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Archive for the ‘Philadelphia, PA’ Category

Phish (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 28, 2016)

Posted in Bob Dylan, Flight of the Conchords, Hot Rize, Josh White, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Phish, Son Seals, Trey Anastasio on June 29, 2016| 1 Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 28, 2016] Phish limb

phishA friend of mine in college first got me to listen to Phish (circa 1992), but it wasn’t until the LivePhish releases starting in 2001 that I really got into them.  [Incidentally, if you bought those discs and kept them in that plastic liner thing, check your discs because those plastic things have eaten away most of the whatever is on them that allows a player to play music.  Most of my discs have sections that are totally see-through and register an error.  I don’t think anything can be done about it DIY and I’m quite sure that Elektra isn’t about to give us new copies or anything.]

I had never gone to a Phish show for a couple of reasons.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to dive into the “culture” of the shows, which seemed intimidating at best.  And, once I decided I wanted to see them, I could never actually get tickets.  Well, the Phish lottery came through and I scored a ticket to this show at the Mann Center.

A word about Phish now.  I knew that people were devoted to the band, but I never knew how much the band reciprocated.  In order to let fans have a fair shot at getting tickets to their shows, they have set up a lottery.  All ticket prices are the same and you either get tickets or you don’t (you can later by them on Ticketmaster or whatever).  If you get tickets, your seat could be front row or lawn or anywhere in between.  And the price ($49 face value for all) is quite cheap, I think.  Well, I won a lottery ticket, and my ticket came all psychedelic instead of a standard Ticketmaster type ticket.  Which is cool.  But not only that, your ticket gets you a free download of that night’s show when it becomes available on the LivePhish website.  And that’s usually within a few hours of the end of the show.  The shows are normally around $10 to download, but if you bought a ticket you get a free one.  That’s super cool.

Also, every once in a while (12 times now) the LivePhish site has released free compilations of live songs from various shows throughout the band’s history.  Most of these downloads are 3 hours or more.  That’s a ton of free music.  Nice.  So I’ve listened to these collections a lot and I know most of the songs they play very well.

Back to the Mann.  (more…)

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Barenaked Ladies (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 18, 2016)

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Howard Jones, Humus, Led Zeppelin, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Star Wars, The Big Bang Theory, Violent Femmes, Zahav on June 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 18, 2016] Barenaked Ladies

2016-06-18 22.36.35Why have we seen Barenaked Ladies so many times?  Because they unerringly put on a super fun show.  Whether it is headlining their summer extravaganzas or even playing at our lowly Balloon Festival [*I was taken to task for calling this festival lowly, please see the end of the post for an update], their sets are fun and they always give their all.

Their set seemed really short this time–although it was the same number of songs as previous summer sets.  Sometimes it feels like they are stuck playing the same songs a lot.  They absolutely have to play a few songs–“$1,000,000,” “Brian Wilson,” “Big Bang Theory” and of course “One Week” and at least one or two new ones.  And yet they do a good job of pulling out some unexpected songs.

And they really mixed up the stage show this year.  In the past, they have started big and ended with some acoustic songs.  But this year they started with a small acoustic set. (more…)

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OMD (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 18, 2016) [BARENAKED LADIES]

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds, Colin Hay, Flight of the Conchords, Guster, Howard Jones, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, OMD, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Philadelphia, PA, Violent Femmes on June 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 18, 2016] OMD

2016-06-18 20.15.58Sarah and I calculated that this was our fourth time seeing Barenaked Ladies (I’ve seen them at least two more times than that).  What I enjoy about tehir summer tours is how they have such diverse opening acts.  Two years ago it was Guster and Ben Folds.  Last year it was Violent Femmes and Colin Hay and this year it is Howard Jones and Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark.  I was never really a fan of Howard Jones (I didn’t know most of his songs), but I love OMD’s greatest hits (which I know isn’t saying a lot since they have about a  dozen albums out, but it’s a great collection).

Because of circumstances beyond our control, we wound up missing the entirety of Howard Jones’s set.  A friend who saw the concert in New York last week said that HoJo was phoning it in.  But the two people n front of us at Philly said he was really good.  Bummed to miss him, especially the keytar.

We arrived just as the opening notes of “Enola Gay” were playing through the crowd.  Perfect timing. (more…)

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Guster (The Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, June 16, 2016 )

Posted in Guster, Philadelphia, PA, The Fillmore Philadelphia, The Shelters on June 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 16, 2016] Guster        

2016-06-16 21.10.07For the third time in 14 months Sarah and I went to a Guster show.  This was a show that was originally scheduled for January (which we couldn’t go to), but a freak snowstorm kept them away.  So they rescheduled to June and we were free to indulge in one of our favorite live bands.

Guster never fails to put on a supremely fun show.   Between favorite songs, unexpected rarities, frontman Ryan Miller’s banter and general sense of good will and each guy’s ability to play just about anything, each show is a blast.  This venue was much bigger than the previous two and we were actually a little further back but we managed to get close enough to really enjoy the fun.  And the sound was amazing.

The Shelters ended and the stage was set.  It always seems to take so long for a band to come out.  And just as Sarah said they should be out by now, there they were.  They opened with “What You Wish For” a song they hadn’t played to us before–a great start!

Over the three shows we saw in the past 14 months, Guster played 40 different songs (not including two covers and an improv jam) out of 73 songs played. (more…)

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The Shelters (The Fillmore Philadelphia, June 16, 2016) [GUSTER]

Posted in Guster, Philadelphia, PA, Sloan, Social Distortion, The Beatles, The Doors, The Fillmore Philadelphia, The Shelters, The Smithereens, The Yardbirds on June 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 16, 2016] The Shelters

2016-06-16 20.11.09The Shelters opened for Guster.  I hadn’t heard of them before going to the show, so I really didn’t know what to expect from the band.  Sarah and I arrived as they were going on, so by the time we got situated we probably missed two or three songs.

The band paints an interesting visual picture.  On the left side is guitarist Chase Simpson.  He’s got long hair and plays interestingly shaped guitars.  In the middle is guitarist Josh Jove who has slicked back hair and tends to walk to the front of the stage to solo.  On the bass is Jacob Pillot (also slicked back hair) who sort of hangs back but keeps a great rhythm.  And then in the back is drummer Sebastian Harris with long hair (looking a bit like Kurt Cobain) who pounds the hell out of the drums.

Walking into the venue, I’m not sure what song they were playing but it struck me as sounding very L.A. rock (I don’t really know what that means, but I guessed it reminded me of some of the hard rock/metal bands from the 89s/90s).  The song was good and the band was solid, it just didn’t blow me away.  They played another song (both of these were sung by Jove, I believe) that was similarly rocking and enjoyable.

Then they played “Fortune Teller.”  Simpson sang this one and the whole tenor of the band changed.  The song was a bit trippier (whereas Jove has a rocker voice, Simpson has an almost folkie voice).  I loved the song immediately.  And every song after that was really great too. (more…)

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Flight of the Conchords sing Flight of the Conchords (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 12, 2016)

Posted in Arj Barker, Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords, Led Zeppelin, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Pokemon, Richard Thompson, Tom Waits, Wilco on June 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 12, 2016] Flight of the Conchords sing Flight of the Conchords

chipsAfter having gotten a number of concert tickets fort he summer, I had planned a moratorium.  But it was impossible to pass up the opportunity to see Flight of the Conchords.  Especially if they were going to be singing Flight of the Conchords!  I didn’t even realize they toured (clearly they do), and since there were no plans for a new television season and since Jemaine Clement has lent his voice and face to all manner of awesome evil roles, I assumed the FotC was no more.  [Bret McKenzie has also done things but not nearly as much as Jemaine].

Since we loved the show and the music, I jumped on tickets once they were available.  Once again, I thought our seats would be better than they were (I really need to understand seating charts better), but it didn’t matter because they had two giant screens on which they projected the two of them and did many great visual effects as well.  It was easy to forget to look at them on stage since the screens were so compelling, but it’s always important to see what the guys are doing too.

They played 13 songs in total and did a lot of very funny banter in between.  The strange thing is that I didn’t know they had released a second album (how did I miss that?) so a lot of the songs that I thought were “new” were just new to me.  Although there were some brand new songs thrown in as well.

It was also awesome that as soon as Arj Barker left the stage, there was no delay before Flight of the Conchords came out. (more…)

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Arj Barker (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 12, 2016) [FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS]

Posted in Arj Barker, Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords, Game of Thrones, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Pokemon, Richard Thompson, Wilco on June 12, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 12, 2016] Arj Barker

arjArj Barker opened for Flight of the Conchords.  I didn’t know him, although I knew he had been on some episodes of the FotC TV Show.

Much like with my trip to the Mann for Wilco, it took a lot longer to get there than I anticipated–I think we’ll have it all figured out for our next show there later this week.  We wound up arriving a few minutes before 8 and had enough time to get a snack before the show started.  Barker didn’t start exactly at 8 either (how come Richard Thompson was so punctual?)

As we were chowing down, we noticed that later this summer the Mann Center is putting on a symphonic Pokemon event and we knew we had to get tickets for the kids for that.  So I ran out to the box office and spared myself the $13/ticket Ticketmaster surcharge at the expense of missing the beginning of Arj’s set.

We walked in just as he was going on about his girlfriend’s insistence on their new gluten-free diet (I’d guess we missed about ten or fifteen minutes). (more…)

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Wilco (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 4, 2016)

Posted in Doug Sahm, Happy Birthday, Loose Fur, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Nels Cline, Philadelphia, PA, Richard Thompson, Wilco on June 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 4, 2016] Wilco

2016-06-04 20.49.02After Richard Thompson’s half set, I walked a round the grounds a bit and grew to really appreciate the venue.  I also got a  pretzel which was pretty good.

Then Wilco came out and they were even more amazing than I anticipated.  They played for 2 and a half hours–33 songs–two encores.  It was awesome.

When I walked through the gates someone handed me a Wilco baseball card.   How cool!  Turns out that this is a Mann Center tradition during the summer, so I stand to get a few more.

I have to complain about the audience for a moment though.  I sat on an aisle seat and I had to stand up to let people past me not less than 20 times.  Between people coming late (and I can’t complain about that as I was late to the opener), but then going back to get drinks or whatever half a dozen times–and different people each time.  This was made more irritating by the people in front of me who were doing the same thing.  The girl in front of me got there just as the band went on and then left for three songs, came back with a beer for her partner and then left for two more songs.  WTF?  The amount of traffic was infuriating–it was really hard to get into a constant groove.

But the band overcame that (and clearly when I see them again I need to get in a closer section where the real fans are). (more…)

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Richard Thompson (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 4, 2016) [WILCO]

Posted in Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Richard Thompson, Wilco on June 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 4, 2016] Richard Thompson

2016-06-04 20.01.12I was so excited for this double bill of Wilco and Richard Thompson.  I had never seen Wilco but for the last few years I have really gotten into them.  And of course, I’ve seen Richard Thompson a bunch of times–but not as an opening act–how would he truncate his set?  And then a whole bunch of things conspired to make me miss almost his entire set.  (Details after the set list).

So I got to the Mann Center–a lovely venue–just as Richard was finishing “Walking on a Wire.”  Since his set could be anything, I hoped it was the first or second song.  But it turned out to be the sixth!

So I was able to hear him play three songs.  “Persuasion” sounded fantastic.  “One Door Opens” is a really catchy song that he played back in February and it was fun to hear again.  And “I Misunderstood” is one of my favorite songs of his, so that was great to hear.  And just as I settled in for more, he thanked us and welcomed Wilco.

Someone that I walked past said they couldn’t believe they only gave him 40 minutes, and I rather agree–although I can’t believe he didn’t start twenty minutes late or something.

After seeing him a few months ago from row J, I was pretty excited to see him from Row H, until I realized that it was in the second section back.  Not Row H, but essentially Row HH.  Nevertheless, the view was great and the sound was really amazing.

Here’s a clip from Persuasion and here’s a clip from I Misunderstood.

I hate missing any part of a show, so that all put me in a pretty foul mood.  And now that I see he opened with “When the Spell is Broken,” a song I don’t think I’ve ever heard him play, and certainly not solo acoustic I’m even more bummed.

On the plus side, Wilco totally cheered me up.  Especially when they invited Richard out to play on “California Stars.”

June 4, 2016
 February 9, 2016
 February 17, 2012
When the Spell is Broken  [this space left blank by accident]
 She Twists the Knife Again
The Ghost of You Walks The Sun Never Shines on the Poor Easy There Steady Now?
Valerie The Ghost of You Walks Good Things Happen to Bad People
Dry My Tears and Move On Valerie Johnny’s Far Away
1952 Vincent Black Lightning Josephine Valerie
Walking on a Wire Johnny’s Far Away Oops I Did It Again
Persuasion Beatnik Walking Stumble On
One Door Opens 1952 Vincent Black Lightning 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
 I Misunderstood Dry My Tears and Move On Sunset Song
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight Saving The Good Stuff For You
Genesis Hall Pharaoh
Good Things Happen to Bad People Who Knows Where the Time Goes
Woods of Darney Hamlet (Dog Eat Dog in Denmark)
Read About Love My Enemy
Persuasion Shoot Out the Lights
Fergus Laing If Love Whispers Your Name
Wall of Death Crawl Back
I Misunderstood Hot for the Smarts
encore encore
Beeswing Walking on a Wire
encore 2 Down Where the Drunkards Roll
Down Where the Drunkards Roll Persuasion
One Door Opens Feel So Good
Shoot Out the Lights Beeswing
encore 2
Sydney Wells
Dimming of the Day

The FUBAR situation:

  • The weekend of June 4 later proved to be a weekend that Sarah was going to camping with the Girl Scouts.  In other words she wouldn’t be able to go with me.
  • I could not sell this ticket because of a miscommunication with someone who wanted it and the inability of several other who wanted to go to change their plans.  So I had to eat the cost (although I guess it was nice having an empty seat next to me)
  • The weekend also later proved to be a weekend that Clark was supposed to go on a camping trip.  I was going to go for Friday night and leave Saturday.  The troop discouraged that saying that kids tend to freak if you leave mid-trip.  Rather than going on the camping trip, Clark chose to bail on the whole thing and I felt guilty about it all weekend. [On the plus side we had a lot of fun Saturday on our own].
  • I thought the show was at 8 but it was really 7:30.
  • I had planned plenty of time to arrive early for 8, but 7:30 would have been about 15 minutes early.
  • However, I was bringing Clark to a friend’s house and we wound up leaving about 15 minutes after I initially wanted to leave.
  • En route, a road that i normally take was closed and the detour had my ETA on the GPS go from 42 minutes to 55.
  • I wound up in a location I’ve never been before and in my haste/trying to figure out how to get to where I needed to go (no detour signs at that end of the road) I committed a driving infraction evidently right in front of a policeman.
  • He pulled me over which added easily 15 minutes to the total time.  [MORAL: although I wasn’t speeding, it never pays to speed because if you get caught it will certainly nullify any time you would have saved].
  • The only positive of the night was that the policeman took pity on me and kept my record clean, giving me a fine for something else (thank you)–although I don’t know how much the fine is yet…
  • By the time I got close to the venue, the traffic was terrible.  The Mann Center is a great venue but there’s only one way in and a bottleneck is inevitable.

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Explosions in the Sky (The Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, May 20, 2016)

Posted in Disappears, Explosions in the Sky, Philadelphia, PA, The Fillmore Philadelphia on May 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 20, 2016] Explosions in the Sky

2016-05-20 21.43.53I’ve been a fan of EITS for years.  Their brand of epic instrumental has always been symphonic and grand–building up intensity and then, yes, exploding.

The band was inexplicably pretty late getting on stage (and then had to come out and fix their gear themselves).  As they came out on stage I realized that I had no idea what the band members looked like.

I was excited that I was able to get so close to the stage (the show was sold out).  And, I was pleased to realize that EITS was a no mosh pit kind of band, so things were fairly mellow so close to the stage.

The band’s set up was that there was one microphone placed kind of far to the stage (there’d be no singing tonight).  When the band came out guitarist Munaf Rayani (the only guy to talk) apologized for them being so late.   He then said they were Explosions in the Sky from Texas.  And until he said good night that was the only voice for 90 minutes (except for a half dozen of idiots standing nearby talking way too loud and taking selfies). (more…)

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