News Roundup: Phish, Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Concerts, Spoon

Phish get their ya-ya’s out, rock history gets rewritten at Madison Square Garden, and Spoon serve up another spoonful of tunes.

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Phish revived their Halloween tradition of covering a classic album in its entirety on Saturday, playing the Rolling Stone’s Exile on Main Street in front of 40,000 at the multi-day Festival 8 show in Indio, California. The band were joined by Sharon Jones of the Dap-Kings, who helped them pull off the soul and gospel portions. Some songs from the 1972 double album, like “Soul Survivor, “Casino Boogie” and “Turd On the Run,” had never been performed live by the Stones themselves. As Halloween approached, Phish teased fans on their website, systematically eliminating candidates from a list of potential cover subjects, which included Yes’s Yes Album, Prince’s Purple Rain, Radiohead’s Kid A and MGMT’s Oracular Spectular.

You can download the show here in FLAC-HD format and listen to song samples of each Exile tune here.

The next day, the band treated hardcore fans to their first ever all-acoustic set, which included stripped down takes of band staples “Wilson” and “Water In The Sky.”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame celebrated its 25th anniversary with a pair of innovative concerts at Madison Square Garden last week. On Thursday, Jerry Lee Lewis killed with “Great Balls of Fire,” Simon and Garfunkel reunited once more to sing “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and Crosby, Stills and Nash harmonized on the Allman Brothers Band’s “Midnight Rider,” and Billy Joel helped wrap things up by trading vocals with the Boss on a fiery “Born To Run.” On Friday, Metallica served as the backing group for Ray Davies, Ozzy Osbourne, and Lou Reed on “You Really Got Me,” “Paranoid,” and “Sweet Jane,” respectively.

One hitch: “Because the Night,” featuring Patti Smith and Springsteen on vocals, with U2 as their backing band, had to be restarted, due to communication issues between the participants. But that’s rock and roll for you. Anything can happen, and usually does.

An HBO special presentation of the concerts airs November 29. Read more about the concerts here.

Austin, Texas indie rock greats Spoon will return on January 26 with Transference, the followup to 2006’s critically-acclaimed Ga Ga Ga Ga. A handful of the songs, like “Is Love Forever? and “Written In Reverse,” and the recent single “Got Nuffin” have already been absorbed by fans via live performances. The new album is self-produced, and will be released by Merge in the U.S. and -Anti overseas.

Here’s the Transference tracklist:

Before Destruction
Is Love Forever?
The Mystery Zone
Who Makes Your Money
Written in Reverse
I Saw the Light
Trouble Comes Running
Goodnight Laura
Got Nuffin
Nobody Gets Me But You