2012 Show round-up!
The top show of the year for me was th JJAMZ/Penguin Prison/Neon Trees show, i
n part because it was on my birthday! It was also exactly the right kind of music for my mood - poppy, happy, and just a little aggressive. JJAMZ was far better than I expected them to be (to be fair, I only knew of them through fic), and their dreamy lyrics over a really solid pop delivery made me buy their record. Zberg was charming, and seemed to be genuinely pleased that I'd come to their show for my birthday. :) She wrote a sweet birthday message on my cd cover and took a nice picture.
The Neon Tree ere everywhere this year. There were literally times this fall when I would go through five stations on my radio and each of them would be playing a Neon Trees song. At least locally, they were in direct competition with Fun. for the most listeners. A lot of people have trouble with the band's conservative politics (I'd call Tyler's troubled rather than conservative, myself), but their live show is great. They gave a really dynamic performance, and holding Tylers skinny little thighs up when he crowd-surfed made me really happy. They seemed like they were having such a great time in their performance, too, even though they were missing their regular drummer. I was glad I got to see them in our tiny little venue, especially after they picked up larger and larger shows throughout the rest of the year.
After that, I think the Empires/Mona show & Ben Sollee were tied for me.
The Empires show was made especially great because that is where I incepted myself into being friends with the lovely, lovel
girlpearl
melusina amp; mercurial_girl. Empires blew me away with their energy, gritty aesthetic and powerful hooks. I've been listening t Garage Hymns pretty consistently since the show. I liked Mona, too, although I didn't buy their music.
Ben Sollee is a very different sound. I didn't know anything about him other than my friend really liked him, and he played a cello. This venue was especially small - only seating a couple of hundred people - and we were in the third row. The result was that the concert felt like being told the life story of a very smart, very sensitive man via song and cello. It was fantastic and I smiled all the way through it, even the sad songs. Ben is an independent artist - I recommend buying his albums if you can! He's very political and puts his mouth where his money is - he literally bikes to all regionally-accessible shows because of his belief in energy policies. Again, it was the kind of show I wanted at just the right moment.
Then Ume & The Toadies!!!! I spread the word of Ume so much that even people who barely know me are like, "aren't you the person who likes Ume?". Ume is a stripped down rock trio fronted by Lauren Larson on lead guitar and vocals. Her husband Eric plays bass, and they...cycle through drummers and keyboardists, although Jeff Berrara has been on drums for awhile now. Hopefully he'll stick. Conductor was my comfort music for a few months this year. They're known for a thrashing live show. My friend who went with me called them heavy metal, but I'd go with more hard rock. *shrug* I am very hopefully seeing them again tonight, which will be my third time. Well worth the time and money.
They were supporting The Toadies on their tour last year. I know you're thinking "The Toadies (yawn)." I had low expectations, and their show fucking rocked. They really bring it, and I didn't mind standing in the cold/thrashing around against large dude bros for them.
I saw the very entertaining Foxy Shazam wit
girlpearl amp
melusina s well! This band gives a lot of people the motts, but I sort of loved everything about their show. Eric Nally, the lead vocalist, goes balls out in his performance. You know what makes a good show? When the trumpet player in your band sticks his arm out at 90 degrees, and you twirl yourself over it in a flip as if it were a gymnast's bar. That and very, very tight pants and an equally tight sense of humor. Nothing but good times. They were supporting Slash, by the way. He is still alive. The band he's touring with is super-boring, but it only took one guitar solo for the 8 year old inside me to regain her fannishness for Slash. I told my 8 year old self to shut up after awhile though. There's no way I could make it through a full set.
I saw Timber Timbre and Feist in the heat of the summer. I'd call Timber Timbre listenable. Feist was ...just delightful. She bantered a lot with the crowd, and my take away was that she is smart and charming. I was only familiar with a few of her songs before the show, and I wish I'd known them better going in. I was surrounded by people for whom this was obviously the show of their year - people who knew every word to every song, and openly clung to each other and cried during some of them. Metals was a significant part of my writing music through the fall.
I also wish I'd been more familiar with both Jukebox the Ghost and Motion City Soundtrack when I went to their show. At the time I tweeted that Jukebox the Ghost was charming as fuck, and they kept it up the whole time. If you like Passion Pit or the Temper Trap but sometimes wish they were more pop, Jukebox the Ghost is for you. I saw this show at the same tiny venue that I saw Neon Trees and there was definitely a different atmosphere. The Neon Trees was packed and bouncing. This show had a much smaller audience, but almost everyone there was obviously a huge fan of MCS. I didn't quite get it, but maybe it wasn't the right show for me at the time.
The honorable mentions go to The Whiskey Shivers and The Bright Light Social Hour, both local favorites. The Whiskey Shivers I think I would have enjoyed a lot more on a different day; who doesn't like bluegrass?! The Bright Light Social Hour is a jam band. I needed chemical assistance to get through their 13-minute-long songs.
The last show of the year for me was The Mountain Goats. I like them lots and listen to them at home; John Darnielle is a great follow on Twitter. This show was notable for me, too, as there were multiple my-town fan people
melusina amp
girlpearl along with mercurial_girl, who joined us for dinner beforehand but couldn't make the show) , an
sundancekid nd one of her friends (love you all!) as well as a few friends of mine for school. I had lots of fun blowing off the boring opening acts to talk about Teen Wolf and other live music with all of them. What I didn't anticipate, though, is that the show came with a trigger warning. I mean. I kow better. It's the Mountain Goats. And yet listening to John sing about being really glad his childhood abuser was dead turned out to be a bit too much for me live. Combined with the end-of-term stress and the late hour of the show, I had to leave early. Lesson learned = practice good self-care when going to shows.
And that's it! I'm hoping to hit a few more this year. If I can brave the 40F+rain tonight I'll go see Ume again. Next week is tentatively either The Riverboat Gamblers or A Silent Film. And then mid-month is Ed Sheeran nd February will take me to Fun. and Morrissey on back to back nights.
\o/ MUSIC
This entry was originally posted at http://concinnity.dreamwidth.org/57504.html. Comment wherever you like.
n part because it was on my birthday! It was also exactly the right kind of music for my mood - poppy, happy, and just a little aggressive. JJAMZ was far better than I expected them to be (to be fair, I only knew of them through fic), and their dreamy lyrics over a really solid pop delivery made me buy their record. Zberg was charming, and seemed to be genuinely pleased that I'd come to their show for my birthday. :) She wrote a sweet birthday message on my cd cover and took a nice picture.
The Neon Tree ere everywhere this year. There were literally times this fall when I would go through five stations on my radio and each of them would be playing a Neon Trees song. At least locally, they were in direct competition with Fun. for the most listeners. A lot of people have trouble with the band's conservative politics (I'd call Tyler's troubled rather than conservative, myself), but their live show is great. They gave a really dynamic performance, and holding Tylers skinny little thighs up when he crowd-surfed made me really happy. They seemed like they were having such a great time in their performance, too, even though they were missing their regular drummer. I was glad I got to see them in our tiny little venue, especially after they picked up larger and larger shows throughout the rest of the year.
After that, I think the Empires/Mona show & Ben Sollee were tied for me.
The Empires show was made especially great because that is where I incepted myself into being friends with the lovely, lovel
girlpearl
melusina amp; mercurial_girl. Empires blew me away with their energy, gritty aesthetic and powerful hooks. I've been listening t Garage Hymns pretty consistently since the show. I liked Mona, too, although I didn't buy their music.
Ben Sollee is a very different sound. I didn't know anything about him other than my friend really liked him, and he played a cello. This venue was especially small - only seating a couple of hundred people - and we were in the third row. The result was that the concert felt like being told the life story of a very smart, very sensitive man via song and cello. It was fantastic and I smiled all the way through it, even the sad songs. Ben is an independent artist - I recommend buying his albums if you can! He's very political and puts his mouth where his money is - he literally bikes to all regionally-accessible shows because of his belief in energy policies. Again, it was the kind of show I wanted at just the right moment.
Then Ume & The Toadies!!!! I spread the word of Ume so much that even people who barely know me are like, "aren't you the person who likes Ume?". Ume is a stripped down rock trio fronted by Lauren Larson on lead guitar and vocals. Her husband Eric plays bass, and they...cycle through drummers and keyboardists, although Jeff Berrara has been on drums for awhile now. Hopefully he'll stick. Conductor was my comfort music for a few months this year. They're known for a thrashing live show. My friend who went with me called them heavy metal, but I'd go with more hard rock. *shrug* I am very hopefully seeing them again tonight, which will be my third time. Well worth the time and money.
They were supporting The Toadies on their tour last year. I know you're thinking "The Toadies (yawn)." I had low expectations, and their show fucking rocked. They really bring it, and I didn't mind standing in the cold/thrashing around against large dude bros for them.
I saw the very entertaining Foxy Shazam wit
girlpearl amp
melusina s well! This band gives a lot of people the motts, but I sort of loved everything about their show. Eric Nally, the lead vocalist, goes balls out in his performance. You know what makes a good show? When the trumpet player in your band sticks his arm out at 90 degrees, and you twirl yourself over it in a flip as if it were a gymnast's bar. That and very, very tight pants and an equally tight sense of humor. Nothing but good times. They were supporting Slash, by the way. He is still alive. The band he's touring with is super-boring, but it only took one guitar solo for the 8 year old inside me to regain her fannishness for Slash. I told my 8 year old self to shut up after awhile though. There's no way I could make it through a full set.
I saw Timber Timbre and Feist in the heat of the summer. I'd call Timber Timbre listenable. Feist was ...just delightful. She bantered a lot with the crowd, and my take away was that she is smart and charming. I was only familiar with a few of her songs before the show, and I wish I'd known them better going in. I was surrounded by people for whom this was obviously the show of their year - people who knew every word to every song, and openly clung to each other and cried during some of them. Metals was a significant part of my writing music through the fall.
I also wish I'd been more familiar with both Jukebox the Ghost and Motion City Soundtrack when I went to their show. At the time I tweeted that Jukebox the Ghost was charming as fuck, and they kept it up the whole time. If you like Passion Pit or the Temper Trap but sometimes wish they were more pop, Jukebox the Ghost is for you. I saw this show at the same tiny venue that I saw Neon Trees and there was definitely a different atmosphere. The Neon Trees was packed and bouncing. This show had a much smaller audience, but almost everyone there was obviously a huge fan of MCS. I didn't quite get it, but maybe it wasn't the right show for me at the time.
The honorable mentions go to The Whiskey Shivers and The Bright Light Social Hour, both local favorites. The Whiskey Shivers I think I would have enjoyed a lot more on a different day; who doesn't like bluegrass?! The Bright Light Social Hour is a jam band. I needed chemical assistance to get through their 13-minute-long songs.
The last show of the year for me was The Mountain Goats. I like them lots and listen to them at home; John Darnielle is a great follow on Twitter. This show was notable for me, too, as there were multiple my-town fan people
melusina amp
girlpearl along with mercurial_girl, who joined us for dinner beforehand but couldn't make the show) , an
sundancekid nd one of her friends (love you all!) as well as a few friends of mine for school. I had lots of fun blowing off the boring opening acts to talk about Teen Wolf and other live music with all of them. What I didn't anticipate, though, is that the show came with a trigger warning. I mean. I kow better. It's the Mountain Goats. And yet listening to John sing about being really glad his childhood abuser was dead turned out to be a bit too much for me live. Combined with the end-of-term stress and the late hour of the show, I had to leave early. Lesson learned = practice good self-care when going to shows.
And that's it! I'm hoping to hit a few more this year. If I can brave the 40F+rain tonight I'll go see Ume again. Next week is tentatively either The Riverboat Gamblers or A Silent Film. And then mid-month is Ed Sheeran nd February will take me to Fun. and Morrissey on back to back nights.
\o/ MUSIC
This entry was originally posted at http://concinnity.dreamwidth.org/57504.html. Comment wherever you like.