Posts by Andrew Bruss

The 2024 Newport Folk Festival came and went, and while it was far from the most history-making incarnation of the storied event, it was an embarrassment of artistic riches that defends its status as a truly transformative, must-see musical experience that every American concertgoer needs to have at least once. The strongest chunk of the […]

The third and final day of the Newport Folk Festival featured a plethora of weekend highlights, but the set by “Conan O’Brien & Real Musicians” stole the show. He was joined by artists ranging from Dawes and Nick Lowe to actors John C. Reilly and Jack White. While White was certainly a surprise, it was […]

For the hump of the weekend on Saturday at Newport Folk, the festival saw guitar duo Hermanos Gutierrez mesmerize on the Fort Stage followed by a technically troubled but consummately professional set by multi instrumental warrior Rhiannon Giddens. LGBTQ+ acts were the highlight of the day as Bertha: Grateful Drag drew an overflow crowd to […]

The first day of the 2024 Newport Folk Festival on July 26th didn’t waste any time kicking into high gear. A Surprise set from Beck chronicled the post-war history of folk music following a performance by Molly Tuttle that paid homage to the new and old. Allison Russel, who is on tour opening for Hozier, […]

My Morning Jacket’s performance at Boston’s Roadrunner on October 24th showcased a quintet not just rejuvenated but in peak form. Between their carefully crafted setlist, obvious enthusiasm, and improved musicianship, they put their right foot forward in a way that gave their audience the impression that their best live shows have yet to come. Enough […]

Performing almost the entirety of his sophomore release, Struggler, Genesis Owusu put on an abstract artistic display fused with a preternatural charisma at The Sinclair in Harvard Square on October 19th that makes a future in the spotlight seem all but inevitable.  As the opening act on Paramour’s most recent tour, Owusu made his way […]

The Sigur Rós performance at Boston’s Boch Wang Center with the 41-person Wordless Music Orchestra was the ethereal, spiritually rejuvenating live music experience that leaves your jaw on the floor and gratitude for being alive that every single person deserves to experience at least once in their lives.  Over two sets, the Icelandic Avant-Garde, Ambient […]

The biggest challenge that’s faced Newport Folk Festival in recent years is the burden of extraordinary expectations that it’s constantly meeting and that’s never been truer than this year, after Executive Director Jay Sweet and his team brought the 2022 event to a close with a surprise performance by Joni Mitchell that was her first […]

The 2023 Newport Folk Festival took off right out of the gate on Friday with a day of music that wasn’t only memorable, but historic, even by the standards of this hallowed institution. After shocking ticket holders last year with unexpected performances by both Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell, Executive Director Jay Sweet had his […]

As members of The Smile, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood came through Boston for a performance at Roadrunner on November 16th that dares longtime fans to wonder if the Oxford-based quintet is best left on the back burner. The Smile’s approximately 90-minute set consisted primarily of music from their sole release, 2022’s A Light […]

The latest incarnation of the Newport Folk Festival was a certifiable accomplishment that not only raised the sky-high bar they’d previously set but thoroughly debunks the widespread industry belief that music festivals need to program toward a Gen-Z audience to stay afloat.  Brandi Carlile, Sylvan Esso, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Courtney Barnett put on powerful sets […]

In a Newport Folk Festival that will be talked about for a long long time, this 2022 edition featured a surprise set from Joni Mitchell, who last performed live in 2013. Other highlights included a guest appearance from Nathaniel Rateliff and standout sets by Courtney Barnett, Marcus Mumford, Brandi Carlile and more. Photos by Andrew […]

Khruangbin’s second of two sold-out shows at Roadrunner in Boston featured the kind of on-stage charisma, glamor, and production that makes it hard to imagine them coming back to town playing anything but an arena.  The 3,500-person General Admission venue opened its doors for the first time the night before Khruangbin’s first show with a […]

Animal Collective’s sold-out performance at Boston’s Paradise Rock Club on March 15th was a hypnotic stroll through their latest release, Time Skiffs, as well as a likely preview of what the quartet has in store for the future.  The group has an extensive history of treating live performances as a sonic laboratory for material in […]

Animal Collective’s latest release, Time Skiffs, is an explorative-yet-accessible album that finds the ensemble at their most copasetic in over a decade. 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion was a critically acclaimed masterpiece that built upon the success of 2007’s Strawberry Jam and established them as an act with a generational ability to bring honey-sweet harmonies to […]

St. Vincent is back on the road and inaugurated her tour with a set at Portland, Maine’s Thompson’s Point. She’d previously supported the release with a memorable SNL appearance in April. a concert livestream and a random performance at the opening of the Saint Vincent Hotel in New Orleans, but the Renaissance Woman born Annie […]

Just Dropped in (To See What Condition My Rendition Was in) is a heartwarming posthumous release by Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings that adds some heat to a series of familiar tunes that simultaneously pays tributes to Jones’ influences while honoring her legacy as the Godmother of a neo-soul movement that made stars out […]

The day before the release of his first album in a dozen years, Brandon Curtis is sitting on his screened-in porch in Northern Vermont, miles from the Canadian border, with a seemingly endless sprawl of pine trees behind him that couldn’t make for a sharper contrast to his younger years. The Secret Machines came up […]

After twelve years of radio silence, most fans of The Secret Machines thought their time had come to pass. The last time they’d put out new music, George W. Bush still occupied the White House and both iPads and Instagram were yet to exist. It’s important to understand how much the world has changed since […]

David Byrne’s American Utopia may have started as an outdoor summer tour, but it returned to Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre modified, improved and ready for Broadway. When it was announced that the former Talking Heads frontman was doing an American Utopia residency before a four-month Broadway engagement, it wasn’t hard to appreciate why the enigmatic […]