The band features the songs and lead vocals of Colin Meloy. He has a unique point of view and a unique voice. The songs are richly textured, with little soloing. Lead guitarist Chris Funk and keyboardist Jenny Conlee play in a way that reminds of Peter Buck’s guitar in REM
As it is the case each year, there are bands I am familiar with and new ones I’ll discover. So far I would recommend a few bands I have already seen: How to dress Well, which is Tom Krell’s project and a very personal R&B re-interpretation,… be prepared for a strong Michael Jackson vibe, but the result is more intense and experimental than anything the king of pop has ever put out
The only time I’ve seen Rhiannon Giddens, either with or without Carolina Chocolate Drops, was at the Town Hall as part of T-Bone’s boring new folk extravaganza and she left little impression, and I wasn’t crazy about her New Basement Tapes album, but her current album Tomorrow Is My Turn is all that Gospel blues soul plus plus plus and so I am back to the Town Hall on Thursday to hear what I missed
His specialty is country music heartbreak and folk ballads, but he’s not a one dimensional artist. When he sings about losing his love on “Tonight I Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown,” his emotional loss is so heavy that he not only feels disconnected from his former lover, but from the world is a whole. Such is the man’s gravitas.
And this is what Jarvis had to add:’ Generally speaking, the more money a band has, the worse their records get …’ Well, this is true’ agrees Iggy. Nothing truer has ever been spoken.
We shall breast the tape at Barcelona and Murcia (Spain) in April and May, and then we square up for four nights at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Good times for a change. Is it illegal to be this happy? Thank you, also, to everyone who has managed to download “Kiss me a lot” from iTunes. We value your interest and encouragement beyond measure.
the Beach Boys’ iconic catalog was brushed (in not the right order) by Norah Jones and Gingger Shankar, Heart’s Ann Wilson, The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne and Steve Drozd, Devendra Banhart, Monters of Folk’s M. Ward, Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin, Boz Scaggs, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, Local Natives, Capital Cities’ Sebu Simonian, Wilson Philips, Karen Elson, ex Magnetic Zeros’ Jade Castrinos, Adam Busch and Danny Masterson, Lucius’ Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, Doyle Bramhall II, Punch Brothers, Civil Wars’ Joy Williams, Kesha….
For the second day at Burgerama, I adopted a slightly different strategy, instead of trying to see as many bands
A lovely light show helped and so did the whistling, though it was through the beauty of their music, whether an a cappella opening or bass guitar electrifying, heartfelt soulful and very emotional-secret weaponish singing by guitarist Joe Newman, or distracted keyboard doodlings, the set seldom slackened too much.
The nice people at Burgerama gave me a photo pass so I had access to the photo pit, which is certainly a delight but also a terrible temptation to take as many pictures as possible… This is just what I did, and I ended up with hundreds of photos to sort out today! The pictures reflect the best moments of these two days
This includes a meet and greet with Charlie Watts and a portrait by Ron Wood. Unfortunately, Mick and Keef will not be making themselves available though Mick will dedicate a song to you at the performance and you will be considered a “Stones Benefactor”. Also, you will get four free tickets to the show of your choice. Also, the deluxe Sticky Fingers in every available format. After ticketmaster charges , the final price will be $120,000.
I thought for a minute I knew all the songs of Weezer, but I realized it was because the band may have played all its greatest hits… From ‘My Name is Jonas’ to ‘Hash Pipe’, ‘El Scorcho’, ‘Go Away’, ‘Island in the Sun’, ‘Beverly Hills’, ‘Say it Ain’t so’, ‘Pork and Beans’, ‘Undone’, ‘Buddy Holly’, yes it was a real crowd pleaser
The access between both stages was really a pain, I had a photo access but not an all-access pass, and I got lost a few times backstage trying to find a shortcut to avoid the dense crowd, but was stopped several times by security guards. Getting inside the Observatory through a narrow corridor was more and more ridiculous, and I heard a few photographers complain about it. And by 5 pm, I was getting tired of this maze
Great Voices In Harlem, The Gloster Project – MIST Harlem – Sunday, March 9th, 2015 – Any afternoon, any time at all, you get to listen to such a great collection of musicians, especially in such an intimate space, is a great afternoon. Or evening. And in aid of such a wonderful project -did I mention Dr. Randy Weston was there?
The band, four guitars including Miranda’s, were pretty good country-rockers, and Miranda in an “I Love NY” tee shirt looked the part, the 20 song set wasn’t entirely ungenerous though the 80 minute performance was awful skimpy for a major arena performance. She has more material, Miranda didn’t even pull out one of her best songs, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” -a hit that gave her a unique personality she managed to squander on stage.
If you have heard and loved Vulnicura as much as I do (I consider it her best album since Post), you must see this performance. It completes the journey to a bright future. It is magic realism, where through art one is made whole. A masterpiece of a performance.
I suddenly feel overwhelmed by the amount of bands I have to see in two days… I can’t see them all, that’s a given, there are 42 bands playing on Saturday, and 44 on Sunday, and this will keep me busy from 12pm to 12 am, with no time in sight to eat and pee…
The one time I saw alt j I thought the UK Radioheads brother in arms were the worst live band I’d ever seen BUT it was crowded, it was a festival, and their pretty good second album hadn’t seen the light of day yet. This is MSG and the new album, with great songs like “Every Other Freckle” waiting to be nailed on stage, well, maybe time for another look. PS: A Monday but at least it’s not T5.
Sure, it’s not really country, but there were obvious Tex-Mex flavors, rockabilly, swing, honky-tonk and Latino-Cuban tempos, bringing memories of Mexican fiesta, retro country romance, with the ghosts of Jerry Lee Lewis or Roy Orbison. Orbison? Yes! Malo’s tenor voice has effectively this kind of force and effectiveness, an operatic howl
So, I went to Barclay Center last night and saw Neil Diamond, got home late, minimal sleep, of to work
What Diamond is is a songwriter who through a fluke of timing and chops and chance became a master singer-songwriter, but there is a laziness to a craft that has managed to sell over 125 million songs worldwide in 50 years. For every well crafted, “I am I cried, I am said I” there is a million “Pour me a drink, and I’ll tell you some lies”.
Based in Los Angeles, the event production Do LaB has for unique mission to create unique art installations/stages and curate cutting-edge acts at big music festivals such as Coachella, Lightning in a Bottle, or events taking place in far away countries such as the 2012 Winter Solstice event, The Great Convergence, at the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
My problem with the Who in 2015 (well, 2013) is they are too bombastic, I love the psychedelic pop group Who vastly more than the heavy duty hard rock band. Much better “I’m A Boy” than “Behind Blue Eyes”. Still, this is a great setlist, it is a careerist setlist. I can’t wait to see em at Barclay Center. “I Can See For Miles” was the fourth song I ever learnt to play…
This residency has been winding its way every Thursday since the beginning of the year, and who knows when it ends, so this is an absolute must see. It will give the duo the time and space they need to expand songs that will live and breath through expansion and improvisation
Mini Mansion is a side project of Queens of the Stone Age’s bassist Michael Shuman, but I should not call them a side project, it seems so reductive, and? Oh I could go on and on with them! Keyboardist Tyler Parkford releases music under his solo moniker Mister Goodnite, and Zach Dawes has played bass on the recent all-star Dylan collection ‘Lost On the River: The New Basement Tapes
But Morrissey how you glowed. With witty antidotes and smart remarks of Historical Boston ( with the worlds smallest ‘suspension bridge’–which slurred terribly) and naming off all the famous people who played the Opera house (he named all of the Golden Girls… ) but he really had a sense of calm and easy for an “Evening with Morrissey
The Bloodhounds, which are Aaron “Little Rock” Piedraita on rhythm guitar, Johnny Santana on bass, Branden Santos on lead guitar and Mark Schafler on drums and percussion, are releasing their debut album ‘Let Loose’ via Alive Naturalsound, and since the Origami crowd didn’t want to let them go and were asking for encores, they must have played most of the album.
This setlist might have problems selling Arenas in the US (forget stadiums). Where is “Madness” for one obvious question? And while there best live moment is here “Stockholm Syndrome”, it assumes too much on the audience. What is “Agitated” doing here?
Simply put, he still sings very well. His guitar playing is sharp, concise, never unnecessarily flashy. Every note serves the song. And the writing? If he’s ever penned a bad tune, you couldn’t prove it by this performance. There were no low spots.
Having seen her husband at MSG last year, I am even more excited to see the terrific crazy ex-girlfriend herself, the platinum country gal, and the personality to burn face of the modern side of country Miranda Lambert. Saturday night… it should be one of the concerts of the year.
The median age of people who live there is 30 years of age, and that explains why Austin is the # 1 market for live concerts, according to Eventbrite (the place I bought my Governors Ball tickets, I might add) as reported by Hypebot…
I concentrated on the Echo where I got to see the entire sets of The Gooch Palms, Death Valley Girls, Walter TV and Wand, and ventured downstairs between the sets to catch a few songs from Pearl Charles – I had already seen her opening for Harper Simon
Meghan needs to calm down, get a good backing band, and play her songs, present herself, for what she is: a gifted singer songwriter. As a pop song writer, there are few better but as a pop performer she is an amateur -we know she can do it, she did it on “Title”, now she needs to rethink what she is doing on stage.
I would be shocked if we don’t get a big dollop of Black 47’s back catalog, I mean Larry wrote em, why wouldn’t he play them? Which means that while, no, it isn’t the great Irish rockers, it is about as close as you are gonna get. So get there.
Unfortunately for me, I have plans tos ee Ed Sheeran when Crenshaw returns to City Winery on Friday, May 28th, 2015, otherwise I am definitely ready for another visitation… I swear, if I had another kife to live I would be the man’s publicist. No messing around, Crenshaw is one of our greatest songwriters, go see him.
In 2010, I saw Taylor Swift at Prudential and was not amused, in 2013 I returned to the scene of the crime and loved her. Here are both reviews… Even 2013 feels like a lifetime time away now! In 2010, she was pretty big but not the world conqueror we know today….
Talking about these fans, I was once again feeling quite old, surrounded by kids and a lot of cute young girls excited to get close and personal with singer Jordi Davieson’ s handsome face.
D’Angelo has taken us from large funk band Prince, Funkadelic, Sly, etc, 1970s sounds through intricate experimental dance vibes all the way to the most intimate sharing. But it is more than that. he keeps on the one for 150 minutes, whether dressing down syncopated rhythms or destroying his rhythm section with mind blowing precision, any complaints have to be seen through this paradigm of world class dance music.
They did a very funny and playful version of ‘Manic Monday’ with strings and many detours, and I could tell they were having fun with the catchy song. Her voice is still incredibly youthful, high pitched, she beautifully harmonized with Petra and the other members of the band’s voices during Bob Dylan’s ‘I’ll Keep It With Mine’ and they gave us a very Ronstadt-esque version of ‘It Doesn’t Matter Any More’,
This was City Winery, you can’t find ticket brokers for it, they don’t provide tickets so why didn’t I think, “oh ok, I haven’t heard Croz yet, but if it is a dog I’ll just blow off the $60 or whatever and if it is good? So much the better, right? That was what a smart person would do but nooooo.
Any afternoon, any time at all, you get to listen to such a great collection of musicians, especially in such an intimate space, is a great afternoon. Or evening. And in aid of such a wonderful project: music can change your life
I have seen both of them several times, they may represent the best underground music that Los Angeles has to offer, two bands playing with an extreme passion, two bands interesting in what they can bring into the game. I just wonder when Manhattan Murder Mystery will become famous…
It’s not every day I see a top top show, an “A+” show. Since rock nyc has been around, in 2009 there was Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” gig (the second one, at the Beacon), in 2012 Aretha Franklin at Radio City Music Hall, Bobby Womack at City Winery in 2013 and this January D’Angelo at the Apollo and that’s about it. So I don’t expect D’Angelo to best it at all, I don’t expect him to match it. I still expect him to be great..
Kat has the instincts of a major pop star but the limitations of a minor pop player, she is good enough to always applaud, and her move has been steadily forward since 2002, but her songwriting isn’t all the way there, her singing is immaculate but her voice is an acquired taste. On stage she is smart and fun but rambling
They are a grand ensemble, playing music with a lush and ample orchestration, using a lot of instruments, saxophone, small trumpet, keyboard and flute beside the usual guitar-drums-bass classic rock combination, and they could be one of the most diverse rock bands I have ever seen, on the human as well as on the sonic levels
Smoke Season’s sound is a bit mysterious and hard to exactly pinpoint as it brings to mind a blend of psychedelic electronic pop haunted by an Americana flavor,… but they simply define their music as ‘dustbowl soul’ on their Facebook page. Whatever you call it, the band has a formidable energy on stage
They did a mix of old and new numbers as it is always the case in these shows, but they played them with the same overflowing and joyful energy and over-the-top rocking bombast.
Krell showed wearing a very sportive outfit (a white tank and two long shorts), and he seemed much more ready to play tennis than sing his poignant music, but somehow the whole thing seemed to fit his original and lovable persona. If the music often culminated to some insane emotional apotheosis, he constantly cracked jokes between songs and abundantly chatted with the crowd all night long.
On Friday, February 12th, 2012, I witnessed Aretha Franklin honor her recently deceased Goddaughter Whitney Houston at Radio City Music Hall, part pop manifesto, part revival meeting, the queen of soul sublimated her pain in song and worship. It was the best show I’ve seen this century. And D’Angelo at the Apollo was the second best show I’ve seen this century.
There is something a little icy about them, as live bands go SK play it a little too cool, a little too close to their chest, if the music is releasing something it is hard to see quite what it is.They don’t talk to us much, the set is ridiculously short, and the band aren’t that forthcoming
