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Archive for the ‘Festivals’ Category

Third Annual Abortion Access Benefit: Control Top / Dark Thoughts / Mopar Stars / Money Nicca / Nina Ryser / Noun / Pinkwash / (Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA, January 25, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Control Top, Dark Thoughts, Johnny Brenda's, Mopar Stars, Nina Ryser, Noun, Palberta, Philadelphia, PA, Pinkwash, Rachel Fogletto, Screaming Females, Third Annual Abortion Access Benefit on January 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: January 25, 2025] Control Top / Dark Thoughts / Mopar Stars / Money Nicca / Nina Ryser / Noun / Pinkwash

I bought a ticket to this show primarily for Control Top.  And I added an extra donation because I felt the cause was really important.  And then I grabbed tickets to Soccer Mommy which was a show that was easier for me to get to.

Ground Control Touring’s 3rd Annual Abortion Access Benefit Series takes place in NYC, LA, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, DC, Austin, and Raleigh on January 25, 2025! Visit their website to see the variety of bands at each show and specific event details! 100% of proceeds from all shows are donated directly to NOISE FOR NOW who will allocate the funds raised to local abortion funds in need. You can also text GCT to 53-555 if you can’t make it out but would still like to donate.

Proceeds support: Abortion Liberation Fund of PA, Access Reproductive Care – Southeast, ACCESS Reproductive Justice, The Afiya Center’s SYS Fund, Baby2Baby’s Disaster Relief and Emergency Response, Carolina Abortion Fund, DC Abortion Fund, Feminist Women’s Health Center, Lilith Fund, Midwest Access Coalition, New York Abortion Access Fund, Northwest Abortion Access Fund, and independent abortion clinics in California, DC, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, the Pacific Northwest and Pennsylvania via Keep Our Clinics.

And here’s the blurb from Johnny Brenda’s

Ground Control Touring is thrilled to announce they’re teaming up for the third year with NOISE FOR NOW, a non-profit specializing in reproductive justice, to take action and bring awareness with its third annual Abortion Access Benefit Series. The series has expanded to take over EIGHT cities, coinciding on Saturday, January 25th, 2025 – Los Angeles at Lodge Room, New York City at Bowery Ballroom, Chicago at Sleeping Village, Atlanta at The Masquerade (Purgatory), Philadelphia at Johnny Brenda’s, Austin at Hotel Vegas, DC at Songbyrd, and Raleigh at Kings. Since its inception in 2023, the Abortion Access Benefit Series has raised over $110,000 via eight completely sold out nationwide events, with performances by nearly 100 artists and silent auction bundles provided by dozens of community sponsors and local businesses.
Each benefit show will feature a special night of music and festivities in support of abortion funds, community, and bodily autonomy. 100% of proceeds will go to NOISE FOR NOW who will then allocate the funds raised to local independent abortion clinics and abortion funds in each region.
More about NOISE FOR NOW: NOISE FOR NOW is a national initiative that enables artists and entertainers to connect with and financially support grassroots organizations that work in the field of Reproductive Justice, including abortion access. Reproductive health care services, including access to legal abortion, are under attack. By organizing benefit events and campaigns, NOISE FOR NOW provides opportunities for artists and entertainers to use their talent to raise money and send a clear message that Reproductive Rights are human rights. Since their inaugural benefit concert in 2017, NOISE FOR NOW has worked with over 450 artists and entertainers to raise $1.36M for 54 partner organizations. In 2023, NOISE FOR NOW established a record label and has released 3 benefit compilations, 2 of which are streaming on all digital platforms.

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Waxahatchee (Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, October 22, 2024) Philly Music Fest Night 2

Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Philly Music Fest, Waxahatchee on October 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 22, 2024] Waxahatchee

My wife and I saw Waxahatchee open for Courtney Barnett six years ago.  I hadn’t remembered that I had seen her a few months earlier with her full band.

I’ve considered seeing her again since then, but I didn’t go back in 2022.  I was looking forward to seeing her a few months ago at the Fillmore, but the show turned out to be between two Pearl Jam shows and we couldn’t possibly do it all.

This show proved to be exactly the same as the two Fillmore shows just without the backdrops and stage props.

I was looking forward to this show because I thought I knew so much of her new album (and she played the whole thing).  I was surprised by how few songs I knew during this show.  In part because she didn’t really play any deep cuts (okay one or two, but none of her hits).

But I was delighted to hear “Can’t Do Much” (the only song of the night that I had seen her play before) and “Problem With It” which I forgot wasn’t actually a Waxahatchee song (it’s a song by Plains, which is Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson.

After playing a couple of songs from the previous album Saint Cloud, she told us about the new album and how she’d be playing the whole thing tonight.  This group of songs started with the wonderful “Right Back to It” and the even better “Bored.” (more…)

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@ (Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, October 22, 2024) [WAXAHATCHEE] Philly Music Fest Night 2

Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Philly Music Fest, Waxahatchee on October 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 22, 2024] @

Every since going to Philly Music Fest a few years ago, I’ve been keeping track about it each year to see who is in it the next year.  This year was pretty unexciting for me until they announced a late entry of Waxahatchee as a headliner.  Since we had missed both of their shows at the Fillmore, I decided to grab us a ticket.

Opening was @ a pretty much unfindable band online.

They have a bandcamp site in which they have two releases.  They are kind of interesting and experimental, with lots of sounds layered on to of straightforward lyrics.

But live, they were the least dynamic duo I’ve ever seen. (more…)

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Newport Folk Festival (Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI, July 26-July 28, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Black Pumas, De La Soul, Guster, Hozier, Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI, The War on Drugs, Tinariwen on July 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: July 31-August 2, 2020] Newport Folk Festival

We went to Newport Folk Festival in 2019.  We’ve had a kind of understanding that we would try to go again.

I’ve managed  to score tickets for previous years (and then resell them when we couldn’t go).  But this year I was shut out instantly.  Which is fine as the festival often conflicts with our summer schedule.
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Slide Away Philadelphia: Nothing / Swirlies / Loveliescrushing / Tagabow / Mint Field / Knifeplay / Astrobrite / Glixen (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, March 9, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND–COVID]

Posted in Astrobrite, Glixen, Knifeplay, Loveliescrushing, Mint Field, Nothing, Philadelphia, PA, Slide Away, Swirlies, Tagabow, Union Transfer on March 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 9, 2024] Slide Away

When this day-long event was announced, I grabbed a ticket because I knew a couple of the bands.  Amazingly, perhaps, I didn’t know Nothing, the headliner.

I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to spend an entire day at Union Transfer, but the lineup was pretty great.  The recently sent the proposed schedule

3:00pm Doors Open
4:00pm Glixen
5:00pm Astrobrite
6:00pm Knifeplay
7:00pm Mint Field
8:00pm TAGABOW
9:00pm Lovesliescrushing
10:15pm Swirlies
11:30 Nothing
w/ DJ set by Full Body 2, Kip Berman and Vyva Melinkolya between bands

And it sounds like most of the sets were going to be about 30 minutes, at least until Loveliescrushing.

But then my son came home from college for Spring Break and I REALLY didn’t want to spend most of the day away.   I mostlu wanted to see Knifeplay and Mint Field, but as I listened to more of the bands, I realized I quite liked them all.

Glixen is from Phoenix.  Now, pretty much all of these bands are shoegaze, so the descriptions are going to be quite similar, but here we go

Glixen is a shoegaze band from Phoenix, Arizona whose sound consists of tender melodies encased inside chrome walls of grungy textures and heavy guitars. Founder and lead vocalist, Aislinn Ritchie, began the project in 2020 enlisting guitarist Esteban Santana, drummer Keire Johnson, and bassist Sonia Garcia.

I really liked the Glixen vibe–lots of soft guitars and thick cottony sounds.  Aislinn Ritchie has a beautiful soaring voice that suits the music really well. (more…)

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Kurt Vile and the Violators / Purlilng Hiss / Florry (Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, October 10, 2023) Philly Music Fest Night 2 [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Birds of Maya, Florry, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Mike Polizze, Philly Music Fest, Purling Hiss on October 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: October 10, 2023] Kurt Vile and the Violators / Schoolly D / Emily Robb

I really respect Philly Music Fest.  If I lived closer to the venues and didn’t have other things (like a family), I’d love to go to every night.  But I don’t.  Lat year I didn’t go to any.  This year I’m going to one show.

But it’s not this one either.  Although of the nights I did not go to, this is certainly a good one.  If I’d had more time,  would have happily seen Kurt and Purling Hiss together.

I saw Purling Hiss six years ago.  I assumed they would be a really loud heavy metal band.  But they’re not.  They’re more of  loud indie rock band with lots and lots of guitars.

Here’s a few out of context sentences from reviews of their newest album Drag on Girard (it’s shame this show wasn’t at Johnny Brenda’s).

  • The fuzzed-out lead guitar, the languid vocals, and the unbridled backbeat that keeps it all together
  • Drag on Girard settles on the scuzzy, faded sound of a nicotine-stained dollar bin find from the ‘70s.
  • Their latest release, Drag On Girard, can be fuzzy, abrasive and at times chaotic, but the album still brings a melodic and catchy ambiance.
  • Drag On Girard is a raging amalgamation of late-’70s, pop-rock guitar solos and the rambunctious reemergence of the off-bent alternative punk scene of the 2010s

It’s pretty great stuff and makes for a fun live show.  I may have to check them out again soon.

What I did not realize was that

Purling Hiss is led by Mike Polizze, a fixture of the Philadelphia music scene. He’s connected to the world of Kurt Vile, the War on Drugs, and their shared affection for 1970s classic rock and its favoring of lengthy jam sessions and guitar histrionics. Vile and Jeff Zeigler of the War on Drugs assisted with Polizze’s well-received solo album, 2020’s Long Lost Solace Find.  

Polizze is also the main guy behind Birds of Maya, another garage/psychedelic band that makes noise.  I wonder if he brings out the noisy side of Kurt Vile.

Florry are a kind of sloppy “bar country” band.

Singer-songwriter Francie Medosch started out as a teenager recording tense, depressive lo-fi indie rock, but during the pandemic, she had a realization: She wasn’t depressed anymore. “I think it’s cool to have art that reflects where you are in the moment,” she said then. She’d also been revisiting old favorites like Gram Parsons and Neil Young, planting seeds for the folksy new sound that would take hold on 2021’s Big Fall. Florry’s second proper album, The Holey Bible, posits an alternative to nihilistic indifference: What if instead of dispassionately accepting disaster as inevitable, we use the bitter end as a motivator to make the best of what time is left?

Though Florry’s sound has always had a homespun quality, on The Holey Bible, Medosch and her backing band—complete with 12-string guitar, fiddle, mandolin, harmonica, and plenty of pedal steel—push further toward old-school country.

Not my scene, but it could be fun.

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Kurt Vile and the Violators / Schoolly D / Emily Robb (Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, October 9, 2023) Philly Music Fest Night 1 [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Emily Robb, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Philly Music Fest, Schoolly D on October 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: October 9, 2023] Kurt Vile and the Violators / Schoolly D / Emily Robb

I really respect Philly Music Fest.  If I lived closer to the venues and didn’t have other things (like a family), I’d love to go to every night.  But I don’t.  Lat year I didn’t go to any.  This year I’m going to one show.

But it’s not this one.

I’ve seen Kurt Vile a few times and he always plays a good show.  But my wife and I had seen him fairly recently, so there was n need to see him again so soon.

Schoolly D is an old-school rapper who i kind of thought I knew, but I guess I mostly know him from Primus.

We hopped into my dart and headed for the nightbreak to see a man they called Schooly D. [–Harold of the Rocks]

I don’t know what he’s like these days, but I imagine him on stage with a Casio drum machine freestyling.  His latest album came out in 2010 and it was more mixing and sampling than lyrics.

Emily Robb plays an electric guitar (and is referred to as a guitar abuser).  She has a solo album out that is an incredible amount of fuzzy guitar noise.

No vocals, no artifice, barely even a drum. It’s a totally fried, mutant offering that’ll entice the twisted seekers– a sustained, distilled meditation on the unabashed revved up freedom of rock.

This night actually sounds kind of unpleasant.

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Lana Del Rey–All Things Go Music Festival [Day 2] (Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MS, October 1, 2023)

Posted in Alex G, All Things Go, Alvvays, Arlo Parks, Boygenius, Carly Rae Jepsen, Columbia MD, Dayglow, Ella Jane, Ethel Cain, Flecther, Free Range, Hemlocke Springs, Jensen McRae, Juliana Madrid, Lana Del Ray, Last Dinosaurs, Leith Ross, Lizzie McAlpine, Maggie Rogers, Meet Me @ The Altar, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Mt. Joy, Muna, No Vacation, Peach Pit, Raye, Samia, Sudan Archives, Suki Waterhouse, Tegan and Sara, Tommy Lefroy, Vacations, Vundabar on October 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 1, 2023] Lana Del Rey

Sometime in April, my daughter asked if we could go to the All Things Go Festival.  I had never heard of this Festival and assumed the answer was no.  But then I saw that it was at the Merriweather Post Pavilion which is exactly three hours away from us.  So when tickets went on sale, I managed to get two pre-sale tickets for Sunday.  And then when they went on proper sale, I managed to score two more for Saturday.

Sunday was  the far more important day for music.  I mean, the whole reason she wanted to go was to see boygenius (and Lana Del Rey).  But this was a great day of music to be sure.

While Muna was playing on the other stage, the Lana Del Rey crew assembled the stage for the final act.  I didn’t understand why boygenius was late in starting.  But they finished at 8, when they were supposed to.  The Lana set was fully in place before Muna finished.

Of all of the performers at this festival, Lana was the person I was least interested in seeing.  My take on Lana is that she plays a random melody on the piano (or guitar) and then looks out the window and literally describes what’s in front of her in a bored monotone.  I never would have guessed that she actually had a beautiful voice, because all I ever hear from her is bored monotone. (more…)

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Muna–All Things Go Music Festival [Day 2] (Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MS, October 1, 2023)

Posted in Alex G, All Things Go, Alvvays, Arlo Parks, Boygenius, Carly Rae Jepsen, Columbia MD, Dayglow, Ella Jane, Ethel Cain, Flecther, Free Range, Hemlocke Springs, Jensen McRae, Juliana Madrid, Lana Del Ray, Last Dinosaurs, Leith Ross, Lizzie McAlpine, Maggie Rogers, Meet Me @ The Altar, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Mt. Joy, Muna, No Vacation, Peach Pit, Raye, Samia, Sudan Archives, Suki Waterhouse, Tegan and Sara, Tommy Lefroy, Vacations, Vundabar on October 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 1, 2023] Muna

Sometime in April, my daughter asked if we could go to the All Things Go Festival.  I had never heard of this Festival and assumed the answer was no.  But then I saw that it was at the Merriweather Post Pavilion which is exactly three hours away from us.  So when tickets went on sale, I managed to get two pre-sale tickets for Sunday.  And then when they went on proper sale, I managed to score two more for Saturday.

Sunday was  the far more important day for music.  I mean, the whole reason she wanted to go was to see boygenius (and Lana Del Rey).  But this was a great day of music to be sure.

I didn’t really know Muna all that well before this show.  I knew that they were signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ label and that she joined them on stage a lot.  I also knew Silk Chiffon which was a highly touted song.  I kind of liked it.  There was something about it that I didn’t quite like but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

It probably would have been fun  to see them in person, as their set was really fun and lively.  But realistically since they went on literally right after Boygenius on a stage that was a short walk away, there was no way we would have gotten anything like a good space to be. (more…)

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boygenius–All Things Go Music Festival [Day 2] (Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MS, October 1, 2023)

Posted in Alex G, All Things Go, Alvvays, Arlo Parks, Boygenius, Carly Rae Jepsen, Columbia MD, Dayglow, Ella Jane, Ethel Cain, Flecther, Free Range, Hemlocke Springs, Jensen McRae, Juliana Madrid, Lana Del Ray, Last Dinosaurs, Leith Ross, Lizzie McAlpine, Maggie Rogers, Meet Me @ The Altar, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Mt. Joy, Muna, No Vacation, Peach Pit, Raye, Samia, Sudan Archives, Suki Waterhouse, Tegan and Sara, Tommy Lefroy, Vacations, Vundabar on October 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 1, 2023] boygenius

Sometime in April, my daughter asked if we could go to the All Things Go Festival.  I had never heard of this Festival and assumed the answer was no.  But then I saw that it was at the Merriweather Post Pavilion which is exactly three hours away from us.  So when tickets went on sale, I managed to get two pre-sale tickets for Sunday.  And then when they went on proper sale, I managed to score two more for Saturday.

Sunday was  the far more important day for music.  I mean, the whoel reason she wanted to go was to see boygenius (and Lana Del Rey).  But this was a great day of music to be sure.

Despite our plans to get to the pavilion early for boygenius, by the time we got there, every close seat was full.  We didn’t want to sit in the sun (it was HOT) so we wound up sitting much further back than I would have liked.

I have to say that I was shocked that Lana del Rey was headlining and not boygenius, because it sure seemed to me that boygenius was the biggest band on the planet at the time.  But Lana does have a much longer track record (and a lot of fans).

Boygenius was late coming on stage.  I genuinely don’t know why.  I mean, Arlo Parks had been off the stage for half an hour and the Boygenius gear was already on stage (the festival was, otherwise, very efficient).  So they went on 15 minutes late.  And what was insulting about it was that earlier in the week we were told that beabadoobie couldn’t make it so boygenius would get an extra 15 minutes.   We were prepared for a full on 90 minute show, but we lost those 15 minutes anyway.

They played The Boys Are Back in Town over the speakers and then we saw the geniuses backstage singing “Without You Without Them” as they do.

And then they came bounding out on stage.  (more…)

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