Rock and roll icons Fleetwood Mac and their “Own With The Show” tour is heading west later this month, with a second leg of shows added for January, February and March of 2015 as part of their extensive North American tour featuring their historic line-up of Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Stevie Nicks. [Read more…]
English post-punk and New Wave band, The Psychedelic Furs, will be completing the U.S. tour that kicked off last month throughout November, with a break in December, and picking back up in January of next year. With many of their hits being synonymous with 80s pop culture, the band remains one of the best known from that era to turn out for at new concert tours today. The Lemonheads are touring with the band. [Read more…]
“Halloween is so brilliant though, isn’t it? ‘Cause everyone can dress up; be what they want to do… nobody is like judging you at all for how you look or anything or what you’re doing or who you’re with, blah, blah, blah …” Andy Bell of Erasure on Halloween at the Pearl Concert Theater at Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. Certainly an interesting combination of band, date, and city to be sure. As the more extroverted of the duo, Andy came dressed in a sort of skeleton costume with accompanying face paint that has some resemblance to the cover art of their latest album; Vince Clarke, set back from the front of the stage and back to one corner, I don’t think said anything all night, and was dressed in more business-style attire (though he had the aforementioned art one his laptop lid. However the two contrasting personalities found one another for their journey into music that has gone on for nearly three decades, the magic worked in the beginning and continues to do so today. This was definitely an interesting (in a great way!) night on many levels. I had an opportunity to meet Vince Clarke and Andy Bell from Erasure via the special tickets made available through their PledgeMusic campaign for that newest latest album, The Violet Flame. The aptly named Violet Flame Tour included a number of those new songs mixed into the set, as well as a lot of their many, many hits and favorites. I got the sense that it was a different sort of show for this series of shows, and I’m happy that I got a chance to experience this new music and tour.
“We had a new song come out today… We got a lot of comments on the site. You know, people asking us, are we a rock band? Or are we a folk band? Are we an electronic band? The answer is: fuck off!” Comments from The Airborne Toxic Event’s frontman Mikel Jollett, before kicking into that new song, “Wrong”, toward the end of the initial set at Ace of Spades in Sacramento. The comment might read as negative, but their music and connection with the crowd was anything but, with that same signer and guitarist jumping off stage and interacting with the crowd several times throughout their one and a half or so set. At one point, he even held a young boy in the air, asking (somewhat rhetorically) if he had the coolest mom there, but virtue of his presence. The band, and supporting act In The Valley Below before them, put on a fantastic show with great music. They are both certainly worth checking out. Even Mikel said, at the end, “Every now and then you get to have a night like tonight – I think this is the best show I’ve ever played in Sacramento!”, and I suspect the fans agree.
“Those guys really rocked their faces off, so it was an honor to share the stage with those incredible bands.” Mandy Lee of MisterWives, talking about the three awesome bands that took the stage leading up to their set: Crash Kings, The Soft White Sixties, and Moondog Matinee. A quadruple headliner show, each act served as unique showcases of up and coming artists, with each being featured early next year in their own respective episodes of the PBS member station’s KNPB television series, Cargo Live at Whitney Peak Hotel, due to start airing early next year. This concert, which ran for about five hours Friday night at Cargo in Reno, Nevada, boasted a fantastic collective of artists and the venue provided a great setting for really exciting and electric shows.
“KNPB Presents Cargo Live” will tape it’s final show on Friday night, with a line-up featuring MisterWives, Crash Kings, Soft White Sixties, and Moondog Matinee. The music showcase will be hosted by Cargo at the Whitney Peak Hotel in Reno, Nevada. [Read more…]
“Do you want more?” Mette Lindberg at Bimbo’s 365 Club in San Francisco Friday night, to a crowd mesmerized by the amazing show put on by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour. Kicking off a new headlining tour, following a summer of festival appearances and the debut of Bring Us Together, their third studio album last month, the group, as she put it at one point during the hour and a half set, got to play a lot of their new songs. This was my first time seeing the band live (I was always traveling in past opportunities), and I have to say it definitely ranks I think within the top five of my favorite concerts so far in 2014. Incredible music to be sure, but they bring it to life in a concert setting in a way that truly surprised and impressed me. Mette’s vocals were just spot on, and the sound was dialed in perfectly, and the band has a way of bringing their brilliant sound to life on stage that has to be seen and heard to truly appreciate. I came away from the show a much bigger fan to be sure, and will definitely turn out for any future show that I can to experience it all over again. One of the best newer bands active today.
Four-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Olivia Newton-John has a number of live concert appearances in the United States scheduled out through February, so it is a great time to see her in the U.S. Certainly one of the top artists who has been active since the 70s, she’s had an incredible number of hits that cross over many genres and she has fans all over the world. [Read more…]
The Black Keys have spent a lot of 2014 on the road, supporting their latest studio album, Turn Blue from Nonesuch Records. Kicking off in May at Hangout Music Festival, the year has seen the garage/blues rock duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney take their unique blend of authentic music all over the world at headlining shows and festivals. Having taken a little break at the end of September, they will pick back up again in Minneapolis, crisscrossing throughout North America until the end of December. [Read more…]
Today, Alice Glass announced her departure from – and thus the break-up of – Crystal Castles with Ethan Kath. She made a short statement on social media, including her personal Facebook page (with her first post since July): “I am leaving Crystal Castles. My art and my self-expression in any form has always been an attempt towards sincerity, honesty, and empathy for others. For a multitude of reasons both professional and personal I no longer feel that this is possible within CC. Although this is the end of the band, I hope my fans will embrace me as a solo artist in the same way they have embraced Crystal Castles.” Crystal Castles, who I had a chance to cover and photograph at two shows (one in Seattle in 2012 and the other in Oakland in 2013), and they were as unique in live form as they were in studio recordings. I thought I’d bid farewell to the band with a pictorial showcase of photos I shot at those two concerts, some of which have never been published previously. [Read more…]