Pages tagged “variety playhouse”

The party starts early at the Variety Playhouse this New Year's, as Athens, Ga.'s The Whigs open two consecutive nights for Band of Horses on Dec. 30 and 31. Both nights are sold out, but don't fret: To enter to win a pair of tickets to one of the two sold-out shows, visit RedMusic.com.WhigsRedeem and enter your phone number. You'll be texted a code to enter the contest, and every entrant into the drawing will get a free download of The Whigs' "Like a Vibration." What are you waiting for? Good luck!

[Above: Jared Swilley of the Black Lips plays in Halloween-appropriate band The Spooks.]

[Above: Jay Reatard, shown here on the cover of his record Blood Visions, plays this Friday night at the Variety Playhouse.]

As an Atlanta native, I've celebrated a lot of Oct. 31sts here. Accordingly, I find that there are certain things I look forward to every year that say as much about the city as they do the holiday itself. Here, in order, are the top five reasons I can't wait for Halloween to hit Atlanta this year. What are yours?

After its accidental leak and legal iTunes debut in August, Deerhunter's Microcastle, perhaps the most anticipated album by an Atlanta artist this year, finally hit stores in physical form on Tuesday (Oct. 28) via Kranky stateside and 4AD overseas. To appropriately celebrate this momentous occasion, Bradford Cox and company will embark up on a national tour, kicking it off on Halloween at their hometown's own Variety Playhouse, where they'll be joined by Jay Reatard, Times New Viking and Pylon. 

Two nights ago, I caught a great show at Atlanta’s Variety Playhouse—up-and-comer Benji Hughes opened for one of my favorite artists of the last few years, Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis.

On August 11, Atlanta hosted a combo of musicians who are not only reshaping the city's increasingly diverse music scene, but dismantling preconceptions of popular music as a whole. Gnarls Barkley returned home for a sold-out crowd at Variety Playhouse and, on the eve of her national debut on Bad Boy Records (a extended version of the Metropolis: Suite I she's been selling independently), Janelle Monae teed them up.

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.

After folk opener Freakwater, as a celebrity-induced tension fell over the unnaturally hushed Variety Playhouse crowd waiting for M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel to take the stage, my skepticism abounded. I wondered whether all these people were excited about the music they were about to hear, or were they just waiting to see a movie star? I wondered if the music would hold up to "vanity project" scrutiny. (I enjoyed She & Him's recent debut, Volume One, but wasn't floored by it.) I wondered if She & Him performances were as awkward as they'd been rumored to be. I wondered what kind of contrast there would be between the veteran M. Ward's musicianship and newcomer Deschanel's.