Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Theatre of Living Arts’ Category

The Linda Lindas (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, October 4, 2026)

Posted in Deux Visages, KulfiGirls, Philadelphia, PA, The Linda Lindas, Theatre of Living Arts on October 6, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 4, 2026] The Linda Lindas 

Four years ago i got tickets to see The Linda Lindas with my daughter. The show was postponed for a week and she was unable to go  the following week.  So I went by myself and really enjoyed it.  I figured I’d either see them before they broke huge or before the broke up.  Well, I don’t know if they broke huge, but they have played some pretty big shows (they opened for Green Day after all).

The foursome are great musicians, they write rocking punk songs, and most important, they have a ton of fun.  When I saw them last time, drummer Mila de la Garza, was possibly 12 (she is 16 now).  The oldest member, Bela Salazar turned 21 last year.  Guitarist Lucia de la Garza is now 18 and bassist Eloise Wong is now 19.

In four years, the band has grown more sophisticated in their song writing and in their musical chops.  But they still have a lot of fun onstage.  Eloisa and Lucia jump on their gear boxes to get close to the crowd.

Last time they tried their best to get the young kids in the audience as close to the front as possible.  It wasn’t possible this time, I guess.  I felt bad for the little kids who arrived early but weren’t allowed to get near the barricade.  I couldn’t help but think they could have asked the parents to back off and let the kids up front.

When I saw them last time, they had just released their debut album, which is full of young punk songs.  I didn’t like the album enough to get it, but it was fun–and Racist Sexist Boy is a great song for young girls to hear.

Here it was four years later and they’ve all grown up.  They also had a fifth member on stage Adan Diaz, their friend, who played synth and percussion as needed (there’s some songs we can’t play by ourselves).

When the show first stared, their voices were too quiet, but that was fixed fairly quickly.  I hadn’t listened to the new album yet, but I was so impressed by these new songs.  They have added all kinds of sounds to their basket.  They opened with the first song from the new album which has cool synths, percussion and a funky bass line.

They followed it up with Oh, from their debut.  It was one of the few songs from that album that they played, and it sounded bigger.  By the end of Growing Up all four members had sung lead. (more…)

Read Full Post »

President / Showing Teeth / Cenobia (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, September 15, 2026) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Cenobia, Philadelphia, PA, President, Showing Teeth, Theatre of Living Arts on September 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 15, 2026] President / Showing Teeth / Cenobia

I had not heard of President until this show was announced. And I was surprised by the backstory

President are an anonymous English band formed in 2025, who blend metalcore with electronica.  The band had released no music and were unknown until they were announced to play at that year’s Download Festival, sparking speculation to their identity. Their frontman, the eponymous President, is described by Revolver as “silver-haired, wearing an eerie, not-quite-lifelike mask etched with deep wrinkles and radiating wax-figure unease.”  The band’s current lineup consists of The President (vocals), Heist (guitarist), Protest (bassist) and Vice (drummer).

Then I saw that this how was announced with a lot of hype and I considered getting a ticket until I read all the hatred sent at the band.  And when I listened to them I didn’t like them, so no ticket for me.  Of course, it sold out really quickly, so my attendance was not needed.

I was really surprised at how soft the vocals are (for the most part).  This is a pretty decent description from GhostCultMag

the verse creates space for emotive soulful vocals to lure you in for a big, anthemic, hooky chorus. To market this as metal, you also need to throw in some djent guitars with technical drumming. But don’t worry, to take the sting from this, we’re mixing in multiple layers of harmonized vocals with a dab of auto-tune as the icing on the cake.

They turned out to be the least interesting of these three bands (despite the masks).

Showing Teeth is another new band that I hadn’t heard of.  The confusing Wikipedia entry starts

Addison, known professionally as Showing Teeth, is an American vocalist, songwriter, and heavy metal musician, from Nashville, Tennessee. Her debut extended play, A Fate Worse Than Loneliness, released in September 2026.

The vocals are intense and varied–lots of screaming, a bit of growling and then some gorgeous high soaring vocals.  The music is electronically precise and really heavy/crazy.  I would love to see her live.

Cenobia is a solo artist from Sydney, Australia. She writes music for him. He will never hear it.

That’s what her bio says in every place she posts it.  I’m intrigued by her and fascinated to see that many people were going to these shows just because of her.  Which is shame because in late August, she had to drop from the tour

“A message to her beloved collective.
It is with great devastation that she must announce her withdrawal from the upcoming PRESIDENT North American Campaign Trail.
She fought tooth and claw to make it so, but the divines were not in her favour.
It is not yet her time. She shall cross your lands when the hour is right.
Know that she is forlorn
With sorrow,
Cenobia“

Read Full Post »

Enter: Shikari / Boston Manor / Initiate (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, June 13, 2026) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Boston Manor, Enter: Shikari, Initiate, Philadelphia, PA, Theatre of Living Arts on June 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 18, 2022] Enter: Shikari / Boston Manor / Initiate

Sometimes, when a venue promotes a band pretty heavily it’s easy to get caught up in the hype.  There’s also a lot of bands that have been around for fifteen or twenty years that I completely missed when they had their popular surge.  Back in 2022, they played Union Transfer and I was really interested in them because of the UT hype machine (they are very good at their job)

Enter: Shikari (I think that I just like the colon in their name) has been around since 1999 and originally were kind of a screamo band that was really heavy but had lots of synth and electronic elements too.  It’s the kind of thing I want to like but I tend to not, really.

It’s probably the kind of show I would go to where everyone is a diehard fan and I’d enjoy the songs but not know any of the songs.

I also didn’t realize they were British.

I’ve listened to them a bit more since that show and I do rather like all of the various elements they put into their music. Although at the same time I’m not convinced I need to see them live.  There were several other shows that I wanted to go to instead of this one, so this didn’t really have a chance.

Then in May, they had to cancel the whole tour becaue of our stupid givernment

Hello USA & Canada.
We wish we were here with better news. Unfortunately, despite best efforts at our end, due to ongoing visa issues that look extremely unlikely to be sorted before some massive financial decisions need to be made, we’re in the position where we have to cancel both legs of the planned touring in North America this year, along with our Warped Tour and Summerfest appearances.
If you know us, you know that this isn’t a decision taken lightly and we’re gutted that we’re not able to be with you in 2026.
We’re already starting the process of trying to make plans for 2027 but, with uncertainty around the timeframes getting visas secured, we did not want to simply postpone and reschedule these shows, hence full cancellation and refunding of ticket purchases.
Once again, we apologise for this situation which is out of our control, and we thank you for your continued support. We were really looking forward to bringing Lose Your Self to you, and we hope to have better news regarding that sooner rather than later.
Thank you.

Boston Manor are a British band who have been around since 2013.  I’ve never heard of them, despite them being a punk, post-hardcore, grunge band.  Although when I just looked them up on Tidal, I do know the song Heathens.  Follow up: it’s a Twenty One Pilots song that they are covering.

Initiate are a screamy band from L.A.  And I really like them.  Their singer Crystal Pak has a great screaming voice–intense but understandable.  And their music is more complicated than many similar bands  The current line-up of the band consists of Pak on vocals, Alec Riley and Jack McTomney on guitars, Michael Morales on bass, and Danny Paul on drums.   I’ll bet they are fun live, although a whole album is a little exhausting.

Read Full Post »

Holly Humberstone / Diva Smith (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, June 9, 2026) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Holly Humberstone, Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia, Theatre of Living Arts on June 9, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: June 9, 2026] Holly Humberstone / Diva Smith

Holly Humberstone opened for Girl in Red the first time we saw them.

She was really good.  I wrote:

Well, I was impressed by her.  She played guitar, keyboard, piano and created live beats on the drum machine while singing.  And her voice was really lovely too.

Her songs are on the pop side but with some good loud guitars from time to time.  “Please Don’t Leave Just Yet” was the synthy song (that featured sped up samples of her voice trilling in the background.  I enjoyed the way she jumped from the synth rack to the piano mid-song.

She has a new album out, but I don’t need to see her again.

Diva Smith was born and raised in Los Angeles and is now based in New York City.  She offers an “idiosyncratic take on the modern pop artist. Growing up in a musical household, Diva was influenced by listening to the likes of Bread and Fleetwood Mac as a child, learning the piano at 8, and picking up the guitar by 10. Diva’s sonic interests led to her becoming her own creative, beginning to record her music in 2016.  Her self-proclaimed “therapy pop” ballads reminiscent of Bon Iver meets St. Vincent.”

I can almost see the comparison.  There’s definitely a Bon Iver vibe (his more electric sounding stuff) and her voice sort of sounds like the softer St. Vincent.  But listening to her songs, it’s really not that compelling.

Read Full Post »

Biffy Clyro (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, May 7, 2026)

Posted in Biffy Clyro, Philadelphia, PA, Raue, Theatre of Living Arts on May 8, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 7, 2026] Biffy Clyro

Four years ago I saw Biffy Clyro at Union Transfer.  They were great.  And I couldn’t get over how back home in Scotland they typically headline festivals of thousands of people.  They recently had a film made about the: Biffy Clyro: Cultural Sons of Scotland in which they played a concert for some 50,000 people.  And yet here they were playing 1,000 person clubs.  But they put on a show as if they were playing for 50,000.  It was awesome.

They had initially announced the tour for December 2025 and there was no Philly date.  But they had visa issues:

“Some [expletive] genius put the wrong start date into our work visa, so when we received our visas in the last couple of days, we realised it doesn’t begin until after our tour is meant to finish,” he said in an Instagram video, adding: “We are so angry about this.”

But their problem is my luck because the newly scheduled dates now included a Philly show.  Whoo hoo!

Last time, they were the trio that they have always been.  But for this tour, bassist James Johnston was seeking treatment for addiction issues and wasn’t able to tour.  In his place was  Naomi Macleod, who has plays bass with Empire State Bastard, Simon Neil’s side project with Dave Lombardo–wish I had gotten to see that!  They also brought out touring guitarist Mike Vennart (who is also in ESB).

As always, the other two guys were shirtless from the get go.  I was in front of singer/guitarist Simon Neil, who puts everything he has into a live show.   His vocal cords must be totally shredded by the end of the night.  Naomi was in  the middle and her bass was excellent.  I couldn’t really see Mike that well, but it was clear when he was adding extra parts to the song (especially when one of them had an acoustic and the other had the electric). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Raue (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, May 7, 2026) [BIFFY CLYRO]

Posted in Biffy Clyro, Philadelphia, PA, Raue, Theatre of Living Arts on May 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 7, 2026] Raue 

I had never heard of Raue and assumed they were a young band from Scotland that Biffy Clyro were bringing along with them.  Well, it turns out that Raue (pronounced Roo-aye [German for Rough] is a duo from California.

When they two came out on stage, literally everyone in the room had the same thought: “how old are these two?”  I mean, they couldn’t be more than 16, right?  (Paige Kalenian (guitar vocals is 21, Jax Huckle drums, is 20).  And the thing was that while we were wondering how old they were, they were blowing everybody away.

They are a duo and Paige plays some serious guitar.  The songs are simple, but it never sounds like one guitar.  Somehow she make a full sound even when fingerpicking.  But that’s nothing compared to the wild drumming that Jax does.  I was right in front of him and holy cow he blew me away.  He has incredible speed, he throws in terrific fills and he;s really creative–it’s possible they sound so huge because of all the drums that Jax is playing.

Paige is just full of energy–she jumps all around the stage when she’s not singing.  They set the two of them pretty far apart, and Paige was all over the stage, bouncing from the drums back to the mic.  And their look was amusing too–Paige with dyed purple hair and sleeveless concert T while Jax was wearing an open Oxford shirt over a white Tshirt.

I liked Paige’s voice, but the only negative about the show is that she sang similarly on all of the songs–it’s a good sound for the grungy music they play, but I think it would be better if she had more range.  Having said that, it was kind of hard to hear her in the mix, so maybe she has more diversity than I realized. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Bloodywood (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, May 5, 2026)

Posted in Ankor, Bloodywood, Ladrones, Philadelphia, PA, The Pretty Wild, Theatre of Living Arts on May 5, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 5, 2026] Bloodywood

My wife and I saw Bloodywood open for Babymetal about a year ago.  We loved everything about them–their intensity, their positivity and just how heavy they were.  So when they announced a headline tour I grabbed a ticket for myself, my wife and my son.  My son had a final exam the next morning so he opted not to come.  (Smart kid).   So that left my wife and I.  Normally I love seeing opening bands–some of my favorite live bands are band I first saw when they were an opener.

But I looked at this lineup and saw three openers–bands that I have never heard of–and told my wife that we could skip them all.  She had something to do until around 6:45, so we left a little around 7.  I figured we’d get into Philly with a bunch of extra time and then stroll in around 9 right after the third band finished.

Well, we didn’t realize it was Cinco de Mayo and had no idea that South Street was blocked off in a number of places because of some kind of free taco festival.  And we got caught in the middle of it.  We drove about a mile in 45 minutes, finally escaped the chaos and found a parking garage.  When we walked to South Street, there were crazily drunken people everywhere and police on every corner.  We negotiated the cops and entered the venue at around 9:15.  My wife later told me she thought they were going on at 9 so she was panicky and didn’t understand why I wasn’t.  Well, there was no merch line, so I bought a shirt and we headed into the packed room.

I don’t really like being so far back, but TLA is fairly small, so even being n the back isn’t so bad.  Aside from the guy who inexplicably felt the need to put both his hands over he head for most of the songs, I could see fine and the sound was great.

So Bloodywood is a metal band from New Dehli who started out as a band making heavy metal parodies of Bollywood songs.  In 2016, Katiyar quit his job as a corporate lawyer and together with Jayant Bhadula formed a two-piece band with the intention of “destroying pop songs”.

Now, live, the band is a six-piece.  Katiyar plays guitars and flute!  Bhadula sings and growls.  Raoul Kerr officially joined in 2019 and does rap vocals.  The touring band since 2019 includes Vishesh Singh on drums, Roshan Roy on bass and Sarthak Pahwa plays the dhol (an Indian drum that sounds amazing). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Circle Jerks / Gorilla Biscuits / Negative Approach (Archer Music Hall, Allentown, PA. March 31, 2026 // Theatre of Living Arts (TLA), Philadelphia, PA, April 3 & 4, 2026) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Circle Jerks, Gigi Perez, Gorilla Biscuits, Negative Approach, Nikole, Philadelphia, PA, Theatre of Living Arts on April 5, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 31, April 3, April 4, 2026] Circle Jerks / Gorilla Biscuits / Negative Approach

I liked a lot of 80s punks, but I was never really into Circle Jerks.  I mean, they were legends of course, but for whatever reason I never got their music.  When these shows were announced I was actually surprised that Circle Jerks were still a thing.  Actually, I guess they are once again a thing.  They tend to reunite and then stop and reunite and stop.  They’ve been touring now since 2019 (but haven’t released any new music since 1995).  I Really did consider going to this show. I mean, it’s the Circle Jerks after all.  And they were playing THREE dates.  But I was completely shut out on all of these dates.

The March 31 date was the same night as The Teeth who I didn’t want to miss.  April 3 I had tickets to Puscifer and April 4th I had tickets to Nothing.  And then we wound up going to  Minnesota the first few days of April, so I wouldn’t have been able to go anyway.

I’m not sure what an old school punk show like this would be like–is it all old punks in a pit or is it all young kids in a pit an old guys standing around.  I mean I do love seeing that they played 31 songs in roughly an hour–nice old school punk.  And since they played two dates in Philly, they probably won’t come back around any time soon.  Oh well.  Not a bucket list band, but it would have been fun.

All I know about Gorilla Biscuits is that I bought their Start Today CD in college and it had 99 tracks, which was a really fun at the time.  I hadn’t really thought about them much since then, and was kind of surprised to see that they were touring (which I guess they have been doing since 2005?).  They have released no new music since Start Today (1988).  So I guess their shows aren’t very different each night.  I’m not sure I would have recognized many of the songs but it would have been fun to see them too.  They played about 40 minutes (not bad since they released about 30 minutes of music)

Negative Approach is yet another hardcore band who is still around but who hasn’t out out new music since their debut album Tied Down (1983).  I’m aware of the band but really know very little about them.  Unlike the other three bands, when they started playing again in 2006, only the singer remained–everyone else was new.  But it’s the same guys since 2006 which is longer than the original incarnation lasted (1981-1984).  They played for about 30 minutes)

It sounds like a fun night of old school punk and I wish I’d been able to go.

Read Full Post »

Hanabie (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, March 21, 2026)

Posted in Enterprise Earth, 花冷え。, Hanabie, Nekrogoblikon, Philadelphia, PA, Theatre of Living Arts on March 23, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 21, 2026] Hanabie

I saw Hanabie [花冷え。] a year and a half ago when they opened for Jinjer.  They were great and they blew me away with their heaviness and with their mixture of heavy growls and J-Pop moments.

Hanabie [花冷え。] cpmbines loud and heavy music with Harajuku aesthetics in a style self-described as “Harajuku-core.”  They have been around since 2015 (when they started as a Maximum The Hormone cover band).  They have clean vocals and unclean vocals and the most fascinating thing is that singer Yukina does both!  She can sing in an incredibly high pitched voice and then shifts to a growl that would impress anyone.

Guitarist Matsuri also sings–and has a lovely voice.  She often sings super catchy chorus and bridge parts while Yukina adds to them.  Bassist Hettsu sings too and she has a lovely clean vocal style.  The three of them together are a dynamic force.  Drummer Chika is the newest member (they’ve had several drummers over the years).

Last time I wrote: Their fashion sense was pretty great too.  They were a great opening act and I would absolutely see them again–I hope as a headliner.

And here they were headlining.   They said it was their first time in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia was ready for them!  They had sold out the show and the crowd was 100% into it–pits and crowd surfing galore. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Nekrogoblikon (Theatre of Living Arts [TLA], Philadelphia, PA, March 21, 2026) [HANABIE]

Posted in Enterprise Earth, Hanabie, Nekrogoblikon, Philadelphia, PA, Theatre of Living Arts on March 22, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 21, 2026] Nekrogoblikon

My son and his friend went to see Nekrogoblikon back in 2023.  I had wanted to see them, but opted not to tag along.  So I was pretty happy that the goblin band were opening this set.

I didn’t know much about them except that they had a goblin in the band.  And, indeed, they do.  They inflated a giant goblin head in the middle of the stage and after a few minutes the band came out.

I couldn’t see the keyboardist on the far side at all (because of the goblin head), but I was on the perfect side for seeing John Goblikon.  Evidently the band has changed over the years.  I assumed that John Goblikon was just a mascot or something.  But now he actually sings.  And the really surprising thing is that he sings clean vocals while the human singer sings insanely unclean vocals. And, actually that’s where the problem was for me.  Dickie Allen doesn’t growl or sing in a deep way.  Instead, his vocals are at the higher end of things and sound kind of strangled.  On record it’s weird and maybe a little funny.   But live, he sang so fast that I genuinely didn’t know if he was singing words or just making off-putting goblin sounds.

But when John Goblikon sang, he had a really good voice and his parts were surprisingly catchy.  In fact, most of the songs were pretty catchy. I just hated hearing the main singer sing.

Because John Goblikon was pretty funny–a convincing goblin mask and hands and he danced around and made rude gestures.  There was someone near me with a Nekrogoblikon hat (green with pointy ears), so there were definitely some fans.  (more…)

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »