Concert Reviews – Page 8 – Spinning Platters

Show Review: Mastodon with The Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang at The Warfield, 11/3/2011

With a musical movement like metal, being significant, staying relevant, and still having room to experiment while perfecting your craft is always a difficult combination of skills to possess. The genre calls for solid commitment to unyielding volume, viciously downtuned notes and hellish distortion, with vocals that span from the powerful to the deranged, and lyrics that cross a general spectrum of darkness, mayhem, and more-than-mild discontent. To introduce any additional elements into this equation makes a solution extremely difficult to arrive at, but for the Atlanta metal masterminds of Mastodon, experimentation is simply the bolt of lightning that breathes life into their compositions, which have not at all dwindled in their ferocity from album to album.

Continue reading “Show Review: Mastodon with The Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang at The Warfield, 11/3/2011”

Show Review: The Soft Moon with Led Er Est and Chelsea Wolfe at The Independent, 10/31/2011

Luiz Vasquez and Justin Anastasi of The Soft Moon

One night a year, the darkest of spirits and the most mysterious of characters are summoned into the world at large to frighten, to amaze, to baffle, to worry, but definitely to excite the forces of peace that remain calm for the other 364 days. Rarely is there a better occasion for the spooky and the sibilant to make themselves known than on Halloween Night. In accordance with the popular holiday adage, however, it is always best to have some treats to go along with your tricks, and for the haunting act known as The Soft Moon, there was no better occasion to host their showcase of apocalyptic rhythms, droning dance pulses, and howling shrieks, all while bathed in a hellish display of strobing lights and unearthly projections. If ever there was a band better suited to usher in a new movement of smartly dark and morbidly interesting music, it would definitely be this San Francisco trio.

Continue reading “Show Review: The Soft Moon with Led Er Est and Chelsea Wolfe at The Independent, 10/31/2011”

Show Review: Anamanaguchi with Starscream, Knife City and Crash Faster at Slim’s, 10/30/2011

Returning to San Francisco to shake the OTHER venue on 11th Street

With access to thousands upon thousands of songs of every solidly-defined or unclassified musical archetype that exists on this great planet of ours, rock music has entered a new world of sonic exploration that was only experimented with in years past. The concept of “fusion” and the blending of genres has been a staple of pushing the envelope in music, but for many years it was still almost taboo to mix certain instruments, compositional methods, or even the fans that followed these musical movements. Today, with ancient horn sections bellowing their way into foggy punk rock and string sections going toe-to-toe with electronica, it isn’t hard to understand why the Brooklyn chiptune-punk quartet Anamanaguchi is successful enough to come to the Bay Area twice in one year and sell out two of the most popular clubs in the SoMa district of San Francisco.

Continue reading “Show Review: Anamanaguchi with Starscream, Knife City and Crash Faster at Slim’s, 10/30/2011”

Show Review: Shpongle Live Halloween Ball at the Fox Oakland, 10/29/2011

We can take this huge universe and put it inside a very tiny head — Simon Posford and his band of psychedelic freaks and phantasms

October 29th, 2011. Possibly one of the biggest party nights of the year, thanks to the world-recognized holiday celebrating the bizarre, the underworldly, and the otherwordly, just around its corner. We’re speaking, of course, of Halloween, and in addition to being a fantastic occasion for costumes, candy, and chaotic parties, it’s also one of the best opportunities for live shows, allowing artists to come out in a blaze of style and passion with something unique and special for the night when spirits walk and demons dance. The Fox Theater in Oakland is no stranger to guests of many colors, persuasions, and strangeness, and with stiff competition to draw in concertgoers tonight — with deadmau5 taking residence at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Primus rocking the streets of Berkeley at the Greek Theater, and the Damned keeping the San Francisco punks packed to the gills in Slim’s — it seemed only fitting for them to play host to one of the most anticipated acts of the entire year: Shpongle Live, the full-band-plus-dancers-and-more ensemble to masterfully color the otherworldly psybient music of UK psytrance masters Simon Posford and Raja Ram.

Continue reading “Show Review: Shpongle Live Halloween Ball at the Fox Oakland, 10/29/2011”

Show Review: Jonny Lang with the Michael Williams Band at the Uptown Theatre Napa, 10/28/2011

Up until last week, it would have shocked me to learn how few people in my life have heard of the young blues guitar genius Jonny Lang. Because I’ve witnessed Jonny’s musical evolution (from 15-year-old phenom to critical darling to gospel musician) since the late 90s, it seems absurd to me that there would be anyone that’s not yet heard of this man. Alas, it’s true: we Jonny Lang fans seem to be much more of a minority than I knew. Happily, this weekend found me among nearly a thousand like-minded individuals at Friday night’s performance at downtown Napa’s tiny Uptown Theatre. Continue reading “Show Review: Jonny Lang with the Michael Williams Band at the Uptown Theatre Napa, 10/28/2011”

Show Review: Portishead with Thought Forms at The Greek Theatre, 10/21/11

PortisheadGreek — The ecstatic crowd, bathed in light.

Portishead. 14 years since their last Bay Area appearance, the legendary experimental trio have returned. The majority thought this day would never come, but after long anticipation, it finally did. Would these sojourned pioneers be able to successfully transfer their art live? Continue reading “Show Review: Portishead with Thought Forms at The Greek Theatre, 10/21/11”

Show Review: Switchfoot with Anberlin and Atomic Tom at the Warfield, 10/10/2011

Jonathan Foreman with his Vice Verses guitar

It’s been almost ten years since I was first introduced to the music of Switchfoot. At the time, I was living in San Diego and they were a local band on the brink of making it. Somewhere between frontman Jon Foreman’s distinctive voice and lyrics that inspired me to live fully, (“this is your life – is it everything you dreamed that it would be when the world was younger and you had everything to lose?”) I had found a band whose music I could never play too much. Sure enough, nearly a decade later, I continue to love each album as much (or more!) than the one that preceded it. Somehow, life has managed to keep me from ever seeing this band live…until last night. Finally, finally, finally, my time had come: Switchfoot and co-headliners Anberlin graced the stage at the Warfield in San Francisco with openers Atomic Tom, and what better way to spend a beautifully rainy Monday night than warm and cozy inside with a fantastic band? Continue reading “Show Review: Switchfoot with Anberlin and Atomic Tom at the Warfield, 10/10/2011”

Show Review: Peter Hook and The Light performing Closer at The Mezzanine, 09/17/2011

Father and son join for a furious wall of sound

It is frequently said that when you have a formula that works, it is safe to stick with it, but only to the point where you continue to be successful, and not past the point where you’ve entered a realm of dangerous repetition. In 2010 I stated that a popular trend was for a band to go on tour and, as their setlist, play one or more of their classic albums from start to finish. Some acts, such as the Melvins or A Perfect Circle, took up this concept and played multiple albums over multiple nights, and it was a true test of stamina for their fans to make it out for two or three nights in a row to see the entire collection of songs from their catalogue. However, when bassist Peter Hook and his band The Light returned to the Mezzanine in San Francisco to perform Joy Division’s posthumous classic Closer in its entirety, it was quite clear that a nearly-one-year-long wait was a brilliant decision, as it brought a new collection of energetic fans, an explosive performance from Hook and his band, and the reminder that the power and majesty of Joy Division’s music is still fiercely present over 30 years after the release of their final record.

Continue reading “Show Review: Peter Hook and The Light performing Closer at The Mezzanine, 09/17/2011″

Show Review: Hanson with Meiko at Regency Ballroom, 9/8/2011

Taylor, Isaac, and Zac Hanson...in an 'mmmbop' they're grown

To most of the world, Hanson were three little boys who sang ridiculously catchy songs like “I Will Come to You,” “Weird,” and “Where’s the Love,” had millions of little girls screaming and crying, but “in an mmmbop” were gone. What most don’t know is that the brothers Hanson have never stopped making music. Since that first album that created hysteria among pre-pubescent girls, Middle of Nowhere, Hanson has released four more studio albums (2000’s This Time Around, Underneath in 2004, The Walk in 2007, and last year’s Shout it Out), the three most recent three of which have been under their own label, 3CG Records. Because Hanson made their debut in a moment of bubble gum pop insanity alongside the Backstreet Boys, ‘NSync, and countless other fluffy prefab acts, they were too easily written off with the rest as having had little to no talent. What many didn’t (or still don’t) know was that the boys had been writing their own lyrics and music all along, and now almost fifteen years later, continue to do so, rewarding loyal fans with some great pop rock tunes. Last night their “Musical Ride Tour” stopped at the Regency Ballroom, and I was lucky enough to be there to spend another memorable evening with a band I love to change people’s minds about. Continue reading “Show Review: Hanson with Meiko at Regency Ballroom, 9/8/2011”

Show Review: TFDI with Riley Etheridge & Michael Kang at Cafe du Nord, 8/21/2011

A little over two years ago, some friends and I went to see Tony Lucca at the Hotel Utah. He was playing with two dudes we’d never heard of before: Jay Nash and Matt Duke. Matt opened, and before he’d finished the first song all three of us were staring at him, transfixed (and okay, maybe a little surprised as well). Our reactions to Jay were similar, and of course we already knew we loved Tony’s music too. As the tour progressed, it didn’t take them long to realize that their fantastic chemistry shouldn’t go to waste. By the time they reached SPACE in Chicago, they were harmonizing their way through each other’s set lists, two of them flanking the third songwriter as he took center stage. They decided to record a 4-song EP, and somehow the whole project was dubbed “TFDI.” (More on that later.)

Continue reading “Show Review: TFDI with Riley Etheridge & Michael Kang at Cafe du Nord, 8/21/2011”