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Archive for the ‘The Met Philadelphia’ Category

[ATTENDED: April 17, 2024] Girl in Red / Momma

My daughter and I saw Girl in Red twice in 2022.  Her live show is a ton of fun and I was really impressed with how much she changed it over the few months between our shows.  Her new album is all about how she’s “back.”  This puzzled me a bit as she hadn’t been “gone” for very long.  But if you’re online all the time, two years is an eternity.

As soon as this show was announced I bought us tickets.  This venue was much bigger then the one we saw her in and her stage show expanded to fit it.

There was a giant video screen with cool visuals, there were steps and interestingly designed elements.  There was a gigantic swivel light which actually became a projection screen for a song.  And during one of the songs a part of the stage rose up and she was thirty feet above the stage.

She opened the set with the rocking title track.  She was a ton of fun as she ran back and forth across the stage.  Amazingly she was wearing a button shirt, sweater and suit jacket, and I was hot in shorts.   But her energy was infectious and the crowd was super psyched. (more…)

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[ATTENDED: April 17, 2024] Momma

As soon as Girl in Red announced these shows I grabbed a ticket for my daughter and I.

I was super excited that Momma was the opening band because their song “Speeding 72” is one of my favorite songs of the last couple of years.   I’ve heard it on the radio enough that I checked out their debut album and I love the whole thing.  They’ve got a 90’s alt rock (Veruca Salt) vibe that I’m thrilled to hear again.

I would normally have snuck closer to the stage, but my daughter’s not a close-up fan, so we hung at the back of the pit (which in The Met is not far at all).

I enjoyed Momma’s whole (but rather short) set.  They played four songs from Household Name, including Medicine, the show opener and Speeding 72.

They played two new songs which sounded like they are mixing their sound up a little going forward.   And they played a single from last year, which also sounded really familiar.

Center stage with newly died red hair was Allegra Weingarten, and off to her right was Etta Friedman.  They sang together perfectly in that close harmony, almost whispered vocals that are a little hard to hear (especially in a bigger venue).  But they sounded great.

The band is always described as just the two of them, but thee were two other people on stage too, a drummer and a bassist.  Toward the end of the set, Etta switched instruments with the bassist.

I was pleased that the crowd reacted positively to them (being an opening act can suck) and I’m glad I got to see them before they totally take off.

  1. Medicine
  2. Bang Bang §
  3. Lucky
  4. Ohio 2 [new]
  5. Rodeo [new]
  6. Motorbike
  7. Speeding 72

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[DID NOT ATTEND: February 6 & 7, 2024] Mitski / Tamino

Everyone in my family loves Mitski.  Unfortunately, everyone else in the world does too.   So when her shows are announced  they sell out in a second.  I thought that maybe seeing her at The Met would be better than elsewhere since we would be pretty much guaranteed to actually SEE her from any seat.

But of course the first show sold out in a second.  And the second added show also sold out in a second.  There was supposed to be some kind of anti-bot policy in place and I even got on a waiting list to be notified when non-scalped tickets were put back into the process.  And I was notified.  but every time I went to the site, I couldn’t find these tickets and there was no where to put my special code.  So much for that.

It’s now a week before these shows and there are more than 100 resale seats for eat show available.  Each of these seats is over $100, with some pushing $300.  I mean, that’s disgusting as there are definitely 100 people who would love to go to the shows.  But you’d be insane to pay that much

If the prices drop to something reasonable I might grab some, but I don’t really see that happening.

I knew the name Tamino from somewhere but wasn’t sure who they were.  Then I remembered he had played a Tiny Desk Concert several years ago.  I had written

Tamino is a 22 year-old singer of Belgian, Egyptian and Lebanese descent.

I didn’t know anything about him.  But the blurb mentions his voice.  As soon as I read Jeff Buckley and I heard it in the middle part of the first song I knew it was right on.

He sounds like he’d be an amazing opener for Mitski.  Sounds like a great night of music.

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[DID NOT ATTEND: November 15, 2023] Geddy Lee In Conversation

It’s crazy that I could have seen Jeff Tweedy and Geddy Lee read from their latest books and be interviewed in the same month.

Much like with Jeff, though, I didn’t really want to see Geddy read from his book.  I wasn’t even sure I cared enough about him anymore to read his book.  I mean, as a once die-hard Rush fan, I assume I knew everything about the band that I was devoted to.

But listening to the story in the video below, maybe I haven’t.

Also, I had no intention of going to New York to see this show, but seeing that Paul Rudd was his interviewer is pretty amazing.  I had no idea it would be in that format and how amazing would that have been?

I would have gone to the Philly event buy holy crap the tickets were so expensive!  So I decided to not bother.

The guest at the Met Philly was Pierre Robert who I have never heard of.  Apparently he is a DJ with WMMR, which I don’t really listen to.  So I guess he was probably a good choice for interviewing Geddy Lee.  Just not as interesting as Paul Rudd.

Here’s a clip from Philly, followed by a clip from New York

 

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[DID NOT ATTEND: November 9, 2023] My Morning Jacket / Madi Diaz

When Yeah Yeah Yeahs first came on the scene, I wasn’t impressed.  They were overhyped and didn’t really do anything that amazing.

I realize now that Karen O is a figurehead of incredible importance.  And, I found their new album to be really great.

When this show was announced I was willing to hand in my mea culpas and see them live.  But it was at the Met Philly which I have really come to dislike (the crowds always suck).  And, the GA tickets were crazy expensive and were only VIP or something.  So, the heck with that.

I’ll never know how great they are.

Although Markit Aneight did record the whole show (see below).

When I saw that Sasami was the opening act it reinvigorated my desire to go.  I am really intrigued by Sasami and would love to see her live.  I could have gone to see her last year but wound up going to see Grandson with my son instead (which was awesome).

She’s a singer songwriter playing around with all kinds of genres and defying all expectations.  I hope to see her someday.

 

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[DID NOT ATTEND: October 28, 2023] My Morning Jacket / Madi Diaz

I saw My Morning Jacket twice in 2015.  I’ve been wanting to see them again ever since but things always seemed to come up when they were nearby.

They played the Mann Center in 2021 but I didn’t feel like going there (that was probably a mistake).

When they announced this tour, I was psyched.  Two nights!  Then I saw that it was the same weekend as parents’ weekend at my son’s school.  Oof.

So we couldn’t go Saturday night as that was the big night of the weekend.  But Friday night looked like it was geared more toward alumni, so we were given permission to go the Friday show and to blow off this show. (more…)

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[ATTENDED: October 27, 2023] My Morning Jacket

When I told my son that we were going to see My Morning Jacket he said, “you’ve seen them a lot.”  And I kind of think that too.  But this was only our third time seeing them and the last two times were in 2015.

This tour was sort of announced as a twenty year anniversary tour of their album It Still Moves.  They were playing the album–but not at all locations.

And not at our location.  MMJ were playing two nights at the Met.  Ideally we would have gone to both.  But both nights were scheduled for the weekend of my son’s college Homecoming weekend, so we didn’t think we’d go to either.  But he was cool with us not visiting him on Friday so I grabbed tickets for this show.

Of course, seeing the setlists from both nights, I would have preferred the second night, but only slightly and only because they played a song that I really wanted to hear (“Wordless Chorus”) and that my wife really wanted to hear (“One Big Holiday”).

However, both nights were a fascinating mix of fan favorites and deep cuts.  So on our night I got to hear a couple other favorite songs, too.  So no complaints about our night at all.   Well, actually a couple of complaints about the losers who shared the box with us and who talked a lot through the show and who almost got into a fight at one point.  VIP indeed. (more…)

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[ATTENDED: October 27, 2023] Madi Diaz

Madi Diaz was on my list of artists to see live.  Although I couldn’t remember why exactly.  She’s opened for a few shows that I hadn’t gotten the chance to see yet, so I was excited to see her for this one.

This show turned out to be kind of weird for us for a number of reasons.  The first was that we arrived stupidly early.  For various reasons we left earlier than anticipated and there was no traffic on a Friday night (what?) so we had so much time to kill.  We thought about going for food, but we changed out minds.  And it’s good we did because on the way to The Met we noticed that there was a VIP entrance for box seats.

I happened to buy box seats for this show because they were cheaper than the resale GA tickets.  I also assumed that all MMJ tickets would be very expensive, although I later saw that there were some pretty cheap tickets left.  But I hate the back area of the Met, so I was happy to get these box seats.  So it turned out that the box seats are super swank.  You have a private (for about 14 boxes each with about 12 seats in them) bar and bathroom.  Dang.  As well as lots of room and, in our case, high chairs that allowed us to see over the people in front of our box (how psyched were we that the people in the front row didn’t stand, and we could sit for the whole show–normally not my thing, but I was pretty tired).

We could also move our chairs around which was nice.  Not as nice is that the people in our box were obnoxious.   I don’t know what t heir deal was but they talked and talked and talked.  I realize that it didn’t upset Madi Diaz at all, but it sucked to have her songs ruined by idiots talking.

Diaz came out on stage and for whatever reason she looked REALLY tall to me.  I never really got past what had to have been a trick of the light.  She played a song solo with acoustic guitar (“Man in Me”) and she had a lovely voice.

And then she brought out a drummer.  I didn’t catch his name and I can’t find it online, but holy cow did the addition of drums make these songs intense and magnificent.

Diaz switched between loud guitars and acoustic ones and the drums punctuated them perfectly.  Her voice was familiar (I wanted to say Phoebe Bridgers at her more powerful, but I’m not quite sure that’s right) and she had a great range.  On a couple of songs she raged and hit some great high notes.

I felt a little distanced from the show being in this weird box seat, so I’m not sure i fully appreciated Diaz’ set.  But she’s a powerhouse with some intense lyrics.

  1. Man in Me
  2. Woman in My Heart
  3. Everything Almost
  4. New Person, Old Place
  5. Do It Now
  6. Obsessive Thoughts
  7. Don’t Do Me Good
  8. Get to Know Me
  9. Think of Me
  10. Same Risk

 

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[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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[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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