It was pretty good. Lots of artists doing their own versions of Adam’s songs from his various projects. Multiple versions of a few. It just reminded me how much his music meant to me – how EXACTLY “Brian” he was. He loved being poppy. He loved wordplay. He wasn’t afraid of technology. He was a traditionalist in some ways, but his creativity always made his deep knowledge of “the rules” come out in his songs and collaborations in a way that made them fresh.

Great performances from TONS of amazing artists. My favorites: Butch Walker doing an unreleased FOW track. Britta Phillips and Matthew Caws (separately) doing Ivy songs that almost made them better than the originals. Everyone’s great stories about Adam. Mike Viola and his superband of Jake Sinclair (bass/vox), Brendon Urie (drums/vox), and Rachel White (guitar) were FANTASTIC on “That Thing You Do!” Because, you know, Mike was the one who sang that song…so it was rather authentic and awesome. 2/3 of “The Bens” were present (uh, what the fuck, Ben Folds?) Ben Lee’s “Hackensack” was beautiful and he seemed genuinely sad at the end – like he missed his friend. Courtney Love sort of sucked, but she was talking about how much she LOVED power pop and said something I’ll probably carry with me forever: “Power Pop is three Pauls and a Ringo. Occasionally you bring in a John or a George, but it’s almost always three Pauls and a Ringo.” Yes, Courtney. That is correct. Thank you for that. I will forgive you for sort of butchering “Hey Julie” (it was clear you loved it, though, so I’m not mad at ya…). The Minus Five (in this iteration, Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, Joe Adragna) doing the song Adam penned for Kathy Griffin’s talk show, “I’ll Say It” was DELIGHTFUL. The Still Out did a wonderfully noisy/creepy version of “Sick Day”.

And so much more cool stuff – Michelle Branch (with Patrick Carney of The Black Keys), Glenn Tillbrook from Squeeze, Chris Carrabba, Sean Lennon, Jesse Malin…I mean – if you like this sort of power-pop-indie-derived music, there was a LOT for you here. And I was very pleased to see Rachel Bloom doing the excellent “Settle For Me” that she wrote with Adam.

Poster:

If you’re interested you can still buy a ticket and watch on their site on VOD for another week.

Here’s the show page.

Thanks for indulging me. I really loved this guy. He was a true inspiration to me.

Heading back to Picks Bar on Saturday with the band – I’m SO EXCITED TO GET BACK THERE!!! If you’re around San Antonio Saturday night for whatever reason, come check it out – we start at 10pm.

Peace be the journey!
TMS