Gillian Welch accompanied by longtime musical partner, guitarist Dave Rawlings, played to a packed audience at the Moore Theater in support of her new album, The Harrow & The Harvest. Not surprisingly, as I looked through the crowd, I saw a number of familiar faces from the Tractor Tavern as well as local performers there to hear Gillian.
“Step one, we can have lots of fun/Step two, there’s so much we can do,” sing New Kids on the Block in their classic, “Step by Step.” The song is catchy and the lyrics are fun, and you don’t enjoy New Kids on the Block? then you’re missing seriously excellent pop. Likewise with Backstreet Boys, a band that released 4 quite great CDs in the 2000s well worth checking out if you stopped listening at 1999’s Millennium, and I’m not sure why you would have done that. I feel like New Kids on the Block’s Jordan Knight’s solo career is rightfully successful but should be so, so much bigger. I’m also very interested in this solo material Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter is working on. Can you believe Carter is still only 31? Together the bands are touring under the name NKOTBSB, and they sang and danced in Tacoma on Friday night. The only band members missing on this tour are New Kids on the Block’s Jamie Kelly and Mark Wahlberg plus Kevin Richardson of Backstreet Boys. Otherwise they are all there, and looking good. An early happy birthday to me comes courtesy of Brittney Bush Bollay‘s photos of the guys and openers, Midnight Red and Matthew Morrison.
Crystal Bowersox, runner-up of “American Idol” season 9 in 2010, recently played a set at the base of the Space Needle in the Seattle Center during the Seattle Pridefest. She showcased her debut album, Farmer’s Daughter, which was released last December.
Ah, Alex Crick, thank you for capturing these photos of Two Gallants, The Mumlers and Broken Nobles as they played at Neumos last Monday evening. Here’s the skinny on what these bands are up to next: Two Gallants continue touring and blowing minds, The Mumlers look like they’ll be taking a tour break after a couple July dates, and Seattle’s Broken Nobles are playing the Comet on July 16th. Until next time, photos!:
Two Gallants
Broken Nobles
Two Gallants
The Mumlers
The Crocodile hosted a wildly-fun Saturday night of garage rock on June 18th, featuring two local practitioners of the art, The Intelligence and TacocaT, along with Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds, best-known as a former member of psychobillly punk legends The Cramps and co-founder of The Gun Club.
TacocaT opened the show with an energizing set of nicely aggressive ‘60s-style pop-punk. A happy, familiar banter went on between the band and the hometown crowd, and TacocaT’s tight, melodic songs easily held the audience. They are fun, funny, good-looking, and definitely a good time – a wonderful antidote to a scene that sometimes takes itself a little too seriously at times. They’d fit in perfectly playing at a blowout backyard BBQ, but have an “it” factor there that could and should take them to bigger prominence.
Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds
The Intelligence
TacocaT