San Francisco – Page 23 – Spinning Platters

Show Review: San Francisco’s 2012 Outside Lands Festival, Day 1

The iconic Outside Lands windmill greets all attendees at some point in the festival

Additional contributions to this article by Dakin Hardwick. All photos by Jonathan Pirro except where noted.

Summer is always slow and somewhat sporadic to come to the Bay Area, and with it comes a mostly dry spell of live music, with many large groups heading overseas for massive festivals and international tours, while California and the rest of the country relax and find other ways to enjoy themselves in whatever sun decides to creep over the land. The city of San Francisco is even more prone to aberrant weather and happenings, especially since right in the middle of August is the colossal technicolor monstrosity that is the annual Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival. In 2012, the festival enters its fifth year of existence, and a crowd of 65,000 fans plowed into the historic Golden Gate Park each day of the surprisingly chilly and foggy weekend, which was relatively unexpected based on the forecasts from earlier in the week. However, with tickets sold out and a number of huge bands set to take the 4 stages across the three-day weekend, even dreary weather couldn’t dull the enthusiasm of the sprawling, voracious crowd that clambered into the park, and raised voices, fists, and flags in unison for over 10 hours of music each day.

Continue reading “Show Review: San Francisco’s 2012 Outside Lands Festival, Day 1”

Show Review: Jay Brannan at Great American Music Hall 8/4/12

JB1 — Jay Brannan’s stories are so good, he even makes himself laugh

Leaving the Great American Music Hall Saturday night, sure we talked about the great show and how opener Chris Pureka was a perfect fit, but mostly we talked about how Jay Brannan should be a superstar. His personality beams charm at you from the stage and his voice is clear tenor perfection that emotes every single word, so much so that it can almost break your heart. So why isn’t he super famous? Continue reading “Show Review: Jay Brannan at Great American Music Hall 8/4/12”

Show Review: Howard Jones at The Mezzanine, 7/12/2012

Nostalgia about the ’80s is a weird thing. For some reason, the “kids” of today will talk endlessly about going to see Modern English at Cafe Du Nord, hoping they’ll play both “I Melt With You” and “I Melt With You ’88.” They’ll go see endless cover bands of their new wave heroes. But the modern story of this decade always seems to forget one of the singular songwriting talents, someone with several hits up his sleeves, someone whose “one person and a synthesizer” sound was once revolutionary and is now common. That someone is Howard Jones.
Continue reading “Show Review: Howard Jones at The Mezzanine, 7/12/2012”

Show Review: The Gaslight Anthem with Dave Hause at The Independent, 7/5/2012

On this first night of a completely sold out tour, New Jersey’s Gaslight Anthem showed that they are ready for the big time that’s around the corner for them. They didn’t do this by focusing on material from their forthcoming album, Handwritten, but by blowing through nearly two hours of their infectious combination of punk, pop, “New Jersey,” new wave and Americana. And the crowd sang along, every word. Continue reading “Show Review: The Gaslight Anthem with Dave Hause at The Independent, 7/5/2012”

Warped Tour Diary: AT&T Park, Lot A, 6/23/2012

The Warped Tour found a new home in San Francisco this year, parking itself in Lot A of AT&T Park. Like its old home at Pier 30/32, there was a view of the water, and the Bay Bridge. Unlike Pier 30, there was not plenty of room to move around. This running of the Warped Tour was a hot, crowded mess; a maze of sponsor tents, clothing companies, and band merch. Interspersed throughout were several stages with bands giving their all, often to thousands of revelers, and other times to a mere handful. My goal, as always, was to sample as many bands as possible in 7 hours. Let’s see how I did. Continue reading “Warped Tour Diary: AT&T Park, Lot A, 6/23/2012”

Show Review: Sparta with KI:Theory at The Independent, 5/21/2012

Rising from the ashes of a former band can be a help or a hinderance to a new act that has cut their teeth in the music scene and is ready to unleash a fresh new set of tunes to the world. When you are as volatile and chaotic of an act as At The Drive-In, it can safely be said that people will be waiting to see where your musicians will head and what songs they will craft next. While the afro-clad frontmen of the El Paso post-hardcore quintet went on to form The Mars Volta, and burst back into the world with a mindbendingly-wild blend of fusion punk and Latin-flavored experimental prog rock, co-founder Jim Ward and drummer Tony Hajjar followed in their original band’s aggressive-but-pensive footsteps with the newly formed quartet known as Sparta. While both bands endured their respective sets of ups and downs in terms of popularity and following, and despite the titanic response of the reformation of At The Drive-In all but eclipsing the enthusiasm for their sister acts, Ward and his cohorts have lost none of the furious passion that drives the aptly-named four-piece, and on Monday night, they returned to San Francisco to prove just how excited they were to share their rekindled energy with their most devoted fans.

Continue reading “Show Review: Sparta with KI:Theory at The Independent, 5/21/2012”

Show Review: Rachel Platten with Madi Diaz at Hotel Utah, 5/18/2012

What’s a girl to do with a Friday night off in San Francisco? When Rachel Platten is in town with her first headlining gig (supporting her album Be Here), the choice is easy. When she brings the lovely Madi Diaz with her and sets up her keyboard on the Hotel Utah’s tiny stage, I’ll even grab a girlfriend and be there with bells on, as was the case last Friday night. Continue reading “Show Review: Rachel Platten with Madi Diaz at Hotel Utah, 5/18/2012”

Show Review: Jay Nash at Red Devil Lounge, 5/11/2012

Don’t you hate it when you’ve totally been looking forward to an event and then when it actually rolls around, something comes up that completely hinders your ability to enjoy it as much as you’d planned to? Sadly, that was my experience Friday night last. The thing I look forward to is, of course, seeing great live music. In this particular case, it was Jay Nash I’d been anticipating seeing again, at the Red Devil Lounge. Jay’s newest EP, Of the Woods, was just released last week, so of course I was also excited to hear the new material.

Continue reading “Show Review: Jay Nash at Red Devil Lounge, 5/11/2012”

Show Review: Roger Waters: The Wall Live at AT&T Park, 5/11/2012

In 1979, a record that would forever shape the concept of what an “album” was, or could be, was released. Its chief creator, one Roger Waters (of the English rock juggernaut Pink Floyd), brainstormed a show so daunting, so massive, and so strange in scope, that in its heyday it was nigh impossible to tour with. Thus, the original 1980 tour of The Wall made roughly 30 appearances, over only four cities, for in accordance with the themes of isolation and seclusion that dominated this record, its corresponding live rendition involved the construction of a massive wall that separated the band from the audience. Three decades after the original Wall tour, live concert production capabilities have increased dramatically, and arena- and stadium-based shows have taken on an even grander scale than ever before seen. Thus, in 2012, Waters’ original dream finally has come to fruition. The Wall Live is absolutely that: the iconic album of 1979 finally brought to life, in the way and at the scale that it had originally been intended to be witnessed.

Continue reading “Show Review: Roger Waters: The Wall Live at AT&T Park, 5/11/2012”

Show Review: The Dead Milkmen with Terry Malts at Slim’s, 5/10/2012

Rodney "Anonymous" Linderman of The Dead Milkmen

Nearly 30 years ago, in the state of Pennsylvania, a troupe of four young upstarts formed a band that was anything but what had been perceived to be the general standard for quality punk rock. With their thick Philadelphian accents, songs about defecating lizards and maintaining a healthy diet, and the general appearance of a collection of angry rednecks that had gotten themselves slightly cleaned up, the quartet added the finishing touch in the form of a fictional backstory for their band, which was called The Dead Milkmen. Nine albums, three decades, many unexpectedly big hits, and several generations’ worth of fans later, the balls-out-fun-and-plenty-of-cleverly-funny-bullshit approach that the Dead Milkmen burst into the Philadelphia punk scene with has carved out a unique but deeply passionate cult following for the four — now with new bassist Dan Stevens, after the passing of Dave “Blood” Schulthise in 2004. On Thursday night, for the first time in nearly 22 years, the Dead Milkmen returned to San Francisco, took over the small SoMA establishment known as Slim’s, and proceeded to let loose with a stunning performance, with a ferocious energy equivalent to a truckload of dynamite erupting off the edge of a canyon wall.

Continue reading “Show Review: The Dead Milkmen with Terry Malts at Slim’s, 5/10/2012”