Various Artists - FireAid, Intuit Dome, Inglewood, CA, and Kia Forum, Inglewood, CA, 1-30-2025

Here's something surprisingly timely from me. I mostly post music from decades ago, but as I write this in early 2025, this concert took place only three days ago! It's a big concert - five hours long - with lots of big name artists.

I like posting big rock festivals and benefit concerts, because I've noticed they tend to get overlooked. But I tend not to post many from the 2000s because I don't like many of the musical acts on the bills. However, I looked at the list of performers here and I liked most of them, and could at least tolerate the rest. If you frequently come to this blog, your musical tastes are probably pretty similar to mine. You might want to give this a listen even if you don't like some of the acts. I think it's better than the vast majority of these kinds of concerts.

The concert was a surprisingly fast response to a series of fires that burned parts of the Los Angeles region earlier that same month. Millions were raised that would go to a charity to help the victims of the fires. There are lots of natural disasters that don't result in big benefit concerts. But this disaster hit very close to home for many famous musicians and or the people they know. For instance, Billy Crystal, one of the presenters here, lost his house to one of the fires, and Stevie Nicks came very close to losing hers. So it's not surprising that so many artists wanted to take part in a benefit concert.

Before I say anything else, note that the crisis caused by the fires is very much still ongoing, and donations are still being accepted. If you want to donate, here's the link:

Homepage - FireAid

I'm posting this because the entire concert has been put out there for free all over the place, including on literally at least ten TV streaming services, Tik Tok, YouTube, and more. So I'm just helping to spread it. If you want to watch it instead of just listen, YouTube is an easy way to find it. (That said, I wouldn't at all be surprised if this gets taken down due to some copyright issue or another, so grab it fast!)

The Wall Street Journal put out an interesting article before the concert took place that explained how it came to be. It's a worthwhile read:

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I'll spare the details, since you can read about everything there. But I want to note that famous musical acts were falling over each other to take part, so many were turned down. The ones that were included generally were ones who lived in Los Angeles or otherwise had close ties to the area. 

Also note that the concert was rather strange in that it actually two place in two different venues on the same night. This is similar to what happened with Live Aid in 1985, except that consisted of concerts in North America and Europe, whereas this was two concerts both in the two of Inglewood. The thinking was that one of the concerts was mainly for pop music and the other for rock music. While there was down time between acts in one concert, they would show a set from the other concert, keeping both audiences entertained almost all the time. I thought about splitting this into two album, one for each venue. But I ultimately decided on making one big one, with all the songs in the order they occurred.

Now, let's get to the music. I found high quality videos of each set at a bootleg sharing site, then I converted them to audio and broke them into mp3s. The videos were already almost entirely free of the frequent begging for money typical of these types of concerts. I kept nearly everything. However, there were some sequences highlighting the fires and the resulting homelessness that I cut out, mostly because those were videos meant to be seen, not just heard. But I did keep speeches by Billy Crystal and Jimmy Kimmel talking about the fires.

As I mentioned above, I liked most of the musical acts. The vast majority of them have been featured in albums I've posted at this blog already. The ones who haven't are: Anderson Paak, Dawes, Gracie Abrams, Tate McRae, Jelly Roll, Nirvana, Katy Perry, Olivia Rodrigo, Peso Pluma, Billie Eilish, and Lady Gaga. Some of those were merely okay, but a lot of them only played a song or two, and often did a cover of a famous song, so it didn't matter much. There was only one musical act I couldn't stand, and that was Lil Baby. Gawwwd, the Autotune on that is sooo awful! So that was the only act I didn't include.

I mentioned Nirvana above. It's hard to imagine Nirvana without Kurt Cobain, who died long ago. The set here featured the three surviving members, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear. To fill Cobain's shoes as lead vocalist, different female singers sang each of the four songs performed: St. Vincent, Kim Gordon, Joan Jett, and Violet Grohl (the last being the daughter of Dave Grohl). 

Generally speaking, the sound quality was excellent. But I noticed the lead vocals seems quite low during the Nirvana set, as well as the subsequent Red Hot Chili Peppers set. An analysis of those songs in an audio editing program confirmed that. So I boosted the vocals relative to the instruments for just those two sets, using the UVR5 audio editing program.

One other problem was that there often were abrupt sonic transitions between each set. So I would carefully look at the last song of one set and the first song of the next one. If it didn't sound smooth, I made some edits until it did. Typically, I'd merge audience applause together so it just sounds like lots of cheering until the next act got started.

This album is five hours long exactly. The actual concert was more like six hours long, but there was some dead air between sets, plus the video presentations about the fires that I cut out, as well as the Lil Baby set I couldn't stand.

001 Last Night on Earth (Green Day & Billie Eilish)
002 talk (Green Day)
003 Still Breathing (Green Day)
004 When I Come Around (Green Day)
005 talk (Billy Crystal)
006 Hand in My Pocket (Alanis Morissette)
007 talk (Alanis Morissette)
008 Thank U (Alanis Morissette)
009 talk (Anderson Paak)
010 Put Me Thru (Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
011 talk (Anderson Paak)
012 Come Down (Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
013 Still D.R.E. (Dr. Dre & Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
014 talk (Anderson Paak)
015 California Love (Dr. Dre & Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
016 talk by Alanis Morissette (Joni Mitchell)
017 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
018 talk (Dawes)
019 Time Spent in Los Angeles (Dawes)
020 talk (Stephen Stills with Dawes)
021 For What It's Worth (Stephen Stills with Mike Campbell & Dawes)
022 talk (Graham Nash with Stephen Stills & Dawes)
023 Teach Your Children (Graham Nash with Stephen Stills & Dawes)
024 talk (Pink)
025 What about Us (Pink)
026 talk (Pink)
027 Me and Bobby McGee (Pink)
028 talk (Pink)
029 Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You (Pink)
030 talk by Samuel L. Jackson (Rod Stewart)
031 Forever Young (Rod Stewart)
032 talk (Rod Stewart)
033 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)
034 talk (Rod Stewart)
035 People Get Ready (Rod Stewart)
036 talk by Pink (John Mayer)
037 Neon (John Mayer)
038 Gravity (John Mayer)
039 Free Fallin' (John Mayer)
040 That's the Way of the World (Earth, Wind & Fire)
041 Shining Star (Earth, Wind & Fire)
042 September (Earth, Wind & Fire)
043 talk by Graham Nash (Black Crowes)
044 Remedy (Black Crowes)
045 talk (Black Crowes)
046 Have You Ever Seen the Rain (John Fogerty with the Black Crowes)
047 talk (Black Crowes)
048 Going to California (Black Crowes with Slash)
049 talk by Philip Bailey (Gracie Abrams)
050 I Love You, I'm Sorry (Gracie Abrams)
051 talk (Gracie Abrams)
052 A Long December (Gracie Abrams)
053 talk by John Meyer (No Doubt)
054 Just a Girl (No Doubt)
055 Don't Speak (No Doubt)
056 Spiderwebs (No Doubt)
057 talk (Tate McRae)
058 You Broke Me First (Tate McRae)
059 talk (Tate McRae)
060 Don't Dream It's Over (Tate McRae)
061 I Am Not Okay (Jelly Roll)
062 talk (Jelly Roll)
063 Hollywood Nights (Jelly Roll with Travis Barker)
064 talk by Gwen Stefani (Stevie Nicks)
065 Stand Back (Stevie Nicks)
066 talk (Stevie Nicks)
067 Landslide (Stevie Nicks)
068 talk (Stevie Nicks)
069 Edge of Seventeen (Stevie Nicks)
070 talk (Stevie Nicks)
071 talk by Jelly Roll (Katy Perry)
072 Rise (Katy Perry)
073 Roar (Katy Perry)
074 talk (Katy Perry)
075 California Gurls (Katy Perry)
076 Breed (Nirvana & St. Vincent)
077 School (Nirvana & Kim Gordon)
078 talk (Nirvana)
079 Territorial Pissings (Nirvana & Joan Jett)
080 talk (Nirvana)
081 All Apologies (Nirvana & Violet Grohl)
082 talk by Stevie Nicks (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
083 Dani California (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
084 Californication (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
085 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
086 Black Summer (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
087 Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
088 talk (Olivia Rodrigo)
089 Drivers License (Olivia Rodrigo)
090 talk (Olivia Rodrigo)
091 Deja Vu (Olivia Rodrigo)
092 talk by Olivia Rodrigo (Sting)
093 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
094 Driven to Tears (Sting)
095 Fragile (Sting)
096 talk by Lil Baby (Peso Pluma)
097 La Bebe (Peso Pluma)
098 talk by Sting (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
099 talk (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
100 Wildflower (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
101 The Greatest (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
102 talk (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
103 Birds of a Feather (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
104 talk (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
105 talk (Stevie Wonder)
106 Love's in Need of Love Today (Stevie Wonder)
107 Superstition (Stevie Wonder with Sting)
108 Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder & Sting)
109 talk (Jimmy Kimmel)
110 Shallow (Lady Gaga)
111 talk (Lady Gaga)
112 Always Remember Us This Way (Lady Gaga)
113 talk (Lady Gaga)
114 Time Is a Healer (Lady Gaga)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZQXR1WV7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/1MTEuDFXIW31ySS/file

I had hundreds of photos to choose from for the cover art. Unfortunately, there was no big encore with lots of famous people on stage together. So I decided to go with a photo of the stage and a bit of the audience, with John Mayer playing guitar and looking quite small on the huge stage. Then I added a huge version of the FireAid logo to the top half of the image.

The Black Crowes - VH-1 Storytellers, The Bottom Line, New York City, 8-27-1996

We're getting very near to the end of the "VH-1 Storytellers" series. I only have two more I plan on posting after this. This one features the band the Black Crowes.

We happened to get lucky with this one, because there is a soundboard bootleg of the entire concert that the Storytellers TV show drew from. I cut out a couple of songs that were duplicates, due to the producer asking the band to do them again because of some minor reason or another. I also cut out a lot of dead air time. And there were some chunks of that, for instance while the band had to wait for the producers to get something ready. But I kept all the worthy banter.

The Black Crowes hit it big with their debut album, "Shake Your Money Maker," which sold five million copies in the U.S. Their second album also sold two million. But their fourth album, "Three Snakes and One Charm," didn't even go Gold in the U.S. (meaning sales of 500,000). That was the album they were promoting with this concert, as it had been released the month before.  

Surprisingly, they only played two songs from it: "Good Friday" and "Under a Mountain." Most of the songs were from their previous albums. However, they finished with a Rolling Stones cover, "Torn and Frayed."

Due to the sourcing, I didn't have some of the usual problems with this series, like the first song getting cut off. But I had some other problems I had to fix. For instance, the banter between songs sometimes got very quiet, so I boosted that. And there also was a lot of hiss at times during the banter, but I managed to get rid of a lot of that through using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is an hour and 41 minutes long.

01 talk (Black Crowes)
02 Nonfiction (Black Crowes)
03 talk (Black Crowes)
04 Good Friday (Black Crowes)
05 talk (Black Crowes)
06 Under a Mountain (Black Crowes)
07 talk (Black Crowes)
08 Thorn in My Pride (Black Crowes)
09 talk (Black Crowes)
10 Jealous Again (Black Crowes)
11 talk (Black Crowes)
12 Wiser Time (Black Crowes)
13 talk (Black Crowes)
14 She Talks to Angels (Black Crowes)
15 talk (Black Crowes)
16 Hard to Handle (Black Crowes)
17 talk (Black Crowes)
18 Ballad in Urgency (Black Crowes)
19 talk (Black Crowes)
20 Descending (Black Crowes)
21 talk (Black Crowes)
22 Remedy (Black Crowes)
23 talk (Black Crowes)
24 Torn and Frayed (Black Crowes)

https://www.imagenetz.de/kwrti

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iZhC4sD6

The cover photo is from a concert at the Paradiso, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on February 15, 1997. 

Foamfoot (The Black Crowes and Others) - The Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA, 1-8-1994

So who the heck was Foamfoot? This was a band made up of a couple key members of the Black Crowes, plus a key member of Jellyfish, plus others, that came together to play one concert entirely of cover songs back in 1994. The concert was professionally recorded for official release, but it never actually got released. But it makes for a great concert album because they guys really knew how to play classic rock. And, as a bonus, David Crosby joined in to sing a song.

The Black Crowes have mainly been led by the Robinson brothers, with Chris Robinson on lead vocals and Rich Robinson on vocals and guitar. But another key member in the 1990s was Marc Ford on lead guitar. The band was at the height of their popularity and creativity around 1994, with their first two albums selling millions in the U.S. 

Jimmy Ashurst, bass player from the Ju Ju Hounds, later explained what happened next. "There were several jams with Chris (Robinson), Marc (Ford), and Andy (Sturmer – drummer for Jellyfish). Chris was for the first time in his career living far from his brother Rich and I think he was interested in seeing what he was capable of doing without him. The live shows we did, Foamfoot and Big Toe, were more for fun and we did covers of other people’s songs."

So, as mentioned in that quote, in addition to this one show as Foamfoot, there was another show or two by the same band using the name "Big Toe," but that's mostly forgotten due to the lack of a high quality recording like this one. Furthermore, in late 1993, basically the same group of people plus a couple more did some recordings of songs written by Chris Robinson using the band name "Sweet Pickle Salad." Those have never been released, but exist on bootleg. 

In addition to the band members previously mentioned (Chris Robinson, Marc Ford, Jimmy Ashurst, and Andy Sturmer), Eric Bobo also played in the band on percussion. He'd previously played with Cypress Hill and the Beastie Boys. And note that while Sturmer was a key lead vocalist and songwriter for Jellyfish as well as being the band's drummer, in this band he just played drums. Furthermore, Gary Louris of the Jayhawks joined in to play guitar on one song in this concert. And David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, and Nash dropped in to help sing a song he wrote, "Long Time Gone."

This band seems to have been mainly led by Chris Robinson, and since he's the lead vocalist of the Black Crowes, it sounds a heck of a lot like the Black Crowes doing a bunch of cover songs. And although that band was most popular in the 1990s, they were heavily influenced by the classic rock of the early 1970s, especially bands like the Rolling Stones, the Faces, and Southern Rock bands like the Allman Brothers. In fact, in 2022, a reformed Black Crowes put out an EP called "1972" containing covers of songs from 1972 by those types of bands.

Given all that, it's not too surprising that the covers here are mostly from the early 1970s, plus a few from the 1960s. Here are the original artists for each song:

01 talk (Foamfoot)
02 Walk in My Shadow - Free
03 Bottle of Red Wine - Eric Clapton
05 Tin Soldier - Small Faces
07 Take the Highway - Marshall Tucker Band
08 Deal - Grateful Dead
10 Love Me Till the Sun Shines - Kinks
12 Long Time Gone - Crosby, Stills and Nash
14 Jemima Surrender - Band
15 One Way Out - Sonny Boy Williamson II / Allman Brothers Band
17 Presence of the Lord - Blind Faith

The sound quality is excellent. Note that this bootleg has gotten around a lot. There are rumors that the band members made it available as a bootleg after they couldn't get it officially released. But most of the versions had the last song, "Presence of the Lord," fade out before it ended. But a year or two ago (as I write this in 2023), a compete version of the song was posted on YouTube, so I used that version.

Even if you're not familiar with the Black Crowes, if you like classic rock from the early 1970s, you should enjoy this, because it's expertly sung and played by people who clearly love this kind of music.

Here's the usual song list:

01 talk (Foamfoot)
02 Walk in My Shadow (Foamfoot)
03 Bottle of Red Wine (Foamfoot)
04 talk (Foamfoot)
05 Tin Soldier (Foamfoot)
06 talk (Foamfoot)
07 Take the Highway (Foamfoot with Gary Lewis)
08 Deal (Foamfoot)
09 talk (Foamfoot)
10 Love Me Till the Sun Shines (Foamfoot)
11 talk (Foamfoot)
12 Long Time Gone (Foamfoot with David Crosby)
13 talk (Foamfoot)
14 Jemima Surrender (Foamfoot)
15 One Way Out (Foamfoot)
16 talk (Foamfoot)
17 Presence of the Lord (Foamfoot)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16055299/Foamfoot_1994_ThTroubdourLsAnglesCA__1-8-1994_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos of Foamfoot. The popular bootleg of this concert just uses a drawing of a crow. So instead I used a photo of Chris Robinson, singing at a Black Crowes concert in 1993.