Bonnie Raitt – Spinning Platters

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-04-23 – 2016-04-27

"Anarchy burger! / Hold the government!" - The Vandals — This Saturday in Oakland, plenty of this.

We’re in the final weekend of Coachella 2016, and the consequent Fauxchella 2016 shows are coming our way. What’s Fauxchella? It’s when you can see a band that’s also scheduled at Coachella but without actually having to go to Coachella.

This week in The Bay Area we have old stars, old studio guys, old smoky guys, montage anchorpoints, as much anarchy as you’d like, and a band that just went ahead and named themselves California.

And previews. Preview time. Let’s preview. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-04-23 — 2016-04-27”

Show Review: Mavis Staples at Yoshi’s Oakland, 2/13/10

Mavis Staples testifying at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in October 2009 (photo by Debra Amerson)

There was nothing conventionally romantic about soul legend/civil rights icon Mavis Staples’ Valentine’s Day weekend shows at Yoshi’s Oakland. But while the fleeting whimsies of romance may have been absent, they were replaced by something much more substantive: the fiercely passionate love, devotion, and commitment with which Ms. Staples, 70, has tackled her stirring, liberating material ever since she first began recording with her family band, The Staples Singers, sixty years ago.

Continue reading “Show Review: Mavis Staples at Yoshi’s Oakland, 2/13/10”