Posts by Andrew Bruss

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 […]

Newport Jazz Festival celebrated its 65th year with performances from jazz greats like Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter, modern draws in Kamasi Washington and Corinne Bailey Rae and performances from the likes of Common and Tank and the Bangas that said loud and clear that hip hop is the new jazz.  Both the Jazz and […]

If you never had the chance to see Prince live, then frankly, it sucks to be you. That said 4U: A Symphonic Celebration of Prince came through Lynn Memorial Auditorium, just outside of Boston, and it was an excellent opportunity to experience The Purple One’s back catalogue in in a way that paid homage to […]

After a six-year absence, Radiohead returned to Boston for two sold out shows at TD Garden that was their first ever show at the venue and their first indoor performance in the Boston-area in over twenty years. Radiohead fans are an enthusiastic bunch and since the band tours both globally and infrequently, every show they […]

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard just might be the hottest rock band on the road this summer and their anarchic set at Boston’s Royale Night Club on June 14th was the proof in the LSD-laced pudding. The Seven Man Psych Rock Act from the Great Down Under released five entirely different albums last year […]

The third and final day of Boston Calling was cold, windy, rainy and raw but it didn’t stop the festival’s best incarnation yet from ending on a high note. Field Report opened the Blue Stage strong with a strong set consisting entirely of material from their recently released Summertime Songs. After their set, Glide caught […]

The second day of Boston Calling featured a schedule overflowing with talent that made for unfortunate news on one front, but mostly didn’t disappoint. Although it was cloudy all day, the sky played ball and the rainy forecast never materialized. The Arena hosted a live recording of the popular podcast, Pod Save America, that used […]

Boston Calling is back for its 2018 incarnation and from what we saw on May 24th, the first day, everything is firing off on all cylinders. The move from City Hall Plaza to the Harvard Athletic Complex last year approximately tripled the size of the event, allowing much bigger names to make the bill, but […]

  “Forget what we said last December, cuz it’s been a hell of a year.” Susan Tedeschi belts those words out on “Let Me Get By” a Tedeschi Trucks Band song from an album of the same name. It’s hard to know what was going through her mind when she wrote the tune with her […]

Tedeschi Trucks Band’s sold out, three night run at Boston’s Orpheum Theater was an excellent bookend for a year that has been an emotional rollercoaster for the revue. 2017 saw the band continue to fill theaters for nights at a time and capped things off with another Grammy nomination. On the other side of the […]

It was a sight to behold. Kamasi Washington packed Boston’s Royale nightclub on November 20th with college-aged kids chomping at the bit to hear jazz music, and on a Monday night no less. We’re not talking about jazz-fusion, or Medeski, Martin and Wood-style jammy jazz. Kamasi Washington dished up ninety minutes of straight jazz that […]

Sandwiched between arena sets in Boston and New York City, Queens of the Stone Age worked in a thrasher of a performance at Portland Maine’s State Theater on October 22nd for a rabid, sold-out crowd of 1,800 that was literally louder than the band. Prior to the Queens taking the stage, their audience was treated […]

Green Day’s performance at the Venue Formerly Known As Great Woods (Xfinity Center) on August 28th was so powerful Billie Joe Armstrong’s stage presence would make Dave Grohl look like Burt Bacharach by comparison. Their set before a capacity crowd in Mansfield, Mass was in support of their latest release, Revolution Radio, but the material […]

While Wilco’s performance at Portland’s Thompson’s Point on July 30th is unlikely to excite their fanbase like other recent New England performances, their two hour set of Experimental Americana was a demonstration of what makes Wilco as beloved as they are and why they’re worth seeing in concert over and over again. Earlier this summer, […]

The third and final day of Boston Calling featured an eclectic onslaught of modern music that reinforced the events ability to stay true to its identity while successfully changing locations and doubling in size. Best of Day Three: Run The Jewels RTJ slays their crowd like a dragon night after night and the larger the […]

The Pixies kicked off their sold-out, three-night run through Boston with a vintage set at the House of Blues on May 19th that proved beyond a doubt that with respect to founding bassist Kim Deal, Paz Lenchantin fits into this quartet better than POTUS in a Russian bath house. Throughout the course of their nearly […]

This Memorial Day marks a series of changes that add up to the most monumental shift in Boston Calling’s format since the inaugural event was held in May of 2013. Rather than holding a biannual event every Labor and Memorial Day, the festival is going to be appearing in May alone. Instead of staying in […]

For the Pixies, commercial success was never significantly achieved prior to their break up in the early 1990’s. By the time they got back together in the winter of 2004, their discography had attained a mythical status whose heavy-duty influence on iconic acts like Nirvana only made them more of a draw than they were […]

“Never doubt that fucking rainbow,” frontman Wayne Coyne told his Boston audience following a spaced out jam under an inflatable prism. Coyne and his Heady Fwends brought The Flaming Lips through Boston’s House of Blues in support of their recent release, Oczy Mlody, for a set that showcased new material but focused on fan favorites […]

Run The Jewels’ sold out set at Boston’s House of Blues was an hour long battle cry against The Orange Menace occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and laid clear their bona fides as the most important Rap Duo of 2017. El-P and Killer Mike released RTJ3 weeks after the election and they brought its sense of […]