Category: Postcards from the Pit

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Postcards from the Pit: Empires / The Constant / Follower, 6/17/2011

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Empires, still the scrappy little band of my heart, won’t be on the cover of Rolling Stone this year. They are, however, on tour right now and may very well be coming to a tiny club near you sometime soon. And if you can make it out to see them, you should. I had the pleasure of catching up with them and also some promising local bands last Friday night.

The first opener was Follower, who are so new that this show was actually their second show ever. If the two songs I was able to hear were a reasonable representative sample, they play like a much more experienced band – tight, focused and powerful. Here is one of the three decent pictures I managed to take of them:

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Next was The Constant, who are poppier than Follower and Empires, but yet are still definitely rock and roll, and also significantly grittier live than they are online:

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And then it was time for Empires. They started with The Night is Young, a song created during the whole Rolling Stone contest, and then powered through a set that included another song written for the RS contest (Hell’s Heroes) but was mostly a solid mix of  Bang and Howl and included I Want Blood, Damn Things Over, Hello Lover, Spit the Dark, I Know You Know, Voodooized and Bang.

It’s been a year or so since I saw Empires last, and I was once again entranced by the depth and richness of their sound, especially the blues at the core. To me they sound like the essence of certain aspects of Chicago: the stockyards, the sexy menace of mobsters in heavy coats and molls in sleek furs, speakeasies, the rumble of the El, and the snap in the air as snow falls on the mighty river.

These are the two best pictures from the evening:

 

IMG_9221Tom Conrad, intent on his chords

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Postcards from the Balcony: Panic! at the Disco / fun. / Foxy Shazam, Terminal 5, 5/24/11

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I was up on the balcony for this one largely in the interest of self-preservation; I don’t do well in large crowds I can’t get out of, and Terminal 5 was almost literally packed to the rafters.

The first band was Foxy Shazam:

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I’ve seen this band four times now, twice on their headlining tour last summer (I went for one of their opening acts and developed an affection for them along the way), once when they opened for Courtney Love (!), and then at this show. Eric Nally whirled around the stage as he always does, but somehow they seemed a little bit subdued. And by “subdued” I mean Eric Nally did a headstand in the middle of a song –

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– but didn’t do the bit where he eats lit cigarettes (which I can’t actually bear to watch). Though I suspect that bit of business was sacrificed due to them being confined to a truncated opening act set. In any case, I was pleased to visit with them again.

The next band was fun., which is Nate Ruess (vocals; The Format), Andrew Dost (piano, keyboard, fluegelhorn, and glockenspiel; Anathello), Jack Antonoff (guitar; also currently with Steel Train) at the core and also currently has Will Noon (drums; Straylight Run), Nate Harold (bass) and Emily Moore (keys/guitar) as traveling with them, and to my surprise they were actually fun. I was surprised because when Aim & Ignite came out I tried to get into their tunes and it just didn’t work. Their live show is strong, however,  and I am still humming bit of the chorus to All The Pretty Girls almost a week later.

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And then it was time for Panic! at the Disco. The last time I wrote about them here was in February, when they played a special show in New York to introduce some of their newer tunes and promote their (unreleased at that time) third record, Vices & Virtues. Up until that point, the Panic!-focused internet (including me) had been collectively hovering over them like a hen with one chick, waiting anxiously for new tunes, and to see if the band had survived the departure of two of its members, including the chief lyricist. The songs I heard that show were promising; the record finally appeared in late March, and I loved it.  As of right now I can tell you: they have caught the thermals and are soaring.

As I noted after the show: now that was a rock concert. They started with Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind) and proceeded to power through a high-energy mix of old and new songs. I was especially pleased to finally hear Hurricane live, and also Memories; and as much as I love Always, I was a little bit sad that Northern Downpour didn’t make it into the set-list this time around.

It was also a visual spectacle. They have new steam-punk stage furniture – Spencer Smith’s kit was perched atop a raised platform that looked like it would be at home in 2000 Leagues Under the Sea, with matching old-fashioned pipe organs on either side -  and Brendon Urie threw himself all over the stage, incorporating some of the dance moves from their recent video for Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind). The rest of the band wasn’t standing still either, and the audience was definitely into it too.

Watching the pit sway and heave, I was both filled with joy to see people pogoing hard and grateful I had claimed a spot in safer territory. And, for those of you who may be keeping track of their tour covers, they did Careless Whisper (instrumental) by George Michael, Panic by The Smiths and Carry On My Wayward Son, by Kansas.

I don’t have that many pictures of them this time around, partially because I was on the balcony, and partially because I was busy trying to dance and not flail all over my neighbors. The following are a few of my favorites from the evening. The first one is from when Brendon Urie came up to the balcony to sing Always:

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And this one is probably the best picture of drummers in general and Spencer Smith in particular that I have yet managed to take, thanks to the spotlight rolling over him at just the right moment:

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And then, finally, a wider-screen shot of the view from the balcony, taken while Ian Crawford (guitar, left), Spencer Smith and Dallon Weekes (bass, right) were waiting for Brendon to return from his balcony visit, and which I like mainly for the atmospheric look of everything, including  the pinpoints of light visible in the pit:

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Postcards from the Pit: Whitesnake

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I saw Whitesnake at Irving Plaza last week – now there is a sentence I never expected to write – and about two songs into their set, it occurred to me: these are the kind of rock stars I fell in love with the first time. Not these specific rockstars, maybe, what with Whitesnake having been reconstituted several times since they started, but certainly of this general type: the shredding, hair-flying-everywhere, flowing-shirts-and-leather-trousers flavor of musician.

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Though I certainly do have a massive soft spot for Whitesnake in particular, and this incarnation of the band is a solid one. David Coverdale sounds great, and he’s got some heavy metal all-stars behind him, with Doug Aldrich (Dio) and Reb Beach (Winger) on guitars, Brian Tichy (Foreigner) on drums, Michael Devin (Lynch Mob) on bass and Brian Ruedy (Bret Michaels, Brian “Head” Welch, of KORN) on keys.

The set was a mixture of old and new songs – Whitesnake has a new record out! – and from what I could tell they were really enjoying themselves. This is one of my favorite pictures from the evening, taken during the “epic battling guitar solo” portion of the evening, and I love it mainly because Reb Beach and Doug Aldrich are grinning at each other like they have just invented a new holiday and it involves electric guitars:

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In short, it was a fantastic evening. Here are a few more pictures:

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Reb Beach (“former singing waiter of this parish”- David Coverdale) mugging as he shreds

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Doug Aldrich

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Brian Tichy, mid-solo

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L to R: David Coverdale, Michael Devin, Brian Ruedy

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David Coverdale, listening to the crowd sing to him.

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Postcards from the Pit: The Pogues

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The Pogues’ last tour, which I caught as they rolled through New York during St. Patrick’s Day (really St. Patrick’s Week, or Month), was titled “A Parting Glass” and meant to be the last one. For a lot of reasons, I hope that’s not actually true. Not least because St. Patrick’s Day in New York will not ever be the same without them. These shots are actually from March 16, the second night of a three day run at T5.

I didn’t stay in the pit very long, a combination of it being a school night and the pit being a little bit rough. I actually did the most dancing of the evening once I had retreated upstairs to the couches near the bar, where I twirled through a couple of measures of Dirty Old Town with a stranger. Though if this was their last go-round, I’ll hoard that memory as a fine send-off.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Postcards from Disparate Voyage

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The theme for my concert-going this summer seemed to be “voyages” and in particular water voyages, both to the water, or at least a couple of different beaches, and also on the water, specifically, the East River. As the temperature cools and the fall rainy season drifts in, I bring you some postcards from my last couple of trips:

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Willie Nelson, Circus Maximus Theater, Ceaser’s Atlantic City: The show was a little bit more subdued than I was expecting, perhaps a concession to the venue, the age of the audience (there were people in the front row celebrating their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary), or a reflection of Willie Nelson also getting up there (77 and still touring!), or some combination of those things. But it was still a great show. It was, in many ways, something of a relief to be able to just sit down and listen to someone sing familiar songs, undistracted by festival crowds or complicated stage business. He did, among others, Good Hearted Woman, All the Girls I’ve Loved Before and City of New Orleans, and I left refreshed, as if I had been visiting with old friends.

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Local Natives/We Barbarians/Young Man, The Beach at Governor’s Island: Young Man was kind of dreamy and pleasant to listen to while half-dozing on the sand; We Barbarians woke me up with their more muscular, drum-driven sound, and then Local Natives came on and got everyone dancing. They’re all a little bit more jam-band-y than I normally go for — I found myself thinking I bet this sounds better in southern California, where it’s sunny all the time and they have palm trees that don’t glow in the dark — but on the whole it was a pleasant way to spend a summer evening.

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The Diamond Doves

The Felice Brothers/Diamond Doves, Rocks Off Concert Cruise, East River, NY: You may recognize the Diamond Doves from their alternate incarnation as Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s back-up band. I had never heard them in that context, but doing their own thing they were pretty great. (Especially the guy playing the horn and the keyboard at the same time. Now that is multi-tasking!) And the Felices were, of course, their usual rockin’ selves, though the set was, once again, kind of heavy. Most of my pictures are of the Diamond Doves; the boat was packed and by the time the Felices came on I was too far back and too short to get anything good. I reckon y’all know what they look like by now anyway.

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William Beckett and Michael Guy Chislett, The Academy Is . . . (top); Gene Simmons, KISS (bottom)

KISS/The Academy Is . . ./The Envy, Jones Beach Theater: When this tour was announced earlier this summer, the part of the Internet that keeps up with TAI . . . did a double-take, turned to each other and said WHAT?? and IS THIS A JOKE?? Now that I’ve seen the results, I’m even more curious about who came up with this particular line-up. The Envy, of Toronto, Canada, were vaguely gothy hard-rock; all I can really tell you is they didn’t get lost in the arena, which is easy to do at Jones Beach. Then TAI . . . bounced out and did a solid set, pulling mainly from their somewhat heavier back catalog rather than their newier, poppier work and winding up with a cover of Fox on the Run. I enjoyed them tremendously, but the rest of the KISS audience seemed to be politely and quietly baffled. Then KISS came out amid fire and lights, and I hung around to watch the spectacle until I just couldn’t take one more minute of Gene Simmons’ tongue waggling on the jumbotron. I found they left me pretty cold, all things considered. Odd, perhaps, given my fondness for fire, glitter and ridiculous costumes, but I just couldn’t get into it. Also noted: high volume of attendees that were both a) kindergartners and b) wearing full faces of KISS make-up, which was adorable, but also underscored how the whole thing was more carnival than rock concert.

— Jennifer