It’s always impressive when a band can reproduce its studio trickery before an audience. Seattle prog-rockers Minus the Bear prove as muchfrom the stage—the five-man machine operates live just as tightly as it does in the studio—but it wouldn’t hurt MtB to forget about recreating its songs note for note.
Seeing PiL in 2010, featuring Lydon, longtime members Lu Edmonds and Bruce Smith (who both date back to 1987’s Happy?) and relative newcomer, bassist/keyboardist Scott Firth, and touring the US for the first time in over a decade, offered no such surprises. As always Lydon has surrounded himself with a top-notch band and, though he’s clearly older,
And here you were thinking the glory days of Arena Rock were long gone. The mullets have become a bit grayer and the lighters have turned into cell phone screens swaying high in the air, but the music has survived intact; for the most part. In fact, after listening to Styx slam-bang out a set of songs from their very successful past, it has actually gotten stronger.
Deer Tick staged an impressive opening for the headliner Dr. Dog who seamlessly kept up the momentum by firing up the crowd in a way this band is becoming legendary for doing!
Though the Buzzcocks have released more recent material, two albums in the last decade even, this tour was for their first two releases from way back in 1978 which were re-issued by Mute Records earlier this year and played in their entirety. That certainly sets up the potential for a show that’s more about the past than the present, but the band’s performance said otherwise.
Before jaunting across the pond, Dr. Dog brought their rambling road show to Terminal 5 in NYC, making it the largest venue they have yet to headline in this town, and by the packed house of chanting fans, bigger things may be in their near future.
Although Jones’ music catalog leans towards the soft-rock side, she’s a Loretta Lynn in disguise, with a deep love and respect for country music, which she showed off on a cover Johnny Cash's "Cry Cry Cry," before closing the set with her country-jazz ballad "Lonestar.” That would soon be followed by unplugged version of the bluegrass composition "Creepin’ In,” which was originally recorded with Dolly Parton. Guys and girls might have been at the show for different reasons, but there’s no mistaking that the jazzy voice of Norah Jones is undoubtedly a guilty pleasure, and for that reason, her live shows fill a void, whether you care to admit it or not.
The barren landscape served as an appropriate backdrop to Jakob Dylan’s live performance at the Wiltern in Los Angeles. It depicted the overall tone quite well, which was simple, with images and landscapes of a rural and forlorn country. However, the show was sometimes a little jaded and monotonous.
About 800 of Porcupine Tree's darkly dressed advocates converged on Amos' Southend in Charlotte for the first ever "PT" show in North Carolina's largest city. An interesting mix of 40-somethings, dudes in Pink Floyd and Rush t-shirts, everyday hard rockers, the occasional punker or metalhead, and eager underage kids populated the venue, and the musical diversity represented by their conversations and apparel was right in line with the current sound of Porcupine Tree.
Following up on their 2007 release, Time On Earth – their first studio recording in fourteen years – New Zealand dream-pop auteurs Crowded House deliver Intriguer, scheduled for release on
