Show Reviews

Umphrey’s McGee’s spirited fans scurried about the sprawling North Carolina Music Factory district, trying (and failing to a great degree) to dodge scattered thunderstorms near showtime at The Fillmore in Charlotte. A deluge of rain soaked a few hundred late-arriving fans as openers J. Roddy Walston and The Business finished their set, and none of […]

On the evening of August 15 at Rutland Vermont’s beautiful Paramount Theatre, Big Head Todd and The Monsters played a set of pure rock and roll music best described as an exercise in the power of understatement. And not just in comparison to the opening performance of JJ Grey & Mofro: the Colorado-based quartet proved […]

Santana came through Boston’s Blue Hills Bank Pavilion for a sweltering performance that elicited a more enthusiastic response from his Baby Booming crowd than plenty of Millennial acts playing the same space did this summer. Taking the stage to a video montage of Woodstock, the Summer of Love alum tore into “Soul Sacrifice,” an instrumental […]

Bodies began to bob and weave as soon as soon as Soule Monde began to play at Burlington’s Waterfront Park August 7th, those undulations from the burgeoning crowed of Twiddleheads, soon to be accompanied by beatific smiles of delight as the duo’s open-ended, infectious jazz took hold. It mattered less if these were reactions from […]

Somewhere out in the far reaches of the Universe the Voyager probe was well received and has returned to us in the form of Man or Astro-Man?, an eclectic mix of surf rock with punk energy and a mix of sound bites from early sci-fi film. Imagine the outcome that would occur if you locked […]

Members of the rotating rock royalty that make up the Kings of Chaos band gathered at the legendary Fillmore concert hall in the heart of San Francisco for an ear shattering sold out rock jam on Wednesday, July 29th. The evening began with VIP guests arriving to meet and greet and have their photos taken […]

Hard Summer, the ongoing premiere EDM music festival in Southern California, brought a huge sold out crowd to the Pomona Fairplex for two days on August 1st and 2nd. The festival, the brain child of promoter Gary Richards, began in 2007, and has morphed into an annual, multi- event cornucopia of EDM music. Events now […]

Damien Rice has no real “hits”. It took him almost a decade to release his third album, My Favourite Faded Fantasy, and is currently touring in support of it as a solo act. So how did he manage to sell out the nearly 3,000 capacity Bass Concert Hall on Thursday night? The short answer: once […]

On Monday night grunge pioneers Alice in Chains serenaded an Orlando crowd with the melancholic soundtrack they perfected. The deep droning guitars, pounding drums, and ferocious vocals associated with the band since its inception 28 years ago pummeled Hard Rock Live for a solid two hours, with no encore, only letting up a couple times […]

Jamie xx just might be the single most tasteful DJ of the 21st Century and his sold out performance at Boston’s Royale night club made it obvious why. xx (born Jamie Smith) was the production wheel on British electro-pop trio The xx and after two albums he dropped his first  original solo studio album, In […]

Amongst the buried and the Garden of Eternal Love began a two hour intergalactic journey courtesy of Tame Impala, who finished their two night stay at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary. Performing tracks off their new album Currents -“Cause I’m a Man” and “The Less I Know the Better” – combined with classics from InnerSpeaker and […]

“There’s a lot of heartbreak when you’re on tour. … I don’t know.” Zach Yudin followed this introduction to “Deep Sea” with a self-deprecating laugh before his band, Cayucas, eased into the loungey tune at the Parish in Austin on Sunday. As lead singers go, Yudin is pretty unassuming. It’s not that he doesn’t take […]

“Eddie has got you in the room, but I’m gonna sell you the Bibles.” chuckled the iconic frontman David Lee Roth midway through Van Halen’s set at the Xfinity Center – formerly known as Great Woods. And he was right. Eddie Van Halen still can play guitar like no other, or rather no one can […]

Day 2 of the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival in no way disappointed, and saw record numbers flock to Golden Gate Park for a day packed with a wide variety of talent and electrifying shows.

2015’s iteration of the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival started off strong, with a fantastic set by newcomer Natalie Prass. Her debut album Bird of Prey has already received considerable acclaim since its release in late January, and her set at OSL proved the accolades are well-deserved. Her single “Bird of Prey” hit home […]

2015 – the year in which Sleater-Kinney, Veruca Salt, Babes in Toyland, Garbage and L7 all reunited and toured after lengthy hiatuses. Surely, this female-fronted rock reformation zeitgeist is more than circumstantial; five of the most iconic and influential bands of the last 20 years all getting back together at the same time must signal […]

Pickathon on Pendarvis Farm outside Portland was everything a music festival needs to be. The bands were on point and every band seemed to be followed up by an equally impressive one, and the after hours partying throughout the farm made this a festival experience like no other. The site was beautiful and the woods […]

Review by Jordan Gill. Photos by Rich Gastwirt. It’s rare these days to experience four days of uninterrupted relaxation and entertainment, without encroaching worries about real-life commitments and grown-up responsibilities, but if you were one of the lucky ones to attend the Tweed River Music Festival in Waitsfield, Vermont this past weekend, that’s exactly what […]

For the past twenty years, Gathering of the Vibes has kept the spirit of the Grateful Dead pulsating through the veins of New England. The festival was started the Summer Jerry died as a way to celebrate the man and his legacy. Two decades later, on what would have been Captain Trips’ 73rd Birthday, Warren […]

Warren Haynes split up his record release show for his new fantastic album Ashes & Dust in predictable manner. The first set focused on the current tunes and second would be “songs you know” in his words. The beautiful thing was the new selections were just as invigorating as old standards. Joined by the dynamic […]