iTunes is getting long in the tooth. The interface hasn’t changed in years. Yes, there have been some cosmetic changes here and there and lots of cool and useful features added, but in general, it’s looked and acted the same for many years. I am mostly ok with that, as I’ve learned how to navigate around my music and videos and can make things work for me very easily. I wouldn’t mind seeing some changes, though.

So when I went to Apple’s main site on Monday morning and saw the above, I became curious. I wonder what changes will be announced this morning. Here’s my guesses:

• Streaming and subscription service – We already have last.fm as a decent site for streaming and music discussion. The previous lala site was purchased by Apple. The inevitable would be to see some sort of offering from Apple.
• 90 Second Song Previews – This would be nice for quite a few songs that need more than the 30 seconds currently available.
• Remove DRM from videos – Hey, a boy can dream, can’t he? They did it for music, maybe someday, our video purchases will be liberated, too.

Ladies and Gentlemen…

… The Beatles

None of the above came true. It was the Fab Four that are now on iTunes for the big news this morning.

I celebrated at 7:58am and purchased “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” from The White Album. This is big news since any change in the types of media that music is offered on, getting The Beatles onto that new format is a labor of negotiations, licensing and all sorts of back and forth talks to work it all out. So love them or hate them, The Beatles on iTunes is an important step in the world of music.

As for my other wishes for changes to iTunes, I guess we’ll wait for future announcements and events.

Last month, I went with my friend Kris to see Wolfmother at The Depot here in in Salt Lake City, UT

I had seen Wolfmother twice before, but this was Kris’ first time seeing the band. The last two times I saw them, they were a trio and they rocked hard. A ton of energy and the awesome sounds of their debut album were great to hear live. Since then, the band pretty much split up, but then was brought back to life as a foursome, leaving Andrew Stockdale as the only original member left. While I had my apprehensions about how they would sound now, I had hoped that they would still rock.

And indeed they did. Yes, it was a bit different sounding, but not much. They released a new album called “Cosmic Egg” and while it’s not as good as their first release, it’s pretty good. Songs like “New Moon Rising”, “White Feather” and “Phoenix” are really good, but in my opinion, are still not as a good as “Joker and the Thief”, “Woman” and “White Unicorn”. Still, I thought they had a great energy on stage and they kept the crowd in a musical frenzy throughout their almost two hour set.

Mr Harrison Takes The Stage

The opening band was Thenewno2, which I had never heard of before. After doing a bit of research on them a week before the show, I found a nice surprise in one of their members.

Yep, that’s George’s son

Dhani Harrison, the son of George Harrison [guitarist for The Beatles, for the very few of you that didn't know], was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist. Now I was more interested in seeing them.

Turns out Dhani inherited his musical talent from his dad. The construction of the songs was very grunge-like, sounding a bit like The White Stripes. Their set was extremely short (six songs), but packed with energy.

After their set, I wandered over the merchandise table and met and shook hands with Dhani and the other band members [No pictures, per their manager]. Dhani was very nice and gracious when I told him it was nice to meet him.

Good Bastards

I liked these Bastards – and that’s a positive comment

After going back to my place on the crowded floor in front of the stage, I was treated to a rousing performance by another band I hadn’t heard of before. The Heartless Bastards started off a bit rough, but they rolled right into an hour set of songs that rocked big time. “Early In The Morning”, “Wide Awake” and “New Resolution” were belted out in loud fashion by their lead singer Erika Wennerstrom, who was the blonde version of Chrissie Hynde [from The Pretenders, for those of you that didn't know] in both stage presence and hair style.

All in all, a great show, incredible music and really great to meet the son of a rock legend.