Oakland – Page 13 – Spinning Platters

Bloc Party at The Fox Oakland, 4/20/09

Kele Okereke catches the light just right

The Fox Theater has had a run of sold-out shows over the past few days: BB King, Band of Horses and Black Keys all sold out the 3000ish capacity Oakland theater within the last week. Yet Bloc Party hardly sold any seats above the mezzanine level. I think some folks should have chosen differently; Bloc Party was the best of them all. Bloc Party writes songs that beg you to dance, jump, sing along, and get sweaty on a crowded dance floor. And all of this happened on Monday night.

Full disclosure: Continue reading “Bloc Party at The Fox Oakland, 4/20/09”

Green Day at The Uptown Nightclub, 4/15/2009

I hadn’t planned to attend tonight’s Green Day show at the Uptown in Oakland. I knew it was happening, but I wasn’t going to get there early enough to get in line, skip Franz Ferdinand, and spend another late night with Green Day. I wanted to, but I was just going to do something different.

Then a funny thing happened. Continue reading “Green Day at The Uptown Nightclub, 4/15/2009”

Leonard Cohen at The Paramount Theater, 4/13/2009

It's a bit blurry because it all seemed like a strange dream, or because I took it with my Blackberry

There was a lot of discussion in the weeks leading up to this show about why it was happening now. None of that seemed to matter when I saw the marquee, pictured above, with the name and dates. It was really Leonard Cohen, live in concert!

I’d listened to the NPR recording a few times; needed to make sure he was still going to sound good at age 74 before I made the effort to go to the show. There’s nothing worse than going to see a legendary act and have that act look and sound awful. It can ruin all the memories. But the NPR recording sounded so good, I came in with high hopes. Continue reading “Leonard Cohen at The Paramount Theater, 4/13/2009”