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Archive for the ‘Philadelphia, PA’ Category

Tune-Yards: XPoNential Music Festival: Marina Stage (Wiggins Park, Philadelphia PA, September 20, 2025)

Posted in Marina Stage, Philadelphia, PA, tUnE-yArDs, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA, XPN Fest, Xponential Music Festival on September 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 20, 2025] Tune-Yards

I tend to not like Festivals.  They are long, they are crowded and usually the artists only play for like 40 minutes instead of a full set.  The XPoNential Music Festival is different because it is smaller (two stages) and doesn’t run very late.  And since we are members of the station we get some nice perks.

Having said that, we don’t go very often.  Usually there’s one or two people I want to see, but a festival is a lot of work for one or two bands.  Then this year’s lineup was announced.  And while one of the days wasn’t great (I’d have liked to see Courtney Barnett, but wasn’t willing to do a Festival just for her), the other day was great:

RIVER STAGE:
Soccer Mommy
Molly Tuttle
Sharon van Etten and the Attachment Theory

MARINA STAGE:
Tune-Yards
Richard Thompson
Kathleen Edwards

I would have happily stayed for all 6 musicians.  But it turned out that we didn’t anticipate the crowds.  By the time we finally got parking and got onto the grounds, Tune-Yards was already playing.  We were still trying to get our bearings, so we basically didn’t see any of their set.  Of course, we could hear the just fine and it was fun to hear their music.  But honestly, they are really fun to watch so it wasn’t quite the same.

Surprisingly, there’s no setlist available and even the WXPN recap doesn’t include songs or a stream (nearly everyone else has a stream).  The only thing they mention is

Merrill Garbus, the main brain behind the majority of Tune-Yards’ material, bounced between electric ukulele, toms, lead vocals, and an SP-404 electronic sampler. Nate Brenner added bass, backing vocals, and analog synth to the mix. Watching Garbus sing while creating and triggering loops on her sampler was an insanely impressive showing of multitasking, frequently using her bare feet to control her vocal chops and recording the drums in front of her into complex, layered rhythms.

I wasn’t really paying attention to what they played, so I can’t even say what I heard, but, as always, their music was fun to have floating around in the air around us. (more…)

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Jeff Rosenstock (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 17, 2025) [PUP]

Posted in Alanis Morissette, Ekko Astral, Jeff Rosenstock, Philadelphia, PA, PUP, The Fillmore Philadelphia on September 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 17, 2025] Jeff Rosenstock

So I didn’t really know Jeff Rosenstock. I’d heard of him and I knew t hat he had done a lot of work with PUP AND I knew that people loved him, but he had completely slipped my radar.

But when he and his band came out, they were a ton of fun right from the get go.  And the crowd went bananas for them.

And he was very funny too.  Wearing orange shorts with a pink dye job on his hair (he said he had done it just before the show and it was still dripping down his neck).

They came out to the Friends theme and Jeff immediately told us to get to know the people around us.  But if we saw some fucking moron grope someone or get in someone’s face, get some other nice person and get that moron outta here.

And as one blurb says, the set was filled with fan favorites, singalongs, and chaos. (more…)

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Ekko Astral (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 17, 2025) [PUP]

Posted in Alanis Morissette, Ekko Astral, Jeff Rosenstock, Philadelphia, PA, PUP, The Fillmore Philadelphia on September 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 17, 2025] Ekko Astral

We arrived at the venue plenty early and were right up near the barrier.  There was a giant “american” flag on stage, except the stripes were rainbow colored, the stars were pot leaves and the middle of the blue field said 666.  Amazing.

I had wanted to see Ekko Atral open for Ted Leo but I was late for that show.  So I was really psyched to be able to see them so soon.  And they were very clear about the rules: no bigotry of any kind would be tolerated.

And wow, what an opening.  We were right in front of bassist and singer Jael Holzman.  She was amazing and intense. Across the stage was guitarist Liam Hughes and he played the kind of noise guitar that I had to wonder how one even thinks of making sounds like that–and how he knew they would work so well.

On drums was Miri Tyler, playing loud and fast and acting almost like a distortion pedal for the overall sound. (more…)

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Fazerdaze / Maiya Blaney (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, September 19, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Fazerdaze, Johnny Brenda's, Maiya Blaney, Philadelphia, PA on September 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 19, 2025] Fazerdaze

Fazerdaze is the creation of New Zealand’s Amelia Murray. I saw them open for Pond last year.  The songs are mostly mellow with gentle psychedelic notions thrown in.  Amelia has a terrific voice and the melodies were quite lovely.  Although overall the vibe was a little too mellow for me.  There were quite a lot of people there to see Fazerdaze.  The woman in front of me sang along to every song and actually left (my area) when they were done.

I didn’t like them enough to see them headline, but I was happy that they came back for another tour.

Maiya Blaney is a New York based, New Jersey born singer, songwriter, and producer. Her unique sound- highly influenced by both 90s grunge and UK electronic music alike- spans radioactive kiss offs, sorrowful meditations on yearning, and gossamer reveries about self-image.

I listened to two of her songs and they each sounded very different from the other.  One was more grungey, the other more trip hoppy.  She has a cool sound overall.

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Garbage (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, September 16, 2025)

Posted in Franklin Music Hall, Garbage, Philadelphia, PA, Starcrawler on September 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 16, 2025] Garbage

Back in the 90s Garbage was my favorite band.  I loved everything about them.  I saw them twice when I lived in Boston (and wish I remembered those early shows better).  I’d seen them twice in the 21st century (but was surprised to see that the last time was eight years ago!).

Like a lot of people I don’t like the newer stuff quite as much as the older stuff.  I’m not sure what’s different–maybe it’s just me.  I like individual songs but don’t love listening to the albums front to back as much.

But the individual songs are still great.  And they sounded fantastic as they opened the show with two killer new tracks.  The band sounded huge and Shirley Manson’s voice was great.  She was wearing a leather jacket which she took off after the first two songs to reveal a jump suite with a handwritten Free Gaza on the back.

They handled the loud/quiet transitions on a song like Hold perfectly–even the lights were perfect.

The band members (aside from Shirley) don’t do a lot on stage (I just found out that guitarist Duke Erikson is 74 years old–no wonder this is their last big tour).

After the first two songs, they moved on to Empty–a super catchy song from a few albums back.  Guitarist Steve Marker (only 66) played the opening chords and like last time it was cool being able to hear the different guitar sound the guys had. (more…)

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John Mulaney: Mister Whatever (The Met Phialdelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 18-21, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in John Mulaney, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on September 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 18-21, 2025] John Mulaney

My wife and son went to see John Mulaney and he was hilarious.  When he announced this tour, I felt like we had just seen him, but I’m shocked to see that it was four years ago!

I felt that these tickets were really expensive and since we had just (really, four years?) seen him, it didn’t see worth going.  Even though they kept adding more and more dates.

Well, maybe next time we’ll go and see him again.

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Starcrawler (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, September 16, 2025) [GARBAGE]

Posted in Franklin Music Hall, Garbage, Philadelphia, PA, Starcrawler on September 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 16, 2025] Starcrawler

I wanted to see Starcrawler for a few years before I finally got to.  And the buildup was more than the band could live up to.

I saw them last year open for Boris (a strange fit) when they played for an hour and I found them more or less unpleasant.  They really make me like the and hate them at the same time.

Last time I quoted someone else as saying “they strike me as rich kids cosplaying as punk rockers,” which seems fairly apt.  Also that

singer Arrow DeWilde tried to irk the crowd by referring to San Francisco repeatedly as “Frisco” after commenting, “Last night in Fresno was better than this shithole.” I have a friend who had seen them in Fresno the night before who said that Arrow said something similar onstage then.

This was one of the things that I found so irritating about them in the past, they are strangely confrontational.  It may be part of the schtick, but it’s weird–especially for an opening band.

Arrow was less confrontational than in the past, although she did yell at the audience for not bouncing their heads along to their song (weirdly, that was to the slowest song they played–we certainly bounced for the faster songs). (more…)

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Fu Manchu / Heavy Temple (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, September 17, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Fu Manchu, Heavy Temple, Philadelphia, PA, Rush, Underground Arts on September 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 24, 2022] Fu Manchu / Heavy Temple

Fu Manchu is one of the great stoner rock bands.  They have been around for thirty years with a similar fuzzy, grungey sound.  I missed them the first time around but became more keenly aware of them when their 2018 album Clone of the Universe featured not only an 18 minute song, but also a guitar solo from Alex Lifeson of Rush.

Their early stuff is really catchy and I wish I had known about them for longer.  They seem like they’d be a really fun live band.

They had announced a 30th anniversary tour in 2020, which was rescheduled twice until ultimately getting cancelled.  I was really excited to see they were coming back, but pretty bummed that it was the same night as Pup.

Heavy Temple has been on my radar since probably 2021 when they were going to open for Monster Magnet (show also cancelled).  So Heavy Temple is a band that consists of High Priestess Nighthawk (low end and vocal power), Siren Tempest (rhythm) and Thunderhorse (6 string axe slinger).  I’ve been following them on Instagram since the and they seem like their live show would be really fun.

Actually it looks like the band is laregly new members except got High Priestess Nighthawk who is the main force of the band.

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múm / Vorhees (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, September 16, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in múm, Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts, Vorhees on September 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 16, 2025] múm / Vorhees

I remembered when múm came out back in 1999.  I wanted to love them because they were an interesting band from Iceland with six members.  I was ultimately surpirsed and how mellow the music is.  It also sounds like it could be made by one or two people, so I’m not sure what all six members are up to.

They had just released their first album and tour in 12 years.  I was interested but there were four shows I wanted to go tonight and one of them was Garbage who I was not passing up.

When I looked up Vorhees, the first thing that came up was a hardcore band from England.  I didn’t think that could be right. And indeed it’s not.  This Vorhees is the nom de guerre of Dana Wachs, an audio engineer, musician, and sound designer based in New York City.

She releases a film score in 2026 which she recorded during the pandemic and she describes:

The pandemic forced a home recording set up, and contributed a foreboding tone to some of the heavier material here. It was an insular, and sometimes claustrophobic time … I lean into a range of texture and saturation, with the occasional melodic theme reappearing in a plethora of sonic guises.

Sounds moody and intense.   Not usually what I go for at a standing event, but I’ll bet it was very cool.

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Wet Leg (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, September 15, 2025)

Posted in Franklin Music Hall, Mary in the Junkyard, Philadelphia, PA, Wet Leg on September 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 15, 2025] Wet Leg

I saw Wet Leg three and a half years ago when they were something of a novelty buzz band because of their song Chaise Lounge.  I saw them at Underground Arts (capacity 650).  It was packed and I could barely see them, but it was still a fun show.

After the show, I thought “I’m not sure if the band will do anything more after this.  But they certainly felt like more than a joke band with one hit.  It will be interesting to see if they comeback to Philly and can fit into a larger venue.”

Now, three years later, the band has released their second album, have an entirely new look and have a bunch of songs that are bona fide–not novelty–hits.  So it’s no surprise that they are playing a bigger venue (FMH is 2500 people).

FMH is one of my least favorite venues to go to.  It’s always overcrowded and full of really tall people.  Most shows annoy me and I should probably stop going there all together, but it is the last small venue before bands move on to much bigger stages, so there are certain bands that can only fit in a venue that size.  I dislike the parking (it’s even worse now that all of the nearby lots have been attached to parking meters (and Jesus, there were NO spots on the street–on a Monday night??)  So we drove around a bit and arrived a little later than I wanted to, so we were just behind the ring of tall people who always seem to build a wall around the short people up front. (more…)

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