Cypress Hill – Spinning Platters

Show Review: The. Best. Aftershock. Ever.

Review and All Photos by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

For decades, Europe has led the way in the heavy metal and loud rock music festival space. Monsters of Rock (the originator, which started in 1980!), Wacken Open Air, Dynamo Open Air, Hellfest, Graspop, Copenhell, Rock am Ring, Rock im Park, Summer Breeze, Sweden Rock Fest and Download have always dominated the landscape with their amazing lineups year after year.

United States was never close in offering an equivalent heavy metal experience. Sure, there was Ozzfest and Mayhem Festival, but those have been gone since 2017 and 2015 and Americans have always leaned more towards indie rock music festivals like Lollapalooza, Coachella, Bonaroo, and Outside Lands anyway.

For the last twelve or so years, Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP) has been chipping away at the supremacy of the European heavy metal festivals, with Welcome To Rockville, Louder Than Life, Sonic Temple, Inkcarceration, Rock on the Range, Rocklahoma, Carolina Rebellion, and Northern California’s very own Aftershock Festival. With the best lineup it has ever had, West Coast’s Biggest Rock Festival definitely lived up to its name in 2024!

Continue reading “Show Review: The. Best. Aftershock. Ever.”

Festival Review: Bumbershoot 2024

Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival has existed in Seattle since 1971 and has happened every Labor Day weekend with the exception of 2020-2022 due to Covid restrictions. I’ve been a Seattleite my entire life. I was born the weekend before the festival’s 8th anniversary, also its final year of being a free festival. I grew up attending Bumbershoot with friends and family many times over the years up until September 2, 2001, when I saw David Lee Roth perform at Memorial Stadium. Since then, Bumbershoot has changed hands management a few times, and based on my experience this past weekend, the new changes have been a net positive. Back in 2001, Bumbershoot was a four days long, often oversold, crowded, difficult-to-navigate, bloated event that involved wristbands one needed to collect at the beginning of each day to allow you access to the stadium to see each evening’s headliner in the stadium, which served as the Main Stage. I skipped many a year and many an act due to this ridiculous first come, first serve approach to seeing a headliner at a festival. To me, it defeated the entire purpose of what seeing a fest should be. After all, if buying a ticket didn’t allow you access to the main event, then why would anyone humor that flawed system? Continue reading “Festival Review: Bumbershoot 2024”

BottleRock Napa Valley 2019: A Preview

The powers-that-be behind BottleRock Napa Valley never fail to impress me. This year’s festival lineup was announced this morning, boasting so many exciting artists it made my head swim a little: Imagine Dragons. Logic. OneRepublic. Sylvan Esso. Jenny Lewis. AJR. Anderson East. The Dandy Warhols. Neon Trees. Just Loud. Shannon Shaw. Flora Cash. And that’s just day one!

Days two and three add to the excitement, with Neil Young + Promise of the Real, Pharrell Williams, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Gary Clark Jr, Cypress Hill, Elle King, Sir Sly, Mumford & Sons, Santana, Bishop Briggs, Skylar Grey, Houses, and so many more. Also, anyone who watches Top Chef may have noticed that this year’s winner will have a slot on the culinary stage, which is always a fun place to check out between sets.

It’s hard not to look at this list and know you’ve got to be there. I think the hardest part will be, as usual, determining how to get from point A to point B in such a way that you catch at least parts of all the acts you don’t want to miss! Until BRNV releases an actual schedule, however, there’s not much to do but listen to these bands and look forward to May in eager anticipation. To help you do that, I made a little playlist: I’ve included some of my favorites from the artists that are generating the highest levels of impatience. Let’s hope these next 4 ½ months fly by, and I’ll see you this summer in Napa!

BottleRock Napa Valley 2019 preview playlist

BottleRock ticket info: 3-Day Tickets On Sale 1/8/19 at 10am. Single day passes on sale 1/10/19.

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-04-15 – 2016-04-20

A Storm will be looming over San Francisco this week, bringing rainbows and songs.

Happy Tax Day! One of the two sure things. OK, so let’s turn in the paperwork and then let’s go to a concert.

Preview time, guys. This week in the Bay Area, we have natural events, nouns, piercings, and a tradition that Louis Pasteur likely might not have smiled upon. But you never know.

And so we preview. Preview time. Let’s preview. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-04-15 — 2016-04-20”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 11/6/14-11/12/14

MUNI FAIL — No, the F-Line isn’t supposed to be this close to the MUNI bus.

Post-Election Day we have a panoply of excellent concerts coming to The Bay Area this week. Shows of all kinds. We have shows that are avenging! And dance-y! Secretive! And lemony! Metal! And even including the magic of public transportation.

It’s wonderful that there are so many kinds of shows ’round here and so many buses to take you to them.

Here’s what’s coming up this week. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 11/6/14-11/12/14”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 7/19/12 – 7/25/12

Yngwie_Malmsteen — This guy is really excited about the show at Rickshaw Stop on Friday Night!

Here’s another sampling of the fine music out your disposal in the Bay Area this weekend! I think that there’s something for everyone this week.

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 7/19/12 – 7/25/12”

Photo Journal: Rock The Bells at Shoreline Amphitheater, 8/27/11

Guerilla Union’s annual traveling hip hop roadshow touched down in Mountain View recently, and it may have been the best one yet. It proved that Lauryn Hill can still play the big rooms. It proved that The Infamous Mobb Deep, Cypress Hill’s Black Sunday, Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star, and Illmatic by Nas are all classic records have stood the test of time. We saw that comedian Donald Glover’s alter ego Childish Gambino is doing some of the most inventive stuff in hip hop. We also learned that no matter how much critical acclaim you’ve got, you still have to contend with nature, causing east coast rappers Mac Miller and Doom to stay behind.

Without further adieu, here are the sites of Rock The Bells 2011:

Continue reading “Photo Journal: Rock The Bells at Shoreline Amphitheater, 8/27/11”

Tag: Cypress Hill