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Archive for the ‘Theatre of Living Arts’ Category

Sneaks (Theatre of Living Arts (TLA), Philadelphia, PA, March 6, 2018) [SPOON]

Posted in Black Flag, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Sneaks, Spoon, Theatre of Living Arts on March 6, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 6, 2018] Sneaks

I’m fascinated by how opening acts get chosen for shows.  Sneaks was an opener for Palm last summer.  So I have now seen Sneaks more than bands I’ve actually wanted to see.

This Spoon show was not advertised with an opening act, so I was surprised (and a little disappointed) that there was one.  I had enjoyed Sneaks as an opener for Palm. I assume it was because it was a smaller venue (PhilaMOCA fits 250, TLA fits 1,000) and we were more intimate, that the Sneaks vibe worked well.  Spoon is quite a lot bigger than Palm, so I guess that’s a step up, but it brings perils.

About the PhilaMOCA show I wrote:

She has a great raw punk bass sound–it reminds me of the sound of Black Flag… Her riffs were cool, and while repeated a lot, they were certainly interesting enough to keep a song going.

She was also accompanied by a DJ. whose name I didn’t catch.  He kept some good beats and threw in some interesting sound effects.  It gave the show a bit more spontaneity than I was expecting from a drum machine based show.

Sneaks played a whole bunch of songs (most of them are quite short about 2 minutes or so).  Each song had a cool or interesting bass riff, she sang (deadpan) around it for 2 minutes and that was it.  She also did a couple of songs with no bass, just a freestyle rap over the drum machine.  And after 35 or so minutes she was done.

 

(more…)

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Laura Marling (The Theatre of Living Arts (TLA), Philadelphia, PA, May 19, 2017 )

Posted in Laura Marling, Philadelphia, PA, Theatre of Living Arts, Townes Van Zandt on May 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 19, 2017] Laura Marling

I first heard about Laura Marling from All Songs Considered—they raved about her album Once I Was an Eagle.  Sarah bought it for me for Christmas, and I couldn’t get enough of it.   Since then, Laura has released two more albums, the awesome Short Movie and the newer, more introspective but equally gorgeous Semper Femina.

Normally I like to see bands that have a great stage show, but for Laura, I just wanted to hear her voice live.  I didn’t think she’d do much in terms of stage work, and she didn’t, but her voice (and her guitar) sounded fantastic.

I had checked her setlists ahead of time to see what albums she was playing most of her songs from.  It turned out she was playing almost all of Semper Femina, and then a few other songs from her other albums.  I’m glad I knew this going in or I would have been bummed not to hear some of my favorite older songs of hers.  because even though she did play songs from the other albums, she didn’t play the more obvious tracks.

But that also meant that I listened a lot to her new album and got to really appreciate it. (more…)

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Valley Queen (The Theatre of Living Arts (TLA), Philadelphia, PA, May 19, 2017 ) [LAURA MARLING]

Posted in Laura Marling, Philadelphia, PA, Theatre of Living Arts, Valley Queen on May 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 19, 2017] Valley Queen

I recently watched Valley Queen on a Tiny Desk Concert.  Initially, I  enjoyed it but wasn’t blown away.  Although I was blown away by singer Natalie Carol’s voice.  And as I listened to their set a few more times I got really hooked by them.  So I was pretty excited that they were opening for Laura Marling.

I arrived during their first song (TLA is in the center of the city and I wound up parking about 12 blocks away–cutting it way too close).

I walked in on the right side, enjoyed the first song and then had to get water (it was a stupid hot day) and then I wended my way to the front left, where I had a great view of the band.

Valley Queen have released an EP (Destroyer) and they played about half of the songs off of it.  They played a few other songs too, but I can’t find a setlist to confirm what they were. (more…)

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Guster (The Theatre of Living Arts (TLA), Philadelphia, PA, April 24, 2015 )

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds, Guster, Kishi Bashi, Philadelphia, PA, Theatre of Living Arts, Tori Amos on April 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 24, 2015] Guster

2015-04-24 23.01.50I’ve seen Guster a few times as openers (Tori Amos, Ben Folds, Barenaked Ladies) but never as the headliner.  And it was amazing how different the band was for this show–in which the crowd was totally there for them.

Singer Ryan Miller commented on how they haven’t played the Theatre of Living Arts in  a long time–and that the fans were with them on the way up and now again on their way down (it’s unclear if he was serious or not).  The band’s “stage design” for this tour was afghans.  As you can see in the pictures, the band has afghans draped all over everything.  Ryan said that the band’s fans supplied them with all of the afghans.  They decided to totally embrace the theme and even put an afghan on one of co-singer Adam Gardner’s guitar.  I did not get a good photo of it, but there’s a great photo on Instagram of it.

Midway through the show the band mentioned that they’d been together for 24 years.  Which is pretty impressive.  The three main guys (Ryan, Adam and “Thundergod” Brian Rosenworcel on bongoes and other drums (most of which he plays with no sticks–seriously, he smashes drums and cymbals with his hands–ouch)) are sill there.  For touring they’ve added an instrumentalist Luke Reynolds and a friend of the band on drums and percussion for some songs. (more…)

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Kishi Bashi (The Theatre of Living Arts (TLA), Philadelphia, PA, April 24, 2015 ) [GUSTER]

Posted in Guster, Kishi Bashi, Philadelphia, PA, Theatre of Living Arts on April 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED, April 24, 2015] Kishi Bashi

2015-04-24 20.11.02This is our second time seeing Kishi Bashi in about a year.  As Sarah said, I’m really glad we saw him in the State Theater first because in that venue, you could really see what he was doing with his feet and his other gear (well, and the sound was better).  But it was so much fun seeing him in this venue because the show was very different.

But still it was just him and his violin (and a bunch of looping pedals) and, man, is his good.

Whether it was the lack of seats or just more confidence on stage, K. was a more wild performer.  At this venue we stood one the floor (and marveled at how we are apparently very short).  We could see his head and torso (bow tie and leather vest) but not his feet.

He opened the show with “Atticus, in the Desert,” my favorite song of his.  He did some really fun beatboxing and sound manipulation (even commenting that one of the beats was “sick” and that he had to try to remember what he did) he improvises a lot of beats and is really good at it. (more…)

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