Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER In a New York Times piece about birding published a few years back, author Brian Kimberling observed insightfully that making a list of bird species identified on any particular day, as birdwatchers do, is “a form of prayer, a thanksgiving for being alive at a certain time and place.” And posting that list online, he went on, “is a 21st-century form of a votive offering.” Concert setlists are arguably no different. Created by a band to serve the practical purpose of coordinating each member’s participation in the show that night, the paper on which they’re written […]

Photo by DYLAN JARED LONG Lightning Bolt’s band name may be a visual representation of their sound. Other band names that could have been a good fit for the noise rock duo are – hold on, let me scroll through my list here – Total Lunatics™ or perhaps Fuck Rocket™. Unassociated recording engineer Steve Albini called one of their live performances the “best alarm clock [he’s] ever had” when they played on the doorstep of his neighbor John Peel’s house. Yes, the John Peel. Lightning Bolt formed in college at Rhode Island School of Design in ’94. Drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale […]

Photo by Kevin Mazur for Getty/SiriusXM Beyond the givens when seeing Phish— long improvisational grooves, setlist gags, middle-aged fans huffing Hippy Crack after the show, and the day-after ache in my legs from three hours of channeling my dance moves from the spirit of Vincent Vega— no one knows what to expect from a Phish show, and anyone tells you otherwise is a liar. There was a little bit of online controversy surrounding their show at The Met last night. Because the concert was a SiriusXM promotional event, no tickets were put on sale for the general public. Instead, tickets […]

Photo by DYLAN LONG Crumb, unlike the name, is a seven-course feast of dreamy pop-rock that leads you far away from the musically ordinary. Instead, this four-piece band is a never-ending journey on a road less traveled. Assuming their sound even desires definition, it draws hints of Hiatus Kaiyote, BADBADNOTGOOD, and a healthy dose of the mysterious. This past Thursday night, Crumb graced a packed crowd at Union Transfer with support from Divino Niño and Shormey. Colorful light-filled balloons sat scattered across the stage, glowing and evolving from shades of red to purple to blue. The four-piece had a soothing […]

Photo by DYLAN LONG Skegss is an Australian three-piece group that wants you to live your best life. If the band’s energetic and jangly garage rock doesn’t lift you up off your ass, their inspiring, anecdotal lyrics surely will. Frontman Ben Reed has it figured out: he can teach you things like getting out of bed in the morning on the track fittingly titled “Wake The Fuck Up,” or how to enjoy the present moment despite life’s complexities on the jangly anthem “My Face.” With just a quick glance at his bright-blond surfer hair and brighter smile, it’s easy to […]

Photo by JOSH-PELTA-HELLER It’s almost 10:00 PM Thursday night when Stephen McBean and his merry band of psych-metal minions emerged from backstage at Underground Arts, rendered as silhouettes by stage lighting and smoke machine, and unleashed the fuzzy electric buzz of “High Rise,” from their latest record, Destroyer. At 50, McBean is an unassuming frontman, silver beard framed by the shoulder-length hair that shrouds his face for most of the evening, as he wrestles with his guitars and considers the evening’s extensive pedal decisions. McBean paces back and forth between flanking keyboardists Jeremy Schmidt and Rachel Fannan to commune with […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Somewhere from the back of Franklin Music Hall last night, a fan let out a blood-curdling “AN-GELLL” that sent an echo of similar calls and pleas for attention all the way up to the stage, where Angel Olsen stood in a black dress and a pair of cat ears, with mock whiskers painted on her face. She let the crowd’s wave of drunken Halloween nonsense fill the room, waiting for one brief quiet moment to say, “What other thoughts do you have? I’m ready.” Standing before a crowd costumed in kitschy face paint, wigs, headdresses, glitter, […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Dressed in black, Sleater-Kinney kicked off their set at the Fillmore last night with the slow futuristic dirge of “The Center Won’t Hold,” the title track of their latest album. Here was the new, layered, and organized sound of Sleater-Kinney, sweethearts of the 90’s riot grrrl movement, almost 25 years after their debut. The songs from The Center Won’t Hold aren’t bad by any means, but next to the electric charge of Dig Me Out or The Hot Rock, they sound sort of tame and jaded — at least on the studio versions. After the ominous […]

Photo by MATT SHAVER Bristol post-punk outfit IDLES is not the heaviest band out there, and they certainly aren’t the edgiest. They are, however, indubitably one of the angriest bands around. The fundamental rebelliousness that is the driving force of punk rock music, in the case of IDLES, manifests itself through a twisted (though profoundly humane) depiction of love. You heard me right: the thematic heart of IDLES’ punk-ness is a kind of re-imagined Flower Power. Their two debut full-length records, Brutalism and Joy as an Act of Resistance are both unashamedly anti-fascism and an unconditionally inclusive call for community. […]

Photo by GRAHAM TOLBERT Pasted on every door of the venue were warnings of extreme strobe lighting. The heavy promise of a twisted psychedelic dream that would channel both the cabin fever seclusion of Bon Iver’s early music and the cryptic auto-tuned voice of 2016’s 22, A Million grew closer with Feist’s preparatory words, “Your hearts will be turned into a flock of pastel geese flying into the future,” at the end of her opening set. With the sudden darkness and quick flashes of hallucinatory art across stage-bookending screens as the i,i intro “Yi” played in the background of Bon […]

Photo by ALEX PATERSON-JONES Philly loves their own. The crowd, crammed into a warehouse somewhere in Northern Liberties last night, went wild for the performances of three Philly-born artists’ Hop Along, Tierra Whack and Orion Sun, at the opening of the 4-day House of Vans event. Indie rock band Hop Along—which is comprised of two siblings, front-woman Frances Quinlan and her brother Mark  on drums — opened for Tierra Whack. Live, Frances’ voice is an enigma— think a chain-smoking baby, crude and rustic, pulsing in its ragged rawness. That voice’s full-throatedness pierced the venue, making the audience empathize with the […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Those familiar with the smaller stage at Underground Arts may know that seven musicians is at least three too many for a space of that size. A small extension was added centerstage on Thursday night for White Fence frontman Tim Presley, like a mini-catwalk, but the garage rock anti-hero hardly took advantage of it in the conventional sense, using it instead to edge up his mic only slightly to give the rest of his band just a little breathing room in the wings. Presley comes off as demure, unassuming and refreshingly unpretentious, his shirt tucked into […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Lucinda Williams has a cold. Less than a minute into “Right on Time,” her first song of the night, she stepped back from the microphone saying “shit” under her breath, to reach for a tissue while she shook her head in agitated dismay at someone backstage. The annoyance on her face made me fear a stoic, empty performance lay ahead, or worse yet, a shortened-set meltdown. If her sandpapery voice could barely make it through the first verse of “Right on Time,” there was no way she’d be able to perform the straining high-range melodies of […]