7:45 pm, Nashville, Tennessee, waiting in line. After a lengthy wait, which causes us to miss the opener, we’re finally in our seats: stage left, just below the balcony, and directly in front of the speakers. This could get loud, folks. At least, I hope so. By 8:30 the room is packed. The crowd is [...]

On July 30, 2010 Spiritualized took the stage of Radio City Music Hall to perform their classic 1997 album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space in its entirety, backed by an eight-piece string orchestra, horn section, and gospel choir. The only performance of its kind to be performed stateside, this concert allegedly [...]

As I was too young to have witnessed Devo perform during their late-’70s/early-’80s heyday, I spent more than a bit of time looking up vintage live footage of them on YouTube. Back then they were over the top with energy — subversive, snarky, low-budget, maybe even a little innocent. What could one expect in 2010?
I [...]

Siren Fest on Coney Island, NY was one of those can’t-miss events this summer. The weather was gorgeous and the lineup of bands was fantastic. Everyone played their asses off and had a great time. Screaming Females performed, and during Ted Leo & the Pharmacists’ set Marissa Paternoster hopped on stage with him.
The highlight of [...]

So much has already been said about The Flaming Lips’ live shows. It’s a little like the summer of 1999 when all anyone could ask you was, “Have you seen The Sixth Sense?” With the Lips, though, there’s really no such thing as a spoiler. You could watch a hundred hours of [...]

“So here’s to our sleepless nights and singalongs/to the new kids and the old ones, this is our night and our show/the love once shared, belittled and betrayed/is not lost.” –With Honor, “To Believe”
The lifespan of most good hardcore bands is a short one — a few years bursting with creation, expression, and ending ultimately [...]

Mohawk Place in Buffalo, NY is one of those clubs that brings back great memories of showing up at back alley music halls to see some sort of rising act play a raucous set. Backlit stages, concrete floors, people packed in like cattle, and amps turned up to ear-splitting levels made for the perfect atmosphere [...]

10:30pm CST, Exit/In, Nashville, TN: Show openers Rubik and David Bazan have just finished sets that stand firmly at opposing poles of rock, and now the MewithoutYou crew ambles nonchalantly on stage, checking tunings and asking for last-minute monitor tweaks. A surprisingly clean-cut Aaron Weiss adjusts his awkward, oversized glasses, shifts his acoustic guitar, and [...]

Tool has the art of blowing minds down to a science. They know what they’re doing, and at this point they have enough funds to put on one hell of a show. I attended their concert at Key Arena in Seattle, which has never been my favorite venue, but they turned the whole place into [...]

Lilith Fair was one of the highest grossing festivals in the world from 1997 to 1999. I attended on its first go-around in 1997, and it remains one of my all-time favorite concert experiences. As a young lady who was obsessed with music — specifically music put out by female artists — the festival empowered [...]

When I walked into the National Theater in Richmond, Virginia to see Minus The Bear play, I really wasn’t sure what I was getting into.  I knew I had listened to them before and that, at a cursory listen, I’d enjoyed what I heard. But before the band’s latest album, their Dangerbird Records debut Omni, [...]

“This place is beautiful” said Matt Berninger, right after his band sauntered through Boxer (2007) favorite “Start a War,” and he was right. Spreckels Theatre has always been one of San Diego’s primary classical establishments; in fact, the baroque embellishments and marble statues give it a flat-out regal feel — which is not exactly the [...]

The 2010 Sasquatch Music Festival is now in the bag, and now that the last notes of Ween’s epic closing set have floated back into the ether, I am here to fill you in. The weekend, which took place at The Gorge Ampitheatre in George, Washington, in was chock full of good, bad, and some [...]

It’s always dicey seeing the heroes of the first age of punk play live. The era when they broke all the rules and played to small clubs is long gone. Those that have survived haven’t exactly aged well, and that goes double for the experience of seeing them perform. Seeing the Sex Pistols was okay, [...]

I don’t really want to turn this feature into a rant, but I think this needs to be said…so bear with me for a second.
The House of Blues franchise sucks for a lot of reasons: they hike up their ticket prices to unnecessary levels, they cookie-cut their buildings from one town to another, and, in [...]