Show Reviews

Bonnaroo’s normal Thursday appetizer was a bit light this year. Set times clocked in at 45 minutes, and the music started at dinnertime, leaving only about 8 hours for the festival’s various tents to get their collective roofs blown off. Some of the attendees spent longer than that waiting in line to enter the venue. […]

As we weaved around colorful kids and kind folks, songs of the Grateful Dead filled the air. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the jam band scene’s creators, and that special fact was not lost on anyone at Mountain Jam. Mountain Jam can at times resemble the hippie Utopia that the Dead, and the […]

The fifth annual Notes For Notes benefit concert and auction took place  Sunday, June 7th, in front of an exuberant sold out audience. Notes For Notes is a Santa Barbara based organization started by Phil Gilley & Roderick Hare and presented by local musician Seymour Duncan, who is better known nationally as one of the […]

A mellow Monday night in Eugene was complemented by the soft folk rock delivered by Toronto’s very own Great Lake Swimmers. The night kicked off with a solo performance by fellow Toronto musician Tamara Lindeman of The Weather Station. Her opening set was intimate and started what would remain a very relaxed evening. Eugene on […]

Fifty-one years ago to the day, the Rolling Stones took to a Texas stage for the first time in San Antonio. It was their first foray onto American soil, the second date of the tour and they were playing several shows at the Texas State Fair. “It seemed at last we were going to play […]

The third and final day of the 5th annual Governors Ball was by far the strongest. The weather was perfect, the schedule was exciting and all of the logistics were finally in synch. Young Guns: Sunday afternoon gave a prominent slot to two up and coming rock acts: Tame Impala and Royal Blood. The latter […]

Day two of Governors Ball hosted a less impressive lineup but was a more enjoyable day than its predecessor by a mile with added amenities and additional portapotties and less of a mainstream crowd that was there for Drake and Florence the Machine.  Bjork had the same time slot as Florence + The Machine had the […]

Day one of the fifth annual Governors Ball had an eclectic set of acts spread across four stages, but as with any festival, the music is just a part of the story. The kickoff of GB5 had its share of good, bad and ugly. The Good: Friday might have been the best day of programing […]

Two of the current elite songwriters working today made their way to the historically gorgeous Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY as Craig Finn and Jason Isbell held court. Both have new albums about to be released but took different approaches to their sets on this night. Finn was up first and decided to showcase […]

Review by Marinda Snow Righter and Brian Geraghty When Jesse and his band walk on stage, you don’t need to hear a note to know you’re in for something special, like a retro soul throw-down, if there is such a thing. Or better yet, an R&B hootenanny. They look like the house band for a […]

For 15 of the last Memorial Day weekends Summer Camp Music Festival has taken over Three Sisters Park outside of Chillicothe, Illinois.  The festival is annually headlined by moe. and Umphrey’s McGee and backed by a slew of talent featuring jam, rock, classic, electronic, funk, and bluegrass artists. It also features a one of a […]

Who would ever expect a stout bearded fellow of Albanian descent from Queens, New York to be one of the freshest, most exciting faces in hip-hop today? Sure, stranger things have happened, but nonetheless, the cannonball that is Action Bronson is one of the more interesting characters in the scene today. The fans recognize this […]

Yearly the hardcore-metal world focuses on 11th st between 3rd and 4th avenues in NYC for the Black N’ Blue Bowl at Webster Hall (formerly the Superbowl of Hardcore). The nightly dance club transforms into a tattooed, black band t-shirted melay of flying limbs, riffs and unfortunately, increasingly receding hairlines. Big band reunions are commonplace […]

In its fourteenth year Sasquatch! Music Festival, at the iconic Gorge Amphitheater, gave fans an experience they will not soon forget. There were issues with the high-tech wristbands that kept many festival goers from entering the grounds on the first day, and the sound pollution from stage to stage was at times was truly awful, […]

The Warfield came alive with The Jesus and Mary Chain playing a solid set from their album Psychocandy, as this tour marks its 30th anniversary. Arguably one of the most prolific bands to emerge from the early 80’s, The Jesus and Mary Chain carved the mold for the emergence of the shoegaze movement, laying down […]

Just one night after Violent Femmes wrapped their most extensive recording sessions since 1998, the band brought rockabilly and heavy bluegrass to a set of favorites and obscure requests in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The show on Tuesday, at the record store Rough Trade NYC, was significant for being the Femmes’s first performance to follow their longest […]

The third year edition of the biannual Boston Calling Music Festival kicked off on a gorgeous Friday spring evening in the literal heart of the city, City Hall Plaza; a brick oasis surrounded on three sides by skyscrapers and Faneuil Hall and the Atlantic Ocean on the fourth.  A true “city festival,” the organizers have […]

The first person in line for the Earl Sweatshirt show in Mesa, Arizona arrived at 1:40 p.m. and was most likely in high school. By 6:40 p.m. there were about 200 people—mostly teens with bucket hats, white skin and adrenaline— lined up about 50 yards deep past the door in front of the closed down […]

It’s a rite of passage: one knows spring is upon us when birds are chirping, women are scantily clad, baseball is banging and Philadelphia hosts its annual musical soiree – Jam on the River. On May 16, 2015 Live Nation presented a full day of stellar music with ten bands playing on two stages on […]

The final day of Hangout Fest was forcibly meandering in the best of ways, barring the lengthy shuttle bus ride over a bridge just to turn around and head back the same direction. As we passed over a gulf inlet for the second time, the bro to my right stopped chugging his liter of bud […]