Dave’s Photo Blog

On this beautiful Friday night, The Neighborhoods performed at City Hall Plaza as part of the Boston’s GreenFest. They were the first band, playing about an hour set. Although I’d like to see them closing the night rather than opening, I suppose it worked out as Johnny Rock had another gig to get to later that evening. Although hampered by some initial equipment problems, the Hoods hit their stride and put in another high-energy performance. Yes, they played The Prettiest Girl, and I’ve got an embed of the video below. But they played another surprise song – you’ll have to read on to hear that story.

After a great introduction, The Neighborhoods opened the show with Real Stories. But it was obvious during this song that something was not right. Lee Harrington was mostly playing in front of his amp and trying to tune during the song. And you could certainly hear that the bass tuning was off enough to be problematic. After the song, there was an uncomfortable pause while various tactics were used to try to tune the bass. This may sound curious, but this is just one of those things that happens – a change of problems that was unanticipated.

It seems as though the bass tuner that Lee was using was having a problem. So even though the tuner indicated it was in tune, it was not. That’s an insidious problem and it took a few minutes to realize that the reference (the tuner) wasn’t a reference at all – it was part of the problem. So he tried to use David Minehan’s tuner, but that is set up for guitar, not bass and it wasn’t working that well. In the end, he tuned off David’s guitar the old fashioned way. While this was going on, David entertained the crowd and after a few minutes, they were ready to go. The crowd was a bit sparse, which was a shame, because the stage, sound and energy the Hoods brought was killer for this show.

The surprise song of the night was, Mama Kin, which was dedicated to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. Tyler broke his shoulder in August after a fall from the stage, causing Aerosmith to cancel the tour. If you wonder how Tyler and Minehan became such fast friends, then you must not be aware that David Minehan toured with Aerosmith as a replacement for Brad Whitford who also produced some of The Neighborhoods albums.

Here’s a YouTube of both Mama Kin and Prettiest Girl.

The complete set list was:

1. Real Stories
2. WUSA
3. Innocence Lost
4. Tommy
5. Pure and Easy
6. Parasite
7. Prettiest Girl
8. One Day Older
9. Half Life
10. Mama Kin (dedicated to Steven Tyler)
11. No Place Like Home

Johnny Rock has his usual, solid performance. During Mama Kin, all the members of the band trading off duties singing and Johnny was no exception. He belted out his verse without missing a beat. I don’t know how drummers do that – it still impresses me.

Despite the initial troubles, Lee Harrington was his usual self, moving all over the stage, jumping up and down and occasionally (like in the middle photo) glancing over at his family. That may not fit the image of the total rocker for some of you, but it was a delightful for those of us at the show to see. It fit the mood of the a typical Hoods show – the band is totally psyched to be playing and they deliver a performance to match, not letting the little things get them down and basking in the joy of a special moment like playing for your own family.

After Mama Kin, The Neighborhoods were ostensibly out of time. But as they have done several times as of late, they decided to cram in one more song and after a moments pause, ripped into No Place Like Home to end the show.