Show Review & Photos: Franz Ferdinand @ Showbox at the Market

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Franz Ferdinand @ Showbox at the Market, August 9th
Show Review & Photos by Dagmar


Franz Ferdinand

Praise, praise, praise Franz Ferdinand for luxuriating in that disco-funk-rock thing they’ve got going on. The Glasgow-based quartet had a small break after album three, 2009’s Tonight, and it’s proven to be a powerful reboot. What a treasure it was to see singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos, singer/guitarist Nick McCarthy, bassist Bob Hardy and drummer/backup vocalist Paul Thomson at work again.

Best-known for their debut worldwide mega hit “Take Me Out,” Franz Ferdinand has continued to create original music. I am not sure how it feels to be the most emulated band in rock – which is what they are, don’t doubt it. I would imagine it creates a pressure to change how you sound. But really, I don’t think Franz Ferdinand cares. That is, I think they are so rightly involved in their own art process they’re not going to worry about copycats. The band is such a serious musical force, and as a fan I always appreciate how absolutely seriously they take their work. They never sound tired, and they know just the right amount of any given instrument to emphasize or to play down when needed.


Franz Ferdinand

That they’ve got legions of fans who adore this handsome band is just common sense and good taste. Some of these fans grabbed up tickets to their Seattle Showbox appearance, and were treated to a rampant and outrageously good show. It’s not just because I’m a fan that I felt this incredible force around this show – the entire audience on the floor hopped up and down like mad things during several songs. It was a glorious sight. My top songs of the evening were the sleazy and taunting “Michael,” the dramatic “The Dark of the Matinée,” “Can’t Stop Feeling” mashed up with Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” – joining that disco rock oh so well with an Alex Kapranos channeling the Queen of Disco – and if I could write in caps here I would: “Shopping for Blood.” This song is one of my absolute Franz Ferdinand favorites. I hoped they would perform it. And yes, they did, within an inch of its life. The song is a classic tour de force. Other goodies included “No You Girls,” “Ulysses,” “The Fallen,” “Do You Want To” and the Nick McCarthy-led “Tell Her Tonight.” Oh, and “Take Me Out.” The new material, which will no doubt appear on the yet to be released album this year, was also hot stuff. “Scarlet Blue” and “Trees and Animals” in particular stood out to me as especially fabulous.

The last song of the evening was “Outsiders,” which ended with each band member drumming on Thomson’s kit. Thomson did a little crowd surfing, and then they were gone. Leave your audience wanting more, right? I want more.

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Show Review & Photos: The Last Summer on Earth Tour @ Marymoor Park

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The Last Summer on Earth Tour with Barenaked Ladies, Blues Traveler, Big Head Todd and the Monsters and Cracker – August 3rd @ Marymoor Park
Show Review & Photos by Jimmy Lovaas

If this is in fact the last summer on Earth, then I’m glad I spent some of it in Marymoor Park celebrating with a few thousand of my closest friends.

Barenaked Ladies headlined The Last Summer on Earth 2012 tour when it stopped in Redmond. The tour’s lineup also included Blues Traveler, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and Cracker.


Barenaked Ladies

Rock? Got that. Blues? You betcha. Teen pop? Naturally. (Wait, wait, wait. . . say what? Well, more about that later.)

The alt rock group Cracker kicked things off with Big Head Todd and the Monster’s keyboardist, Jeremy Lawton sitting in on bass. They started off with their biggest hit, “Euro Trash Girl,” and plowed through their top songs in a short 20-minute set with precision. The highlight of their set was “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me” from their 2009 album, Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey. The song is everything the band is: quirky, catchy and fun enough to distract from the deeper message of their songs.


Cracker

Up next was Big Head Todd and the Monsters. If you’ve never seen BHTM live then you have seriously missed out on some blues-rock jam band greatness. The band’s namesake, Todd Park Mohr, mixes an approachable rock sound with a strong blues root to create a groove that you just can’t help move to. The set’s highlight, for me at least, was the band’s cover of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom,” which let Mohr fly on his guitar. Seriously, that guy can shred the guitar when he wants to.


Big Head Todd and the Monsters

The act I was most excited about seeing, but unfortunately the most let down by, was Blues Traveler. The band is celebrating their 25th anniversary and I am sad to say that the years may have taken their toll on John Popper’s voice, or at least its ability to bounce back from a cold. Almost immediately his voice was sounding a little rough; he sipped water continuously, but it was plain to see that that he was in pain. Though, to be completely fair, Popper showed more heart than about any singer I’ve ever seen. I have no idea how he made it through his set without hacking up a vocal chord, but I’ll never question his heart again. That man was there to perform come hell or high water and as usual, the harmonica virtuoso basically blew everyone away with his insane harp skills.

Thankfully the Marymoor crowd responded well to Popper’s effort and livened up a great deal by the time the band finished their first song, a cover of Sublime’s “What I Got.” Not surprisingly, when the band played their biggest hits like “Runaround” and “Hook,” the crowd was dancing in the aisles and singing along.


Blues Traveler

The crowd-pleaser however was not one of their better-known tracks, but rather “Carolina Blues” from their 1997 album Straight On Till Morning. The song featured a local 12-year-old guest guitarist named Caspian Coberly. The audience seemed to adore the fact that such a young kid was jamming with Blues Traveler’s massively underrated guitarist, Chan Kinchla. I have to think that we’ll be seeing more of Coberly and judging by the giant smile that was on Kinchla’s face when he was playing with the young man, he would probably agree.

Last up were fan-favorites and the Grammy-nominated Canadians, Barenaked Ladies. BNL has been touring as a quartet since band co-founder Steven Page left the group in 2009. And, while Page’s absence is unfortunate, lead singer and guitarist Ed Robertson was more than capable of leading the night’s performance.

Their set included their best-known tracks like The Big Bang Theory theme song, “Brian Wilson,” “Pinch Me,” and sing-along mainstay, “If I had $1,000,000.” It also included their biggest hit, “One Week” – the song everyone likes to sing, but everyone butchers the lyrics to.


Barenaked Ladies

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Show Review & Photos: Sigur Rós & Julia Holter @ the Paramount

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Sigur Rós & Julia Holter @ the Paramount, August 8th
Photos & Review by Abby Williamson


Sigur Rós

A sold-out Paramount Theater got to enjoy some beautiful Icelandic music this past Wednesday. Yes, Sigur Rós graced Seattle with its presence for the first time since 2008, and I, for one, was glad I got to see it.

Opening the show was multi-instrumentalist songwriter Julia Holter, who captivated the room with her ethereal melodies and dreamy voice. Think Feist, but less. . . feisty for lack of a better term. I quite enjoyed her set, but it was mere set up for what proved to be a moving performance from Sigur Rós.


Julia Holter

The fact that I couldn’t understand any of the words being sung almost made it more moving. I was almost brought to tears more than once. The first being during “Hoppipolla,” which is just one of my favorite songs, so it was special; the second during “Festival,” which is all sorts of emotions rolled into one. That’s the thing with a 9-minute song – it doesn’t have to be one tone.

Sigur Rós played songs from their new album Valtari, as well as older songs from Takk and (), which I’m sure pleased plenty of people in the audience. I heard numerous people outside the theater saying that they wanted to hear stuff from (). I was one of them. The highlights of the night, at least for me, were “Sæglópur,” “Hoppipolla,” and the beyond epic encore. I don’t like using ‘epic’ lightly, but this was certainly that. After what was already a beautiful finale with “Hafsól,” Sigur Rós came back to hit us all again with more momentous instrumentation and emotion – and “lyrics” (I use quotations because all the tracks off () essentially were gibberish).


Sigur Rós

“Dauðalogn” and “Popplagið” became even longer than they are on the record with drawn out instrumentals in the middle and I couldn’t help but just shut my eyes and bask in the sound that filled the Paramount that night. Particularly during “Popplagið,” the drum part in the middle was almost doubled, building the tension in the song even more,. Then Jónsi Birgisson just started wailing in his signature falsetto (one that I can only think is rivaled by Justin Vernon).

Sticking with the theme of (), my feelings about that show can’t be described in words. There really are no words.


Sigur Rós


Julia Holter

More Photos of Sigur Rós & Julia Holter @ the Paramount

Sigur Rós Setlist

Ekki Múkk
Varúð
Ný Batterí
Í Gær
Vaka
Sæglópur
Svefn-g-englar
Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása
Hoppípolla
Með Blóðnasir
Olsen Olsen
Festival
Hafsól

Encore:
Dauðalogn
Popplagið

CD Review: Observator by The Raveonettes

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Album Review: Observator by The Raveonettes
by M. Crossley

The Raveonettes used to dig Phil Spector and the Jesus and Mary Chain – a lot. Their first EP, Whip It On was so charmingly derivative of Velvet Underground-era Lou Reed fronting the Jesus and Mary Chain as produced by Phil Spector that a fan of any of those bands could not help but take a bit of notice when it came on the jukebox. This Danish duo then took their love of 1960s American culture a bit further in 2003 with their first full-length album, Chain Gang of Love, earning accolades and adoration from a widening fanbase, all the while stooping to scoop scrape every piece of weirdo 60s surf and R&B influence they could from off the artistic sidewalk. Pretty In Black followed in 2005 and more fuzz-toned nostalgia came with it.

It was a mimed style; the band never stated to have invented it, to be sure. But it was rock, or rock-ish mostly. But if you dug Suicide, and the Velvets, or if you found yourself accidentally stoned on a sunny afternoon and you were a passenger in someone’s car, and you were gazing out the windshield at all of the billboards on the highway (and you even remotely kind of liked 60s rock) then you could kind of tolerate The Raveonettes.

Observator the band’s sixth studio album, leaves the sonic surf guitar dissonance of songs like “Attack of the Ghostriders” in the dust. There are no more 1960s midcentury R&B attacks from jagged guitar chords, but instead a more Everly Brothers approach to “Children of Nuggets”-style rock that sounds like Best Coast, at best. At least the old contrived sound was a bit more endearing, or at least a bit more rock ‘n’ roll.

That’s not to say Observator doesn’t have its moments. The riff in “The Enemy” has a very nice whimsical sway to it, the addition of keys in “Observations” adds a nice other worldly tone to the slow melodrama of the track. The Raveonettes also cleverly saved the best selection on the album for last. “You Hit Me (I”m Down)” finds the band back at their Jesus and Mary Chain best, although a bit more like a track off of “Automatic” than “Psychocandy” this time, and it’s the gutsiest moment of the disc.

Believe it or not, I hate saying negative things about people’s music; I understand the work that goes into creating it. I just didn’t feel this album.

So I’ll leave you with this: If you only buy one soft edged, Euro-pop-post-Moody Blues, 60s synth shoegaze album this year, let it be Observator. The name of the album came from the platform they built to look down upon said shoes, and that itself is a work of art.


Observator – The Raveonettes (Vice Records)

Photos: Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival w/ Motörhead, Slayer, Anthrax & The Devil Wears Prada

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Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival for 2012 included Motörhead, Slayer, Anthrax and The Devil Wears Prada. The festival wrapped up on August 5th in Connecticut, and we’re excited to share photographer Geoffrey Gribbin’s shots of the White River Amphitheatre stop. Oh, and Anthrax returns to Seattle on September 19th.


Motörhead


Slayer


Anthrax


The Devil Wears Prada
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