Danish electro pop singer-songwriter MØ and her band performed at the Crocodile Café last week. The Seattle stop was near the end of her 12–city North American tour – with every show selling out – in support of her debut album, No Mythologies To Follow. Several times during her set, MØ went out into the audience as the crowd propped her up overhead.
MØ
Jazz Alley was the perfect venue for Joan Osborne and The Holmes Brothers. I was fortunate to catch her first of six shows over four nights at the venue on Thursday. Osborne is touring in support of her recently released eighth studio album, Love and Hate. She played Jazz Alley last year with the same troupe – Sherman Holmes, Wendell Holmes and Popsy Dixon of The Holmes Brothers plus her keyboard player Keith Cotton. Hard to believe it’s been almost 20 years since the seven time Grammy Award-nominee released her debut album, Relish.
Joan Osborne
Bumbershoot Announcement Show Featuring Pickwick, Naomi Wachira, 5/8/14
Review & photos by Arlene Brown
Pickwick
On May 8, 2014 Neumos was the spot to be to catch the pink and purple Bumbershoot fever. We were even given ice cream before the music and got started. The night was MC’d by Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame. Naomi Wachira, who opened up the night, had me hooked with her Kenyan roots based lyrics and sound. She reminded me of Tracy Chapman a bit. Her heartfelt dedication to the women of Nigeria was very touching.
Between Naomi’s and Pickwick’s sets, we were treated to a fun fan interactive game of “Bumberdy,” a parody of Jeopardy. Luckily we had Ken Jennings to host this as well. Questions, or is that answers (?), ranged from Northwest Bands to Past Bumbershoot Headliners, Local Music Venues, to Questions that contained the words Pink or Purple. The winner of this most heated game won a pair of Platinum Tickets to all three days of Bumbershoot.
But before Pickwick could take the stage, we were finally shown “The Announcement Video.” The past week, Bumbershoot big wigs were posting stickers of this year’s bands all over the Seattle area. They filmed this, and we were treated to a very quick paced, super band packed line up for Labor Day Weekend. The crowd “ooo’d” and “ahhh’d” and even screamed at most of those revealed. Those with the biggest crowd reaction were Foster the People, Wu Tang Clan, The Replacements, The Head and the Heart (hometown faves,) Elvis Costello, Panic! At The Disco, Schoolboy Q, Capital Cities, Reverend Horton Heat, Hobosexual (other huge hometown fave,) and many more.
Pickwick, who will also be playing at this year’s Bumbershoot, took the stage and played their hearts out to close out the night. While this was only my second time seeing them, they still give me a very punk meets Steve Miller Band vibe. Lead singer Galen Disston can belt some massive vocals. The rest of the band is pretty calm, but their overall sound can move you. Or not. Tonight, they seemed very subdued and tame. I wanted more of the punk. Hopefully when I see them at Bumbershoot, they’ll bring more energy as an entire band.
Bumberdy
Pickwick
Naomi Wachira
English singer-songwriter Birdy opened for Christina Perri at a sold-out show at the Neptune Theatre over the weekend. Backed by her two-member band, Birdy is touring in support of her new sophomore record, Fire Within, to be released in the US this Tuesday. Beautiful voice – wonderful show!
Birdy
Franz Ferdinand @ Showbox SoDo, 4/24/14
Show Review & Photos by Abby Williamson
Franz Ferdinand‘s Alex Kapranos
It’s been 10 years since 2004. Take a second; I’ll let you catch your breath. Crazy, isn’t it? That means it’s been 10 years since Mean Girls, 10 years since Oceanic Flight 815 first crashed on the island in Lost, and also 10 years since Franz Ferdinand’s eponymous debut crash landed onto the airwaves and into my brain forever. Franz Ferdinand first blew my mind at Deck the Hall Ball 2004, sharing KeyArena with The Killers, Snow Patrol, The Shins, Keane, and Modest Mouse. What a lineup, am I right? I saw the band one more time, headlining Bumbershoot in 2009, where I obtained a concussion from a rogue crowd surfer, and then finally last month I got to photograph this wonderful group of Scotsmen that I have loved for almost half my lifetime.
Opening the night at Showbox SoDo was Cate Le Bon, a Welsh singer-songwriter whose songs, stage presence, and voice sit somewhere between Sharon Van Etten and PJ Harvey. The crowd wasn’t as receptive to her as I like to see of opening acts, but when you’re at a Franz Ferdinand show, you kind of just want to see Franz Ferdinand. I quite liked her stuff, though it was a bit too relaxed for an opening act for a band like Franz Ferdinand.
But once that impossibly energetic group of Scots took the stage, it was like I was 14 all over again.
Sometimes when you’re at a show, you can tell that a band is dead set on playing all the songs on the setlist, stepping off stage for a minute, doing their encore, and then being done with a show. Thankfully that doesn’t happen that much anymore, but then there are those bands that give off the illusion that they would play for literally the whole night. Like they’ve wound themselves up and will not stop until they are on their last breath. That is Franz Ferdinand. I don’t know if it was the oddly familiar weather in Seattle that made them feel so at home but Alex Kapranos could not stop smiling. That man manages to smile while he’s singing without looking like a complete doofus.
The setlist consisted of 19 songs, then a 3-song encore, so they clearly were able to play all the hits from the last decade – it was magical. Everything from the wildly underrated “Dark of the Matinée” to the grandiose saga of “Lucid Dreams,” Franz Ferdinand made a normal Thursday night feel like the last Thursday on earth. I don’t know if that’s just how they are, but it felt like they literally gave it everything they had.
With otherworldly stage presence, the boozy Scottish swagger, and chops to rival any rock band – new or old – Franz Ferdinand left the crowd with smiling faces, and then melted them off.
Franz Ferdinand
Cate Le Bon
Setlist:
Bullet
The Dark of the Matinée
No You Girls
Evil Eye
Do You Want To
Tell Her Tonight
Michael
Fresh Strawberries
Walk Away
Stand on the Horizon
Can’t Stop Feeling
Auf Achse
Brief Encounters
Lucid Dreams
Take Me Out
Love Illumination
The Fallen
Ulysses
Outsiders
Encore:
Right Action
This Fire
Goodbye Lovers & Friends