Show Reviews

Brandi Carlile is on top of the world, and nowhere was this more apparent than on stage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg last Wednesday night. Carlile took the intimate venue by storm after finding out her newest studio album, The Firewatcher’s Daughter, broke into the top ten on the Billboard 200. In a genuine […]

Age and optimism are recurring themes for the jazz trumpeter Herb Alpert this week at the Café Carlyle in New York, where he and his wife, the singer Lani Hall, are performing nightly through March 21. Alpert told a full club on Wednesday that he will turn 80 later this month. He spent only a […]

Jones Family Photo Credit: Otis Ike Each year it seems like the music portion of SXSW gets started a little earlier and this year the parties and shows were pretty much in full swing by Monday. While one part of you knows that preserving yourself for the marathon week to come is crucial, it is impossible […]

Fans of Grateful Dead music have much reason to celebrate of late. With the affectionately (and, from a marketing perspective, cleverly) dubbed “GD50” celebration – 2015 marking what would have been the band’s 50th anniversary – there has been an abundance of artists taking advantage of the reignited interest in the extensive songbook of Grateful […]

Based on location alone, New Orleans’ BUKU Music + Art Project is poised to be the most New Orleans thing there is, right? Held on the sweeping grounds of Blain Kern’s Mardi Gras World — the place where floats are built and props hang from rafters staring you down like that teenager on molly — […]

The album Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield Sing Elliott Smith grew from the admiration Avett and Mayfield share for the songs of Elliott Smith. A three-year project, it was recorded in their spare time, partly in both of their homes. Perhaps it was the homegrown and personal nature of the project that inspired the […]

As if shot from a cannon, Irish musician Andrew Hozier-Byrne, now known globally as simply, Hozier, burst onto the music scene with the hit “Take Me to Church”. The viral music video of the song has over 140,000,000 views on YouTube. High profile appearances on Saturday Night Live, The Grammy Awards and Jimmy Fallon, along […]

The third annual Rock Against MS concert, filled the Whiskey a Go Go club on Sunset Boulevard on March 3rd. The VIP pre-party and subsequent marathon concert, featuring over 50 performers, lasted over seven hours. The event was organized by Nancy Sayle, a Los Angeles publicist, popular amongst area celebrities and musicians. Sayle, who is […]

From the moment Los Lobos hit the stage, their Latin vibe rhythmic rock and roll set everything in motion; the sextet wandered the stage as if making a game of musical chairs, their fans were shaking and by the end of the night the tiny theater was quaking. At this point in their forty-two year […]

There’s something to be said for a band that can transcend labels. Sure, it would be easy to call Greensky Bluegrass a jam band or a bluegrass band, but the Michigan quintet is much more than just those two things. The group writes songs in an alt. country/Americana vein that are thoughtful and well sung, […]

Lucero and Ryan Bingham hail from totally different parts of the country, yet somehow booking them on a co-headlining tour makes complete sense. Both Ryan Bingham and Lucero’s lead singer Ben Nichols possess two of the roughest voices in rock and roll. Their gravelly voices are unmistakable and fit perfectly when singing songs of heartbreak, […]

Durham, NC boasts a rich jazz and blues heritage, and on a dreary winter evening in March 2015, the Durham Performing Arts Center was the site of another entry into the city’s considerable musical ledger. Gov’t Mule came to town with John Scofield in tow, and that alone is a show worth seeing. But story […]

When you create timeless music and happen to be responsible for laying the foundation of the almighty force known as funk, it doesn’t really matter if you have the original lineup together. The bottom line is, for anyone even slightly familiar with the Meters, any chance to catch even one of the members is a […]

Futuristic impressionists DRKWAV channeled the performance space of the Cambridge Regattabar into a canvas of deep, intricately textured jazz fusion. Two lengthy sets provided the trio of John Medeski, Adam Deitch, and Skerik to ability to explore some of the more menacing aspects of psychedelic jazz, all the while keeping a pulsing, funky rhythm that […]

On the coldest night of the year in the winter wasteland that was once Boston (minus 5 degrees), Sturgill Simpson, arguably one of the music industry’s hottest acts, rolled into town. The 800 person capacity club was  sold out for months and by show time the room was full and then some; barely a sliver […]

Los Angeles band Francisco The Man brought some heat to Allston Rock City’s Great Scott this past Sunday evening. On tour in support of their first full-length LP Loose Ends, the West Coast group’s fiery power pop lit up lit up the audience with emotive songwriting and sharp, fuzz-driven musicianship. Francisco The Man wasted no […]

Karl Denson is on a major roll. Having just returned from an epic Australian tour with the Rolling Stones, the saxophonist extraordinaire has rejoined his usual musical crew of Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe to tour the country playing their unique style of boogaloo funk and soul, and taking a set to honor the self proclaimed kings […]

Last June, the Avett brothers had the unenviable task of playing the main stage at the prestigious Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee on the final afternoon of the four day festival. After listening to nearly non-stop live music for the previous three days and partaking in round the clock celebrations, the audience traditionally becomes near […]

South African band, Kongos, is on their first major headlining American tour, and on February 12, along with supporting bands, Sir Sly and Colony House, they hit the Electric Factory stage in Philadelphia. The road trip, billed The Lunatic Tour, is in support of their breakthrough album of the same name. Nashville, Tennessee band, Colony […]

The Lone Bellow came to Boston on the first stop of their current tour in support of their latest album Then Came the Morning. The stormy weather and cold temperature did not hinder the band’s fans from lining up outside the Paradise, hours before the doors opened. Once inside, most of the diehards lined up […]