Review: Glass Animals’ “Tour of Earth”

Several months ago my friend Bob texted me that he had bought some tickets to the Glass Animals‘ “Tour of Earth” show coming to Raleigh and asked if we wanted to go.

Bob was also responsible, indirectly, for me becoming a fan of Glass Animals. He likes to go to music festivals, and back in 2017 he invited us to go to Lollapalooza in Chicago. I caught the Glass Animals set and really liked their music. They were promoting their second album “How to Be a Human Being” and, while I listen to musically digitally these days if it had been a vinyl record I would have worn that sucker out.

Glass Animals performing at Lollapalooza 2017 in Chicago

They are now touring to promote their fourth studio album, “I Love You So F***ing Much“.

Where I live in North Carolina there are a couple of large venues that host musical acts, and Glass Animals was preforming at Walnut Creek Amphitheater, which is the only major outdoor venue. It’s located just southeast of Raleigh and consists of covered, reserved seating area and a large, sloped lawn for general admission. Note that it is now called the “Coastal Credit Union Music Park” (it has been a number of other names as well) and I’m certain it will change names again before I return so I’ll just call it “Walnut Creek”.

Bob had purchased lawn seats for this show. Now I enjoy lawn seats if the weather is nice, but once I worked for a company that bought season “gold circle” seats and that spoiled me. Those seats were on a raised area close to the stage, and you sat at a small table and had wait staff service. Needless to say I can’t afford those tickets on my own.

On the day of the show I really, really didn’t want to go. Our lives are very busy at the moment and all I wanted to do was curl up and take a nap lasting a day or two. It’s a 90 minute drive to Bob’s house so we had to add a three hour commute on top of the trip to the show. Walnut Creek is not known for being easy to get into or out of, there is always the question of the weather, and I am also not a big fan of crowds. That said I’m very happy we went.

Four of us piled into Bob’s Tesla: Bob, his daughter Megan (who also went with us to Lolla), Andrea and myself. I was a pleasant surprise that getting into the venue wasn’t difficult, and once we parked it was about a five to ten minute walk to the gate. For a variety of reasons Walnut Creek limits what you can bring in, and all we took were some beach towels. We ended up not using them, since I am old I rented us some chairs, and we managed to plant ourselves center stage about in the middle of the lawn.

The view from our seats

It turned out to be a beautiful evening, and we had an hour or so before the opening act so we just enjoyed it.

The show opened with Kevin Abstract, who is a rapper. He started off by doing about a 15 minute DJ set before launching into his show, and while I had not heard of him before he did a good job of getting the crowd ready for the main act.

Kevin Abstract Performs

Just a little after 9pm Glass Animals took the stage, which was set up as some sort of retro “mission control” room with a bank of monitors all in a row and a weird glass sphere in the center on which they would project images. All of the colors were strongly reminiscent of the early days of computers, when CGA graphics consisted of mainly magenta and cyan. The images projected on the large screen behind the stage recalled early vector graphics, and as an old it really appealed to me, although most of the attendees would have been decades away from birth when that was popular (I will say that there were a number of older people at the show and I didn’t feel like I was a chaperone).

A few of the stage showing off the CGA-style graphics

The band is fronted by Dave Bayley, who is insanely energetic, and he started off with “whatthehellishappening?” off the new album.

Okay, I have to admit something. While I consider “How to Be a Human Being” one of my top ten favorite albums, I am less in love with their later work. Since they are out promoting “I Love You So F***ing Much” I figured they would spend a lot of time with those songs, and they did end up playing eight out of the ten tracks on that album (out of the seventeen songs in the set), but they managed to hit most of my favorites as well.

Off their first album they just played one song, “Gooey”, and when the song started Bayley had walked through the crowd and climbed up on some scaffolding. About halfway through he climbed down and was walking back to the stage when he stopped to talk to a young fan. He asked if the kid knew the words and when they replied “yes” he turned over the mic and let them finish the verse. I thought that was pretty cool.

The crowd was great. When the concert started I thought it was going to be lightly attended but by the time Glass Animals actually got on stage the place was packed. Although Bayley kept saying this was the largest and loudest crowd of the tour so far, I couldn’t tell if that was just crowd service or if he was telling the truth, but for the first time in awhile I was at a concert where I wasn’t bumped into by a drunk, people didn’t spend the whole show trying to record it on their phones, and all in all everyone was just cool and enjoying the music.

I mean, we had lasers

Stage with lines of green lasers

and at some point a big, shiny UFO thingie was lowered

A picture of the stage with a shiny, UFO thing

Now they didn’t play my favorite track, “Season 2, Episode 3”, and they didn’t play “Cane Shuga”. I like the latter song but I really wanted to see them perform it live since I am certain they looped the vocals and it would be impossible to perform live (hence, I assume, its absence), but I did get “Life Itself”, and “Tokyo Drifting” and “Pork Soda”.

The last two closed the show, but they did a two song encore with “The Other Side of Paradise” and lastly the hit “Heat Waves”. “Heat Waves” is a song I always associate with the COVID pandemic, as the video shows Bayley collecting video monitors in a wagon and dragging them down a deserted street to an empty theatre. He sets them up on stage and images of the other three band members appear to close out the song.

All in all I got half the tracks from my favorite album and favorite tracks from the other two as well, and I am starting to appreciate the fourth album. I am extremely happy I went, and if you have the chance to catch them live I highly recommend it.

Lollapalooza Twenty-Six Years On

Bob is one of my closest friends. We met back in 1988 when we both worked for Northern Telecom, and we’ve managed to stay in touch through a few moves (on my part) and the birth of his daughter Megan. In fact, when Kathy (his wife) announced she was pregnant, I can remember being a little angry. Single people hang out with single people, couples hang out with couples, and parents hang out with other parents. I was certain we wouldn’t be friends with them much longer. I am grateful that I was wrong.

Bob and I share the trait in that we rarely let what other people think influence our behavior. For example, I’m a fifty year old guy who plays Pokémon Go. He’s a fifty year old guy who likes Electronic Dance Music (EDM). This year Megan bought him tickets to the Buku festival in New Orleans, and he enjoyed it so much he decided to get tickets to this year’s Lollapalooza in Chicago. I went to the first Lollapalooza in 1991, and so when he invited me I thought it would be an interesting experience to go again.

Lollapalooza 4-Day Wristband

While alternative music is a well established genre now, it wasn’t 26 years ago. What we tend to think of as “alternative” was often just called “college radio” back then (you young folks can look up what a “radio” was). Perry Farrell coined the term “alternative nation” when he established Lollapalooza festival as a farewell tour for his band Jane’s Addiction, and the first festival was a pretty unique experience for me.

I’ve always been attracted to people who defy categorization. Being a “smart guy” in the rural south was pretty isolating, and so I tended to associate with other outcasts, and it wasn’t until I attended the North Carolina School of Science and Math that I really felt like I fit in anywhere, but even there you had your normal high school cliques with the jocks and the rich kids, etc. It was cool to be able to attend a festival more targeted at “my people” for lack of a better word. It wasn’t very commercial and it seemed like people were there for the music as well as, maybe, to learn something.

I enjoyed my first Lolla, so I don’t really understand why it took me several years to return. In part it is because I am adverse to crowds, and also it isn’t a cheap festival. I returned in 1997 when the company I worked for had season tickets to the venue, and it was a shadow of its former self. The amphitheater held over 20,000 people but I think less than 8,000 showed up. I did get to stand feet away from Tricky, and I enjoyed both the Tool and Orbital sets, but I wasn’t surprised when it was announced that it would be the last Lollapalooza tour.

Lollapalooza was revived in 2003 but it wasn’t until 2005 when they settled on Grant Park in Chicago for the location that it became something of a permanent fixture. Over 100,000 people attend each day of the festival, which is now four days long.

I wasn’t sure I could last four days (I didn’t) but I was eager to go to the event and see what it had become.

While I love Chicago, I’m not sure Chicago 100% loves Lollapalooza. I know the hotel industry does since the hotel prices were much higher than normal, and it was looking like it was going to be an expensive trip. Luckily, I have a friend who splits his time between Chicago and Miami and he offered up his apartment for the weekend as he was going to flee the city during the festival. Andrea came along since her and Kathy are friends, and they were going to hang out together while the rest of us went to Grant Park. Four of us were going to the show: me, Bob, Megan and her friend Claire.

While the apartment was over a mile from the park, it was a lovely place to stay. It’s nice to be in a home versus a hotel. Andrea and I arrived Wednesday afternoon, and as she had work to do I decided to prepare myself for the long weekend with a much needed nap.

View from the Apartment

On Thursday the six of us met for lunch and then the four of us headed over to the event. They were staying a a hotel across from the Trump Tower Chicago. It was funny to watch people taking pictures of themselves with it, usually sporting obscene finger gestures.

Megan and Claire in front of Trump Tower

There were a couple of entrances to the event, with the main one being near Michigan and Congress. From the hotel we were closer to the northern gate. As you approached the barriers you were asked to hold up your hand with your wristband.

Lollapalooza - northern entrance

While the instructions were pretty specific, the wristband is to go on the right wrist, not a lot of people seemed to get the memo and both Bob and I were bothered by this for some reason. There was also a long list of things allowed in the park and things forbidden. No outside food or drink but you can bring in a bag. Bob had a Camelbak but even those had to be brought in empty (there were numerous “hydration stations” in the park). Once past the first barriers the line broke into those with bags and those without.

Security was really lax at Lollapalooza. I got the most minimal pat down and there were no metal detectors. While the event was non-smoking, people had no trouble bringing in cigarettes, vapes and other contraband. It was one of the things that really detracted from the show for me.

Once inside we decided to learn the layout. Grant Park is large, and the festival is spread out over seven stages (eight if you count “Kidapalooza”).

Lollapalooza - map

The main stage, Grant Park, was on the south end in a large field. If you faced that stage there was another stage called Lake Shore behind and to the left. The largest headliners were on the Grant stage, and shows were staggered so that they weren’t on at the same time. On the opposite side of the park was the Bud Light stage. I didn’t like that stage much, as it seemed to be in a little valley and the area was much more claustrophobic than the area around Grant. Unless you were pretty close it was hard to see the stage. It also had a second stage off to the side sponsored by Tito’s Vodka.

Lollapalooza - Day 1 Schedule

On the western side of the park was the Perry’s stage featuring EDM acts. We spent a lot of time there since EDM was one of the main reasons for attending. It was the first place we stopped to see an act, in this case Tritonal.

Lollapalooza - Tritonal

Seeing EDM performances in the middle of the day is a bit odd. First, it’s pretty much just one or two guys hunched over gear and it is hard to differentiate that from just someone clicking on “play” in an app. Also, the strobes, fire and video effects lose something in bright sunlight. Still, it is music to bob your head to and it was kind of fun to hang out and bounce a bit. Bob kept getting high-fives from people walking by and seeing his Buku shirt.

We decided to check out the main Grant Park stage for Cage the Elephant.

Lollapalooza - Cage the Elephant

The lead singer wore fishnet stockings and a dress, and that at least took me back to my last Lolla when the lead singer for Tool performed in a bustier and kabuki makeup. It was also here that I first experienced the most annoying aspect of the festival.

Many of the people didn’t seem to be there for the music. When a band got started, groups of people would form a little “train” and push their way through the crowd. A few minutes later they would push their way back. Sometime they might stop right in front of you or in the middle of your group. Often they’d light up a cigarette or a joint or start puffing on their vape. Frequently they would be more interested in chatting up the person next to them versus listening to the music. I will say that I was glad that mobile phone usage was less than I expected (I’ve been to concerts recently where people record the whole thing), but being in a crowd of mostly young people with the attention span of gnats lessened the whole thing for me.

Lollapalooza - Buckingham Fountain

We did find refuge in one place – the Cocktail Bar. Situated in the center of Grant Park is the large Buckingham Fountain. Off to the east was a little archway with the words “Cocktail Bar” on it, and inside provided a delightful respite from the crowds. Situated along Lake Shore Drive, this area had grass, trees, lawn chairs and access to a number of decent cocktails. At $14 a drink it was also one of the more affordable items available in the park, believe it or not. In addition to being quiet and relatively free of obnoxious young’uns, there was also a bank of toilets you could use without leaving the area. We would end of spending at least an hour here each day.

Weather was hit and miss Thursday (as well as most of the festival). It looked like it might rain at any minute, and so I was happy to find that the app Dark Sky is now available for Android. This is an app that does “microforecasts” – it doesn’t try to forecast the weather for the day, just the next hour or so. As I was writing this it was raining, and you can see how it will taper off over the next hour.

Lollapalooza - Dark Sky

It’s not 100% accurate out very far, but it is really good for about 30 minutes, sometimes saying things like “light drizzle starting in 7 minutes and lasting 13 minutes”, etc. You can also set it up to send notifications when it is about to rain at your location.

The last show of Thursday had split headliners, with Muse at Grant Park and Lorde at Bud Light. Bob wanted to see Muse so I left him and headed north. About this time Dark Sky warned me that it was getting ready to pour in four minutes, so I made a dash for the exit. The rain was pretty torrential but I was able to make it to the subway without getting too damp, and I watched the rest of the thunderstorm from the comfort (and rather exquisite view) of the apartment. About three songs into the Muse set the show was canceled and everyone was told to leave the park. I understand the reasoning but it would kind of suck if the main band you came to see was canceled as there is no way to reschedule the show.

Lollapalooza - Day 2 Schedule

On Friday we got an earlier start and also entered through the north entrance. First stop was Perry’s for a performance by San Holo. He was pretty good but again it was broad daylight and we were looking at a guy hunched over his equipment.

Lollapalooza - San Holo

It was at San Holo that I got my first request for an “old guy” selfie. A young man came up to me and wanted a selfie, and while it was probably just for my devilish good looks I think he thought it funny that someone my age would be at the EDM stage in the middle of the day. Well, as the young kids say, send it.

I got another odd old guy comment later in the day. At Lolla they encourage you to pick up trash, and if you bring them a full bag you can get a small prize, like a shirt. Megan and Claire did it just because they wanted to, and as I was following Megan around and helping with the trash another guy, probably in his mid-40s, walked by and said “you’re a good Dad”.

Heh.

When I decided to come to Lollapalooza I posted the lineup on-line and asked if there was any of the lesser known bands I should try to see, and I was told to check out The Lemon Twigs, so we headed over to their set.

Lollapalooza - The Lemon Twigs

They were … odd. I liked the music well enough, but it seemed like a band in search of an image. The guy on drums was shirtless with white makeup and this whole Marilyn Manson thing going on. The lead singer was dressed in a blue jumpsuit while the guy on keyboards had on a Hawaiian shirt and khakis. The bass player was a woman who kind of stood off by herself. It was cool that the three men would switch positions and instruments, but it was weird to watch.

It was a bit of a toss up for the next act. Bob and I wanted to see Phantogram while the girls wanted to see Bishop Briggs.

Lollapalooza - Phantogram

I really liked the Phantogram set, well, except for the children constantly pushing themselves forward and back (sigh). What a lot of people don’t realize is that while these band names may sound new, bands like Phantogram have been around for a decade. How do you get to Lollapalooza? Practice, practice, practice.

Bob wanted to get some batteries for the DJ Snake set later that night (he has rave glasses that blink to the music) and so he had to leave the park. I went north to catch the end of the Tegan and Sara set at the Bud Light stage.

Lollapalooza - Tegan and Sara

As I mentioned above, I really didn’t like this stage. It felt very boxed-in and with the level of acts performing here you could always expect a crowd.

We all decided to meet back at the Cocktail Bar.

Lollapalooza - Cocktail Bar

It was a little more crowded than on Thursday, but we managed to find seats. Bob had tried to smuggle in three packages of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but of course the crack security staff confiscated them. Well, two of the packages – for some reason they left him one. Sharp as tacks they was.

We left the bar and headed back north to check out Foster the People. It was a bit more of a madhouse so we kind of stayed toward the back. While the lens was kind of angled here, you can get an idea of how low the stage looked from the back.

Lollapalooza - Foster the People

The final show for Friday was DJ Snake at Perry’s. Yes, there was fire.

Lollapalooza - DJ Snake

And to answer your question: yes, the old guy did bounce, and I did “get low” when he said to “get low”.

Lollapalooza - Day 3 Schedule

We got a later start on Saturday and decided to enter at the main entrance. This was a mistake. It took over 45 minutes to get in. Of course, after the wait I wasn’t even touched by security, just waved right through.

Lollapalooza - Line at the Main Entrance

We wandered around a bit and decided to try to get decent spots for Glass Animals. Megan took a group selfie:

Lollapalooza - Group Selfie

Left to right: Me, Claire, Bob and Megan.

I’m not that familiar with Glass Animals, although I’ve heard them on SiriusXM “Alt. Nation”. I enjoyed their set, but one thing happened that kind of illustrated my biggest disappointment with members of the crowd.

Lollapalooza - Glass Animals

When I used to go to concerts, people would smuggle in beach balls. Once in the venue, they’d inflate them and play “keep it away from security”. It was fun to bounce them around waiting for the show to start.

Glass Animals have a song called “Pork Soda” with the line “pineapples in my head” and images of the fruit appear throughout their show. Before they started a roadie came out with a bunch of inflatable pineapples, and he handed them out to the crowd. Instead of tossing them around, most people just kept them as souvenirs (sigh).

Despite that, I enjoyed the show and plan to check out their music.

Now the one show I’d been waiting for was Banks. I am a huge fan of Banks. Had I bought Goddess on vinyl I would have wore it out. Of all the performers in the lineup for this year’s Lollapalooza, hers was the show I would not miss, and I made sure to get there early for a decent spot right in front of the stage.

When you are waiting for a show to start, they would often post pictures and videos on the screen by the side of the stage. Some of those would feature bands “From the Vault” (i.e. older Lollapalooza festivals). When I mentioned earlier that it can take a decade for a band to make it to the Lolla stage, many of the bands that have played here seemed to have disappeared. Take Broken Social Scene from 2008:

Lollapalooza - Broken Social Scene

or Delta Spirit from 2012:

Lollapalooza - Delta Spirit

Never heard of either of those.

Anyway, I really liked the Banks crowd. Of all the bands I had seen at the festival, I felt most at home among these people. You could feel the excitement build as it got closer for the show to start. One thing that is really cool about Lollapalooza is the bands start on time – the schedule is very tight.

Lollapalooza - Banks

Banks strode onto the stage flanked by two dancers in mesh and launched into “Poltergeist”. It was magical. Her music is pretty ethereal in the first place, and with the addition of the choreography it just jelled. It was the only set I saw all weekend that tried an artistic presentation, and yes while I’m biased I think she killed. Most of the tracks were off her second album, The Altar but she did play several from Goddess including “Begging for Thread” which is probably how most people know her.

Afterward I thought about heading north to see The xx, but I might have mentioned I hated the Bud Light stage, so still high from the Banks show I headed out.

I skipped Sunday. Andrea and I had a late brunch and then met Kathy to go and hang out at the zoo. I did have a slight FOMO, and one thing did happen that I would have liked.

Lollapalooza - Day 4 Schedule

Bob and the girls went back to the Cocktail Bar, and there was a stand there promoting Tito’s vodka. After chatting with the person in the booth for awhile, they were given wristbands that let them in to a special lounge near the Tito’s stage. It was apparently very nice with an open bar, but I just couldn’t handle the thought of the crowds one more day.

Overall, I’m glad I went but unless something unusual happens it will probably be another 26 years before I go back, although who can guess what Lollapalooza would be like that far into the future. I know I’m in the “hey, you kids get off my lawn” age bracket, but I was pretty disappointed with the most of the people in the crowd. They seemed very self-centered and more interested in being seen than seeing. A lot of the young women wore fairly revealing clothing, and although few people can actually pull that look off I was happy that they were comfortable enough in their body image to try. The closest thing to a theme among the women was to wear Chuck Taylors (Converse All-Star sneakers, preferably in black), Daisy Dukes short enough that the pockets showed and mirrored sunglasses, which seem to be making a comeback. The guys wore mostly athletic jerseys, namely NBA, although in any particular group you couldn’t wear the same jersey. Of course there was the one dude with a jersey with the number “18” on it with the name “You Over” on the back, and I just had to wonder if that ever worked to meet girls (my guess is, no).

Around the food areas the trash was pretty impressive, even while people like Claire and Megan worked to pick some of it up. It made me despair a little for our future, but I bet that thought has occurred to everyone who reaches my age for as long as people have been reaching my age.

This also wasn’t the crowd I remember from the first Lollapalooza, at least through the rosy lens of a quarter century. At least there was the exception of the crowd at Banks. I stood next to a young lady from Columbus, Ohio, whose head was nearly shaved. She had modest gauges with hoop earrings through them, and this was her third or fourth Banks show. She didn’t seem ruled by her mobile phone, and was both well spoken and intelligent. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, this one from Henry Rollins:

“I want a soul mate who can sit me down, shut me up, tell me ten things I don’t already know, and make me laugh. I don’t care what you look like, just turn me on. And if you can do that, I will follow you on bloody stumps through the snow. I will nibble your mukluks with my own teeth. I will do your windows. I will care about your feelings. Just have something in there.”

This won’t be my last music festival, I still have Burning Man on my bucket list, but I hope there is more there, there, at the next one.

Review: The Record Company Give It Back to You

A couple of years ago we decided to lease a company car, and it came with SiriusXM satellite radio. For those of you who aren’t familiar, this service provides quite a large number of digital audio channels and each features a particular style of music. For example, music from the 1950s is on channel 5, music from the 1960s on channel 6, etc.

When I got it I spent most of my time on channel 36 “Alt. Nation” which plays alternative rock. After that started to get old, I branched out and started listening to a number of other channels. When I wanted something upbeat I might hit channel 51, “BPM” or channel 43 “Backspin” for “old skool” hip-hop. Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time on channel 32, “The Bridge” which focuses on (gulp) folk and soft rock. Hey, I’m old and besides I know all of the words to the songs. When I need something a little more modern I drop down to channel 28, “The Spectrum” which plays more energetic rock and mixes it up with both the classics and modern tracks.

Today I was coming into work and I heard this great song on The Spectrum called “On the Move” by a band called The Record Company. Now I know that smell is supposed to be the strongest trigger for memories, but for me music is a close second, and this song brought back a number of strong memories from my youth.

I grew up in a small town in North Carolina, and after I graduated from high school I moved to Los Angeles. I was done with this backwards and backwoods State and ready to enter the real world. That lasted two years, when I returned to the place I now call “God’s Own Earth”.

When I got back I reconnected with some friends I had left behind on my sojourn to California. I am blessed to have met some amazing people in my life, and in my fifty-odd years I’ve collected some great memories.

One of those involves Vonnie, the mother of a close friend. She used to live with a man named Bob who was an avid motorcycle rider, specifically of the Harley Davidson variety. Now about this time of year there is a huge motorcycle rally in Florida known as Daytona Bike Week. It turns out that for people who live up North and want to ride down, where we live is a very convenient place to stop about halfway. So each year Vonnie and Bob would host a party.

I got invited by my friend with the words “Mom is having a few bikers over for a cookout and you are more than welcome to join us”. It turned out to be a beautiful day, so I grabbed my buddy David and we headed out to Zebulon.

Along the way we kept passing groups of bikers, almost all on Harleys. We figured it was just because it was such a nice day to ride but as we got closer to Vonnie’s it turns out they were all headed to her party. There were at least fifty bikes, over a hundred people, as well as assorted cars and at least one cab from a tractor/trailer rig.

If you have ever seen the movie Mask, it was pretty much just like that, except Cher wasn’t there. It was awesome.

David and Tarus at a Biker Party

Yup, that’s me looking like the Oates half of Hall & Oates. Dave is the guy next to me.

Now the kind of music that is played at these parties is best described as “Southern Rock”. While I can’t remember a band at this particular party, I do remember going to another one soon after at a nearby farm with twice as many people, if not more. The stage was a flatbed trailer someone had pulled out into the pasture, and a number of bands would get up and play music from the standards like Alabama and Lynyrd Skynyrd, as well as tracks from Little Feat and Nantucket and blues songs from Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. I can remember The Black Crowes were huge at this time as well, so a number of their tunes would always get played. We’d drink beer, eat “chicken ‘n pastry” out of a God’s honest cauldron, and hang out under the stars just having a great time.

It was these memories that came flooding back when I first heard “On the Move”.

Now lately I’ve been stung by a number of album purchases. I would hear a song on SiriusXM that I really liked, go get the album and be disappointed that the one song was by far the best track. Luckily, I have Amazon Prime and so I was able to stream this album before buying it. By the time I got to “On the Move”, which is the fourth track, I’d bought it. Such a great album and an absolute steal at five bucks.

Give It Back to You

I’m not a music critic, so don’t expect me to review this with words like “a strong hint of apricot with a grassy overtone, with a finish that reminds you of almond” or some such crap. If you are of a certain age, or even if you aren’t, this music will remind you of simpler times, when a good party, great friends and rock ‘n roll were all you needed to forget your troubles. In a time where the country is run by a billionaire who never mowed a lawn in his life yet talks about making America great again, this album will remind you that America has always been great, in no small part due music from the heart and the heartland.

I was incredibly surprised to find out that The Record Company is based in LA. Heck, I lived there once, but they are channeling some down home feeling in their music. Please, check out their stuff. You won’t be disappointed.

Review: Sarah Jarosz at Hall River Ballroom

Once in a generation a voice comes along that is so pure that it goes in your ears, straight through your brain and to the bottom of your soul.

Sarah Jarosz is one such voice.

Sarah Jarosz Tickets

Several weeks ago I had the television tuned to our local PBS station, WUNC. They were showing episode 5 of the Transatlantic Sessions. We weren’t really paying attention, it was more like background noise, but then Sarah came on with her song “Annabelle Lee”. We just had to stop what we were doing and listen. Andrea was the first to comment on her voice.

I went out and bought her second album Follow Me Down which has that song and by the end of the day I owned everything of hers I could buy on-line. I also learned that her latest album Undercurrent would be coming out soon. In the process I saw that she was coming to perform locally at the Hall River Ballroom in Saxapahaw, NC, which is about 10 miles from the farm. A steal at $20 a ticket, we made plans to go.

I had never been to the Hall River Ballroom but I had heard good things. They were all true, but despite that I doubt I’ll go back. More on that in a rant later.

The show was sold out. There is a program on WUNC radio called “Back Porch Music” that focuses on American “roots” music. It has quite a following so my guess is that a lot of the people there learned about Jarosz and the concert from that show.

While crowded and hot, it wasn’t stifling, and I was pleasantly surprised at the acoustics in the Ballroom. They are excellent, and probably the best of any of the local music venues I’ve visited.

The opening act was Scott Miller.

Scott Miller

I had never heard of him before, but he did a good job of warming up the crowd. His music contained a lot of political commentary and I agreed with most of the sentiments. According to Wikipedia, he lives near Staunton, Virginia, which is really close to the farm of a friend of mine in nearby Stuarts Draft. It was pretty much just him and his guitar, and I need to find the time to check out more of his music.

Sarah Jarosz

Jarosz came on stage right at 9pm as part of a trio featuring Jedd Hughes on guitar (and backup vocals) and Jeff Picker on upright bass.

This band was tight.

The first pleasant surprise was that not only is Jarosz an amazing singer, she’s also an amazing musician. I saw her play five different instruments. Her main instrument was an octave mandolin, which looks like an eight string guitar, but she also played a standard mandolin, acoustic guitar, electric guitar and banjo. I was also very impressed with Hughes and Picker, especially since Hughes is a finger picker like me. I’ve never been able to flat pick since I can’t figure out how to “feel” the instrument to know where the pick is going, but with my fingers I know where the strings are supposed to be (although getting my fingers and the strings to get along is the challenge).

Speaking of playing guitar, I get teased by Andrea for the faces I make while playing, and Jarosz does it too when playing instrumental songs, although not as strangely as I do. I’m also teased for the time I spend tuning, so I had to laugh when she told a story about wishing that, on your deathbed, you get back all that time.

A lot of the songs were off her new album, which was to be expected, but she hit all of my favorites, including the aforementioned “Anabelle Lee” as well as “Run Away“.

I had been told that she was not going to do any covers, which was a shame since I started to fall in love with her music when she covered Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells“. It is one of my least favorite Dylan tunes, but in her hands it turns into something magical and uplifting. So the next pleasant surprise was that she did play it.

The set was long, about 90 minutes, and she managed a great flow which sometimes was just her and an instrument, or her and either Hughes or Picker, although for most of it they were a trio. There was a great little medley of Tim O’Brien instrumental songs with just bass and mandolin that really showed off their skills (Tim O’Brien tunes aren’t the easiest to play).

Toward the end of the show she mentioned they would be at the “merch booth” selling CDs and shirts, which reminded me of MC Frontalot’s song “Captains of Industry” (although if you click that link note that Front is a totally different genre of music). I had to fly out early the next morning so we didn’t stay around, but I do plan to buy any music the woman produces for the foreseeable future.

So, what went wrong?

It was the crowd, or namely a few specific members of the the crowd.

Seriously people, can we put away the phones for just a little bit? Okay, take a quick picture here and there, but damn it turn off the flash. When she came on stage it was like disco strobes had gone off. The flash ain’t gonna help.

[rant]

But my strongest bile was reserved for drunk guy standing in front of me. He thought it was cool to record entire songs, the problem being that when he’s holding up his phone it makes it hard for everyone else to see, especially since the glow from the handset in a dark room is insanely distracting. To paraphrase Louis CK: she’s right there dude, in Super HD! Live in the moment!

(sigh)

After one such recording he disappeared, only to return with another beer. By this time he’s weaving, so I have to weave too in order to keep a sight line to the stage. Then at the end of the song he shouted out a song title. Oh no! It’s Song Title Shouting Guy! I’m kind of glad that firearms were prohibited, or I might not be able to write this right now.

Luckily he saw some other guy who was by himself enjoying the show so he stumbled over to bother him for a change. Look, I know I’m old and maybe I’m too old for General Admission shows, but damn it I can’t handle the “mobile phones at shows” phenomenon. Back in the day we brought lighters (and, back in the day, some folks brought stuff to light) and that was about it. It’s one of the reasons I don’t go to movies much any more. Yeah, I know, you kids get off my lawn, but still, it ruined what could have been a perfect evening.

I don’t expect Jarosz to be playing places like the Hall River Ballroom in the future. When more people learn about her I think it will be too small, and I expect her career to match if not surpass people like Alison Krauss. But if she does I might just have to brave the mobile phone unwashed masses again, and perhaps they can swing by the farm afterward for some bourbon and branch.

Clean Bandit’s 60 Minute Workout

I’m not sure how I got introduced to the music of Clean Bandit, but I found myself listening to their album “New Eyes” over and over again. It’s Electronic Dance Music (EDM) with a classical bent, and while the band is responsible for writing the music, they always have guest vocalists do the most of the singing. I like a band that focuses on their strengths.

I mentioned this on G+ and Seth pointed out that they were coming to the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro. Now, this was back in January, but the concert wasn’t until last night.

We hadn’t been to the Cat’s Cradle in almost 20 years (at least that’s what Wikipedia tells me, as we went to see the first tour by Garbage). They’ve redesigned it (you used to enter from the front, now you walk around back) and it holds around 750 people. The Clean Bandit show was sold out, so we expected a crowd. As I am too old to be “hip”, we got there a little early. As the crowd was mostly college kids, they were checking IDs. If you could legally drink, you got a blue stamp on your right hand. If you were underage, you got two red stamps on both hands.

I was easily the oldest person there, so when I handed in our tickets I mentioned I was applying for the chaperon position. Andrea found the idea of me chaperoning anything a bit frightening.

As I had no desire to stand and fight my way to the front of the stage, we found a spot behind and to the right of the soundboard where there were a couple of bar stools. As the place started to fill up, we realized that the air conditioning, if there actually was air conditioning, wasn’t going to cut it.

It started to get warm.

Promptly at 8pm the opening act started. It was a trio consisting of a drummer, bassist and the guitarist/lead singer named Roland. At least I think his name was Roland, my Google-fu is failing me and I can’t find any reference on the Interwebs. In any case, their first song was a cover of Let’s Go Crazy so I didn’t feel too out of place.

Their set was good, although I didn’t recognize any of the songs with the exception of a part of We Will Rock You played at the end.

By this time it had gotten really warm as more and more people showed up. Seth and Sarah showed up just before Clean Bandit took the stage.

I was wondering how they were going to handle the fact that the lead singers for each of their songs have other careers, and there was no way they would be able to get all of them to tour for a song or two each set. The answer was found in the more than capable voice of Elisabeth Troy. She handled most of the vocal duties, and I think she could front any band she wanted. A very talented lady.

The first song was Real Love which immediately flowed into Cologne. The latter is one of my favorite tracks off the album, and due to the heat I was grateful that all the beautiful, young people in attendance had thought to wear some. Cologne flowed into my favorite non-album track Stronger.

When I say “flowed” I mean that the whole hour long set was pretty much a 60 minute sprint. The only real pause came during the fourth song, Come Over, when Elisabeth got a little over active and managed to knock Neil’s violin out of his hand. There was a bit of a delay as they got the backup ready.

They played most of “New Eyes”. While Come Over was fronted by a male vocalist on the album, Elisabeth did a good job covering it, but they avoided other male lead songs such as Telephone Banking. There were two tracks I had not heard before, Nightingale and Disconnect. The latter featured Roland from the opening act on guitar and vocals.

They ended the set soon after 10pm, and we knew that they would be back out for the big hit, Rather Be. During the encore I thought it was funny to see all the young’uns recording video on their phones.

It was probably 95F by this time, and the concrete floor was slick with what I can only assume was sweat. Outside of the heat, it was a great show, and we were happy to step outside at the end, which although was still around 80F, was a welcome change.

I would say be sure to catch Clean Bandit on their tour, but this was the last official US date. I doubt they will be playing small clubs next time, but you can catch them at the Firefly Music Festival in Delaware before they head back to the UK. I had a great time and should really get out more (grin).

Happy Non-Sectarian Winter Holiday Party

I suffer from an embarrassment of riches.

I am in decent health. I don’t worry too much about getting food or shelter. I have an amazing family and incredible friends. I live in a nice part of the country, and unlike many people, I love my job.

As part of that job, a couple of years ago I met Damian Hess, also known as MC Frontalot. In addition to being talented, he is also a very nice person and I look forward to the times when I can see him, such as when we were both in Dublin earlier this year. He started that tour back in August and hasn’t been home since. Last year I got invited to his birthday party, so this year I thought I would invite him to one of mine. To my delight, he accepted.

He spent Thanksgiving with family in California and then went to Portland (Oregon) to shoot a video for his song “Start Over”. This is from the album Question Bedtime which is a collection of songs based on fairy tales. “Start Over” is his take on “Little Red Riding Hood” and as a little present to my three readers, here’s Damian as the wolf:

In the video he plays all of the characters, but you’ll have to wait a couple of months to see the rest of them.

Anyway, once about every three years I hold a holiday party. I went to high school right when “political correctness” started, and some friends of mine decided to christen the season the “Non-Sectarian Winter Holiday” and since then I’ve adopted the term. The year 2014 has not been the easiest one for me so I wanted to do something special for my party, and it almost tore me apart keeping the secret.

Damian and I are both fans of Mike Doughty. Mike did some vocals on Front’s song “Your Friend Will”, and this year Damian raps on Mike’s track “The Champion”. Damian found a way for me to get Mike to come down to the farm and do a concert.

In my house.

With me.

In the house.

At the same time.

Awesome, huh? So I invited a bunch of the coolest people I know, fired up the cocktail bar, got Angelina to bring us awesome food, and settled in for a wonderful evening.

Now in our houses in the Southern United States we have this thing called a “formal living room”. It is usually a large room filled with expensive furniture that you almost never use. We decided that was silly so instead we have a bar in ours – complete with wooden canopy where you can store glasses. We call it the entertainment center.

With everyone properly “libated” and fed, we moved the table out of the way and Mike set up in the corner. This was the view from the kitchen:

You can see a wonderful chocolate cake from Jodi at Phoenix Bakery in the foreground with the OpenNMS favicon on the top. We also had a tres leches cake and presents for a White Elephant gift exchange.

With the dining room table out of the way, we could fit everyone comfortably in the room.

I was going to be nice and sit in the back so someone else could have a closer seat, but after the first song I said “screw it” and moved up to the very front. This is what my concert looked like:

I had made up a playlist of about 17 tracks. Now Doughty fans know he has a wide range of musical output, from just him and a guitar to electronic music. I was happy when he said he could do most of my choices, and looking back at the list there were only three he didn’t do (“Wednesday (Contra La Puerta)”, “The Huffer and the Cutter” and “Ta Douler” – that last one was a cover of a Camille tune that I wasn’t expecting him to do but figured, what the heck, I’d ask). Most artists aren’t able to do their whole catalog on demand, but it was wonderful to hear almost all of my favorites.

Did I mention it was in my house? Where I sleep?

One high point of the night was “The Champion”. Not only had it never been performed live, this was the first time Mike and Damian had actually sung it together. Maybe I was just high on the experience but think it worked extremely well.

Toward the end of the set Mike realized that it was going to be short, so he asked me for some more songs he could play. I froze. I honestly couldn’t think of a single title. I was about to say something like “uh, how about that fast one about the thing that happens with the thing” when Damian suggested “Looks” which gave my some time to calm down, and that was followed by “St. Louise is Listening”, a good track that I wasn’t all that familiar with since Mike wrote it during his Soul Coughing days. I was finally able to suggest “Unsingable Name” which closed out the set (click on the link to get a sense of the show).

I was very nervous about the whole evening. First, I get a little nervous when hosting any type of party since I want to make sure everyone has a good time. Second, I had Damian staying over and I wanted to make sure this world weary resident of Brooklyn had fun in rural Pittsboro. And finally, did I mention, Mike Doughty was performing in my house?

After the set I took Mike back to his hotel and rejoined the party. Everyone seemed to have really enjoyed it which pleased me since I knew that outside of Damian and myself no one else was that familiar with Mike’s work. We did our usual fun gift exchange (I ended up with a pair of pink women’s Everlast boxing gloves if you are interested in a trade), ate cake and basically hung out.

I wish I’d had a little more time to spend with everyone, and I did my best before it got late and people started heading home. Toward the end it was me, Cynthia, Ben and Damian sitting around the now cluttered and sticky bar, and I decided it was time to finally finish off that bottle of 33 year old Glendronach whisky that I had purchased on impulse at Heathrow about seven years ago (and then trying to explain to my accountant spouse that I didn’t understand the exchange rate). I’d managed to parcel it out at Christmas time over the years, and with about three fingers left I couldn’t think of a better way to end the evening. As Ben posted on G+:

We didn’t take many pictures of the event. I wanted to experience the moment and so my camera stayed in my pocket, and that was the case with most people. I am thankful that Barry, Ben and Cynthia took the pictures I used in this post.

I managed to get to bed for a few hours before driving Damian and Mike back to the airport for their trip home. I did get the the one picture I really wanted: me as the creamy filling in a Doughty/Damian Oreo.

If I had one piece of advice to give out, it would be to spend your money on experiences and not things. Sometimes, however, it is cool to be able to combine the two, and so I had Mike autograph my guitar.

I’m certain my fond memories of the evening will outlast it.

Review: x by Ed Sheeran

When I was at So You Think You Can Dance one of the songs I tagged was “Don’t” by Ed Sheeran. I liked it so much that I checked out the whole album, x, and I find I can’t stop listening to it. It’s quite good.

Sheeran is a ginger-haired young man from the UK whose looks don’t exactly match up with his voice. We’re not talking the cognitive dissonance I got from Rick Astley, but it still took a lot of getting used to seeing him in pictures and videos.

The album starts out with the track “One”, which is sort of what you’d expect from a pop singer-songwriter. It’s a nice track and it hints at Sheeran’s strong falsetto. This is followed by a slightly more upbeat “I’m a Mess”.

But unlike his first effort which was more of the same, this album is a collection of a ton of different genres and styles, and this is announced fully with “Sing”. This is a track that would feel at home on a Maroon 5 album, and it introduces his hip-hop lyrical style that is prominent on my favorite tracks.

Then comes “Don’t”. It is hard for me to listen to this track without hitting repeat. It is a wonderfully constructed tune that tells the story of a relationship that goes wrong. If you listen to it as much as I have, you come to understand how complex it really is, with my favorite bit being the spoken “don’t” a beat and a half before the chorus kicks in. Despite the somewhat downer story it tells, it makes me want to bounce around.

Keeping with the “relationship gone wrong” theme comes the fifth track, “Nina”. While it would be hard to follow “Don’t”, the strong chorus of this song works well.

The rest of the album alternates between pop songs that want to make you dance and the more traditional singer/songwriter tunes that started the album. Another favorite of mine, “Bloodstream”, on the dance/pop side of things, talks about substance abuse, and if I am to judge Sheeran’s life from this album he spends most of his time off-stage with women, drinking and smoking weed. I doubt that’s true, but it seems to be a theme.

As you get to the end of the album, “Thinking Out Loud” channels John Mayer, and it finishes with a track about terminal illness called “Afire Love” which closes with a gospel choir that creates a wonderful ending for the album.

The only weakness I found is when Sheeran raps. I listen more to hip-hop versus straight rap, so that may have something to do with it, but his pure rap songs hit me more like bad spoken word than music. Luckily the only one is called “The Man” and while I listened to it a number of times when I first got the album, now I tend to skip past it.

He also sings with a bit of an accent. It’s not as bad as Passenger, but since both sing about being on the road (which resonates with my heavy travel schedule) I identify with many of the songs.

It’s a real solid album on its own, but I would recommend you get the Deluxe edition. While it adds another disposable rap track (which starts out with him claiming not to be a rapper) and a couple of okay but not stellar pop songs, it ends with “I See Fire”.

This is where the geek angle comes in. “I See Fire” was the music for the closing credits of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Sheeran wrote the song. The lyrics are pretty referential to the movie and my original thought was that someone on Peter Jackson’s team had written it and he just performed it. If the Wikipedia entry is accurate, Sheeran is a rather talented young lad. It’s worth a couple of extra bucks for this song, especially if you are fan of the movies.

This album is still under heavy rotation on my media player and I look forward to more from him. Should he tour in the US I’d be tempted to brave the crowds I so dislike just to see him work live.