Back From the Dead - Garbage 5/25/12

Garbage

House of Blues

Atlantic City

5/25/12

Beyonce wasn’t the only one making a comeback in Atlantic City (NJ) this weekend, rock band Garbage thrilled an enthusiastic crowd at Showboat’s House of Blues on Friday, helping to kick off the holiday weekend with a bang.

The band released an excellent new album last week, Not Your Kind of People, and is on the road playing intimate venues to get warmed up after a seven year touring hiatus.

Scottish vixen Shirley Manson, with a powerful voice can that still go from cool purr to fiery growl in seconds, prowled the stage like an angry jungle cat telling tales of stupid girls and bad boyfriends,  while legendary producer and talented drummer Butch Vig thumped and thundered behind her.  The two other founding members, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker, capably split guitar duties, spraying and lasering the crowd with riffs and bursts of guitar brilliance.

The twenty-one song career spanning setlist was heavy on material from their breakthrough first album but included a few cuts from each stop in their career and movie songs “#1 Crush” and James Bond theme “The World Is Not Enough”. The group is no nostalgia act though, their new material is as powerful as their old – current single “Blood For Poppies”, the desperate, careening “Man on a Wire” and throbbing, rumbling encore starter “Automatic Systematic Habit” all showed that the band is as vital now as when their career started eighteen years ago. Fittingly they finished off the frenzied crowd with a knockout punch - the powerful “Vow” from their debut album, a scorned lover’s promise to “come back from the dead” to settle unfinished business. Garbage is back. 


pete974@aol.com


sadly I was unable to obtain clearance from the band's press to photo them in time for the show, you can check out my other work:


see my photography work here


see my other music writing here

Hot fun in the summertime - WMMR BBQ 2012

WMMR BBQ

Camden, NJ 

5/20/12

Philadelphia radio institution 93.3 WMMR held their annual summer kick-off BBQ concert in Camden on Sunday, a yearly tradition which this year had more Pennsylvania flavor by including Red Lion hard rockers Halestorm,  who are making noise and getting notice with their outstanding new album , The Strange Case of...

Lzzy Hale by P. Troshak

Singer/guitarist Lzzy Hale was a guitar carrying tornado in white – she hit the stage running , took no prisoners and ripped the place up - showcasing her powerful singing and guitar playing while her talented brother Arejay rolled and thundered on drums. Lead guitarist Joe Hottinger wailed and bass player Josh Smith held down the low end.

Lzzy Hale by P. Troshak

The band came out guns blazing – first firing off the blistering four lead tracks from their current album, one bullet after another - and following them up with some new and old songs including live highlight "It's Not You", which got a loud appreciative reaction from the hot afternoon festival crowd. They closed with new song "Here's To Us" - a song about memories, life and brotherhood perfect for a sunny afternoon Philly party with friends.

Slash by P. Troshak

Also on the bill, a man who only needs one name for an introduction:  Slash. The guitar legend performed a crowd energizing set at the event with  Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy, including songs from their just dropped album, a Velvet Revolver song – the slow burning, explosive "Slither", which got one of the biggest pops from the crowd all day - and of course, three Guns N' Roses songs - "Nightrain", "Paradise City", and "Sweet Child O' Mine". Kennedy was impressive, handling the material with a style all his own, obviously not intimidated by having to sing songs originally done by Axl and Weiland. Slash's playing was nimble and electrifying as always, bringing roars from the crowd who remembered many summers past with those anthems.

Myles Kennedy by P. Troshak

Other groups on the bill – Pop Evil, Adelitas Way, Shinedown, Godsmack, Steel Panther

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Pete974@aol.com

"The rules I break got me a place up on the radar.."

Santigold at the Trocadero

Philadelphia, PA 

5/8/12

On Tuesday night at the Trocadero, Philly born singer Santigold proved that you can go home again, kicking off her tour with a triumphant show in front of a raucous hometown crowd. She might reside in New York now, but her heart and soul are pure Philadelphia.

The tour is in support of her strong second album, Master of My Make-Believe,  Santigold's first album in four years.  Her music is a stew of different elements; punk rock, reggae, dance, dub, pop and rap elements swirl through her work, sometimes all in one song. Where her debut solo album was the kind of album you might put on at a party, her current record is lyrically deeper and has more of a driving around late at night kind of vibe.  Standout tracks include “Go”, “Disparate Youth”, “Big Mouth”, and “The Keepers”.

Santigold and her band -two dancers, two multi-instrumentalists and a drummer - hit the stage dressed like a high school spirit squad and immediately turned the Troc into a grooving, sweaty, mess of a dancehall with their skittering beats, dubby bass and shrapnel guitar. Santigold can flow with the best of them on the mic and she seemed genuinely moved by the love she received from the crowd. The energy she received, multiplied and sent back out threatened to blow the roof off the hundred and forty year old plus building, taking the show to another level.

Seamlessly mixing old and new tracks and keeping the party going for an hour and a half, the band and the crowd both couldn’t stop dancing and grooving. It’s hard to pick out one highlight but the coolest moment was when she allowed fifty or so audience members to join her on stage to dance and sing along with her to “Creator”, a true Philly moment of love and togetherness and beautiful chaos.

visit Santigold's site to sign up for the mailing list and get a free download 

see the published version of this article on Phawker.com here

see more of my pics of Santigold here and my other pics here 

Willie Nelson - Keswick Theatre - 5/6/12

Forget what you know about Willie Nelson.

Sure, you know him as a musician, and probably associate certain things with that name:  a guy who loves pot, once owed a lot of money to the IRS, makes funny commercials and cameos in movies and tv shows.

Who is he really though?

Nelson was born in 1933 during the Great Depression. He was performing with bands and playing before he was a teen and by his late 20's he had become a successful songwriter. He wrote a little song called "Crazy" which made a legend out of Patsy Cline in 1961, and then spent the next fifty plus years defining and redefining songwriting and music. Nelson has created an influential body of work, mainly country but often mixing genres - taking recent detours through blues and reggae, but always sounding like Willie.

Nelson is an icon, an outlaw, a cowboy, a fierce guitar player and nuanced singer, a great songwriter, a larger than life character who seems hewn from a piece of granite. He is still out on the road most of the time at age 79, outperforming many people a quarter of his age.

Using imagery from one of his best albums (1996's Spirit), Nelson is like an old grizzled matador who refuses to cede the ring because he knows he can still battle and because it's the only life he knows.

A more apt comparison might be to that of a wily old boxer (like Philly icon Bernard Hopkins), who gets knocked down a lot, but always gets back up swinging and wins more than his share of fights. Nelson hasn't stayed down on the mat or off the road long in his 72 years of performing, and he showed on Sunday night at the Keswick Theatre that he is still a champion.

Nelson's voice, while weathered, is still strong and memorable. His unique guitar playing - short staccato bursts of notes, with a strong Spanish/Classical influence - remains powerful as ever. Nelson and his crack band mixed classics, some deep cuts and a few recent songs to the delight of a packed house for almost two hours. The crowd listened carefully to the old master and between songs erupted in applause, letting Nelson know he was deeply revered and appreciated.

Highlights: "Still is Still Moving To Me", "Always On My Mind", "Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground", a medley of "Funny How Time Slips Away/Crazy/Nightlife" and late in the set a showstopper – a brilliant, epic "Ou Es-Tu, Mon Amour?/I Never Cared for You" (from 1998’s overlooked Teatro), showing that this gunslinger still has a lot of bullets left.

Go see him if you get the chance, you will find him in his home - out on the road.

Thanks to the Keswick Theatre for putting on the show, it's a wonderful venue, check it out here

PS -this review was published in a slightly edited form, due to space and the beginning overlapping with a previous post, on the website phawker.com, see the published version here

Sadly I was unable to get clearance to take photos from Willie's reps in time before the show, you can see my other photo work here

See my review and pics of Greg Lake's recent Keswick Show here.