Track One

"Simple needs and simple expectations make for beautiful longevity."

Surround-sound guru Steven Wilson has upped the ante yet again on his Grace for Drowning solo tour by presenting the music itself in surround sound, an unprecedented feat. Well, ok, technically speaking, the show is in live quad, with two speakers placed in the back of the venue at hand.

In my Track One column in the print edition of S+V’s June/July/August 2011 issue, I mentioned that I would be discussing my experiences with Autonomic’s Mirage MMS-5 media server in this space. Wellll... things change. Because we’re all good friends here, I’ll give you the scoop.

If you know anything about me, you know how much I love going to record stores, and that I especially love taking my time sifting through everything they have in stock.

Radiohead followed their own muse at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Thursday, May 31.

With speakers strategically positioned all the way around The House That Ruth Built — a.k.a. Yankee Stadium — and buttressed by a multimedia visual presentation second to none, Roger Waters and his ace band tore through Pink Floyd’s seminal 1979 masterpiece The Wall in full on July 7 in the Bronx.

When live sound is as good as it was at Peter Gabriel’s show at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on September 21, I felt like I had to pinch myself to believe it. I mean, was I really hearing what I was hearing?