Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
The floor and stage of Great American Music Hall is not really large enough to turn into a wrestling ring and arena, so lucky for those in attendance this Mother’s Day, former WWF and current AEW professional wrestler Chris Jericho was fronting his metal band Fozzy here tonight and not jumping off the top rope!
Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
It’s interesting when successful musicians branch out on their own solo projects. Maybe they have too much creative energy that doesn’t flow with their band and need to expand on it, or maybe they just have free time between recording and tour cycles to do their own thing. Whatever the case may be, the best moment to see these performers live is not with their marquee name bands, one hundred yards away in some stadium… no, the best time is when they are on their solo tours! Paul Stanley of KISS once performed at The Fillmore to 800 people. Joe Perry of Aerosmith also performed at The Fillmore in front of only 400 people. When John 5 is not performing to thousands of people with Rob Zombie, he very often makes solo records, tours with his own solo project called John 5 & The Creatures, and when in San Francisco, always comes back to the intimate DNA Lounge.
The 65th SFFilm Festival will take place April 21 – May 1, 2022, with screenings at various venues around the Bay Area. This year, the festival program features over 130 film from 56 countries, so there are plenty of options for everyone.
We’ll bring you spotlight coverage of many of the films leading up to and during the Festival. Here’s a look at five features and a short to get things started — get your tickets before they sell out!
1.) THE EXILES
(USA, Taiwan, France, China, 2021. 96 min)
A fascinating documentary that spotlights legendary Chinese documentarian Christine Choy (Who Killed Vincent Chin?) as an avenue into revisiting the massacre at Tiananmen Square and three high profile exiled dissidents. Produced by Steven Soderbergh and winner of this year’s Sundance Documentary Grand Jury Prize, The Exiles takes an honest look at the active erasure of history, and exemplifies the power of documentary filmmaking to preserve memories, events, and movements.
Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Sat., April 23rd, 3:00pm at the Victoria Theatre
– Sun., April 24th, 2:00pm at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive
Continue reading “Film Feature: 65th SFFILM Festival Preview Spotlight #1”
Holy hell, it’s been a while. It’s been more than two years, in fact, since I last saw a show. For a music nerd like me who considers live music vital to her mental health, that’s saying a lot. But as things slowly seem to be moving closer and closer to what we considered “normal” pre-pandemic, I’ve been missing the whole concert experience more and more. Fortunately, the arrival of John Mayer‘s Sob Rock Tour at San Francisco’s Chase Center arrived just in time – last Friday night, to be exact… Continue reading “Show Review: John Mayer with Yebba at Chase Center, 3/18/2022”
Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
Oracle Park, home to the San Francisco Giants, historically does not host many concerts outside of the regular baseball season (and certainly not the post-season lately either!). Since 2013, there has been an average of six concerts per year, and a few of them are usually tied to corporations like the annual Genentech Gives Back or convention attendee parties for Salesforce.com’s DreamForce and Oracle’s OpenWorld. In fact, the last concert to be held here was 21 months ago for DreamForce (UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital benefit). Leave it to East Bay’s own Green Day to stage the first Hella Mega sized concert at Oracle Park since the world shut down early last year!
Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
The first show of the final week of Rise Against‘s Nowhere Generation tour was also the first show at the Masonic Auditorium in 543 days (since February 27, 2020)! Many precautions were taken, both by the band and by the venue, to ensure that this day would happen. Proof of vaccination or vaccine cards were required and checked upon entry, band crew and local stagehands were masked, an audience mask policy was also in effect (although at least half were unmasked, even as they entered the building), the bar and merchandise appeared to be mostly cashless with contactless point-of-sale card readers, and even the ticketing happened through a mobile phone app (although we scored a real one!).
“The Bastard Tracks”. B-Sides. The meat of the record. Songs not usually on the live set. Deep cuts. Tracks the diehard fans know.
Death Angel created this web stream to dig “deep into [their] catalog to perform older favorites, newer classics and songs that have never been performed live before” with multiple interview segments containing the stories behind the songs and “a glimpse into the collective minds and souls of Death Angel.”
Continue reading “Webstream Review: Death Angel “The Bastard Tracks”, 5/29/2021″
