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Archive for the ‘The Met Philadelphia’ Category

Katie Gavin (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, April 16, 2025) [LUCY DACUS]

Posted in Jasmine.4.T, Katie Gavin, Lucy Dacus, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on April 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 16, 2025] Katie Gavin 

I Katie Gavin is the singer for Muna.  I didn’t really like the Muna album that much when it came out, but I was really impressed by their live show when I saw them at All Things Go a few years ago.

I felt kind of the same about the Katie Gavin album.  It was okay, but it didn’t excite me all that much.

In fact, I really wanted to see Jasmine.4.T because their song Elephant is one of my favorites this year.  Sadly, I didn’t realize the show started at 7:15 (I assumed 8) and when we rolled up at 7:45, Jasmine.4.T had already ended.

When Katie came out, she was met by thunderous applause, and as soon as she started performing, I was once again blown away by her stage presence.  She joked that people might not know who she is (the applause belied that).

I didn’t love Katie’s album as it leans a little too alt-country for me.  But as with anyone whose albums lean alt-country but who also rock out, in a live setting, the rocking comes to the fore.  And her four-piece band was outstanding, Both bassist Nana Adjoa and guitarist Eric Radloff provided backing vocals.  Adjoa even took a verse or two of some songs (she has a wonderful voice). (more…)

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Dream Theater: 40th Anniversary Tour (The Met Philadelphia, PA, February 7, 2025) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Dream Theater, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on February 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: February 7, 2025] Dream Theater: 40th Anniversary

When Dream Theater came out forty years ago (really??) I loved their debut album.  But I have never really gotten into any of their follow ups.  I know that they are a band I should love–technically amazing, prog metal epics.  They are made for me.  And yet I just can’t get into them.  I do still love that debut album, but it’s the only one that real fans don’t like (I actually like the original singer better as well).

My friend Joe and I saw them live back in 2002 and I remember enjoying the show quite a lot–it is pretty fun to see these guys do these things up close.  But I’ve been up close on a lot of other amazing musicians and I don’t feel the need to go to this one.

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Modest Mouse (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, November 20, 2024)

Posted in Modest Mouse, Philadelphia, PA, The Black Heart Procession, The Met Philadelphia on November 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 20, 2024] Modest Mouse 

At the end of 2022, I saw Modest Mouse play their album The Lonesome Crowded West.  It was the last show I saw in 2022 and it was great.

I often think that I don’t need to see Modest Mouse again, and yet when they announced a tour in which they played all of Good News for People Who Love Bad News, I knew I’d be going to that show.  I have now seen Modest Mouse 7 times.  I have only seen 4 artists more (and a couple the same amount).  [I did not go to any of their shows where they played with Pixies, even though that’s a killer lineup].

In 2022, I arrived late (I didn’t want to see the opening band) and wound up really far back.  But this time I got there early enough to get close to the stage without being in the front, exactly.   I really like Modest Mouse, but I really don’t like about half of the Modest Mouse fanboy club.  

My last post included a quote from Holly Hazelwood, which I am excerpting even more here

Do we really need another late-30s dude in a baseball hat trying desperately to make himself the center of attention in a crowd of 1500 people? Of course we don’t. And sadly, Modest Mouse are (fittingly) like Charles Bukowski for rock dudes — well-spoken but biting — so these kinds of fans, who show up and try to out-asshole everyone in the room, are an unnecessary evil that comes with seeing Modest Mouse shows.

Tonight’s crowd didn’t have too many of these bros, although, amusingly the jackasses who pushed their way in front of us were all wearing baseball hats.  There is a lot of screaming along with Modest Mouse, and fair enough, that’s how the songs go.  But overall, I wasn’t terribly annoyed by the crowd this time.  And the two people in front of me were clearly huge fans of the album and were cool about it! (more…)

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The Black Heart Procession (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, November 20, 2024) [MODEST MOUSE]

Posted in Modest Mouse, Philadelphia, PA, The Black Heart Procession, The Met Philadelphia on November 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 20, 2024] The Black Heart Procession

The opening act for this show wasn’t announced until a few days before the show.  But The Black Heart Procession had been opening all the other shows so I assumed it would be them.

I had never heard of them and assumed that they were some new young band.  And I was completely wrong.  The band was formed in 1997 (!) by Pall Jenkins who has played with a bunch of different bands and even did work with Isaac Brock in Ugly Casanova.  He and Tobias Nathaniel (these two are the main force of the band) create soundtrack music in the way Tindersticks make soundtrack music.  The big difference is that Black Heart Procession is very spare.  For most songs it is Nathaniel on keys and Jenkins on guitar.  With an unintroduced drummer playing along.

The songs are mostly slow with lots of reverb on the guitar.  

And Jenkins’ voice.  When he came out he was wearing a suit jacket and sunglasses.  He looked older than he probably is (although he’s obviously not a young guy) and he belted out songs so full of remorse that, despite the quietness of the song, no one talked through the weird opening song.  Which, I have to emphasize, FEATURED A MUSICAL SAW! (more…)

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Air: Moon Safari tour / two DJs Rachel Aiello and Veronica Vasicka (The Met Philadelphia, PA, October 17, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Air, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on October 17, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: October 17, 2024] Air

When Air announced their Moon Safari tour, my first thought was, are Air still together?  The answer to that is, I guess so.  They haven’t released any music since 2012, but I’m not sure if they ever “broke up.”

But that doesn’t matter because they were coming to the States to play Moon Safari, a great album.

And then I saw how much the tickets were.  Astronomical!  Then I listened to Moon Safari again (which I hadn’t done in a long time) and decided I didn’t need to see this.

All accounts say the show was amazing, but that’s okay.  (more…)

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An evening with PJ Harvey (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, October 13, 2024)

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, PJ Harvey, The Met Philadelphia on October 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 13, 2024] An evening with PJ Harvey

In the 1990s PJ Harvey was one of my favorite musicians.  Her first few albums are just amazing.

Over the years, she has morphed away from that sound and into a very different style.  Critics seem to like it, but I’m not as big of a fan.

A review from WXPN notes:

PJ Harvey and her band opened the evening with a front-to-back performance of the new record.

An album that I didn’t think that much of.  The review continues

If woodsy, Celtic-folk PJ Harvey is not your speed, admittedly you would’ve struggled through the first half of the set, but punk and desert metal-lite PJ were there for you in the end.

They played 6 out of 25 songs that I would have wanted to hear, so it wouldn’t have been the most exciting show for me.  The strange thing is that if I had heard PJ Harvey now (woodsy, Celtic-folk) I would very probably enjoy her music.  But because she used to do something I loved, it’s hard to enjoy the new style.

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Michael Kiwanuka (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 29, 2024)

Posted in Brittany Howard, Michael Kiwanuka, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia, Yasmin Williams on October 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 29, 2024] Michael Kiwanuka

Michael Kiwanuka’s previous album Kiwanuka was a slow burning joy for me. I liked every song that I heard from it even though I never actively listened to it. And then I bought it and liked it even more.

I knew I wanted to see him live (he appears in the film Yesterday as himself and was suitably cool in it).

So when this tour was announced I grabbed a ticket right away.  Since it was a double bill, I wasn’t sure who was going on first.  In my head, Brittany Howard is a bigger draw than Michael Kiwanuka, but what do I know.

If nothing else I thought that maybe the two artists would share maybe the same stage set, maybe even the same musicians.  I mean, can you imagine if they had the same backing band and Brittany left and then Michael came out with no changes at all?  That would be wild!

And implausible of course.  Brittany set was taken down, Michael’s was put up and then his band came out. (more…)

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Brittany Howard (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 29, 2024) [MICHAEL KIWANUKA]

Posted in Brittany Howard, Michael Kiwanuka, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia, Yasmin Williams on September 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 29, 2024] Brittany Howard

I was really excited to see Michael Kiwanuka but less so about Brittany Howard (although I see that in 2020 I said I was excited to see her live).  Actually I loved her Tiny Desk Concert back in 2020, so I guess the thing was I didn’t really like Alabama Shakes because I don’t really like blues rock.  Although I just realized that they sing Don’t Wanna Fight which I really like, so I guess I’m just dumb.

So I clearly should have been more excited to see her live.  But maybe it’s better that I wasn’t because SHE BLEW ME AWAY!

From the moment she walked on looking like a sparkling goddess, she commanded the room.

To be honest I’m surprised she wasn’t the headliner of this two person tour–I guess maybe they are coheadlining, but still).  The crowd around me went crazy for her–the two women near me were yelping and screaming (I assume they were both pretty drunk).

Howard’s band was fantastic.  She had four musicians behind her, a guitarist next to her and two backing vocalists on her side.  Her drummer Nate Smith was outstanding–he even had a (very brief) drum solo.  I don’t know any of her songs really (except Stay High) so I don’t know the setlist.  But wow, what a voice–so commanding–and what a range.  So impressive.  I also had no idea she played guitar.  There were two other guitarists, so she didn’t play all the time.  Mostly, she played rhythm, but occasionally she played louder parts–with a great tone on that old guitar.  And then every once in a while, she played a guitar solo and totally killed it.  I didn’t know she soloed. but she was really impressive at that too. (more…)

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Yasmin Williams (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 29, 2024) [MICHAEL KIWANUKA]

Posted in Brittany Howard, Michael Kiwanuka, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia, Yasmin Williams on September 29, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 29, 2024] Yasmin Williams

I hadn’t heard of Yasmin Williams before this show.  But as soon as I watched a video of her, I knew I wanted to see her set.  (Any video will do, definitely check her out).

My tickets said that the show would start at 7:30.  I arrived a little later than I intended, but was still there by around 7:20.  It took a while to get into the venue and by the time I got close to the stage (it wasn’t very crowded yet), Yasmin finished a song and announced her last song!

I don’t know what time she actually went on (a little after 7, I guess) so I only had the chance to watch one of her songs.

It was wild fingerpicked guitar (she lays the guitar on her lap and has a kalimba at the end of it as well.  So much fun to watch.  I’m not sure I would simply listen to her–although her song was lovely.  I don’t really listen to solo acoustic guitar music.  But I would absolutely see her live any time.

No setlist available.

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Sigur Rós performing with Wordless Music Orchestra (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 23, 2024)

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Sigur Rós, The Met Philadelphia on September 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 23, 2024] Sigur Rós performing with Wordless Music Orchestra

The first time I saw Sigur Rós back in 2001 is still one of the most memorable and moving shows I’ve ever been to.  So it’s shocking to be that I’ve only seen them four times in total.

When they announced  this Wordless Orchestra tour last year I wanted to go, but decided it wasn’t worth going into Manhattan (and paying the huge ticket prices).  So I assumed I’d miss this show.  Then they announced a Philly show.

I bought cheap seats far from the stage thinking that it was an orchestra, what was there to really look at.  And it was the right choice aside from the horrible people sitting near us.  I’m just going to get this out of the way.  This couple a few seats down from us talked through the whole show.  Sometimes whispering but always loud enough that you could hear her.  I even know she felt better after going to the bathroom.  I mean, for fucks sake.

But enough, focus on the greatness of  the show. (more…)

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