the voice – Spinning Platters

Matt Nathanson brings a little holiday cheer to Santa Rosa.

One of the best things about the Christmas season is that it, like summer, is a great excuse for radio stations to bring cool bands and artists together for a show that’s a celebration, and always a fun time. This year, the one I chose was Mix 104.9‘s 8th Annual Chris-Mix, last Thursday night in Santa Rosa. Not only did it promise to be a fun, mellow night out with a friend, but I hate to miss a chance to catch San Francisco’s own Matt Nathanson (ok, he’s a Massachusetts native, but he calls the city home these days). The show also boasted Vicci Martinez (familiar to many from her run on the first season of NBC’s The Voice) and Parachute. There’s also always the promise of the occasional Christmas carol on such evenings, but either way I knew it promised to be a good show. Continue reading “Show Review: Matt Nathanson with Vicci Martinez and Parachute (Mix 104.9’s Chris-Mix 2013) at Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, 12/12/2013”

P1020419 — The stage before the show, and before the "no photos" policy was announced (and enforced)

Let’s talk for a minute about NBC’s The Voice. Last April, when it premiered after much hype, I was really excited to check it out. For anyone who isn’t familiar, the premise of the show is that undiscovered musical talents audition for four current musicians, in hopes that their vocals alone will convince one (or more) of them to coach them through the rest of the competition. They call it a “blind” audition because all four coaches (Adam Levine of Maroon 5, Cee-Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton) sit with their backs to the stage, unable to see the performer at all. It sounds like a great concept, right? True, I always point out that there’s a little bit of a fallacy here, since it is a TV show, and someone’s doing the casting, so while it’s true that the coaches don’t see who the voice is coming out of before signing on to work with them, it’s not entirely true that how a performer looks isn’t taken into consideration at all.

Anyway, last year it was really fun to watch, because after you get past the fact that almost all of the performers look commercial enough to make it in the industry, you start to get sucked into the untapped talent – in my case, I was especially rooting for Team Adam, as Mr. Levine has a knack for picking the artists I liked the best. In the end, my favorite guy won. His name is Javier Colon, and truth be told, I haven’t heard much about him since he won. So believe me, I was excited to see him when I saw that he was playing the Uptown Theatre in Napa last night. Continue reading “Show Review: Javier Colon with Reed Waddle at The Uptown Theatre Napa, 3/4/2012”