Posted in Katie Malco, Philadelphia, PA, Soak on February 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »
[ATTENDED: February 5, 2023] SOAK. / Katie Malco
I saw SOAK. four years ago and really enjoyed the show. It was intimate and Bridie Monds-Watson was compelling and powerful.
I was really excited that she and Katie Malco were going to come to the States for a small tour. Their location in Philly was TBD, but there are so many venues in Philly that I assumed they’d have no trouble securing a spot. (more…)
Posted in Dry Cleaning, Nourished By Time, Philadelphia, PA, The Spirit of the Beehive, Union Transfer on February 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
[DID NOT ATTEND: November 5, 2022] Dry Cleaning / The Spirit of the Beehive / Nourished By Time
Dry Cleaning are a kind of trendy British band. They are of the spoken deadpan vocal/wild guitar noise variety. I don’t love them, but I think their music is really interesting. I thought they’d be fun to see live once.
But we had a family emergency and it wasn’t time to go to a show. So, I didn’t really mind missing this one. (more…)
Posted in Anthrax, Black Label Society, Exodus, Montclair, NJ, Ozzy Osbourne, Slayer, Wellmont Theater on January 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »
[DID NOT ATTEND: January 31, 2023] Anthrax / Black Label Society / Exodus
Anthrax is the only band of the classic heavy metal landscape that I’ve never seen (who I want to see, anyhow). I thought seeing them in Montclair would be an easy decision. They’re back to almost their original lineup (okay, not original, but “classic” lineup). And I thought a Tuesday night show less than an hour away would be perfect.
They had played this tour in Philly back in August and I just wasn’t feeling it. I don’t really care about Black Label Society, and it just felt like a lot of work. But a close show seemed like a much better idea.
S. said she’d like to go too, so I got us both a ticket. About a month ago I found out that it had sold out. And I realized that I didn’t really want to go to a sold out metal show at the Wellmont. I assumed it would be well attended, but a sold out show gave me visions of the worst metalheads all smashing around each other and it suddenly felt really unappealing. (more…)
Posted in N.E.R.D., Oxymorrons, Philadelphia, PA, The Foundry, The OBGMs on January 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »
[ATTENDED: January 20, 2023] Oxymorrons
My son and I saw Oxymorrons open for grandson about a year ago. No opening band has made such an impact o me. They were intense and fun and catchy and crazy and just all around wonderful.
So when they announced this mini tour and that it would hit the Foundry, I knew that he and I would have to check them out again. But I was sure the tint Foundry stage wouldn’t be big enough to keep them in.
I was also sure that the show would sell out and we’d be in for a massive thrashing mosh pit. That’s why we stayed to the side the whole night (he wasn’t in the mood for slam dancing).
This meant we were right next to guitarist Jafe Paulino. I suggested that the stage was too small for them and he laughed and said he’d be hopping over those guardrails in no time.
When they came out, drummer Matty Mayz, (I had forgotten how much fun he was) had his laptop set up and he got the intro pumping as the frontmen, Demi “Deee” and his brother Kami “KI” came bouncing up on stage.
Deee and KI were great at engaging the audience. They are excellent at getting everyone hyped up. (more…)
Posted in Oxymorrons, Philadelphia, PA, Pinkshift, The Foundry, The OBGMs on January 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »
[ATTENDED: January 20, 2023] Pinkshift
I was really excited for the show–the Melanated Punk Mini Tour featuring Oxymorrons and The OBGMs. At the last minute, Pinkshift was added to the bill, which made things even better!
I’ve seen Pinkshift three times. Each show is really intense, because this band does not hold back.
This set felt a little different. First because they were playing songs mostly from their new album. I hadn’t heard the new album yet but it turns out I’d heard many of the songs live before.
Pinkshift is officially a trio now. Although they do have a bassist of tour with them, the main trio was made up with pretty cool eye makeup.
This was the closest I’d been to the band so I really got to see drummer Myron Houngbedji in action. He was, frankly, amazing. In fact, a few times, someone in the audience shouted something like My man on the drums is really bringing it! (more…)
Posted in Crash and the Boys, Oxymorrons, Philadelphia, PA, Pinkshift, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Foundry, The OBGMs on January 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »
[ATTENDED: January 20, 2023] THE OBGMs
I was really excited for the show–the Melanated Punk Mini Tour featuring Oxymorrons and The OBGMs (who I didn’t know but after listening to them, I realized how good they were. At the last minute, Pinkshift was added to the bill, which made things even better!
The show was listed as starting at 7:30 (which on a Friday night usually means a lot of traffic). Bu then Pinkshift said the fun started at 7, so my son and I left stupidly early to avoid traffic and arrived earlier than ever only to find out that the show did not start at 7.
And that’s fine. It’s nice to be early. Also, that Pinkshift wasn’t the first band.
The OBGMs (The oOohh Baby Gimme Mores) are from Toronto. They came out and proceeded to tear the roof off of the place.
After playing a weird riff that sounded like a wild version of Black Sabbath, the whole band started bashing out “Cash” from their new album The Ends.
Dreadlocked lead singer Densil McFarlane also played guitar as he pogoed and screamed the lyrics. (more…)
Posted in Fairport Convention, Montclair, NJ, Outpost in the Burbs, Richard & Linda Thompson, Richard Thompson, Teddy Thompson, Zara Phillips on January 15, 2023| 1 Comment »
[ATTENDED: January 14, 2023] Teddy Thompson
This was my eleventh time seeing Richard Thompson. For a while we had been seeing him pretty regularly and then his habits changed.
I had been seeing him every chance I could, but I took a little time off from his tours, hoping that he would perhaps come back with an electric tour. Sadly for me, he did in fact come around with an electric trio tour in 2018, but it coincided with a hike that we were scheduled to go on, so I had to miss it.
Back in 2020, he introduced a new component to his show, his new partner Zara Philips has been singing with him on many songs (often Richard & Linda Thompson songs, but sometimes adding backing vocals to Richard’s songs.
For a while it felt like Richard was playing the same basic songs at all of his shows, although as I look at his setlists I see that he always mixes in a few new songs every tour. Indeed, in 2020, he threw in a whole bunch of songs that I hadn’t heard him play before.
I was super excited that he opened with Gethsemane, an older song (I can’t believe that album is 20 years old!) that I like a lot. He sounded great and his guitar playing was, of course, outstanding.
During the pandemic, Richard released some online albums. He played If I could Live My Life again from Bloody Noses (which he had played back in 2020, just before the shutdown).
He jokes about the age of the audience and said he would play a song from a Fairport Convention album. He described the origins of Genesis Hall, and that it was a protest song, which I didn’t know. He had played it before but not for more than seven or so years, so it was good to hear it again.
Richard recently played a few nights of all request shows in New York City, which I’d love to attend (al though I suspect people probably just request all the popular songs anyhow). But I wonder if it makes him want to mix up his setlists at all. Whatever the case it was great to hear him plat “Turning of the Tide” a song that I love and haven’t heard him play live for a long long time.
Then he played “Beeswing.” I don’t think there’s been a show where he hasn’t played the song and yet this time it really hit me how beautiful it was. And I was marveling about how Richard Thompson, creator of the song was merely thirty or forty feet away from us playing this song and how amazing it was to be so close to someone so creative. I had a real moment. (I’m going to assume it came from talking about how wild it must have been for my young kids to go to concerts and see their favorite bands up close like that, something I never got to do as a a little kid). (more…)
Posted in Montclair, NJ, Outpost in the Burbs, Richard Thompson, Teddy Thompson on January 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »
[ATTENDED: January 14, 2023] Teddy Thompson
This was our first experience with Outpost in the Burbs, a fun venue in Montclair. The venue is actually in a church (I think it might be outside in the summer). This Richard Thompson show was sold out. But the tickets were first come / first seated. In a church. So, in a series of pews.
We arrived in what we thought was plenty of time, but we couldn’t find parking and wound up pretty far away, so by the time we got into the church, it was almost 8PM. We walked in and the lights went down. Luckily there were announcements to be had (which we missed), as we were sent looking for a seat. We were told there were seats in the balcony, so we trudged up the stairs to the (very full) balcony. We headed back down, having seen seats across the room. We headed over there only to discover that these seats (strangely empty) ere positioned directly behind two massive speaker cabinets which entirely blocked the stage–thus, why they were empty. Really they should not have even been available.
Luckily, right next to them was a pew bench against the wall that had a mostly unobstructed view of Teddy as he came out on stage. If he backed away from the mic I couldn’t see him at all, but he didn’t do that very often so it was fine. In fact, it was actually quiet comfortable. The bench had a cushion, and I was in the corner, so I had a corner edge to lean against. And, plenty of leg room!
And, it must be said, the acoustics were outstanding, even in this weird eave.
I saw Teddy Thompson open for his father about ten years ago in Princeton. He played songs from his then new album and sang some songs with his father. (more…)
Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Tár, They Might Be Giants, Union Transfer, Whiplash on January 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »
[ATTENDED: January 12, 2023] They Might Be Giants [rescheduled from March 13, 2020, September 8, 2020, April 15, 2021, March 22, 2022 and June 16, 2022]
After five failed attempts, They Might Be Giants FINALLY got to play Union Transfer.
It was only mildly anti-climactic that they played Union Transfer the night before with a show that was billed as an entirely different show but which, when setlists were compared, turned out to be almost exactly the same.
January 11 (left): note the similarly-named show title which implied something different. From the venue:
We assume that means songs from their latest album, ‘Book’ and some ‘Flood’ “faves”, and a bunch of horns on stage. How many horns? We can’t say for sure…Maybe 5, maybe 100!?
It felt a little cheaty that this day-ahead show got the same (more or less) show as us. But hey, who cares, at least we didn’t splurge for the second day. Because I’d have been a little cheesed to get the same show two nights in a row, no matter how good it was. And it was really good!
So I saw They Might Be Giants about twenty-five years ago in Boston. I don’t remember a lot from the show, but it was the Factory Showroom tour and they played a lot of my favorite songs as well.
I haven’t seen them live since then, even though I know they put on a good show. I’m not sure why it neve happened. Possibly because when I try to see them a pandemic occurs.
We arrived a little later than intended, had to stand on a huge line (there was no opening act), although everyone at a TMBG show is friendly, and then wound up on the side lower balcony in Union Transfer–where I’ve never stood before. It was actually kind of nice-we were above most of the heads and still felt a part of the mass of people.
The band also was giving out “paper crowns” that said THEY on them. John F: “Be sure to grab one so you can sell it later.”
The Johns came out at 8 as promised and jumped right into “Letterbox” from Flood. But it’s not the first song from Flood. So clearly, they weren’t going to play the album in order. They never said they were going to, just that they were going to play the whole album. Aha! (more…)
Posted in Another Michael, Chmpagne Jam, Flycatcher, Joyce Manor, Kevin Devine, Lunar Vacation, Philadelphia, PA, Riverby, Shannen Moser, Slothrust, Soul Glo, Sweet Pill, The Fillmore Philadelphia, The Front Bottoms, Titus Andronicus on December 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »
[DID NOT ATTEND: December 17-18, 2022] Champagne Jam 2022
Every year for quite some time, The Front Bottoms have been doing a Champagne Jam at the close of the calendar year. Brooklyn Vegan talked about in 2019:
The Front Bottoms‘ annual holiday concert Champagne Jam has taken place in NYC and NJ in the past, and this year it moves to Philadelphia. It happens December 21 (the Saturday before Christmas) at The Fillmore Philly Complex.
2022 saw them return to Philly, which has three venues all more or less connected. I don’t know how the set times are structured–if there’s any way to see everyone (probably not). But then again, I dind;t want to see everyone.
I bought my son and I tickets to the Saturday December 17 show figuring it was one last opportunity to see The Front Bottoms (since we kept missing them for one reason or another). Then we wound up scheduling our own holiday jam for the same night.
So we weren’t going to go to the Friday night show anyhow, but here’s the full lineup:
Friday, December 16, 2022 in the Lobby
Friday, December 16 2022 at The Foundry
Sounds like a really good night and some bands I should be on the look out for.
Friday, December 16, 2022 at Fillmore Philadelphia
Saturday, December 17, 2022 at Brooklyn Bowl
Saturday, December 17, 2022 at The Foundry
Saturday, December 17, 2022 at Fillmore Philadelphia
This seems like a really fun festival.
Jordan Norris nicely posted a video of The Front Bottoms from both shows
Friday night:
Saturday night
Also
Also, The Flycatcher review had these two videos (because of a song called sodas in the freezer)
And a Shasta commercial
I Just Read About That... 