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[ATTENDED: November 24, 2021] All Hail the Yeti / Suicide Silence

I arrived a little early for this show (for a change–TLA usually has me running late looking for parking).  And it took forever the first band to go on.  I was sure something was going on.

Then it was announced that Suicide Silence tested positive for COVID and would not be on stage that night.  I actually assumed that I’d be going home early, but no, I guess the headliner is scheduled to go on at 9:30 or whatever and that’s what they’re going to do.  Which makes sense.

So All Hail the Yeti came out with their cool stage gear and I assume played a longer set than they might normally.  Yes, it looks like they played three more songs at our show.

There are four members in the band: Connor Garritty – lead vocals;  Nicholas Diltz – bass, backing vocals; Ryan “Junior” Kittlitz – drums and  Dave Vanderlinde – guitars.  And behind each member (more or less) was a giant banner with a rune on it.  Each rune looked more or less like the initials of the band.  Which was pretty neat.

Each band member had some kind of Viking paint on.  I was in front of guitarist Vanderlinde and the top of his forehead was painted white with a rune painted on top.  Lead singer Garrity had his long hair in a pony tail and had on a kind of modified corpse paint to make his eyes really stand out.  He sand in a kind of guttural style but was clearly audible.  Bassist Diltz had long bleached blond hair an a full beard and sang in a really lovely high voice–an excellent contrast and I actually preferred his vocals.

All of this is leading up to the surprising realization that they are from California and not Scandinavia.

They had some good diversity in their sounds, with some heavy grooves and then some simply heavy sounds.  But they also had some fantastic harmonizing like on “After the Great Fire.”

The one song that annoyed me though was “Witch is Dead.”  It started out kind of fun with them singing the “ding dong the witch is dead” children’s song but in their heavy style.  I thought it was pretty fun, until he had to rhyme it with “the fucking bitch is dead,” and I felt there was a little too much misogyny going on in that line–he seemed to relish it too much.

But if I overlook that I otherwise really enjoyed their set.  Their sound was great and their look, while elaborate wasn’t too far over the top to be comical.

  1. Suicide Woods ¥
  2. Headless Valley
  3. Slow Season
  4. The Art of Mourning ¥
  5. Bury Your Memory
  6. Witch Is Dead §
  7. Before the Flames §
  8. Funeral Heart
  9. After the Great Fire ¥
  10. Mr. Murder §

[ATTENDED: November 20, 2021] Alex Silva [rescheduled from April 30, 2020]

Alex Silva was up after Patrick McMinn.  He took the left side of the stage and was basically right in front of me.

Silva is from Galicia, Spain but now lives in Maryland.

I was delighted that he was wearing a retro Froot Loops T shirt.

Much like McMinn, he mostly pushed buttons on his gear, but it was a more interested watching him work.  He also sang (and processed his voice) to create new sounds.

He introduced a bunch of his songs with personal stories and easily won the crowd over with his stories.

I found his music to be very enjoyable

[ATTENDED: November 20, 2021] Dan Deacon [rescheduled from April 30, 2020]

The only thing I knew about Dan Deacon was his outrageous “remix” of “Call Me Maybe” in which he looped the entire song on top of itself some 147 times.  It was weird and irritating and funny.

And then a little while later he did a Tiny Desk Concert and it blew my mind and I knew that I wanted to see him in concert.  That was six years ago.

I finally got to see him live and it was everything I imagined.

I don’t really know Deacon’s music.  That’s not strictly true, I know a lot of his early self-released stuff which is really weird.  His newer stuff is less weird, but still unusual–but his albums are usually beloved.  And he has amassed a huge fan base.

Deacon is an unlikely electronic music hero, but hero he is.  He is heavy (he joked about how he should have gotten in shape for this tour), balding and wears glasses.  But he’s got a great sense of humor and an amazing gift for music.  He has a college degree in electro-acoustic and computer music composition.  And he has played in all kinds of bands throughout his career (from ska to grindcore).   But it’s his electronic music, often with his voice pitch-shifted to beyond cartoon level, that makes the night. Continue Reading »

[DID NOT ATTEND: November 24, 2021] The Lemonheads / Hey Rocco / Soft Kill / Larlene

I saw Evan Dando play a bunch of Lemondheads songs solo at a tiny venue in Jersey City.  He seemed kind of wasted, but he sounded great and I had a wonderful time.

I was genuinely interested in checking out this show (in which he had a full band), but it was scheduled for the same night as Jinjer who I really wanted to see live.

I see that he and the band played 35 songs that night.  It must have been a blast.

I had not heard of Soft Kill or Hey Rocco.

Soft Kill is a post-punk band from Portland who on their Facebook pages call themselves “sad rock”, a new musical subgenre.  That does not make me want to see them, that’s for sure.

Hey Rocco is a grunge band that formed in 2009.  I’m curious what that sounds like.

Markit Aneight was there to record the bands

Larlene apparently played instead of Soft Kill and here’s there full show

Hey Rocco

Lemonheads

[ATTENDED: November 20, 2021] Patrick McMinn [rescheduled from April 30, 2020]

I was really excited to finally get to see Dan Deacon that I didn’t really think about opening acts.

Traffic was a little worse than I expected and I wound up walking in during Patrick McMinn’s set.

The original opening act was scheduled to be Ed Schrader’s Music Beat.  I’m not sure why he wasn’t on the list anymore.

What amused me most about the stage was that it was set up with three table with laptops and such on them.  On the far right table (facing the stage) McMinn was standing bathed in blue lights.

I had never been to an electronica show before, so I didn’t really know if it was going to be literally all knob twiddling.  And it was, more or less.

But McMinn also plays trumpet and for the final two songs he played nice trumpet melodies into his processor and then proceeded to alter and mix them  to fit into the beats he was creating.

While it is certainly interesting to watch someone create music on the fly like that, the addition of a nice visual like the trumpet certainly adds a fun element.

The set didn’t blow me away or anything, but it was enjoyable introduction to the evening.

[ATTENDED: November 21, 2021] Nada Surf [rescheduled from May 28, 2020 and April 18, 2021]

This is my third timing seeing Nada Surf and I decided that S. needed to see them as well.

This was the third time for this show and I was delighted that it finally happened.  And at the nearby (relatively) White Eagle Hall.

My plan was to not get too close to the stage, but we were so early that it was hard not to get too close (especially as the taller guys start filling in the gaps).

The one difference for this show was that bassist Daniel Lorca was not there.  He had hurt his leg and had to miss the tour.

Friends, we sadly have to report that Daniel can’t be with us for the November US tour due to knee and ankle injuries he recently suffered. In his place will be the band’s longtime friend Ed Valauskas of The Gravel Pit. Here’s to a speedy recovery!

I wasn’t familiar with The Gravel Pit, but Valauskas did a great job.  Although I did miss Lorca’s dreadlocks and unique bass sound.

Their set was an excellent mix of songs from throughout their nine song career.  It was interesting that they essentially played all of the songs that the previous time I saw them in 2020 (one of the few bands I saw in 2020), but they added all of the new songs on top of it.   So this concert was six songs longer! Continue Reading »

[ATTENDED: November 21, 2021] Pom Pom Squad S.G. Goodman [rescheduled from May 28, 2020 and April 18, 2021]

Initially the opener for this show was supposed to be S.G. Goodman who had a song with a lot of airplay on the WXPN.  I liked it and then I got sick of it, but was interested in seeing her.

But when she was replaced by Pom Pom Squad I was pretty thrilled.

I had seen a Pom Pom Squad video some time ago and I loved their 90’s grunge sound and attitude.  They seemed like a bit of an odd fit for Nada Surf who is a bit more mellow, but it seemed like they were maybe going set the tone for Nada Surf a bit more.

The band was initially a solo project for Mia Berrin, but have expanded to include an unnamed bassist, Shelby Keller on drums and Alex Mercuri on lead guitar.

I had recently read Rock Stars on the Record and Mia Berrin was interviewed in it and she said her favorite album was Live Through This by Hole.   That totally makes sense given their overall sound.  However, Mia, who is in her early twenties, seems relatively drama free at the moment. Continue Reading »

[C. ATTENDED: November 28, 2021] Ice Nine Kills with Bad Omens, Currents, and Fame on Fire

When I saw that this show was announced, I offered to take C. to the show.  But he told me that his friend had already gotten them tickets.  I offered to drive (I really want to see Ice Nine Kills again), but what I didn’t know was that the friend’s mom had gotten them VIP tickets–something I wouldn’t have done, that’s for sure. So that was cool.

They got into the show early and to hang out with the band and got a bunch of swag too.

The problem is that after the VIP session was over, there was a pretty long wait for the first band to go on.

He said Ice Nine Kills was great (they put on an amazing show).  The new album is great and their stage set is spectacular.  And I’m happy to say that he and I are going see them in April–maybe I’ll get us VIP tickets as well. Continue Reading »

[ATTENDED: November 18, 2021] Dinosaur Jr.

Back in March when concerts were just starting to happen again, Dinosaur Jr were first out of the gate to announce a fall tour. I grabbed a ticket and it sold out almost instantly (yes, we were desperate for live music!).

I was excited more about the show than the fact that it was Dinosaur Jr.  The last time I saw them ( I can’t believe it was five years ago) the show was so good, I felt like didn’t really need to see them again.

Except for one thing.  The two shows I’d seen with them I was too close to the stage.  The guys’ amps are so loud that you can barely hear the vocals (bassist Lou Barlow even yelled at the people up front who complained–“stand father back, it’s physics!”).  So I wanted to stand further back to get the full Dino experience.

After being right up on the stage for Riley, I walked to the back and took up a spot in the middle of the room (I couldn’t voluntarily go all the way to the back).

And it was a much more enjoyable experience–except for the people around me.  There were a couple of really tall guys who just wouldn’t budge an inch. There were also a lot of loud people, including a guy who kept shouting “Just Like Heaven” (as if Dinosaur Jr is a band who takes requests). Continue Reading »

[DID NOT ATTEND: November 20, 2021] Off with Their Heads/Thick

I had not heard of Off with Their Heads, a Minneapolis punk band.  I was only interested in this show because of the band Thick, whom I really like and would like to see.

As it turns out I had tickets to see Dan Deacon that night and there was no way I was passing that up for any other show.

I’m happy to hear, though, that there is a small club in Bensalem (which is half way to Philly for me), because it would be great if more smaller bands played there.