam scene and its fans is a constant thread throughout the book.
His book also contains one-of-a-kind stories and encounters involving a variety of music legends and pop culture icons including U2, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Dave Matthews, Derek Trucks, Blues Traveler, The Roots, Al Green, Ken Kesey, Marty Balin and Wavy Gravy.
Shapiro admits that conducting business during daylight hours isn’t as much fun as going to the shows but “The Music Never Stops” contains a number of the lessons he’s learned about the business of music.
As former owner of the Wetlands Preserve music nightclub in New York City, and the current owner of the Brooklyn Bowl in New York, Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas and the historic Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, Shapiro zeroes in on some of the triumphs and challenges he’s faced as the guy who always gets the call if something goes wrong.
Shapiro’s name is attached to a lengthy list of music-related productions dating back to the mid-1990s.
He produced the IMAX concert films “U2 3D” and “All Access: Front Row. Backstage. Live!” which brought Trey Anastasio of Phish together with B.B. King and The Roots.
In the 1990s, Shapiro produced the films “Tied Died: Rock and Roll’s Most Deadicated Fans,” devoted to the Grateful Dead’s nomadic tribe of fans, and “American Road,” chronicling his road trip through 48 states set to a score from Phish.
Shapiro is founder of the LOCKN’ festival, a four-day jam-band focused music festival in Arrington, Virginia. He’s also the publisher of jam-focused Relix Magazine and owner of the popular website JamBands.com.
The following interview highlights were excerpted from a lengthier discussion that aired in its entirety on the web-based jam-band station JEMPradio.com.
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Pigskin prognostication! Previewing the 2022 NFL season
Are you ready for some football?
By the time you read this, the 2022 NFL season may have already kicked off – the first game of this year’s slate is scheduled for September 8, with the reigning Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams hosting the Buffalo Bills, and I am a bit later than usual in putting this preview together – but with so much football ahead of us, there’s still plenty of time for making picks.
(And yes, before you ask, my very smart and very good dog Stella will be back for another season of Kibbles and Picks, the weekly feature wherein she proves to be much better than me at predicting the outcomes of regular season games. This year marks our tenth, and her victory last year means that she has come out on top in seven of the previous nine seasons. Will I be able to achieve some level of dignity here in year 10? Or will she continue her dominance? Those who have been following along likely already know the answer.)
I will be making my usual predictions regarding how I believe the season will play out. And as usual, I anticipate being wildly off-base with a significant percentage of these predictions. I have a long and storied history of middling picks, after all – why expect anything different this time around? Hell, I’m still getting used to the fact that there’s an extra regular season game, with the 17-game slate adding yet another variable of potential inaccuracy to my personal equation.
And so, here you have it, friends – my monkey-dart-throwing attempt at prognostication. Ladies and gentlemen, your sure-to-be-inaccurate 2022 Maine Edge NFL Season Preview.
(y = division winner; x = wild card)
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The Collins Center comes alive once again: A 2022-23 CCA season preview
ORONO – The Collins Center for the Arts is back at it, bringing its usual collection of entertaining and engaging shows to the campus of the University of Maine in Orono.
The CCA – formerly known as the Maine Center for the Arts – has been a major hub for the region’s performing arts ever since the Bangor Symphony Orchestra christened its stage all the way back in 1986. The iconic building has played host to memorable acts large and small over the years, bringing a wonderful variety of arts and entertainment to our area.
The Collins Center is a foundational piece of the region’s cultural community; for over three decades, they have been a key part of the scene, offering quality programming at affordable prices year after year.
Even with the challenges that they – and all arts organizations and venues – have faced over the last two-plus years, the key figures at the CCA, from Executive Director Danny Williams on down, have pushed onward. Despite the obstacles – some new, some longstanding – they have managed to assemble a wonderful variety of music, theater and dance aimed at audiences of all ages. As per usual, the powers that be at the CCA have managed to ensure that there really is something for everyone. No surprise there – accessibility has always been a watchword for the organization.
The slate of performers in the 2022-23 season is a strong one, giving audiences a much more robust set of options than they’ve seen over the past couple of years, both in terms of their own scheduled offerings and their various partnerships.
There’s a lot to see, is what I’m saying.
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