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Archive for the ‘The Met Philadelphia’ Category

Dean Hebscher (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 1, 2022) [KURTIS CONNER]

Posted in Comedians, Danny Gonzalez, Dean Hebscher, Drew Gooden, Jacob Sharpe, Kurtis Conner, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on September 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 1, 2022] Dean Hebscher

My daughter (and apparently my son, too) loves Kurtis Conner.  They kept saying his name as if I had heard of him.  I had no idea who he was at all.  Turns out he is a YouTuber with a billion fans.

When he announced a tour, my daughter begged to go.  But most of the venues were far away.  Then he announced Philly and how could I say no?

We had seats in the high balcony–it didn’t seem like the kind of show you’d need to be super close for.  A short time before the show, my daughter’s friend was able to get a seat in the same row.  So I drove them both and then they sat together and I sat next to a group of twenty-something girls–not awkward at all.

After the Jacob Sharpe set, we didn’t have to wait long for Dean Hebscher to come out.  That’s one thing that comedians have over bands–no need for set up time.

So it turns out that my daughter tells me that Jacob Sharpe is cool but Dean Hebscher is not.  She wished we had missed Hebscher’s set.  (According to Conner, Sharpe and Hebscher are his best friends).

Hebscher’s set was a little different.  He talked about growing up in rural Canada.  He talked about how his school had a “kick the ginger day” (there was one red-haired kid in school).  He pointed out that it wasn’t school sanctioned (that’s pretty funny) but everyone knew about it through facebook.  I did rather enjoy when the poor ginger kid got his revenge (also through facebook).

I think I enjoyed the set up of his jokes more than the actual jokes themselves.  I enjoyed when he talked about being a camp councellor when he was like 16–barely a few years older than the kids he was supposed to watch.  But he got bogged down with when the kids found the jets in the pool stimulating.  In act I felt lik e alot of his jokes got bogged down in a kind of sexual trajectory that he mined for too long.

I did rather enjoy an absurd story about when he was young and waiting to get into a club.  He was on a long line and farted essentially on the girl behind him.  The line was really close and she was knocked back by the horrible smell.  She spent the whole time that they were waiting to get into the club announcing that this guy in front of her had farted on her.  There was a nice payoff later too.

These jokes were clearly polished but they felt very anecdotal, like he was thinking of details as he went along.  For better or worse.

I liked his set but not nearly as much as the other two.

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Jacob Sharpe (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, September 1, 2022) [KURTIS CONNER]

Posted in Danny Gonzalez, Dean Hebscher, Drew Gooden, Jacob Sharpe, Kurtis Conner, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on September 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 19, 2022] Jacob Sharpe

My daughter (and apparently my son, too) loves Kurtis Conner.  They kept saying his name as if I had heard of him.  I had no idea who he was at all.  Turns out he is a YouTuber with a billion fans.

When he announced a tour, my daughter begged to go.  But most of the venues were far away.  Then he announced Philly and how could I say no?

We had seats in the high balcony–it didn’t seem like the kind of show you’d need to be super close for.  A short time before the show, my daughter’s friend was able to get a seat in the same row.  So I drove them both and then they sat together and I sat next to a group of twenty-something girls–not awkward at all.

We wound up leaving later than I wanted to, and as we got to the exit, it turned out that President Biden had been in Philly and the exit was blocked off!  Traffic was terrible and I wasn’t sure how we were going to go around to a new exit when the police just pulled away and let us use the exit.  So our timing was actually perfect–any earlier and I’d be driving around who knows where.

But we stilled missed much of Jacob Sharpe’s set. (more…)

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The Decemberists : Arise from the Bunkers Tour (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, August 25, 2022)

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, The Decemberists, The Met Philadelphia on August 26, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 25, 2022] The Decemberists

The Decemberists are one of our favorite bands and yet we have seen them very few times.  We were supposed to see them on their last tour but they cancelled our show because Colin lost his voice.

Then last year’s show was postponed for COVID.

Finally it was rescheduled.

We were on the left side of the stage, in front of Jenny Conlee.  I had a great view of her Leslie cabinet and speaker and it was really neat watching it spin faster and faster as the sound got bigger and wilder. (more…)

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Jake Xerxes Fussell (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, August 25, 2022) [THE DECEMBERISTS]

Posted in Brigid Mae Power, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Philadelphia, PA, Suede, The Decemberists, The Met Philadelphia on August 25, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 25, 2022] Jake Xerxes Fussell

The Decemberists are one of our favorite bands and yet we have seen them very few times.  We were supposed to see them on their last tour but they cancelled our show because Colin lost his voice.

Then last year’s show was postponed for COVID.

Finally it was rescheduled.  Originally the support was from Brigid Mae Power who I don’t know.  But at some point she backed out and the new support came from Jake Xerxes Fussell who I also had never heard of.

For whatever reason, we arrived pretty late and decided to get merch since the line was short. We walked in half way through Fussell’s set.  It was just him and his electric guitar

So, Jake Xerxes Fussell is a guitarist who sings traditional folk songs.  No, that’s not exactly right.  He songs untraditional folks songs–songs that were literally sung by the folk, most of which were never recorded until a chronicler like Folkways came along.

The first song we heard was also the first song he played on his recent Tiny Desk Concert and this is how they described it:

Jake Xerxes Fussell’s Tiny Desk (home) concert opens with the eyebrow raising lyric, “I’ve got fresh fish this morning, ladies. They are gilded with gold and you may find a diamond in their mouths.” It was originally sung by a fishmonger in Florida and captured in a field recording. Coming from Fussell, it sounds as lived-in as his worn Telecaster looks. It’s immediate, but somehow out-of-time. Fussell found the tune at the Library of Congress, part of his process of collecting and curating traditional, public domain folk songs, and reinterpreting them through his own lens.

His voice is deep and old-sounding.  He fills these songs with the appropriate feeling that the original singer intended.   His guitar playing was quite good as well.

He won over the audience pretty easily, too.   If I had been there to see him or, more importantly, if I wasn’t super excited for The Decemberists, I would have enjoyed his set a lot more.  As it was I enjoyed the set quite a bit, but I really wanted to hear the main band.

I’m not sure I’d listen to his records, but I would enjoy seeing him live.

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Beach House (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, July 23, 2022)

Posted in Beach House, Mary Lattimore, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on July 24, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 23, 2022] Beach House

I’ve been a fan of Beach House for a long time. I wasn’t sure if they were a band I wanted to see live, but then it turned out that everyone in my family was enjoying them independently of me.

Both of my kids had been listening to a few of their songs and I knew that S. liked the songs she’d heard too.  So I thought it would be fun for us all to go see them live.

I got us GA tickets because the closest seated tickets were kind of crappy.  I suppose seated would have been fine because the Beach House show was pretty much designed for you to not really see the stage very well.

The lighting was such that it had a presence in the room.  You could practically feel the weight of the colors as they fell from the stage.  The three band members were placed in a row across the stage.  with Alex Scally on the left playing guitar, Victoria Legrand in the center on keys and James Barone on drums on the right.  The band was backlit for the entire show so that they were in shadow and silhouette.  I am fairly certain I never saw any of their three faces all nights.

Whether it was white lights shining down from the ceiling, a wall of stars on a deep blue background, or waving searchlights through dense fog, the atmosphere changed with every song.  The details were different but the overall vibe remained one of a kind of smothering warmth almost like a weighted blanket.  (more…)

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Mary Lattimore (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, July 23, 2022) [BEACH HOUSE]

Posted in Beach House, Kurt Vile, Mary Lattimore, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on July 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 23, 2022] Mary Lattimore

I’ve been a fan of Beach House for a long time.  When  they announced the opening bands, I was pretty psyched that we were getting Mary Lattimore (I don’t know any of the other artists).

I saw Mary Lattimore open for Parquet Courts about four years ago and I was blown away by her amazing harp playing.

Mary Lattimore is kind of the go-to harpist for rock albums.  She has played on all kinds of albums including two from Philly local Kurt Vile (Smoke Ring For My Halo & Wakin on a Pretty Daze).

The show wasn’t very crowded yet and I told my family that I wanted to get pretty close to the stage for this set.  So I moved in and had a really nice view of Mary’s hands as she played.

Mary’s songs are instrumental and they are beautiful, but also sad and thoughtful.  She had videos projected behind her (they were weird and looping and grainy).

She played about five songs, giving a brief introduction to each one.  She told us that she wrote “For Scott Kelly, Returned to Earth” for astronaut Scott Kelly and even sent him a copy, which he listened to in space, which is pretty wild.

One thing I love about Mary is that she plays all parts of her harp.  She taps the side and makes percussive sounds.  She also has an effects pedal and is able to morph and loop the sounds that she makes.  Plus, she uses all of the notes.  Even the tiny high notes.  And the low low notes (those were remarkably deep).

After several songs she announced a guest.  A young girl named Delphine came out.  She sat at her small harp with incredible form.  Then she and Mary played a duet of Mary’s “Wawa by the Ocean.”  It was lovely and adorable.  And once you got over how adorable it was you realized how good Delphine was.

Then Mary said that Delphine’s father was going to come out and do a song with her.  And Delphine’s father was Kurt Vile!

What a surprise.  I mean, maybe not 100% surprise as Kurt does tend to make a random appearance from time to time, but we never seem to get anything like that at our shows.  So he sat there with his guitar and they played “Ghost Town” the Kurt Vile song.

We had just seen Kurt so this was like a really delayed encore and that was a lot of fun too.

Overall, I feel like the audience could have been a little more respectful of the harp, but whatever, the harp is a hard sell for a rock crowd.

I’m just glad I got to see her again.

(sort of setlist)

  1. The Warm Shoulder
  2. For Scott Kelly, Returned to Earth
  3. Otis Walks Into the Woods
  4. It Feels Like Floating
  5. Wawa by the Ocean (with Delphine Vile)
  6. Ghost Town (with Kurt Vile}

 

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Jonah Yano (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, July 22, 2022) [CLAIRO]

Posted in Arlo Parks, Clairo, Jonah Yano, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on July 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 22, 2022] Jonah Yano

Clairo’s Sling tour with Arlo Parks was supposed to happen at the Fillmore on February 26 2022.  It had been sold out for a long time.  I had actually been interested in going just to see Arlo Parks.  But by the time my daughter said she wanted to go to see Clairo, it was long sold out. 

I followed along because something happened to the show the night before.  And then the Philly show was was postponed on that day with almost no warning.

There were comments on Facebook like 

If my daughter hadn’t looked at IG we wouldn’t have known. We were ready to hit the road. Why are we not receiving communication via email/ticketmaster

And on reddit:

So sad i drove 6 hours to philly and have been waiting

Yikes.

Apparently it was a COVID scare, but the communication was terrible.  However, the rescheduled date was a gain for me because tickets immediately went on sale and I snatched up 2 at 7PM that evening.

Sadly for me, Arlo Parks would not be joining her.  The new opening act was Jonah Yano whom I had never heard of. (more…)

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Clairo (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, July 22, 2022)

Posted in Arlo Parks, Clairo, Jonah Yano, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on July 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 22, 2022] Clairo

Clairo’s Sling tour with Arlo Parks was supposed to happen at the Fillmore on February 26 2022.  It had been sold out for a long time.  I had actually been interested in going just to see Arlo Parks.  But by the time my daughter said she wanted to go to see Clairo, it was long sold out. 

I followed along because something happened to the show the night before.  And then the Philly show was was postponed on that day with almost no warning.

Apparently it was a COVID scare, but the communication was terrible and people didn’t hear until minutes before the show was supposed to start.  However, the rescheduled date was a gain for me because tickets immediately went on sale and I snatched up 2 at 7PM that evening.

My daughter has the misfortune (or good taste, I guess) to like popular people.  So this show was sold out and packed. (more…)

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Barenaked Ladies / Toad the Wet Sprocket / Gin Blossoms (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, July 12, 2022) [rescheduled date] [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Coronavirus, Gin Blossoms, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, The Met Philadelphia, Toad the Wet Sprocket on July 12, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: July 12, 2022] Barenaked Ladies / Toad the Wet Sprocket / Gin Blossoms [rescheduled from July 14, 2020 and July 13, 2021]

I haven’t seen Barenaked Ladies in a while.  They always put on a good show, although i feel like I’ve enjoyed the last few a little bit less than the previous ones.

I always consider going to their Last Summer on Earth tours, but i typically dislike the other bands that are playing with them–usually 90s bands that I assumed were broken up. Which doesn’t really speak all that well of BNL (unless it speaks well of them trying to boost old bands).

I never liked Gin Blossoms.

I liked Toad the Wet Sprocket for their name (which comes from Monty Python) but couldn’t tell you a single song they sang.

So, it was very unlikley that I was going to this one.  And I didn’t.

~~~~~~

As recent as mid-May this concert was still listed as happening in 2021, but when you clicked to buy tickets, the ticket pages said 2022.

I know that the whole “Last Summer on Earth” thing is a joke, but it’s getting a little creepy now.

I was kind of hoping they’d switch opening bands by now but, instead of this show, I think I’ll be seeing them at the Festival of Ballooning on July 24th instead.

~~~~

I have seen Barenaked Ladies almost more than any other band.  I’ve seen them from way back in the early days to a few times in the last few years.  They are reliably solid live (if not a bit predictable with their setlists).

We didn’t see them for last year’s “Last Summer on Earth” tour.  They have been using that name for the last several years, it may be time to think of a new name, especially given the current state of the world.  I wasn’t planning on going to this show mostly because I don’t really like the opening acts.  And, honestly, unless the show was something special and different, it would entirely depend on the opening acts whether I went or not. Maybe they’ll mix them up for next year.

Toad the Wet Sprocket got their name from a Monty Python skit which immediately made me like them.  I think I ha a cassette of their first album, maybe.  I haven’t really thought of them in years and remember them being kind of inoffensive.  Oh, wait, they had a pretty big hit with “All I Want,” a sweet slightly alt folk rock song.  I’ll bet there would be lots of lighters up for that song.

I really hated Gin Blossoms back in the 90s.  They were so overplayed and hardly qualified as alternative or college rock, but they were lumped in that category.  They had a number of songs that I probably know all the words to even though I never listened to them on purpose.

With a lineup change I’d consider seeing them next summer, especially if they changed the name of the tour.

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Kraftwerk 3-D (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, June 18, 2022)

Posted in Kraftwerk, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on June 18, 2022| 1 Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 18, 2022] Kraftwerk 3-D [rescheduled after July 30, 2020 cancellation]

Kraftwerk are one of the most influential bands of all time–and most people don’t know them.  They created electronic music and have been sampled hundreds of times.

I never even considered that I would see them live.  And then they announced this 3-D tour celebrating their 50th anniversary!

My understanding of their live shows was that the four members would stand on stage in front of these tint platforms and play their electronic music and that was pretty much it.  So the 3-D component sounded like an interesting addition.

Normally I wouldn’t want to see a band that wasn’t full of original members. Kraftwerk really only has one–Ralf Hütter is the only guy still in the band from the beginning.  Of the other three, Fritz Hilpert has been on board since 1987, Henning Schmitz since 1991 and Falk Grieffenhagen since 2012.  Florian Schneider another co-founder just died in 2020, but he had left the band twelve years ago.  So while they aren’t original guys, the four have been together long enough to count as Kraftwerk for sure.

I was bummed when the whole tour was cancelled for COVID.  But here it was, two years later (52nd anniversary) rescheduled and ready to go–no doubt unchanged in any way. (more…)

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