The 2008 show and Friday’s show were very different experiences. The MGM Arena in Vegas is a killer venue for any concert, and the audio and visuals were perfectly synced. At AT&T Park in San Francisco the video and audio were out of sync, likely due to the technical constraints of being in a stadium designed for baseball, not concerts. There were also three massive towers on the field to house the projection units, which mostly didn’t get in the way but at times obscured action on stage. AT&T Park also had the psychotically stupid notion that people coming to see The Wall would enjoy having guys walking up and down the aisle shouting “HOT chocolate” and “PEAnuts HEEEERE” in the middle of the show. Given the amount of weed people were smoking, I was amazed at the level of vitriol being directed at these buzz killing sales guys. A note to the managers of AT&T: if you do not understand the difference between a ball game and performance art, please do not host performance art at your venue.

Despite the downsides of the venue this weekend, the show itself has been tweaked nicely over the past two years to keep it fresh and relevant. Unlike the performance in Vegas, the wall itself was used to project footage from the stage so that you could see slight facial expressions and more subtle movement along with a more panoramic view.

Truly great art goes through three phases. When it first arrives on the scene, it is terribly, awe-inspiringly shocking because it pushes the envelope with its message and form. Next, it provokes a great amount of discussion and controversy as society disputes whether or not it has a place in this world. Last, the naysayers inevitably lose and works of great art are enshrined in preservation mode. This last phase is bittersweet. When groundbreaking art achieves its goal of providing human beings with a new idea, it renders itself obsolete. It ceases to be inspiring or thought provoking and becomes merely respectable. In some ways this is good as it makes room for new art to step in and push the envelope forward once more, but in other ways it’s sad as the chaotic moment of birth can never be recaptured.

Unfortunately, I think this is what has happened to The Wall. When I was an undergraduate double majoring in history and humanities, I knew I was probably destined to manage a very fine Taco Bell some day, but I harbored distant hopes of being a museum curator. I even managed to land an internship at a museum my junior year. After spending hundreds of hours carefully brushing ancient slabs of marble with an itty bitty toothbrush, I realized that the conservation of art isn’t quite as interesting as the creation of art. The Wall is still relevant and breathtaking. It’s still poignant and meaningful as an eloquent statement against war. But I can’t help but realize that it isn’t surprising. I would have loved to have been at the show’s very first performance in Los Angeles and heard the breath leave every audience member the first time they saw David Gilmour standing atop the wall during “Comfortably Numb.” It’s still impressive to see today, but it isn’t a surprise. It’s expected, the way the “surprise” chord is fully expected in Haydn’s Surprise Symphony.

Speaking of which — most palpable in these modern tours is the absence of David Gilmour. Hearing other people sing and play his part was entertaining, but it was a bit like looking at a museum diorama of George Washington crossing the Delaware. Wooden dummies dressed in the right clothing give you an idea of what it might have been like, but it’s not the same as seeing the real thing. Gilmour’s singing was handled by one guy and his guitar parts by another. Two other dudes weren’t half as good as one Gilmour.

I felt the sincerity and intensity of the performance, but not any sense of urgency. Funnily enough, the closest I got to feeling what it must have been like for Pink Floyd back in the late seventies was when Roger Waters was forced to relive his historic annoyance with obnoxious arena audiences. The rowdiness of stadium crowds first inspired him to do a show where the band would be shielded from the audience by an actual barrier. He got a bit of a reminder of that experience when the giant floating pig came out to drift over the crowd during “Run Like Hell.” The audience got ahold of the pig when it drifted to close to the ground. They ripped one leg to shreds, taking bits of the vinyl home as trophies in the same way that tourists visiting monuments collect stones from the ground to be displayed on dusty shelves at home. In a way it recaptured some of the chaos and tension between performer and audience, and in another it was just kind of sad.

I loved the show. I love the emotion it generates and its unabashedly oversimplified message. But I also feel sadness, since I don’t know if music like that can be written any more. The early eighties signified the death of a lot more than disco. The groundbreaking era of musical exploration heralded by the invention of the electric guitar was over. Probably only Eddie Van Halen continued to carry the torch, pushing the limits of the instrument beyond anything any of us thought was possible. But I have a feeling that to see truly epic bands like those most active around the years 1968 to 1972 we’re going to need another new disruptive musical technology, and I’m not talking about autotune. Beethoven needed the pianoforte. Elvis needed the electric guitar. The artists of the future will need . . . something. I’m just not sure what it is yet. And that’s good, because it means I’ll get to see it when it’s being played and not just being hung up in a Hard Rock Café.

So enjoy the party, Champions players. Go pound some bad guy face for me over the weekend.

What an odd, awesome, wonderful, noisy, chaotic place. Depending on your perspective, the City Museum is a kid’s fantasy come true or a great place to get tetanus. I explored the caves, the rooms full of steampunk fantasy come true, gorgeous displays of masonry, and found myself sitting alone with a restored 1927 Wurlitzer movie organ. It was blasting tunes like “You’re Just to Good to Be True” and “Sherri Baby”. I’ve never seen a museum quite like this. It’s made almost entirely of salvaged bits of buildings, machines, and other things that most people would consider garbage. Yet somehow when it’s all put together, one city’s trash becomes that same city’s treasure.

I am not kidding.

I don’t get why Rush is such a big deal. Everybody is freaking out like OMG RUSH CONCERT NEED MOAR TIX.

Really. I don’t understand. I’ve heard their music. It’s okay.

If you can explain to me why Rush is a big deal in words that I understand, I will make you a t-shirt that says “Jeenius.”

I should begin this by admitting that I like the Eagles. Lots of their tunes rock, and the Eagles will forever have geek street cred as the authors of “Journey of the Sorcerer” which served as the theme song to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’ll now try to get back in the good graces of my fellow Dudeists by saying that I dig Creedence way more than the Eagles. However, the first time I saw The Big Lebowski I was puzzled by the fact that one of The Dude’s strongest emotional reactions is to the fuckin’ Eagles, man. The Eagles literally wrote the tune telling us to “Take It Easy.” So why doesn’t The Dude dig what they do?

Upfront it can seem baffling that Creedence would get the place of honor in The Dude’s car’s tape deck and the Eagles are so offensive as to warrant a protest that gets you ccr1kicked out of a cab. Both bands can fairly being accused of being, as Holden Caulfield would put it, phonies. John Fogerty was definitely not born on the bayou, and I seriously doubt that Glenn Frey ever stood on a corner in Winslow, Arizona with seven women on his mind. Both bands broke up due to personal conflict and creative control issues. So what’s the big difference between the two?

Quite a lot, it turns out.

Band origins were the first giveaway. The Eagles have an unapologetically polished studio sound. They were really more of a supergroup of seasoned session artists with specific business goals, much in the same way that Led Zeppelin was when they started out. It’s not that the Eagles’ decision to quit playing second fiddle and create their own band isn’t admirable, but the origins of Creedence feel more Dudely because the band began with friendship, not a business plan.

Fogerty wasn’t from the bayou, but he was from Berkeley, California, a place that was the epicenter of political thought in the sixties. (Now it’s populated by trust fund hipsters sitting at Starbucks using their iPhones to tweet about The Corporations, Man. Bummer.) The members of Creedence grew up in the same town and went to high school together. Every member of the original Eagles lineup was from a different state and didn’t meet until their careers as hired guns were well underway.

Like The Dude, John Fogerty was on the wrong side of authority figures. Creedence’s old record label ripped off record proceeds for years from Fogerty, even though he wrote almost every song the band ever recorded. They even sued him for playing his own song, claiming it sounded too much like one of his old songs. Which he wrote. Fucking fascists. For this exact reason, I’ll openly admit that I won’t pay for Creedence songs. As a method of protest I’ve ripped every one of them from a friend’s CD. If Fogerty ain’t getting paid then neither should the record company, as far as I’m concerned. And I’d like to think that The Dude would approve of principled digital piracy.

The Eagles, on the other hand, had an arsenal of lawyers at their disposal and never lost control of their music due to the naive belief that their record labels wouldn’t screw them over with bogus contracts. When they broke up they were still able to fulfill their contract obligations by releasing an album without ever being in the same studio together. That takes business acumen that a conscientious objector like Fogerty wouldn’t have wasted time on.

Most importantly to the themes of The Big Lebowski, Fogerty narrowly escaped being sent to ‘Nam by joining the National Guard. So when he wrote “Fortunate Son” he knew what the fuck he was talking about. “Ramble Tamble” gripes about fucking fascists of the sort that run Malibu. “Who’ll Stop the Rain” celebrated the power of numbers in the counterculture movement, and “Run Through the Jungle” protested the proliferation of guns in urban neighborhoods.

The Eagles didn’t write protest music. They wrote really great studio-polished pop songs performed in a rock style. While the members of Creedence were steeped in the political revolution of the late sixties, the Eagles weren’t around for any of it. Before 1971 they were touring as hired guns for Bob Seger and Linda Ronstadt. When they got together, they recorded their first three albums in Britain. They were making art, not politics, going so far as to compare their rock star lifestyles to that of Old West outlaws on their second album Desperado. Creedence stayed right at home in California, laying down every one of their tracks in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I theorize that The Dude’s hatred of the fuckin’ Eagles is not overt. It’s more that their music offers nothing to The Dude’s ethos. Everything The Dude is just jives a little better with Creedence and isn’t reflected in the Eagles. Music can do a helluva lot more than a rug to tie the room together. The Dude didn’t steal the Big Lebowski’s rug and then go home and lie on it in silence. He put on his headphones. Sure, maybe he listened to the sound of the 1987 Venice Beach League Playoffs, but that’s got to be music to The Dude’s ears. Likewise, if I’m gonna light some candles and have a nice relaxing bubble bath, I’m definitely cranking up “Long as I Can See the Light” and not “Hotel California.”

I don’t think that Dudeists are required to share The Dude’s dislike of the Eagles. That would be, like, dogma and stuff, which is super un-Dudely. But I believe we can all appreciate and respect the reasons behind his taste in tunes, and keep a special place in our tape decks for Creedence.