Category: Show Reviews

Show Review: 50 Years of The Residents, Castro Theatre, 09/17/2021

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

In mid-July, legendary art-rockers The Residents announced the “Dog Stab!” tour, a 22-date run around the US to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their first live performance (in 1971!).  A month later, they cancelled all except for three California shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz “due to continued concerns about the spread of Covid-19 cases from the Delta variant”.  The show in San Francisco also served as the reopening of the historic Castro Theatre, which has been closed since March 2020, and Spinning Platters was invited to attend!  

Outside Lands 2021: Additional GA Tickets On Sale 9/16 at 10am

Just a quick heads up- if you missed your shot at Outside Lands tickets in the Spring, they are putting a small number of 3-Day and single-day GA tickets on sale TOMORROW! That’s Thursday, 9/16, at 10 am PST. Go here to snag your tickets! 

Also, tomorrow happens to also be the last day to start your vaccine schedule be fully inoculated in time for the fest! Outside Lands will be requiring either proof of vaccination or a negative test taken within 48 hours of the event. More info can be found here about their health & safety policy!

Show Review: Megadeth + Lamb of God + Trivium + Hatebreed, Concord Pavilion, 09/02/2021

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

‘Metal Tour of the Year.’ Quite a bold statement. The concert t-shirts even say it. On September 2, Megadeth, Lamb of God, Trivium, and Hatebreed descended on the sleepy East Bay city of Concord to wreak some havoc and let everyone else know that they intend to hold onto their self-proclaimed tour title!

Show Review: Green Day + Fall Out Boy + Weezer = Hella Mega @ Oracle Park, San Francisco, 8/27/2021

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

Oracle Park, home to the San Francisco Giants, historically does not host many concerts outside of the regular baseball season (and certainly not the post-season lately either!). Since 2013, there has been an average of six concerts per year, and a few of them are usually tied to corporations like the annual Genentech Gives Back or convention attendee parties for Salesforce.com’s DreamForce and Oracle’s OpenWorld.  In fact, the last concert to be held here was 21 months ago for DreamForce (UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital benefit).  Leave it to East Bay’s own Green Day to stage the first Hella Mega sized concert at Oracle Park since the world shut down early last year!

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Show Review: Rise Against + Descendents, Masonic Auditorium, San Francisco, 8/22/2021

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

The first show of the final week of Rise Against‘s Nowhere Generation tour was also the first show at the Masonic Auditorium in 543 days (since February 27, 2020)!  Many precautions were taken, both by the band and by the venue, to ensure that this day would happen.  Proof of vaccination or vaccine cards were required and checked upon entry, band crew and local stagehands were masked, an audience mask policy was also in effect (although at least half were unmasked, even as they entered the building), the bar and merchandise appeared to be mostly cashless with contactless point-of-sale card readers, and even the ticketing happened through a mobile phone app (although we scored a real one!).

Continue reading “Show Review: Rise Against + Descendents, Masonic Auditorium, San Francisco, 8/22/2021”

Show Review: Korn + Staind, MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa, 8/07/2021

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

After the first couple months of 2020, as the music industry began to shutdown due to a worldwide pandemic, Korn was one of the few bands still on the road that was lucky enough to not have had the remainder of their tour cancelled.  Staind didn’t have to worry at all about that, as they have been on an extended hiatus, aside from a handful of shows and festivals here and there that they reconvened for.  This show at MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre was the second stop of their current summer tour together as co-headliners.

Spinning Platters had to get creative at the last minute to photograph and review this show as our press request was not replied to due to a publicist change (Korn) and press access was retracted due to growing COVID concerns (Staind).  Thankfully, Live Nation had their annual summer $20 lawn ticket special the week prior, and since our metal music writer + photographer (who has been in Florida for most of 2021) is a seasoned concert veteran, he was smart enough to know to bring a decent camera without a detachable lens (Nikon Coolpix P80), and was cunning enough to know how to sneak on down to the main floor in order to get these photos (they are definitely not as good as what we usually get from the Canon DSLR)!

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Show Review: Brad Paisley, MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, Tampa, 7/09/2021

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

With the grand reopening of live music in America already pushing ahead full-steam and it almost feeling like COVID-19 is over and done, Spinning Platters home base of San Francisco is presently a little bit behind that national trend.  The Independent SF, the free Stern Grove Festival, Punch Line and Cobbs comedy clubs, and Cornerstone have each recently reopened, with Bottom of the Hill, Shoreline Amphitheatre, The Fillmore, The Warfield, The Regency Ballroom, The Chapel, August Hall, Fox Theater, and The UC Theatre all looking at August or September.

For the past several months, our rock photographer has been in Florida, a place that never completely stopped gathering for concerts.  Although the vast majority of our coverage is throughout the Bay Area, with the past 16-month drought of any live event here, we have been extremely thankful to have been invited to attend and review a variety of shows down there in Florida.  Even more exciting, most of these musicians (Foreigner, Styx, Sammy Hagar) have never before been showcased at Spinning Platters, and we are thrilled to be able to add one more artist and genre to this recent diversity, country music icon Brad Paisley!

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Show Review: Perfume Genius, Madame Gandhi at Stern Grove, 06/27/21

The Shy Reverence of Being Back Together Again…

Towering silver eucalyptus and cascading gold nasturtium cradled the colorful crowd on Pride Sunday. This was the first live music many of the Stern Grove goers had attended since the pandemic. The vibe was a mellow picnic; towels, shawls, and blankets quilted the ground, families and friends gathered carefully upon them. We aren’t quite back to normal yet, but it seems promising. Continue reading “Show Review: Perfume Genius, Madame Gandhi at Stern Grove, 06/27/21”

Show Review: Teenage Bottlerocket, Skatepark of Tampa, 6/26/2021

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

Over the past month or so, there has been a huge increase in the amount of indoor tours being announced nationwide.  Despite the grand reopening of America, COVID-19 policies still exist and are different for every venue and every city and every state.  Some are still intensely enforced, while others are not and were put in place just to comply with local statutes.

In early May, shortly after Laramie, Wyoming’s Teenage Bottlerocket announced a 12-date tour, their St. Petersburg (Florida) tour date garnered headlines when the local promoter Leadfoot Promotions announced, for the safety of everyone in attendance, that they will be charging $999.99 per ticket (up to four total) or a discounted price of $18 for those who could prove that they are fully-vaccinated.  By the end of the month, the venue in St. Petersburg got cold feet, the show was moved to Skatepark of Tampa, and this story hit the national news circuit on CNN, even as all 250 discounted tickets to the show had already sold-out.  

Although San Francisco, the international headquarters of Spinning Platters, is slowly reopening from its now 16-month COVID lockdown, our rock photographer is still in Florida.  Since the promoter relied on a crew of volunteers to make the show happen, fully-vaccinated Spinning Platters volunteered to help out, and in the process, was able to photograph and attend Teenage Bottlerocket!

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Show Review: Thao Nguyen at The Chapel, 06/24/21

I’ve seen Thao perform in a lot of non-traditional spaces and situations. I’ve probably seen her perform more non-traditional sets than traditional sets at this point… I’ve seen her do a high concept stand-up and music variety show, I’ve seen her as the special guest of a fake talk show where Moby taught her how to play “Purple Rain,” I’ve seen her absolutely kill “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa while being backed by Fred Armisen & Carrie Brownstein, and I’ve even seen her create a live score to a series of classic film shorts! And that’s just what I’ve written about… So it seems appropriate that Thao is my first “COVID-Safe” show. 

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