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Archive for July, 2025

Wavves / Beach Goons / Chokecherry (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, July 13, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Beach Goons, Chokecherry, Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts, Wavves on July 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: July 13, 2025] Wavves / Beach Goons / Chokecherry

This show came on my radar because of Chokecherry whom I saw a few months ago and absolutely loved.  I was 100% going to go to this show to see them again.  And then I realized that they were the first of three bands and that their set would be minimal.  I’m still not sure how long or what they played.

I also thought that I had seen Wavves before (I had seen Hovvdy back in 2017–different band, same double v).  I kind of thought that I didn’t like them, but they’re pretty fun.  They have a sloppy indie rock vibe that would probably be fun live.

In fact, looking at past posts about them, I was once quite the fan of the band, but I completely lost touch with them.

I’d never heard of Beach Goons, but when I looked them up I saw this reddit thread from two years ago:

Anyone know what’s going on with Beach Goons?  Seems like the members keep changing, lots of drama/controversy around getting kicked from tours/venues and scamming fans, and more importantly — no new music in 5 years with no communication of anything in a few months it seems. Is the band still alive?

with this follow up

The scene Beach Goons is a part of has splintered apart. Some bands cancelled due to controversies or have distanced themselves away from their origins (The Frights). I don’t know about Beach Goons drama but it doesn’t surprise me considering the state of the scene since covid.

and this one

Pablo is super egotistical, i was in high school going to backyard shows showing mad support for beach goons and members as he got more famous, seemed like he grew a crazy ego, then the controversies and drama started

I listened to some of their songs and quite liked them.  I guess maybe I should have gone to this one.

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Cirque du Soleil: Ovo (Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA, July 12, 2025) (matinee)

Posted in Acrobats, Cirque de Soleil, New Brunswick, NJ, State Theatre on July 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 12, 2025] Cirque du Soleil: Ovo

My family loves going to Cirques.  We have gone to many and we’ve enjoyed them all.

But my daughter recently said that she really wanted to see a Cirque du Soleil production.  And I swear about five days later, they announced this show at the Wells Fargo Center.  And I was able to get 3PM tickets which means we would be home during the day!

On the way down, we learned that 95 was under construction and it was down to one lane in parts.  Google Maps said the wait was 20 minutes, so we left extra early.  By the time we reached the slowdown, people were literally backing up in the breakdown lane to get to the previous exit.

And they were smart because we sat in traffic for over an hour.  We missed at least 30, possibly 45 minutes of the show.  We walked in with two acts to go before the intermission.  Damn. (more…)

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Anthony Green / Geoff Rickly / Kurt Travis (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, July 11, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Anthony Green, Dance Gavin Dance, Geoff Rickly, Kurt Travis, L.S. Dunes, Philadelphia, PA, Thursday, Underground Arts on July 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: July 11, 2025] Anthony Green / Geoff Rickly / Kurt Travis

I was not aware of Anthony Green until I saw L.S. Dunes.  I saw them in 2023, but it was really their April 2025 show that I got to really appreciate Green’s voice and on stage personality.  Since he was on my mind after the L.S. Dunes show, I considered going to this.  But I ultimately decided not to get a ticket.

I saw Geoff Rickly open for Sparta and really enjoyed his set.  I’ve now seen hm twice with Thursday and once solo, so I didn’t really need to see this show as well.  Even though I’m sure it would have been great.

Kurt Travis is the one guy I didn’t know.  He was in Dance Gavin Dance and A Lot Like Birds, two bands I don’t know.  His music is jazzy and poppy now.

Reviews of the show say it was great, but it was probably even better if you liked all of these guys original bands first.

 

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Tyler, The Creator (Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA, July 6, 2025)

Posted in Lil Yachty, Paris Texas, Philadelphia, PA, Tyler the Creator, Wells Fargo Center on July 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 6, 2025] Tyler, the Creator

Lil I didn’t know all that much about Tyler, the Creator before this show.  All that I knew about him was from when he first came on the scene with odd Future and he wrote horrorcore raps that were pretty graphic and nasty.

I knew that his albums were well regarded, but I had no idea that he had changed his style and that he was massively popular!

My daughter has a few of his songs on her playlists.  He’s still pretty vulgar, but in much smaller doses.

I had no idea what to expect from this show.  So I was blown away when the show started and Tyler came out, by himself, on the massive stage that was full of green lights.

Then we realized the problem.  The seats that we had were pretty great–straight back from the stage and in rather comfy chairs.  But there was this massive piece of rigging in the rafters that literally blocked all of the giant screens behind him and almost cut off him from view.  It turns out that this rigging was all part of his stage show, so I can’t blame Wells Fargo Center.

Tyle came out and started dancing and rapping on the stage.  He was completely engaging and commanded the entire room.  He wore a mask with a wig (as on the album) for this part of the show.  Although really I couldn’t tell at all that he was wearing the mask–couldn’t see the screens and he was too far away to see his face.

He played six songs from the new album (I don’t know if they were played all the way through or were just snippets).  Which I only mention because in the middle of the set he played nothing but shortened versions of his songs.

After Judge Judy, the rigging moved down and then Tyler was on the catwalk in between the main stage and the B stage.  He marched around and danced and was a fun spectacle to watch while he was up there.

And then the B stage rose high in the air to connect to the catwalk and as it lowered back down, a series of panels surrounded the stage and made it look like a small house.  We couldn’t really see him inside and I thought, wow, we’ll never see this guy.  But after the first song, the walls lifted and the B stage was there for all to see–a couch, a few other things and in the center was a turntable.  For in one corner, he had a whole bunch of albums that he flipped through.

The camera was on him the whole time and while we still couldn’t see the screens, we could see him pretty well.  But we needed the screens to see that he was digging through his records and ultimately pulled out IGOR (and the crowd went nuts).  He brought the record to the turntable and put it on.  I’m very curious to know if IGOR’s THEME was playing from the record he put on or not.

Then he proceeded to play three songs from Igor, including a snippet of Are We Still Friends, which everyone went nuts about.  (more…)

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Lil Yachty (Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA, July 6, 2025) [TYLER, THE CREATOR]

Posted in Lil Yachty, Paris Texas, Philadelphia, PA, Tyler the Creator, Wells Fargo Center on July 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 6, 2025] Lil Yachty

Lil Yachty followed about 15 minutes after Paris, Texas.  He was also on the small stage in the middle of the floor. When he came running out, the noise was loud, the lights were bright and the fog was thick.

I had listened to Lil Yachty before the show and I really liked his style.  I was intrigued by the Wikipedia blurb:

Lil Yachty has called his style “bubblegum trap.” His songs have sampled sounds from Mario Bros., Charlie Brown, the theme from Rugrats, the startup sound of a GameCube console.  Themes in his works include clouds, cotton candy, the Super Nintendo, and scenes from Pixar films. Rolling Stone described his music as “catchy, intentionally dinky-sounding tunes packed with off-color boasts delivered in a proudly amateurish singsong.”

It was exactly the kind of alternative hip hop that I like.

But his sound was overwhelmed by the venue.  Any subtlety in his music was lost and mostly it just felt like the bass was going to knock the building down.  The girls in the seats next to us were thrilled with Yachty and they screamed and sang along.  But I couldn’t hear the words and the music kind of just got melded together.  He also didn’t do very much on stage, just wandering around the stage and mostly engaging with the folks in the GA Pit, with his back to us at least 90% of the time.

He was very gracious about us being there to watch him (and not getting a hot dog or some shit).  I’m fascinated that he played 22 songs in 45 minutes.  I think this show made me realize that rappers don’t necessarily play their whole song–sometimes snippets or even a verse will suffice.  Although many of Yachty’s songs are short (many under 3 minutes, he still had to cut some parts to squeeze all of this in.

So even though I couldn’t really hear anything that was going on, his set moved pretty quickly and I enjoyed watching everyone really getting into him.

 

  1. the BLACK seminole [TAPE]
  2. Gimme da Lite (Southside & Lil Yachty song) §
  3. pRETTy ⇓
  4. SOLO STEPPIN CRETE BOY ⊥
  5. Split / Whole Time ¾
  6. Pardon Me ¾
  7. Hate Me (ian cover) ‰
  8. Ron Artest (Babyface Ray cover) (with Babyface Ray) §
  9. Yacht Club ⊗
  10. NBAYOUNGBOAT ½
  11. Flex Up ¾
  12. Coffin ¾
  13. From the D to the A (Tee Grizzley cover) >
  14. Minnesota ∼
  15. Broccoli (DRAM cover) ¥
  16. iSpy (KYLE cover) ∝
  17. One Night ∼
  18. TESLA ⊥
  19. Poland
  20. Strike (Holster) ⊥
  21. drive ME crazy! ⇓
  22. WE SAW THE SUN! ⇓
  23. A Cold Sunday π
π Something Ether EP (2024)
⇓ Let’s Start Here (2023)
⊥ TESLA EP (2023)
¶ single (2022)
¾ Lil Boat 3 (2020)
½ Lil Boat 2 (2018)
∼ Lil Boat (2016)
⊗ Nuthin’ 2 Prove (2018)
Others
¥ DRAM-Big Baby Dram (2016)
∝ KYLE-Light of Mine (2016)
> single (2017)
§ single (2023)
‰ single 2024 

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Paris, Texas (Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA, July 6, 2025) [TYLER, THE CREATOR]

Posted in Lil Yachty, Paris Texas, Philadelphia, PA, Tyler the Creator, Wells Fargo Center on July 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 6, 2025] Paris, Texas

My daughter really wanted to see Tyler, the Creator, so I grabbed us tickets.  I knew him a little (from what she had played me), but I didn’t know the other two opening bands at all.

When I read about Paris, Texas I was intrigued.  The group is a duo, featuring Louie Pastel and Felix and what I was most interested in was their description: an eclectic mix of rap & hip-hop, fused with the guitar-driven elements of alternative rock, including grunge, punk, metal, emo and new-wave.

When we arrived, we could see that the main stage was bathed in green.  But when the lights dimmed, the tiny stage in the middle of the pit suddenly lit up and Paris, Texas ran up to the small stage to perform their set.  They had a DJ with them and the three guys prowled the stage.

They also set the basic tone that everyone would have their back to us when at the center stage.  It was clear that the performers were gearing their set to the GA Pit area.   I realized pretty quickly that the people who rushed to be first at the stage were actually pretty far from the action once the band started.  (more…)

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