Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
I love a good music festival. Especially one where you can bask in the sun in October. It was another gorgeous day on the island. With even better music than the day before, if you could possibly believe that.
Continue reading “Treasure Island Festival Diary 2014, Day 2”
Do you like classic underground rock? Because this list has The Flaming Lips, Death, The Dwarves, The Sonics, Television, Mazzy Star, The Avengers, The Urinals, and Deerhoof on it. So, if you like classic underground rock, this is a great seven days worth of shows for you.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 10/31/13-11/6/13”
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”
Every year, every festival in America claims to have the “best line up ever!” Well, San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music Festival has made to its 5th year, and they really are going to have a seriously difficult time topping this year’s event. Of course, this means that there are conflicts galore! You’ve got six stages of entertainment to try to decide between at any time of day.
The schedule can be awfully intimidating. Which is why I’m here to help guide you through the complex maze that is the Outside Lands schedule. Without further ado, here is SpinningPlatters’ Official Guide to Outside Lands 2012.
Continue reading “Our Guide to the 2012 Outside Lands Music Festival”
The success of Chicago experimental-alt.country-indie rock combo Wilco really defies the conventions of a successful rock band. Where most bands become as big as they will get within about 5 years of performing, these guys seem to get bigger and bigger every year. At nearly 20 years into their career, they are doing a “small venue” tour of 3,000 seat theaters, and each date on this tour seemingly sold out in minutes. SpinningPlatters were lucky enough to check them out on the third night of a mini Bay Area tour, where the hit San Jose and San Francisco on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Continue reading “Show Review: Wilco, White Denim at The Fox Theater — Oakland, 1/31/12”
The brain of Dakin Hardwick, our managing editor, looks like this right now: Sketchfest, Sketchfest, Sketchfest. So when he sat down to write our weekly guide to Bay Area Concerts, he just wrote “Sketchfest” next to everything. Now, I’m going to deny that you should be going to lots of Sketchfest events (and then reading about them here on Spinning Platters), but there are a few concerts worth mentioning this week. And if I mention a Sketchfest event, too, well …
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 1/26/12-2/1/12”
This week kicks is the official first week of “Summer” culturally, albeit Summer actually begins sometime late June, I think. Anyhow, since festival season is almost here, it’s time to start training. Let’s see how many of these you can do this week! Get your ear plugs ready!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 5/26/11-6/1/11”
What makes a live show good? Obviously the music is a huge component. It’s almost a stupid question to ask. But when you think about it, music isn’t the only component. You can go to a show where the music is revolutionary but the performance, crowd, maybe even the smell just suck. I pose this question because White Denim, is a hard performing band. As much as you may read that they don’t stick to one genre, you won’t understand until you see them live. Their music was good. What made the show awesome was how hard they performed. Continue reading “Show Review: White Denim at The Independent, 1/20/10”
Coachella was announced today. Pretty good. Pretty much on the other side of the state. And four months away. Musicians work far more often than that. Why don’t you seen them cold and indoors? Sorry that I don’t have Grace Jones to offer you, but here are other things!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide To Bay Area Concerts: January 20th-January 26th”
“Fill in for Pouria” they said, “yes” said I. Little did I know what I was in for. Of course being someone who appreciates Hannah Montana but not the super-cool indie bands this could be a little different.
I’ll start by saying I wish I could have done this last week when the Editors In This Light and On This Evening was released. I loved their last album and eagerly awaited this one, I planned to write a full review but in the end could only muster one word (or perhaps many versions of one word) – unlistenable (which may, in fact, not even be a word). So there you go, I managed that review. Now onto this week: Continue reading “New Release Round Up, 10/20/09 – 42 Instant Album Reviews”