I have to admit something: after nearly six years in the Bay Area, this past weekend was my first time at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. I promise, I love music. I just have never been drawn to a specific show there. That all changed when I saw that one of my all-time favorite musical acts was coming to town this year. Continue reading “Show Review: A Night at the Greek with Empire of the Sun, 5/3/2025”
Category: Show Reviews
An Appreciation of Phish at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, April 22 & 23, 2025
Photos by Tiffany Michelle Black
One doesn’t simply review a Phish concert. First, you have to show your bona fides. With that in mind, I’ll simply state that my first time hearing Phish was Jeffrey Quinlan’s Junta cassette that he brought back from Bowdoin College, where his brother had seen them. My first show was in 1992; I left early. My 20th show was in 1995, and somewhere after then, I just stopped counting. I didn’t think I’d ever need that number again until I started writing this. I’d hazard a guess at around 40.
One can’t simply review a Phish concert anyway. Either you love them or you don’t, and I’m not going to convince anyone in the cult to like or dislike something; same for those outside the cult. Everyone is convinced; there is no middle ground. Continue reading “An Appreciation of Phish at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, April 22 & 23, 2025”
BUMBERSHOOT 2025 LOOKS AMAZING!
Once again, Bumbershoot has released a lineup that is as close to “Spinning Platters” energy as possible. It’s bonkers in the most Gen-X meets Elder Millennial kinda “OMG! They got both Pretty Girls Make Graves AND Murder City Devils?!?! DEREK IS GONNA BE SO TIRED!” kinda way. And, seriously, the top line has Weezer, Sylvan Esso, Janelle Monae, and Bright Eyes?!?! We also have Digable Planets doing Blowout Comb, one of the most underrated albums of the ’90s. And the great Quasi (seriously- everyone needs to go to a Quasi concert before they die. Cathartic joy!)? And The Linda Lindas? And SPELLLING???? And HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THE POSTER:
2-Day tickets start at $199, which makes it the best deal for a festival of this size.
Show Review: Kraftwerk at The Greek Theater, 4/18/25
When Kraftwerk played the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on April 18, 2025, it was a crystalline reminder of why they remain the architects of electronic music’s DNA. Under the open sky of one of California’s most storied venues, the night was a precise microchip and as alive as the humming bodies on the floor. Continue reading “Show Review: Kraftwerk at The Greek Theater, 4/18/25”
April \m/etal show photos + reviews: Obituary, Exodus, Death Angel, and more!
Photo Galleries and Show Reviews by: Alan Ralph @ConcertGoingPro
Spinning Platters attended, photographed, and reviewed (not all) a dozen \m/etal shows in April! Beginning the last weekend of March and throughout April, San Francisco (and Spinning Platters!) had become very \m/etal! Just look at the list of 60+ band names on the left column (on mobile, look near the bottom of the page), which does not happen very often around here anymore…
Continue reading “April \m/etal show photos + reviews: Obituary, Exodus, Death Angel, and more!”
Single of the Week: “Gunslinger” by Natalie Bergman
Remember Wild Belle? The brother/sister duo that played a blissful blend of psych, ’60s girl groups, and reggae that released three outstanding records in the 2010s and just disappeared? Well, the group’s sister, Natalie Bergman, went solo, signed to Third Man Records, and is pushing the sonic envelope that her old band was already making with the blissful new track, “Gunslinger.”
“Gunslinger” is the first track off My Home Is Not In This World, in stores and on servers July 18th. You can prepare for this by preordering or presaving here!
Big Ears 2025 Festival Diary
Big Ears doesn’t need you; you need Big Ears. You might think “but wait, I already have ears and I don’t need them to be too big!!” but that is only because you don’t know I’m talking about the annual Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee which took place March 27th—30th for the 11th time since it was founded in 2009 by the Knoxville born and bred Ashley Capps, the founder of Nashville’s Bonnaroo. I have known the outstanding lineups since 2010, when Terry Riley was Artist in Residence and Bryce Dessner of The National was guest curator. Continue reading “Big Ears 2025 Festival Diary”
Show Review: Beth Gibbons with Cass McCombs at The Warfield, 4/15/25
On October 21st, 2011, I impulsively bought a ticket to see Portishead at The Greek Theater that night. My familiarity with the band was effectively “I know the singles” and not much more, but I had lots of friends attending, and nothing else was going on. When I did show up, I couldn’t find my friends, and eventually found a friend that I hadn’t seen in years, and enjoyed reconnecting. Then the music started, and I was profoundly transfixed for nearly two hours. It was emotionally turbulent and a genuine catharsis. Nothing happened as planned, and it may have been all the better for it.
Continue reading “Show Review: Beth Gibbons with Cass McCombs at The Warfield, 4/15/25”
Show Review: Hiromi’s Sonicwonderland at The Moore Theater, 4/13/25
I have to admit here right out of the gate that I’m pretty new to the world of Japanese jazz composer and keyboardist Hiromi Uehara. At some point last year, the YouTube algorithm decided to recommend to me her solo piano composition “The Tom and Jerry Show,” and I instantly became obsessed. However, like many YouTube recommendations, it allowed me a point of entry into her vast solo piano compositions, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t find a way into her combo-based music. Maybe I just got too wrapped up in the aural aesthetic of her solo piano work, or maybe I just got stuck. On April 4th of 2025, her newest album from her quartet Sonicwonderland, Out There, a 9-song jazz fusion masterpiece that clocks in at almost exactly an hour. On this crisp Sunday Seattle evening, less than two weeks after her newest album’s release, I gathered with an excited all-ages crowd at The Moore Theater to hear her and her virtuoso band breathe a different kind of life into her brand new Out There compositions. Continue reading “Show Review: Hiromi’s Sonicwonderland at The Moore Theater, 4/13/25”
Show Review: Martha Wainwright at Great American Music Hall, 4/2/25
Comes out and plays through the album that made her, that created a being separate from lineage, too mature for this crude southern land, the pedigree and the world wise chanteuse disorienting pop music. Self aware, the first line is an irrepressible fein to the Carpenter’s ‘Superstar’. The very first line claims a place: Long ago, and so very… Continue reading “Show Review: Martha Wainwright at Great American Music Hall, 4/2/25”