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The Last Dinner Party (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, April 15, 2026)

Posted in Florence Road, Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, The Last Dinner Party on April 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 15, 2026] The Last Dinner Party

The Last Dinner Party played Johnny Brenda’s in Philly back in 2023 and I really wanted to go.  But we had tickets to another show so I missed out. It’s amusing that they mentioned that show at this show and how they hadn’t been back since then (yes, we know).  I’m still bummed that I missed that one, but my daughter and I did get to see them at All Things Go and tonight, my daughter and my wife joined me for this much much bigger show.  (To go from Johnny Brenda’s to Franklin Music Hall is a huge leap).

The stage was set up simply but with a cool look–fabric draped all along the back wall and a mobile of birds high above the stage.  At one point the mobile spun and the birds, which were reflective, shone lighted birds across the black of the stage–very cool looking.

So The Last Dinner Party is slightly gimmicky with the way dress, but it does look very cool and they transcend that look with fantastic songs and a great stage presence.  And indeed, this was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time.  They didn’t do anything especially fancy, but their engagement with the audience, their presence and their sheer kickassery was phenomenal.  I loved them at All Things Go but this show was even better.

The opening strains of Walking Into the Pyre played over the speakers as they came out on stage.  The four women filled the front of the stage–keys (Aurora Nishevci), lead guitar, mandolin and flute! (Emily Roberts), vocals (Abigail Morris) and guitar (Lizzie Mayland).  Something was amiss though as their bassist was clearly not Georgia Davies.  Well, it turned out that Georgia hurt her back and was being attended to by a doctor.  She would be heading back to England shortly.  In her stead was Max Lilley who is their bass tech (he’s in a band called Slow Team as well).

They have always had a rotating touring drummer.  I think his leg of the tour it’s Davo–he off in the back, essential but not prominent. (more…)

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Florence Road (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, April 15. 2026) [THE LAST DINNER PARTY]

Posted in Florence Road, Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, The Last Dinner Party on April 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 15, 2026] Florence Road

Florence Road is a band from Bray, County Wicklow in Ireland.  I had listened to one song before this show and it must have been Rabbits Can Swim, because I thought that they were a pretty but mellow indie rock band.

They came out on stage right around 8: lead singer and guitarist Lily Aron, guitarist Emma Brandon, bassist Ailbhe Barry, and drummer Hannah Kelly.  And they proceeded to blow our hair off.  They opened with None the Wiser.  Aron’s voice is really powerful.  My wife, who normally doesn’t even really pay attention to the opening band remarked at how strong her voice was.  And the band kept up with her–they rocked hard and were really impressive.  It was also interesting that they just put out their second EP (Spring Forward) but this opening song wasn’t on it–it’s new.

There were a lot of people there who knew the band (apparently) but they won the entire crowd over by the end of the song.  The next song Miss was a bit quieter, but Aron’s voice still soared around the room.  By the time of Storm Warning  which had some really cool staccato power chords near the end, they could do no wrong.  Heavy continued with more loud guitars and then switched to a pretty, quiet ending with drummer Kelly on piano.

They stayed quiet for Rabbits with Barry on acoustic guitar.  Hanging Out to Dry was a mid tempo song showing that they can do it all.  They followed it with another new song 7563–no idea what that means, but it was fun hearing them sing that chorus at the end.  That brought the tempo back up.  And then someone in the audience shouted for Break the Girl, which seems to be one of their dancier songs.

They ended the set with the aptly named Goodnight.

Aron and Emma Brandon were both funny when they chatted to us.  They told us it was their first time in Philly and I have to assume it won’t be their last.  They made a ton of new fans tonight.

2025
None the Wiser §
Miss ⇒
Storm Warnings ⇒
Heavy ♣
Rabbits Can Swim ⇒
Hanging Out to Dry ⇒
7563 §
Break the Girl  ♣
Goodnight  ♣

§ single (2026)
⇒ Spring Forward EP (2026)
♣ Fall Back EP (2025)

 

 

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An Evening With Band of Horses (Wellmont Theater, Montclair, NJ, April 15, 2026) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Band of Horses, Montclair, NJ, Wellmont Theater on April 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: April 15, 206] An Evening With Band of Horses

My wife and I saw Band of Horses here about a year and a half ago.  The show was great.  When this show was announced, our friend Jonathan who lives nearby asked if we were going.  But it turned out we were going to The Last Dinner Party already on this night.  So we had gotten tickets for Philly.

We actually know a lot of people who went to this show and the consensus was that the sound was pretty bad.  So I guess we picked the right one (even if we didn’t actually have a choice). The did play two songs tonight that they didn’t for us (NW Apt. and Cigarettes, Wedding Bands) but I still think we got the better show.

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Nick Offerman (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, April 12, 2026) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Nick Offerman, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on April 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: April 12, 2026] Wanda Sykes

Whenever I think about comedians that I like, they’re usually British.  Because I receive ads for comedy clubs, I feel like there are hundreds of American comedians and I don’t know any of them. So I forget that there are quite a few American comedians who I really like.  Nick Offerman makes me laugh in anything he does and yet for some reason I have never really thought about going to his stand up show.

I had gone out the night before, but my wife wasn’t really interested in going out on a Sunday night, so we blew him off.  I’ll have to put him on my list of comedians to make sure I see at least once.

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dust (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, April 11, 2026) [THE BELAIR LIP BOMBS]

Posted in Australia, dust, Laveda, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, The Belair Lip Bombs on April 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 11, 2026] dust

There are a few bands called dust.  This band is from Newcastle, Australia.  They’re a five piece with drums, bass, two guitars and a saxophone!  And they were amazing.

They fall into that post-rock scene with roaring guitars and vocals that are kind of spoken, kind of shouted.  Main lead vocalist Justin Teale has an understated style that relies on subtly sung melodies and occasional loud grunts.  Drummer Kye Cherry plays fast and hard and bassist Liam Smith was a key component to the songs–whether keeping the low end with the rest of the song or playing independently–a rhythm of his own–he really held the songs together.

The songs are propulsive, moving along at a good clip with their singer kind of speak singing (in the vein of Fontaines D.C. but less accented).  The biggest surprise came when Ridgway played saxophone–it wasn’t just saxophone solos–although New High does have notes dotting the song–the sax was manipulated and distorted, running through the songs underneath rather than as a main melody.  I loved the end of the song where the band.

Then a song like Swamped has high octane stars and stops with jagged guitars and a rumbling bass.  Just Like Ice opens with a simple punky bassline and then the whole band crashed in with guitars and sax.  It was in this song that second guitarist Gabriel Stove traded off vocal lines with Justin.  His style was similar but different enough to add a really cool sonic style to the voices.  I enjoyed their back and forth a lot on this song.

Things changed up even further with Trust U See which opened with a slow threatening pulsing bassline and bleats of sax making a very noir-sounding vibe.  It was even more so when Teale’s spoken vocals came over the top.  The slow down in the middle was just long enough that the tension built even more.

Another surprise came when Stove sang lead vocals on Restless. His style isn’t that much different but he is more singing than spoken and his timbre is pretty different so that when Teale added his vocals toward the end, it sounded amazing.  One of the more amusing things about this set was that when the lead singer/guitarist leaned forward, he almost hit the guy in the front of the stage in the head (about ten times) but the singer’s eyes were closed so he never noticed. (more…)

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Sunn O))) (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, April 11, 2026) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Sunn O))), Union Transfer, Venom on April 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: April 11, 2026] Sunn O)))

I saw Sunn 0))) in 2017.

It was a pretty intense and amazing experience.  I didn’t think I would need to see them again, but when this tour was announced, I figured that roughly ten years was enough time between shows.

Sadly, t was scheduled for the same night that I had a ticket to see The Belair Lip Bombs.  Since this was their first time coming to the States and it was at the terrific PhilaMOCA, I decided to give Sunn O))) a miss.  However, I did consider that I might be able to sneak into the end of their set and catch maybe ten or fifteen minutes since my show was two bands with a small catalog of music.

My friend Jae went to the Sunn O))) show and I told him to text me when it ended.

I wasn’t sure how I would ask to get in to see the last few minutes of the show–if they’d make me pay or what.  But it was all moot.  Sunn O))) had no opener, and their set ended roughly at the same time as mine did.  He also laughed that they played the audio of banter from a Venom show.  Hilarious.

Jae said the show was great and I hope they come back again in a couple of years.

Here’s the clip that Sunn played (hilarious)

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Laveda (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, April 11, 2026) [THE BELAIR LIP BOMBS]

Posted in dust, Laveda, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, The Belair Lip Bombs on April 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 11, 2026] Laveda

I hadn’t heard of Laveda, but when I listened to them before the show I was interested in their take on 90s grunge.  Then, as I was leaving the house, I saw that they were going to go on at 7:30 instead of 8.  But I wasn’t going to be arriving until like 8:45, so I was bummed to miss them.

However, traffic was light and for one reason or another the band didn’t go on until 7:45, so I was able to see their whole set and was right up near the stage.  Laveda is from Brooklyn.  They were founded by Ali Genevich (guitar, vocals) and Jacob Brooks (guitars and effects).

They opened with Strawberry, a heavy, crashing song with tons of distortion and feedback.  It was a great introduction to the band.  Ali sang all of the songs and had a quiet delivery that suited the songs.

When it ended, they played a noisy and lengthy feedback filled section. Brooks was on his needs playing with the effects pedals and generating feedback.  The noise resolved into the song Care.  It was this song that full won me over.  *’s guitar chords were great and reminded me a lot of Sonic Youth (their more commercial songs).  The bass was also great–a rumbling low end that propelled the song as much as the drums.  The song rocks for a solid 4 minutes and then ends with a very pretty quiet guitar part.  I actually assumed this was a new song, but I see it’s the end of Care, which makes me like the song even more. (more…)

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The Belair Lip Bombs [FREE AT NOON] (World Cafe Live, Philadelphia Pa, April 10, 2026) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Free at Noon, Philadelphia, PA, The Belair Lip Bombs, World Cafe Live on April 10, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: April 10, 2026] The Belair Lip Bombs [FREE AT NOON]

I really liked Hey You from The Belair Lip Bombs.  I was pretty excited to get a ticket to see them tomorrow night at PhilaMOCA.  Especially since it sold out pretty quickly.  Then they announced a Free at Noon for the day before the show (they were playing a show in NYC tonight, so they drove back and forth with all of their gear.

I grabbed a ticket because I thought that maybe I’d skip the PhilaMOCA show and go to see Sunn0))) on Saturday instead.  But I was busy that morning and didn’t feel like hauling ass all the way down to Philly especially since I had a ticket to their show.

So I blew this one off.  Interestingly, they played 9 songs at the Free at Noon and 11 songs at the PhilaMOCA show.  Huh.

You can hear their set here.

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Atsuko Okatsuka (McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ, April 9, 2026)

Posted in Atsuko Okatsuka, Maddy Kelly, McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ on April 10, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 9, 2026] Atsuko Okatsuka

I had not heard of Atsuko Okatsuka when this show was announced (with the striking image to the right).

I have been going to a lot of comedians this year and reading the blurb and the fact that it was so close I thought it might be worth checking her out.  After buying the tickets, I watched some of her special on TV and wasn’t that excited by the opening moments.  But since I didn’t know if this was the routine she was going to do, I didn’t watch anymore.

So I wasn’t that excited going in.  And it turned out that my wife had a commitment that she couldn’t get out of.  So I almost stayed home.  But again, it was close, so I went.

And I’m so glad I did, because she was hilarious.

She started with a routine about her playing a video game in which you own restaurants.  I didn’t think this could be an extended riff, but it was and each level of the joke made it funnier.  From the fact that she is very very busy (she has so many restaurants) to the part where she is making so much money (in the game) but losing so much money (in real life) as she upgrades.  To how her husband found out about her spending on the games (snitch accountant) to a hilarious joke about her caveman cafe and the dinosaur that runs it with her.   Any paleontologists in the audience?

She spun this off into a series of jokes about how having a phone and doomscrolling is very healthy because otherwise you are left alone with your own thoughts!

I really enjoyed her take on depression commercials–do you really want to be like the people in the “after” scenes?  I really enjoyed the sequence (and the big payoff at the end) about the white man who is excellent at kendo.  She explained that this man has trained for years and is really impressive.  At first she thought it was racist, but realized that he is so sincere and devoted that it is honoring rather than appropriating.  Although she acknowledged that if he hurt himself and someone asked her to finish the routine, THAT would be racist.

The only person who is more Japanese than this man is her father, who is the quintessential Japanese man.  She went to visit him and that’s when she learned she had a brother (from her father’s first marriage).  She was unsure if she wanted to meet him, but when she did and he said, do you want to pretend po be cats while waiting online, that she knew she’d found a kindred spirit.

She crammed so much good material into an hour.  It was a great set.  At the end she did a brief Q&A which turned into a fan fest of people who went to the show wearing a wig that looked like her hair.  I had no idea this was a thing.  Apparently it is.  And she loves it.

I’m sorry my wife couldn’t make it, but I’m really glad I went.

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Maddy Kelly (McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ, April 9, 2026) [ATSUKO OKATSUKA]

Posted in Atsuko Okatsuka, Maddy Kelly, McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ on April 9, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 9, 2026] Maddy Kelly

Maddy Kelly is a comedian from New York. As with most unannounced opening acts,

She had a funny setup to the fact that she looks really young.  People ask if she’s still in school and she says no, I do stand up.  The reply is that always amusing.  I also got a real kick out of her blood donation story.  She went to the bathroom after having given blood and the blood hadn’t clotted.  When she told the nurse she bled in the bathroom, the nurse was concerned and asked if it was her first time.

She coupled the age joke with the fact that she’s half Indian and half Irish but that she looks like a teenaged Latina girl.  And her poor all white Irish grandparents who just don’t understand her at all.

She opened the show by asking if anyone was brought there not knowing who the comedian was.  The person who brings you to a show like this just looks at you the whole time trying to see if you’re enjoying it.

After a few minutes of personal jokes she switched to politics and was delightfully brutal to ***mp.  It’s so surprising that someone so good looking could be so evil.

Her political jokes were really funny–coming at the evil folks in charge from a slightly different angle than usual.

Her set was short, but I could have listened to her for twice as long.  I’d like to see her if she comes around again.

 

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