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Archive for the ‘The Met Philadelphia’ Category

Rainbow Kitten Surprise / Indigo de Souza (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, October 10, 2023) [CANCELLED]

Posted in Indigo De Souza, Philadelphia, PA, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, The Met Philadelphia on October 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[CANCELLED: October 10, 2023] Rainbow Kitten Surprise / Indigo de Souza

I really liked the couple of Rainbow Kitten Surpirse songs I’ve heard.  I actually thought they might be even weirder than they were with a name like that.  I’m not sure if I wanted to see them live or not, but I kept this on my radar. Especially since Indigo de Souza was announced as the opener.

I have been trying to see Indigo de Souza for what seems like years.   My first attempt was in Jan 2022.  But there were several cancelled shows (including one opening slot that I couldn’t make).  And then finally, her major headlining show in the area and I was unavailable that night.

So, that might have made me want to go to this show.  But that’s irrelevant because on May 23rd, they cancelled the entire Fall tour.

The band announced Tuesday night in a Twitter thread that the tour will be canceled due to a medical crisis, saying they will “turn off the lights for now.”

“We do not make this decision lightly, and we know that it will result in a lot of disappointment and concern, but we are a family, and we know that the most important thing we can do right now is to help get everyone healthy,” the thread said.

While the band did not put a timeline on its return, they did say they will make their comeback when their friend and fellow bandmate is in good health. The band said it hopes to return in full glory and pick up where it left off.

No word on how anyone is, but at the time, they stated

“One of our members is in a medical crisis. To make sure they have the time to get the proper treatment, we have decided to take down the entire year of shows.”

Hope the person is okay.

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Barenaked Ladies / Del Amitri / Five for Fighting (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, July 19, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Del Amitri, Five for Fighting, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on July 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: July 19, 2023] Barenaked Ladies / Five for Fighting / Del Amitri

We haven’t seen Barenaked Ladies since 2017 (2016 was the last time on one of these Last Summer on Earth tours).

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.  Mostly because they play the same big hits all the time.  I mean, you can’t be BNL and not play those songs, but it would be fun if they didn’t.

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).  Their new setlist mixes in a few different songs, so maybe if next year’s co-headliners are good, I’ll grab tickets.

What was such a bummer for me this time is I actually want to see Semisonic (everybody knows that one song, but they have albums worth of great stuff).  But instead they were replaced on this leg of the tour by Five for Fighting.

I had heard of Five for Fighting and I know his song “Superman” although I’m getting it mixed up with another one I’m sure.  I had no idea that it was a one-person operation

Vladimir John Ondrasik III, also known as by his stage name Five for Fighting, is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. He is best known for his piano-based soft rock sentimental ballads.

I also didn’t know they were known for their soft rock ballads. Ew.

I had of course known of Del Amitri, their hit “Roll with Me” is still played from time to time.  Although I had no idea they were Scottish.  I would have told you they were broken up, but I see they reunited in 2013 and again in 2018.  They might have been interesting to see but not worth dragging out for this tour.

Next year guys, find bands that I actually want to see!

 

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Pixies (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, June 9, 2023)

Posted in Bully, Franz Ferdinand, Philadelphia, PA, Pixies, The Met Philadelphia on June 13, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 9, 2023] Pixies

I saw Pixies in 1989 and assumed I’d never see them again.  Then they reunited and started making new music.  So I saw them in 2017 and they were great.  Then I saw them the following year when they opened for Weezer (!).

That second show was shorter but they played a couple of songs that I hadn’t heard them play before and that was awesome.  I assumed I’d never need to see them again.

And now, five years later (holy cow), they were doing a headlining tour for a new album that I hadn’t listened to.  I wasn’t going to go until I saw that the two opening acts were bands I really wanted to see.

Bully is a great young band with a massive 90’s alt rock sound and Franz Ferdinand are a great 2000’s band who has been touring a lot lately but whom I missed when they were in town last time.  So I mean, Pixies are great and that’s cool, but that’s not who I was actually there to see.

In the six years since I last saw them headline, not a lot has changed.  They play a ton of songs, they don’t talk between songs and they sound fantastic.  The one difference was that they really seemed to be having fun up there.  Not that they didn’t before, but they had a few moments of levity on stage this time. Like when they messed up a song and were all smiles about it. (more…)

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Franz Ferdinand (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, June 9, 2023) [PIXIES]

Posted in Bully, Franz Ferdinand, Philadelphia, PA, Pixies, The Met Philadelphia on June 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 9, 2023] Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand played a Greatest Hits show in August of 2022.  I wanted to go but it was the same night as Elvis Costello’s show–and I promised myself I’d see him no matter what (shame his show was so disappointing).

So when Franz Ferdinand was announced as an opening act for Pixies I grabbed a ticket right away.  I wouldn’t have gotten one if I didn’t like the headliners or anything, but hey, Pixies are great, so it was a double win.

It turns out that for this show they played an hour.  And for the greatest hits show they played for an hour and twenty minutes, so I really did get a double win.

For some reason I forgot that Franz Ferdinand were Scottish.  So that was a fun surprise.  As was Alex Kapranos’ energy and fun bouncing around the stage.  He was constantly jumping and getting himself in photographable poses.   It was a blast. (more…)

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Bully (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, June 9, 2023) [PIXIES]

Posted in Bully, Franz Ferdinand, Philadelphia, PA, Pixies, The Met Philadelphia on June 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 9, 2023] Bully

I was excited for both opening bands at this show.  I had wanted to see Bully back in 2021 at Underground Arts.

But I had a ticket to see Baroness that night and couldn’t make it.  That show looks like it was great.  She played around twenty songs from throughout her catalog.  I don’t know if she had a band or was solo.

For this show, my first time seeing her, she had a band.  And they sounded great.  Singer/guitarist/really everything that is Bully, Alicia Bognanno, was right in front of us.  Wesley Mitchell was on drums right behind her.  Nick Byrd was on bass on my right.  And a guitar player and backing vocalist was on my left.  I never caught her name but she was an essential component to the sound.

So they played eight songs, all from the new album.  I see that at other shows she threw in a couple of older songs.  But whatever.  I like her sound and her voice and while I didn’t know that many of the songs, they sounded great and Bognanno’s intensity is wonderful. (more…)

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Dead Can Dance : A Celebration Life & Works (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, April 22, 2023) [CANCELLED]

Posted in Cancelled, Dead Can Dance, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on April 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[CANCELLED: April 22, 2023] Dead Can Dance 

Dead Can Dance plan a U.S tour (their first in a long time) in 2020. It was postponed to 2021 an ultimately cancelled.

I was pretty happy when they announced another attempt.  And so, in June of 2022, a mere ten months before the show, I bought myself a ticket.

Then on September 6, 2022 we received notice that this concert was going to be cancelled as well.  That’s 7 months notice.

“With sadness and regret we have to cancel the upcoming live concerts in Europe and North America due to health reasons,” the band wrote in a statement. “Thank you to our loyal fans for your support. Please contact point of purchase for refunds.” No further details have been offered at this time.

The 2023 trek was set to be their first tour through North America in a decade.

There’s no word from the band since then.  I wonder if everything is okay there.

 

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Skinny Puppy (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, April 18, 2023)

Posted in Lead Into Gold, Philadelphia, PA, Skinny Puppy, The Met Philadelphia on April 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 18, 2023] Skinny Puppy

I saw Skinny Puppy with my friend Garry back in 1988–on Halloween.  Thirty-four and a half years later and I saw them again on their Final Tour.  It would have been great to see them with him, but he was in Florida at the time, so that made it tough.  He did see the a few weeks ago though, so it’s almost like we saw the show together (except that his setlist was so much better than ours).

Turns out lead singer Oghr had been ill the night before and had to miss the Pittsburgh show.  He was fine for our show, although I assume ours was several songs shorter because of it.

So I admit to being something of a “fake fan” as my daughter says.  I liked them a lot back in the day, but haven’t really listened to them in twenty-five years.  I haven’t listened to much of any of their newer stuff at all.  But Garry told me that this was something of a greatest hits show.

The show didn’t really go very well for me in large part because of the audience.

The guy in front of me who had been into Lead Into Gold, suddenly turned into a full-on dancing arms in the air lunatic, making it impossible to stand behind him.  About half way in, some guy decided he was going to start slam dancing and managed to smash as hard as he could into everyone (including me) around him.  I  thought a fight might break out.  There were several girls who were talking at full volume and late in the show a very drunk guy started talking to me about how Oghr had been throwing up in Pittsburgh the night before. (more…)

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Lead Into Gold (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, April 18, 2023) [SKINNY PUPPY]

Posted in Lead Into Gold, Philadelphia, PA, Skinny Puppy, The Met Philadelphia on April 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 18, 2023] Lead Into Gold

I figured that Skinny Puppy would have an interesting opening band. I vaguely remembered hearing of Lead Into Gold.  When they projected the logo on a screen at one point it looked very familiar.

I see that they put out an album in 1990 so I might have heard a song (apparently “Faster Than Light”), but I don’t really recall.

I also had no idea that I was in the presence of Industrial Royalty, as Paul Barker himself is Lead Into Gold.  Barker was known as Hermes Pan and was the engineer and producer for Ministry as well as many other bands.

When the duo came out on stage, I wasn’t even sure who was the main person because the guy with the keytar, yes, keytar, was wearing a shimmery gold pajama-looking suit.  But he stepped aside as Barker played the gadget that the gold man was standing in front of to make an interesting industrial instrumental. (more…)

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Modest Mouse (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, December 15, 2022)

Posted in Mattress, Modest Mouse, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia on December 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: December 15, 2022] Modest Mouse 

Last year, Modest Mouse was the first concert I saw after the pandemic. This year, Modest Mouse was the last concert I’ll see in 2022 (nothing dramatic about that, I just don’t have any more shows lined up until next year).

As I’ve said before, I wasn’t planning to see them.  In fact, I felt like I had seen them even more recently than last year.  But this was a special tour–the 25th anniversary tour of their album The Lonesome Crowded West, with a really stripped down band.  Last time I saw them, there were six people on stage (there were like nine the previous show).  This time it’s just a four piece: Isaac Brock and co-founder Jeremiah Green joined by (regular) bassist Russell Higbee and guitarist Simon O’Connor who played last time I saw them.

This meant a stripped down, really rocking show.  Which befits the far more stripped down and rocking sound of this earlier album. 

Normally I’m all about seeing the opening band.  But I’ve had a few liberating experiences lately where i have deliberately blown off the opening band and been pleased with the decision.  I hadn’t heard of the band Mattress.  I looked them up before the show and learned that Mattress is the project of Rex Marshall.  And that the act is pretty much Marshall wearing a gold lame suit and acting like an abrasive lounge singer.

I listened to a song online and decided that I did not need to stand through that.  Sidenote:  It reminded me a lot of Wetface the weird, is-it-a-joke band who opened for Built to Spill this summer.  I sat through that twice and consider that my penance.  (incidentally, I often think of Built to Spill and Modest Mouse in the same breath for some reason, so it’s interesting that they would have similar bands on this year’s tour).

So that mean I got to the Fillmore around 8:45.  The evening happened to be one of the rainiest nights in recent memory.  It rained hard.  All day.  I very much considered not going to this show because of the weather.  But I decided to go and drove through the terrible lashing rain.  I kinda thought that the rain might keep others away and, if I was arriving late, maybe I could get free parking at the the Fillmore lot.  Indeed no.  In fact, it was full.  So I went past the lot and immediately got lost in the bowels of the roads beneath 95.  Holy cow.  I drove for about 8 minutes in crazy rain knowing where I was but having not idea where I actually was.  I finally found my way to the casino for parking and hurries across to the venue only to find a lineup! (more…)

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Suede (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, November 19, 2022)

Posted in Manic Street Preachers, Philadelphia, PA, Suede, The London Suede, The Met Philadelphia on November 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 19, 2022] Suede

When this tour was announced I practically screamed with delight.  It was listed as a dual headlining show with the bands switching who would play first.  It just happened that we had Suede as the second band and I feel that, given how exciting Suede was, we saw them in the right order.

The first Suede album (or The London Suede, if you must) is one of my favorite albums of all time.  It’s glammy and trashy and catchy and wonderful.  Brett Anderson’s voice is unique and magnificent and Bernard Butler’s guitar work was like nothing else at the time.  When Butler left during the recording of their next album, it seemed like curtains for the band, but young guitarist Richard Oates stepped in and is a force unto himself.  I still think of him as the new guy, even though he’s been in the band for over twenty years.

Suede broke up in 2003 and I guess I lost touch with them.  But they reunited in 2010 and have been putting out new albums ever since.  Although I wasn’t really aware of these records–they really fell off my radar.  I had never seen Suede live (and they haven’t toured the States in something like twenty-five years).  I looked at their European shows and saw that they were playing a lot of songs from the new album.  But I hoped that they would throw a bone for the U.S. fans and play some oldies too.

The band came out and set up their first song, a lengthy instrumental opening.  And then Brett Anderson slowly marched out.  He shuffled and danced and was surprisingly goofy.  I evidently didn’t know anything about Suede’s live show, because I wasn’t expecting anything like the way Anderson bounced around, crawled on the floor, and, yes, climbed into the audience and sang with us.  It was awesome. (more…)

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