Once the All Time Low started performing their second song of the evening, the female fans started throwing bras on stage, many of them with phone numbers. Lead singer/guitar player, Alex Gaskarth, announced that all the bras get to be placed on Jack’s mic stand.
Despite being “sicker than a dog”, Pete Yorn pulled himself up by his bootstraps and gave 120 percent without ever blinking an eye nor giving in to whatever illness was ailing him on this steamy hot night in a packed-house old venue that is beloved by many in the Crescent City. But when all was said and done, Pete, along with his bandmates, walked off that stage dripping wet with satisfied sweat.
Hayes Carll and Jason Isbell are modern-day troubadours, constantly crisscrossing the country while becoming distinctly familiar with the beer-stained walls and sticky floors of rock club dressing rooms, not to mention the occasional belligerently drunken fan such as the old-enough-to-know-better jackass that doused Isbell and his bandmates almost as soon as they took the stage this night.
The Belle Brigade are influenced by artists spread across different genres, and name Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles and Stevie Wonder as musical inspirations. One would call their album as folk-rock, infused with tight harmonies, catchy melodies and danceable rhythms. When Barbara and Ethan sing, they sing as one tightly knit, well-executed, story-telling voice. Being siblings as well as best friends give the other a solid shoulder to lean on. At the end of their set, Barbara could not be happier introducing her younger brother to the appreciative crowd in San Luis Obispo.
Rhett Miller wears many masks: the borderline creepy voyeur in “The Dance Class”, the ruthless libertine of “Won’t Be Home”, or the devotedly romantic lover in “Question”. The personalities that populate Miller’s landscape are complex and constantly shifting in their views, thoughts, and actions. In short, they are human: capable of being loved or loathed depending on the scene and situation
Arcade Fire was greeted by a never ending crowd of people who had been looking forward to their headlining set all day. Their stage was set up like the outside of a movie theater and had clips of quirky old movies showing in the background. After a few powerful songs, Win Butler steps out and says, "If you had told me in 2002 that we would be headlining Coachella and having Animal Collective play before us, I would have thought you were full of shit.
All in all, it was certainly an off night for Ani DiFranco and her band. But for a performer who is such a regular fixture on the folk circuit, it’s both understandable and forgivable. Still, as DiFranco continues to advance in her career, she could learn from going back and revisiting some of the rawness and emotional honesty of her earlier records to invigorate some of the new work with a similar empathy
The Arcade Fire re-write the rules of what a rock band looks like, appearing as the “high school band geeks” gone rock star cool. And as the band and fans sang in unison "ooh ooh ooh oooh” on the set finale “Wake Up," the Comerica Theater sounded like a World Cup soccer match – call it a win-win night for all in attendance.
In the 20 plus songs and slightly less than two hours Toad the Wet Sprocket played in the Ballroom at Higher Ground 3/31, virtually none of the tunes sounded appreciably different than the original recordings some of which date back 25 years. Yet, based on the scattered but nonetheless hearty acclamation so many of those tunes received, the band still hits a chord with their audience, perhaps for that very familiarity.
Electric Six finally graced the Riot Room in Kansas City, Missouri with its presence after a five-month postponement of its original show date back in the fall. It was a night filled with covers, middle-aged folks dancing, and murmurs towards diverse establishments.
