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Destroy Boys (Santander Arena, Reading, PA, November 25, 2023) [PIERCE THE VEIL]

November 26, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 25, 2023] Destroy Boys

My son was listening to Destroy Boys a few months ago and I really dug their sound.  I imagined they’d be really fun to see live, so I made a note to see when they came near us.

Then it turned out that they were opening this show for Pierce the Veil.

I’d rather have seen them in a small venue, but seeing them at all is better than not seeing them.

Since we knew how long it took us to get to Reading after going on Wednesday, we planned our timing and had enough time to get some dinner (at a Bojangles!).  We still cut it a little closer than I liked but after we parked and scampered to the arena, we had a comfortable amount of time to find our seats before the lights dimmed and the band came out.

To virtual invisibility.

For some godawful reason, the venue decided to bathe the band in purple, which rendered them almost entirely invisible from where we were seated.   It stayed that way for a couple of songs and then they switched to a friendlier white/yellow schema so you could actually see how many people were on stage.  Although I feel like there were five sometimes, I only see 4 band members listed: Alexia Roditis vocals / guitar ; Violet Mayugba guitar ; Narsai Malik – drums ; David Orozco – bass.  But I’m also pretty sure there was some instrument switching going on.

The sound was also a little rough (arena shows, amiright?) but the band’s energy was undeniable.

When we finally could see them, they were jumping around stage and generally kicking butt.  Continue Reading »

Posted in Dayseeker, Destroy Boys, L.S. Dunes, Pierce the Veil, Reading PA, Santander Arena | Leave a Comment »

Ice Nine Kills (Santander Arena, Reading, PA, November 22, 2023)

November 24, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 22, 2023] Ice Nine Kills

This was my third time seeing Ice Nine Kills (and my son’s fifth time, I believe).  For this show, I specifically wanted to see them from above the crowd, rather than from the pit.  I assumed that the visuals would be even better if I could clearly see them.

This was true, except that the lighting was rather poor and I felt like things weren’t as clear as they could have been.

But that’s okay.  The band was still great and the performance was really enjoyable.

The last time we saw them, they were co-headlining with two other bands, so their set was only 50 minutes.  This show was longer, but not a lot longer (they played two more songs than last time).

The show was largely the same songs as the last time, but done in a different order and with a different stage setup.  There were two TV screens on either side of the stage and they showed commercials (real and fake) between songs as introductions to the movies the songs were about.

This time, they opened with “Hip to be Scared” and I enjoyed filming the scene where singer Spencer Charnas hacks up the hapless guy who wandered on stage.  Continue Reading »

Posted in Avatar, Ice Nine Kills, In This Moment, New Years Day, Reading PA, Santander Arena | Leave a Comment »

In This Moment (Santander Arena, Reading, PA, November 22 2023) [ICE NINE KILLS]

November 23, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 22, 2023] In This Moment

I had not heard of In This Moment before this show.  I looked them up and saw that they were very theatrical (which makes sense given this tour–Ice Nine Kills does horror movies on stage, Avatar is a circus).  But when I listened to them, I didn’t really love the music.  It was really simple and really angry.

But I was curious to see them, mostly for their stage show.

But the kids wanted to get some merch.  And we wound up on the merch line for a REALLY long time–we missed half of the In This Moment set.

I was able to see them as they opened to the strains of Don’t Stop Believin’ (!) and their stage set was revealed (glowing lights giant crosses).

I looked again during the second song and I really liked their stage setup.  It was very cool.

We missed some of the middle here and then walked in as they were playing Björk’s Army of Me.  I didn’t recognize it as we were heading to our seats but once I sat down, I realized what it was and wished I had heard more of it.

They followed it with a cover of her “favorite” song, Nine Inch Nails “Something I Can Never Have.”  It was quite pretty (especially compared to the loud noisy music of the other songs) but it went on for a pretty long time and I was a little bored by the end.

The show was quite the spectacle–Maria Brink is the ringleader of the bunch.  She was wearing diaphanous robes (I couldn’t see her all that well, so I don’t know what else was going on).   She also had a bunch of background dancers who did very nice choreographed routines, including one where they stood behind her and put their arms out like Vishnu.  Since we were straight on, we could really see the effect and it was great.

I did really like Big Bad Wolf with  the empowering, screamed vocals: “even in these chains you can’t stop me.”  In fact, Brink is a great feminist icon, telling women and girls not to be held back.  I really liked her voice, which sounded almost like  soul singer as she spoke–she sounded like someone, although I couldn’t place it.

It wasn’t until somewhere near the last song that I realize she had a band on stage with her.  The lighting was such that it was hard to see them.  Her guitarists Chris Howorth and Randy Weitzel were somewhere on the stage, kind of lost in the lighting that focused all attention in Brink.  In fact, I only ever saw two guys on stage, so maybe one of them was Travis Johnson on bass.  Her drummer Kent Diimmel was off to the side with a pretty large set-strange that I missed it earlier.

For the final song, the band left the stage and did a kind of encore (INK did NOT do an encore).  It may have just been more of an opportunity to set up the proper for the final song–a lifeguard’s chair (or something like it) with the word WHORE in big red letters on it.

She set the song up with some powerful words to all the young women out there and then sang

You probably thought I wouldn’t get this farYou thought I’d end up in the back of a carYou probably thought that I’d never escapeI’d be a rat in a cage, I’d be a slave to this placeYou don’t know how hard I fought to surviveWaking up alone when I was left to dieYou don’t know about this life I’ve livedAll these roads I’ve walkedAll these tears I’ve bled
So how can this be?You’re praying to meThere’s a look in your eyesI know just what that meansI can be, I can be your everything
I didn’t really love the tone of the music.  It was a little too….something.  Processed maybe?   I don’t know.  But I enjoyed the visuals and the power that Brink exuded.  They’d be very fun to see in a small club too.

SETLIST

Don’t Stop Believin’ (Journey recording)
Salvation (recording)

    1. The Purge ≠
    2. The In-Between ω
    3. SANCTIFY ME ≠
    4. Blood ♥
    5. Sacrifice ≠
      The Infection [recording]
    6. Army of Me (Björk cover)
    7. Something I Can Never Have (Nine Inch Nails cover)
    8. Adrenalize ♥
    9. Big Bad Wolf ⊗
      encore
    10. Whore ♥

♥ Blood (2012)
⊗ Black Widow (2014)
ω Mother (2020)
≠ GODMODE (2023)

 

Posted in Avatar, Ice Nine Kills, In This Moment, New Years Day, Reading PA, Santander Arena | Leave a Comment »

Liz Phair / Blondshell (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia, PA, November 22 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

November 22, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[DID NOT ATTEND: November 22, 2023] Liz Phair / Blondshell

I guess it was 30 years ago that I really got into Liz Phair.  I loved Exile in Guyville.  And the two follow-ups.

Then she went away for a while and came back as a sell out.  Which she has admitted.  I used to care about things like that, and I never listened to her again, frankly.

I’m somewhat curious about hearing the Guyville songs live.  But I haven’t listened to the record in years either, so it’s like a rock that’s not worth digging up.  Plus it would be weird seeing her in a relatively large space like Franklin Music Hall.

I would love to see Blondshell again, having seen her at a Free at Noon.  But I’d much rather see her a sa headliner.  I’m sure that will happen next year.

 

Posted in Blondshell, Franklin Music Hall, Liz Phair, Philadelphia, PA | Leave a Comment »

Avatar (Santander Arena, Reading, PA, November 22, 2023) [ICE NINE KILLS]

November 22, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 22, 2023] Avatar

I  had never been to the Santander Arena in Reading.  I don’t think I’d ever been to Reading.  It was an hour and forty-five minutes away which is just abut my limit for concerts. But I knew that this show (and Pierce the Veil in a couple of days) would be worth the drive and would be a fun treat for my son who was home from college.

This show (on Thanksgiving Eve) started at 6:15,which is an insane time of day to start a show on the busiest travel day of the year.

New Years Day had opened for Ice Nine Kills on two shows that we did not go to back in 2019.  I thought they were a heavy screamo band, but listening to them now, I find them to be quite interesting, with a heavy edge and an almost dancey vibe.   Ash Costello is the only constant member and she had a cool vocal and visual style.  Although I instantly bristle at a bad with members named Nikki Misery and Trixx Daniel.

They are surprisingly poppy for an Ice Nine Kills opener.  But I have to say I’m impressed that Ice Nine Kills had two female-fronted bands open for them. It’s nice that metal isn’t a boys club only.

At any rate, the traffic was pretty heavy (on the busiest travel day of the year) and we arrived just before 7.  Which was just in time to see Avatar.

My son and I were supposed to see Avatar, but we bailed on the show.  So this was our chance to see them.

When I saw them the first time I blown away by them (even as an opening act).

For this show I was glad that my son and his friend liked them because I was disappointed.  Not in them but in the venue.  The sound wasn’t great and the lighting sucked.  Avatar is a massively visual band–their whole schtick is like a satanic circus.  Between singer Johannes Eckerström–dressed like a ringmaster, his face covered in white paint with (scary) clown makeup, the three guitarists swirling their heads in moshing style and drummer John Alfredsson using his robotic visual style to hit the drums, there’s always something to see.  But not when the lights obscure everything in a miasma of purple.

Eckerström did drink out of his black gas can but even that was hard to see.

When they opened last time, they played eight songs.  This time they only played seven.  [When they played the TLA, the show we missed, they played 18!]  But the audience seemed to be really into it and I think there were a lot of Avatar fans there. Continue Reading »

Posted in Avatar, Ice Nine Kills, New Years Day, Reading PA, Santander Arena | Leave a Comment »

GZA / Fishbone / Beau Young Prince / Crazy and the Brains (White Eagle Hall, Jersey City, NJ, November 18, 2023) [CANCELLED]

November 18, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[CANCELLED: November 18, 2023] GZA / Fishbone / Beau Young Prince / Crazy and the Brains

This About a month ago I saw a message that Fishbone was playing White Eagle Hall.  I had seen them earlier this summer for the first time and absolutely wanted to see them again–headlining!

But this show was scheduled for a day that we had family plans.  So I knew I couldn’t go.

When I looked up the show recently, I saw that it was cancelled.  I also saw that maybe this show was opening for GZA?  Weird that the WEH page mentioned Fishbone and not GZA.

And of course GZA is part of the Wu-Tang Clan although I don’t know much about him individually.

But it turns out that this leg of the tour has just been cancelled.

Most apologetically, due to unavoidable circumstances, we are forced to postpone the upcoming GZA/Fishbone Truth and Swords shows to Spring 2024.
Rest assured tickets purchased will be honored for the rescheduled date. If you would like to receive a refund, you will be able to do so at place of purchase.
We apologize for doing this at the 11th hour with the tour beginning
in Silver Spring, MD Monday.
Both GZA and Fishbone only want to bring the best show to all of you
and plan on doing so in Spring 2024.

Except that GZA is supposed to play Underground Arts in a week or so (which isn’t on the poster) and the opening band is Rebelmatic, who I’d not heard of, but apparently I should have: Continue Reading »

Posted in Beau Young Prince, Cancelled, Crazy & the Brains, Fishbone, GZA, Jersey City, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, Rebelmatic, Thurston Moore, Underground Arts, White Eagle Hall | Leave a Comment »

DakhaBrakha (Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair, NJ, November 18, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

November 18, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[DID NOT ATTEND: November 18, 2023] DakhaBrakha

I saw DakhaBrakha about a year and a half ago.  I had wanted to see them for a while, but the timing was right after Russia invaded Ukraine.  I can’t believe the war is still going on.

Their music is like nothing else I’ve heard and their visually are just as compellling.

I have wanted to see them again and this show in Montclair seemed perfect.  It just happened to be scheduled on a night when we already had plans.

I am genuinely surprised they haven’t played McCarter in Princeton. It seems like a perfect combination.  Maybe next year.

 

Posted in Alexander Kasser Theater, DakhaBrakha, Montclair, NJ, Ukraine | Leave a Comment »

Kool Keith (City Winery Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, November 18, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

November 18, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 20, 2023] Bombino

Kool Keith is a weirdo rapper who I liked back in the old days.

He was supposed to play Johnny Brenda’s during the pandemic.  But those shows got cancelled.

I wrote this back then

Kool Keith is a wacko alternative rapper.  I really liked him a lot back in the 1990s. He was part of the Ultramagnetic MC’s and Dr. Octagon. he also had the alias Black Elvis.

I had more or less forgotten about him and didn’t realize that he was still making music, but he has been consistently releasing music since the 1990s.

A lot of his music is aggressively, explicitly, sometimes disturbingly sexual (Dr. Octagonecologyst, anyone?) which was once amusing but feels really wrong now.

I didn’t really know about this show until it was cancelled and I’m not sure that I’d actually want to go (I had a few other shows I was more interested in that night).  I’ve also heard mixed things about Keith live, but I feel like it would be a fun experience.  The postponed date is a year away–we’ll see.

Funny now, a few years later and I was leaning more towards seeing him.  But this show was announced as  a replacement for someone else who had to cancel and when I recently looked, I believe there were about 12 tickets sold (in a seated venue).

Yikes.

Posted in City Winery Philadelphia, Kool Keith, Philadelphia, PA | Leave a Comment »

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs [マス オブ ザ ファーメンティング ドレッグス] (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, November 17, 2023)

November 18, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 17, 2023] Mass of the Fermenting Dregs

I found out about Mass of the Fermenting Dregs when I saw a big announcement that the band had sold out the Kung Fu Necktie and the show was being moved to Underground Arts.  They sold out KFN in a couple of weeks.  I checked them out and, discovered that despite their name, they are not a hardcore/noise band.  Indeed, they are super poppy and delightful.

Their own bio says

MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS is a Japanese alternative rock band formed in Kobe City, Japan. In 2007, they won the best artist of EMI Music Japan’s new comer audition and recorded their songs with Dave Fridman at Tarbox road Studio in USA. After they released their 1st album in 2008, they rapidly climbed the alternative-rock ladder in Japan. The band once paused their activities in 2012 then reunion in 2017. The current lineup consists of Natsuko Miyamoto (Vocal & Bass) , Naoya Ogura (Guitar & Backing vocal) and Isao Yoshino (Drums & Backing vocal). Known for their energetic, hair-flailing live shows and melodic, guitar driven pop sound, they are still one of the most exciting and attracted act in Japan.

In Japanese their name is Masu obu za Fāmentingu Doreggusus so the band’s name is shortened to Masu Dore–although I didn’t hear anyone call them that.

I mean, how to pass this up.  This was, as I understand it, their first time playing Philadelphia.  And the crowd was there in full support.

I arrived a little before the opening band went on and the place was PACKED (this almost never happens).  I couldn’t get as close as I wanted to, which was a real shame.

Bu after a few songs, when the full on pit started up, I was pushed far away anyhow, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

What I enjoyed about this show was that fans were shouting things to them in Japanese and they were answering in Japanese.  No idea what was being said, but it was so cool to overhear. Continue Reading »

Posted in マス オブ ザ ファーメンティング ドレッグス, Cam Kahin, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts | Leave a Comment »

Cam Kahin (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, November 17, 2023)[MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS]

November 17, 2023 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: November 17, 2023] Cam Kahin

Cam Kahin is a twenty something Torontonian who, at this show at least, looked a lot like Phil Lynott (mustache included).

It sounded like the band he had with him was a touring band, but they were in pretty great synchronicity–with both the bassist and guitarist seeming very excited to be playing.

His songs were catchy and leaned toward the heavy end of alt rock.  With songs like “Wat Are You Waiting For” having pauses for heavy guitars to punctuate the choruses.  Although some of the songs started off quietly while he softly sang lyrics like

Take my phone
Throw it down the river
Take my smokes
Flush ’em down the drain

He spent most of the time between the songs trying to get the crowd to start moving.  I have to admit that I didn’t think Mass of the Fermenting Dregs were all that mosh-based, so I didn’t really think the opening band would get that kind of response either,  But there was a small section of the crowd who were bouncing enough for their liking–the group received several shout outs.

I enjoyed the simple repetition of the chorus of “in around” which reminded me of old punk songs in style (but not sound).

Nothing in the song was stand-out original, but his use of older ideas was cool.  Like the simple echoed three note riff (and then later a repeated two-note riff) in “try again.”  Super catchy.

“Queen St.” mellowed things out a bit with a kind of rapping delivery.  Although there was some great crowd interaction with our helping out on the “oh-oh” during the chorus.

Then he asked if it was okay if the final two songs were much heavier.  And yes, of course it was.  He introduced “birds” and was probably confused as to why everyone shouted “go birds” at him.  That song and the absolutely blistering “nicotine” ended his set on a high, heavy note as the songs crashed through the crowd.  The lead guitarist also jumped into the crowd (after, I assume, telling Cam that’s what he was going to do).

I didn’t know Kahin before this show, but it was a great set and his music still resonates.

  1. Junky ⇓
  2. compass ⊕
  3. what are you waiting for ⊕
  4. in, around ⊕
  5. try again ⊕
  6. queen st ⇓
  7. birds ⊕
  8. nicotine ⊕

⊕ When It’s All Over (2023)
⇓ Let It Sink In (2022)

 

MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS is a Japanese alternative rock band formed in Kobe City, Japan. In 2007, they won the best artist of EMI Music Japan’s new comer audition and recorded their songs with Dave Fridman at Tarbox road Studio in USA. After they released their 1st album in 2008, they rapidly climbed the alternative-rock ladder in Japan. The band once paused their activities in 2012 then reunion in 2017. The current lineup consists of Natsuko Miyamoto (Vocal & Bass) , Naoya Ogura (Guitar & Backing vocal) and Isao Yoshino (Drums & Backing vocal). Known for their energetic, hair-flailing live shows and melodic, guitar driven pop sound, they are still one of the most exciting and attracted act in Japan.

Cam Kahin

As a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, Cam has been pouring out his own experiences and emotions into his music. Cam has been playing music since he was 12 years old and has been developing his skill set ever since. His music leans toward an experimental/alternative-rock sound, from which he says is due to his upbringing listening to bands such as Radiohead, Cage the Elephants, and Biffy Clyro.

 

Posted in Cam Kahin, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts | Leave a Comment »

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