Dave Matthews Band Caravan @ Lakeside Chicago – July 8-10
The Dave Matthews Band’s roving music festival Caravan made its second stop at Chicago’s Lakeside on July 8 – 10. The festival featured 38 bands spread over three days and three stages, and the Dave Matthews Band (DMB) closed out each night with three-hour performances. For DMB fans I am sure the experience was heavenly; as for the rest of us Caravan was exhausting, yet it had its perks. I was drawn to Caravan for primarily two reasons: The Flaming Lips were performing The Dark Side of the Moon and the festival was at a new, never-before used site on the south side of the Windy City.
Chicago geography is strange in that one side of the city may as well be a different state from the other. Those who live anywhere north of the Loop, aka downtown, rarely venture south of the Loop and vice versa. Caravan was stationed at an old U.S. Steel Plant near 83rd street off Lake Michigan, roughly nine miles south of downtown. The festival’s location was a great tactic to draw life and money into the under served community.
Initially I was pumped about Caravan; Flaming Lips and a south side adventure! Being a Chicagoan I tend to travel by bus or train. The press release for the festival read “easily access Lakeside” by public transportation. Alright, sounded easy enough. The first red flag was when I Googled directions, the site did not register on the map. Weird, but no problem, I thought. I would just hop on the train and hope for the best. The second red flag raised when it took me two to three hours each way to get to and fro the grounds. I participated in a pilgrimage revolved around a band I did not necessarily care for.
READ ON for more of Allison’s take on DMB Caravan Chicago…
Dave Matthews Band Caravan @ Atlantic City, NJ June 24, 25 & 26
Words: Carla Danca
Photos: Jeremy Gordon
When a band decides that they aren’t hitting the road for the summer, fans often start to worry, but in the case of Dave Mathews Band, a summer free from touring left them open to much bigger and better things. DMB is no stranger to the summer festival circuit having appeared in festivals from H.O.R.D.E to Bonnaroo over the course of their 20 year career, but their own events so far have been smaller – a two-day show here or there. This year they went all in, planning four separate Caravan events including three days at the never before used as a concert venue Bader Field in Atlantic City.
[All photos by Jeremy Gordon]
While DMB could have gotten away with being the only band on the lineup, they instead pulled from an eclectic mix of artists that combined old friends and up and comers. The days were jammed packed with music, often causing hard decisions when bands overlapped. Though many of the artists held obvious appeal for DMB fans, acts such as Big Gigantic and Bassnectar provided danceable grooves, while Punch Brothers and Thievery Corporation exposed fans to a much more worldly sound.
READ ON for more from DMB Caravan – Atlantic City…
In one word: eccentric. The Flaming Lips refuse to be confined within the norm, and instead, they propel themselves to a world far beyond. Even their venue shatters visions of the mundane. Famous guests such as Harry Truman, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, and Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone are all in attendance, because this is no ordinary venue. The Flaming Lips will be preforming The Soft Bulletin in its entirety in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Over the last few years, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, which boasts an impressive array of celebrities buried within its grounds, has played host to a series of unique concerts. The latest batch of artists to sign on to perform amongst the tombstones include Explosions In The Sky, James Blake, Mark Lanegan and Flaming Lips. The psychedelic-rock act, who will play the cemetery for two nights and one morning on June 14 and 15, will seize the opportunity by performing their 1999 breakthrough album The Soft Bulletin
As an added Tour Dates bonus, you can click through to see the full NSFW poster for the Lips run at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
If can’t make it out to LA for these special shows, then maybe you’ll be able to hit one of these recently announced tours…
Finally, influential live music website Daytrotter has announced the details for their 4th annual Barnstormer Tour. The five show tour will run from April 26-30, hitting actual barns in Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan and Iowa, and will include performances from site alums Sondre Lerche, Guards, The Romany Rye, Hellogoodbye, ARMS, Keegan DeWit, Mike & The Moonpies and Hands.
If you didn’t think it was possible for Zooey Deschanel to get anymore adorable, then think again. The doe-eyed musician/actress will be featured on the soundtrack to Disney’s reboot of Winnie
It’s looking like 2011 is going to be a banner year for new music as you can now circle May 10 on your calendar, because you’re going to want to
December 31st is the biggest night for live music of the year. An argument might be made for Halloween, but I’m not buying it. Your non-live-music-loving-friends don’t say things like, “Halloween is the most anti-climactic day of the year” while you sit there and just snicker. We’ve been a little Phish heavy this week so let’s take a look at how 24 other bands rang in 2011.
Side Note: This was my first time using embedded images from setlist.fm and I must say it looks super slick. That site has really got it going on, I hope the quality of data improves as more people use it, because with better information – statistics like “What songs did LCD Soundsystem play in 2010” will be really useful to have for a wide variety of bands.
READ ON for lots more New Year’s Eve Setlists
If you’re sticking close to home this New Year’s Eve, you’ll still have plenty of options to hear and see live music from a number of our favorite bands on
Another day and another story about our favorite psychedelic rock band from Oklahoma, as The Flaming Lips have announced via their Twitter account that they will be playing their 1999
In an age of Facebook, Twitter and any number of social media outlets capable of documenting the minutia of your day to day life, sometimes something as simple as the lost art of the phone call serves as the best way to connect with someone on a personal level. For their latest social activism campaign, HeadCount is doing just that by taking a back to basics approach in order to remind people to head to the polls to exercise the Constitutional right to vote in next Tuesday’s mid-term elections.
The non-partisan organization, that was founded in 2004 by Andy Bernstein and Disco Biscuits bassist Marc Brownstein, and has helped register over 175,000 people, has enlisted a impressive roster of musicians from the indie to jam world, that includes Jim James (MMJ), Willie Nelson, ?uestlove, Matt Berninger (The National), Jon Fishman (Phish) and Warren Haynes (ABB, Gov’t Mule) to not only pre-record reminder messages, but also make live personal calls to a select number of the approximately 25,000 people who have made a “Pledge to Vote” via HeadCount.
In a media conference call yesterday to talk about the inventive initiative, HeadCount board member Bob Weir (Grateful Dead/Furthur) stressed the importance of a “Vote For You” mentality, saying that young people need to take the future into consideration and participate instead of letting a bunch of “crusty old folks” made the decisions that have direct impact on their lives and those of future generations. Weir, who joked that his call list was so large he better get to work on it immediately, said that would seize the opportunity to talk to people to help figure out where the organization’s efforts will be centered in the future.
READ ON for more from HeadCount’s conference call…
