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Archive for the ‘Philadelphia, PA’ Category

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard / Leah Senior (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, October 23, 2021) [rescheduled]

Posted in Australia, Coronavirus, Franklin Music Hall, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine on October 23, 2021| 1 Comment »

[POSTPONED: October 23, 2021] King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard / Leah Senior [rescheduled from May 22 and then October 22, 2020; moved to October 22, 2022]

indexOn May 24, King Gizzard announced that they were pushing back this tour for another year.  It seemed surprising since everyone else is filling in tour dates this fall, but they made a valid point

We’ve made the (very hard) decision to reschedule our USA/CAN tour once again.

This was an extraordinarily tough decision to make but I hope y’all can understand the complexities that come with a giant tour of the States and Canada with a 6 piece band and a 6 person crew from Australia during a pandemic.

We’ve tried our hardest to reschedule as many of these shows as possible at the same venues. That means your ticket will still be valid if you want to go.

For our NY show, we’re unfortunately going to be canceling it, you will be given a full refund and will have to buy a new ticket at the new venue. Sorry! It’s bigger though so everyone should be able to get tickets. Exciting news on that and other new shows coming soon! 🙂

If you’d like a refund contact your local venue as soon as you can to arrange.

Thanks to every gizzhead for your ongoing support and love. We will get back on the road as soon as we can.

Love king gizz Xoxox

I was bummed when KGATLW had to postpone a show in May. I mean, come on, Coronavirus, would certainly be over by May, right?  Well, now it’s October and things are still crazy.  I really hope they can do this again next year.

Of course, knowing them, they’ll have three more albums out by then.

I have become a huge fan of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (are there any other kinds of fans of them?) since I first heard about them a few years ago.

I’m sad that I missed them on the tour just before the first time I saw them (at a smaller venue when newbies like me hadn’t heard of them yet), but I have seen them twice since.

In both cases, the band overcame somewhat unpleasant (to me) situations (obnoxious capacity crowds and unreasonable heat) to change my mind from swearing I’d never bother seeing them again (before the show), to hoping they’d come back really soon (after the show).

I’m not at all surprised that this show was postponed and they have already rescheduled the new date.  So we’re all good.  I just hope the damned air-conditioner works next time.

The last time I saw KGATLW, the two opening bands were kind of doom/psychedelic–perfect matches for KGATLW’s more recent sound.  This year’s opener is a singer named Leah Senior.

Leah Senior did the narration on KGATLW’s Murder of the Universe album.  But her music is a completely other thing.  She sings gentle folk songs with delicate guitar playing and her beautiful soft voice.

I can;t imagine how well she would go over with a rowdy KGATLW crowd and I also wonder if that means that KGATLW would play their more mellow stuff?  Nah.

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Diet Cig / Retirement Party (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, October 19, 2021) [CANCELLED]

Posted in Cancelled, Coronavirus, Diet Cig, Philadelphia, PA, Retirement Party on October 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

indexI have been wanting to see Diet Cig since I first saw their Tiny Desk Concert back in 2017.  Things are always conspiring for me to not see them.  This time it was that I already had tickets for the Waxahatchee show the same night.  This was going to be a hard choice, honestly.  Because I had seen Waxahatchee and really liked the new album (plus I already had the tickets!.

But then on September 1st the band wrote:

this was not an easy decision to come to but ultimately one we felt we had to make. we’re so sorry for the disappointment and we love you all so much 💓🌈💔 we’ve got a little surprise for folks who did buy tickets announcing soon so keep your eyes peeled for that! thank you so much for understanding and we promise to make it up to y’all next time we see you IRL!!!! 💓💓💓 xoxo A+N

So, problem solved for now.

I don’t know anything about Retirement Party.

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Waxahatchee / Katy Kirby (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 19, 2021) [rescheduled date, rescheduled again and again] [POSTPONED]

Posted in Cancelled, Coronavirus, Jeff Tweedy, Katy Kirby, OHMME, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Union Transfer, Waxahatchee on October 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: October 15, 2021] Waxahatchee / OHMME [rescheduled from April 14 and October 5, 2020 and May 16, 2021]

indexOriginally this concert featured support from OHMME, which was half the reason I wanted to see this show and not one of the other shows.  For whatever reason, OHMME was no longer at this show, and support was now from Katy Kirby, who has a very catchy song called “Traffic!” and plays some lovely folk songs.

This show has been postponed so many times it is ridiculous.  It was finally rescheduled on the night before a special day in our house.  So, although I had two tickets, S. wasn’t going to go.  Then on October 15, just hours before they were supposed to go on stage for their first sold out show at Union Transfer, they forwarded this message:

Waxahatchee has postponed the last few shows of their tour including the Philadelphia dates on October 15 & 19.

We are confirming new dates right now and will send out those details in a few days.

Your tickets will be good for the new date (no need to do anything). If you cannot make the new date, we will be happy to refund you, however, we ask that all requests be made after the new date is announced.

From the band: “This morning, a member of our touring party tested positive for Covid. The rest of the band/crew have tested negative, but out of an abundance of caution, we have to postone these last 4 shows of our 6+ week tour. We hope to be able to reschedule them for early in the new year.”

Thank you.

— xo UT

This one worked in my favor.  And I’m looking forward to that rescheduled show next year.

wxa

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Frankie and the Witch Fingers / Acid Dad / Hooveriii (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, October 18, 2021) [did not attend]

Posted in Acid Dad, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Hooveriii, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Torres on October 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: October 18, 2021] Frankie and the Witch Fingers / Acid Dad / Hooveriii

Over the quarantine, I have discovered the good fun of the Levitation online concert series and The Reverberation Appreciation Society.  I’ve enjoyed some great concerts from psychedelic garage bands.  So when it was announce with little fanfare that two bands I have really gotten to enjoy: Hooveriii and Acid Dad were going to be playing at PhilaMOCA with Frankie & the Witch Fingers (who i didn’t know), I was really excited at a chance for a night of psychedelic fun.  Then it turned out to be on the same night as the Torres show.

The Torres show that I bought tickets for in December of 2019!

It was a really hard choice to pick which show to go to.  Even though I had tickets for Torres already, they weren’t that expensive and I bought them almost three years ago!  I spend the week before this show trying to decide who I wanted to see.  I had seen Torres twice before (she’s amazing live).  I had never seen any of the other three.  Up until that morning I was still trying to decide.

Then as the morning struck, I decided that I would go to this show.  At work, I watched some live footage of Frankie and then i watched a recent live show from KEXP with Torres.  And after listening to the interview with Torres, she won out.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see all three bands together again, but I’m sure that at least the two openers will be back around.

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Ministry / Helmet / Front Line Assembly (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, October 17, 2021) [rescheduled date, rescheduled again and again] [POSTPONED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Corrosion of Conformity, Depeche Mode, Feminism, Franklin Music Hall, Front Line Assembly, Igorrr, KMFDM, Ministry, Montclair, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Rammstein, The Melvins, Wax Trax!, Wellmont Theater on October 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: October 17, 2021] Ministry / Helmet / Front Line Assembly [rescheduled from July 18, 2020, April 17, 2021; moved to March 9, 2022]

indexOut of the blue, and very close to the time of the shows, this tour was cancelled and postponed until next year.

The lineup has completely changed as well.  Initially, the support was from KMFDM an Front Line Assembly.  Then KMFDM was replaced with Helmet.  Now for the show next year, we have The Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity.  I had pretty much decided i wasn’t going to go to this show anyhow, but it always lingered in the back of my mind as something I might want to do.  Of course, I’d much rather go to the Wellmont than Franklin Music hall, so it’s unlikely I’d go to this show anyhow.

~~~~

This show was moved to April which seemed reasonable at the time.  I see now that it has been pushed back to October which actually seems optimistic.  I am very bummed to see that KMFDM is no longer on the tour, as They would have been a great opener.  I like Helmet, but I think KMFDM would have been more fun.  If I’m going to one of these two shows (Montclair being the other one) it would certainly Montclair.

I’ve been a fan of Ministry for decades.  I even liked the first album With Sympathy (and listen to it now more than their hardercore stuff).  But when Land of Rape and Honey came out, it was the most intense thing in the world. It was incredible.

They put out a series of great heavy albums, although by 1999’s Filth Pig either I stopped enjoying it or they just weren’t as good.

So I guess it has been two decades since I cared about Ministry.  However, Al Jourgensen and his band keep touring and, since I’ve seen Slayer now, I thought I should see what a ministry experience is like.

I wanted to go to their show in 2018, (I was really interested in seeing opening band Igorr) but the date just didn’t work for me.

Although I hadn’t yet gotten tickets for this show, I was looking forward to this retro bill.

I liked KMFDM more in theory than actually listening to them–I have one album I think). But I always appreciated them (especially the joke that their initials stand for Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode–actually it is Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid, “no pity for the majority”).  Only one guy is still in the band, but I’d be curious to see what their proto-Rammstein show would be like.

Front Line Assembly was one of the few bands on the industrial label Waxtrax that I never really got into.  I liked many bands on the label, but really never had much exposure to FLA (in the days before you could listen to things online).   I’m curious what 1980s industrial music sounds like in 2020.

Now that I see that the show is also going to be at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, I will definitely try to get to that one instead.

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Ministry / Helmet / Front Line Assembly (Wellmont Theater, Montclair, NJ, October 16, 2021) [rescheduled, rescheduled again][POSTPONED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Corrosion of Conformity, Depeche Mode, Feminism, Franklin Music Hall, Front Line Assembly, Igorrr, KMFDM, Ministry, Montclair, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, Rammstein, The Melvins, Wax Trax!, Wellmont Theater on October 16, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: October 16, 2021] Ministry / Helmet / Front Line Assembly [rescheduled from July 18, 2020, April 16, 2021; moved to March 12, 2022]

indexOut of the blue, and very close to the time of the shows, this tour was cancelled and postponed until next year.

The lineup has completely changed as well.  Initially, the support was from KMFDM an Front Line Assembly.  Then KMFDM was replaced with Helmet.  Now for the show next year, we have The Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity.  I had pretty much decided i wasn’t going to go to this show anyhow, but it always lingered in the back of my mind as something I might want to do.  Of course, I’d much rather go to the Wellmont than Franklin Music Hall, although I’m in no rush to get tickets for this.

~~~~

This show was moved to April which seemed reasonable at the time.  I see now that it has been pushed back to October which actually seems optimistic.  I am very bummed to see that KMFDM is no longer on the tour, as They would have been a great opener.  I like Helmet, but I think KMFDM would have been more fun.  If I’m going to one of these two shows (Philly the other one) it would certainly be this one.

I’ve been a fan of Ministry for decades.  I even liked the first album With Sympathy (and listen to it now more than their hardercore stuff).  But when Land of Rape and Honey came out, it was the most intense thing in the world. It was incredible.

They put out a series of great heavy albums, although by 1999’s Filth Pig either I stopped enjoying it or they just weren’t as good.

So I guess it has been two decades since I cared about Ministry.  However, Al Jourgensen and his band keep touring and, since I’ve seen Slayer now, I thought I should see what a ministry experience is like.

I wanted to go to their show in 2018, (I was really interested in seeing opening band Igorr) but the date just didn’t work for me.

Although I hadn’t yet gotten tickets for this show, I was looking forward to this retro bill.

I liked KMFDM more in theory than actually listening to them–I have one album I think). But I always appreciated them (especially the joke that their initials stand for Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode–actually it is Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid, “no pity for the majority”).  Only one guy is still in the band, but I’d be curious to see what their proto-Rammstein show would be like.

Front Line Assembly was one of the few bands on the industrial label Waxtrax that I never really got into.  I liked many bands on the label, but really never had much exposure to FLA (in the days before you could listen to things online).   I’m curious what 1980s industrial music sounds like in 2020.

Now that I see that the show is also going to be at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, I will definitely try to get to that one instead.

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Dead Can Dance / Agnes Obel (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, October 12, 2021) [rescheduled date, rescheduled again, then CANCELLED]

Posted in Agnes Obel, Cancelled, Coronavirus, Dead Can Dance, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, The Met Philadelphia on October 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[CANCELLED: October 12, 2021] Dead Can Dance / Agnes Obel [rescheduled from April 17, 2020 and April 23, 2021]

On September 30, I received notice that show would be postponed once again.  Dead Can Dance cited reasonable concerns about COVID and travelling around the world.

Then on October 11, I received notice that the show was cancelled entirely.

There’s no word from the band on this except t o say that they are trying o reschedule shows for Fall of 2023.  Presumably the venue just didn’t want to wait that long.

So, while I was looking forward to this show, I can wait until 2023.

As April came closer and closer I was sure that Dead Can Dance was going to cancel this tour for good–so many other bands have done so.  But I’m happy they didn’t–even if I don’t have fantastic seats for this show.  This just feels like one of those shows that I’m going to be really happy to experience and I can wait a few more months.

I really enjoyed Dead Can Dance’s mix of cultural touchstones on their earlier albums. I have a bunch of their releases up until they broke up.

Somehow I missed their reunion entirely.  I also missed their subsequent reunion and new albums.

They haven’t played in this area for 8 years and I was pretty pleased to finally experience them live.  I bought a ticket for this show and then a few days later it was announced that they would be playing the State Theatre in New Brunswick.  Since that venue is about three times closer to me, I snatched up a great seat for that show and figured I could sell the Philly ticket.

Then a couple months ago the Theatre announced that the New Brunswick show was unexpectedly cancelled. No reason was given.  I don’t think it was sales as it looked like they sold well.  So that sucked, but I was glad I still had this ticket.

Agnes Obel is a Danish born singer who plays quirky atmospheric chamber pop.  I have heard great things about her for many years but never really investigated her music.  I was looking forward to learning about her in this setting.

She was actually scheduled to open for The The on their 2018 tour.  However, the three New York area shows had different openers, so I didn’t get to see her then.

I hope they all come back around together.

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John Mulaney: From Scratch (Academy of Music, Philadelphia, PA October 6, 2021)

Posted in Joe Biden, John Mulaney, Philadelphia, PA, Political Humor, Seaton Smith, The Academy of Music on October 7, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 6, 2021] John Mulaney

We don’t see comedians very often.  We do like to go to some of our favorites, but we’re unlikely to go to an unknown at a club or anything.

John Mulaney, on the other hand, is hilarious and has made S. and I laugh and quote and requote some of our favorites lines of his.  Recently our son made some kind of reference to one of Mulaney’s jokes and so I thought maybe we should go see him.  After all, he was doing an outrageously long run of shows at the Academy of Music in Philly–14 shows in 12 days!

Recently, Mulaney had made headlines for doing all kinds of questionable things.  He and his wife got divorced, he wound up going to rehab and then started dating someone else with whom he is now expecting a child.  Normally that kind of stuff doesn’t really interest me, but it proved to be a huge part of this routine (especially the rehab, which he entered in December 2020 and exited I guess in February).

We entered the venue which was a “no phones” place.  This was fine, except that our tickets were on the phone.  So I had to lock my phone in a bag.  I was worried that this would be a huge time suck on the way out, but I carried the bag with me and then on the way out they  demagnetized the bag and off I went. (more…)

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Seaton Smith (Academy of Music, Philadelphia, PA October 6, 2021) [JOHN MULANEY]

Posted in Joe Biden, John Mulaney, Philadelphia, PA, Political Humor, Seaton Smith, The Academy of Music on October 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 6, 2021] Seaton Smith

I don’t go to see comedians that often.  I knew in the back of my mind that there would be a warm up act, but it didn’t actually occur to me that there would be one.

The line was INSANE when we arrived.  We were fifteen minute early and didn’t get in until just about 8 o’clock, but they delayed the start, thankfully.

This show gave you a secure bag to put your phone in so that you couldn’t use it during the show (that process was quite seamless, I have to say).  But I hadn’t turned my phone off and was concerned that it might ring during the show.  But while I fretted about that, the lights dimmed and they introduced the comedian whose name I didn’t hear.

This is the second comedian I’ve seen whose opening act was introduced quickly and unclearly who then never repeated his or her name during the set.  It took more than a little work to discover he was Seaton Smith.

Smith started his set with jokes about growing up poor and black.  They were quite funny, but it seems like Mulaney’s audience is pretty white so it seemed kind of unrelatable.  And yet the jokes were really funny and the crowd was very responsive.

After a little while he started talking about politics.

He said he was all about bringing people together–so who did you vote for in the last election? (more…)

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Frank Turner (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, October 3, 2021 [afternoon show])

Posted in Counting Crows, Frank Turner, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, Huda Sha'arawi, Philadelphia, PA, The Weakerthans, Underground Arts on October 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 3, 3021] Frank Turner with Matt Nasir

Frank Turner has been opening for the Counting Crows, a band that he loves which I absolutely do not.  There is no way I would have gone to see him with that other band, even though I have been wanting to see him for many years now.

And then, on September 15, Frank Turner announced that he would be playing Underground Arts on October 3.  At 2PM!

Turns out that on the Crows’ days off, Frank decided to play some solo shows (with opening acts).

This show was going to be the first of two shows he’s play that day!

I grabbed tickets immediately.  What a novel idea to have an evening free after seeing a show.

Frank used to be in a punk band and then he became a kind of punky folk singer.  He writes politically charged anthemic sing alongs.  A kind of younger Billy Bragg.  And while he songs are great, it’s his live shows that are do amazing because he gets the audience 100% involved. (more…)

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