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Live Review: Sons And Daughters @ Highline Ballroom, 9/8
It's a tough assignment to play a gig on a Monday night all the way over on 10th Avenue, but if any band has the energy to make a crowd forget the weekly slog, it's Scotland's Sons and Daughters. "What day is it, Sunday?" lead singer Adele Bethel asked the somewhat spare audience at Highline Ballroom before launching into another song. "Monday? Ugh." Cue the beat.... read more
Found in: Paste:LocalFront to back, and a little bit more: Ben Folds Five reunites in Chapel Hill
One song into Ben Folds Five's first show in eight years, the regrets were already pooling up. "If I'd known about this gig, I'd have sequenced the album differently," Folds heaved, grabbing for a water bottle as the last notes of "Narcolepsy" were swallowed by the crowd's applause. Fair enough: The song works beautifully as the opener of The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, the band's last album, which they played in its entirety last night at UNC Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall at the behest of MySpace and for the benefit of Operation Smile. But in terms of ideal set-list... read more
Found in: Blogs, Ctrl-VLive Review: Cut Copy, Presets @ Metro 9/17
“Lights And Music” were on everyone’s mind on Wednesday night as Australian electropop darlings Cut Copy played their hit single and many more from In Ghost Colours to an adrenaline-fueled, capacity crowd at the Metro.... read more
Found in: Paste:LocalLive Review: Spiritualized @ Metro 9/8
Fire, death, the soul, drugged-up bliss: Jason Pierce, the force behind Spiritualized, navigated his favorite heavy topics at Metro on Monday, but even during the deepest of lyrical explorations Pierce remained composed, hidden behind sunglasses, standing in profile to the crowd.... read more
Found in: Paste:LocalLive Review: The Features, The Long Shadows, The Redcoats @ The Earl 8/30/08
[Above: The Redcoats]A typical Saturday night opening act at The Earl often functions as a backdrop for crowd members to consume their first rounds of PBR tallboys and greet friends, but on this night The Redcoats captured the audience in a way that many openers fail to do.... read more
Found in: Local:AtlantaLive Review: Liam Finn @ Bowery Ballroom 9/3
Liam Finn's an extraordinarily talented man, with skills honed in an unlikely place: New Zealand. Better known for its sheep and Lord of the Rings set tours, the Pacific island nation also produced his father (Neil Finn of Crowded House) while its larger neighbor to the south, Australia, is responsible for the younger Finn's bandmate, Eliza-Jane Barnes. And with one album, I'll Be Lightning, under his belt and some formidable critical praise to his name-- including a spot among Paste's Best of What's Next-- Finn's live performance more than lives up to the buzz.... read more
Found in: Local:NYCLive Review: Andrew Bird @ Pritzker Pavilion 9/3
[Above: Bird and his flock in a video projection onstage at Pritzker.]Don’t be fooled by the violin: The mild-mannered Andrew Bird is actually a badass superhero, capable of launching NASA missions from his loop pedal. Looking like Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther and sounding like his namesake avian counterparts, the diminutive multi-instrumentalist captivated a rapt crowd at Chicago’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion on Sept. 3.... read more
Found in: Local:ChicagoLive Review: Mike Geier's Kingsized Elvis Memorial Spectacular @ Variety Playhouse 8/16/08
Mike Geier and his Kingsized Orchestra, along with the Dames Aflame burlesque dancers and El Vez (the Mexican Elvis), put on a show that kept the audience laughing and dancing at every minute-- a fitting tribute to the King on the thirty-first anniversary of his death.... read more
Found in: Local:AtlantaLive Review: Deerhunter @ Vacation Gallery 8/15/08
"Where's the Lil Wayne iPod?" Bradford Cox demanded. After a botched attempt at micing someone's iPhone, an MP3 player was ferried in and "A Milli" blasted from the amplifiers. "I don't write shit, cause I ain't got time," Cox growled over Weezy's trademark flow before launching into "Calvary Scars," a track from Deerhunter's upcoming LP, Microcastle.The Deerhunter before us, wedged in a kitschy little DIY gallery in Virginia Highlands, was a different beast than the one manifested on its first two albums. If this (free) live performance was any indication, Microcastle is also a departure from the status quo, gravitating... read more
Found in: Local:AtlantaLive Review: Apache, Electric Shadows @ The Earl 8/16/08
For all the buzz surrounding Atlanta’s rock scene in the wake of the Black Lips and Deerhunter, out-of-town bands on ATLien labels have garnered comparatively little attention. So it was sans fanfare that San Francisco's Apache and New York City's Electric Shadows rocked The Earl on Saturday night in support of The Hiss.... read more
Found in: Local:Atlanta
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