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dklee13
Categories: Concerts, Pictorials | VideosTags: Almost Acoustic Christmas, concert photos, concert video, kroq, Linkin Park, setlist
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Tag: setlist
Incubus | The 25th Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas | The Forum | 12/13/14 [Setlist, Photos & Video]
Fall Out Boy | The 25th Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas | The Forum | 12/13/14 [Setlist, Photos & Video]
Bush | The 25th Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas | The Forum | 12/13/14 [Setlist, Photos & Video]
Rise Against | The 25th Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas | The Forum | 12/13/14 [Setlist and Photos]
Walk The Moon | The 25th Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas | The Forum | 12/13/14 [Setlist, Photos and Video]
New Politics | The 25th Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas | The Forum | 12/13/14 [Setlist, Photos and Video]
Setlist:
Photos:
VIDEOS:
Chet Faker | Mack Sennett Studios | Red Bull Sound Select’s “30 Days In LA” | 11/29/14 [Review & Photos]
To Check Out Other Bands We Caught During Red Bull Sound Selects “30 Days In LA” CLICK HERE
THE ACT: Chet Faker | Facebook | Twitter
SOUNDS LIKE:
THOUGHTS:
Chet Faker. Girls love him. Guys wish they could write music like him.
I saw Chet Faker earlier this year at The Roxy. Musically, there is no question that Nicholas James Murphy a/k/a “Chet Faker” has the musical goods. His sound (soulful, downtempo electronica) is baby-making music, plain and simple. It’s still early in his career (he’s only released one full length album, “Built On Glass” and a couple of extended plays) so it’ll be interesting to see how his sound develops going forward.
What I was more interested in observing this time around was his actual stage performance. At the Roxy, Chet Faker spent the length of the performance behind his keyboards under dim lights. On a couple of songs, additional musicians took the stage to perform as part of a backing band. This time around, with Red Bull as the sponsor of the event (and presumably a bigger budget), that his stage performance could have bit could a bit … more. The lighting at Mack Sennett Studios was definitely a step up from The Roxy’s lights, but on the large stage, it was again Chet behind his keyboards.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love his music. I even brought my LP copy of “Built On Glass” just in case I could catch him for an autograph. But truly memorable musical performances are not only auditory; there has to be a visual component to it as well … for me, it takes both aspects to make a show complete. Chet looked so isolated on the large stage. I was really hoping that he could have hired a backing band play his arrangements, or at least a some video screens to actually see what he was doing at the keyboard consoles. I mean, you can see moving around behind his instruments, but it would have been so much more effective if there were more “action” on stage. I mean, take Flying Lotus, for example. Flying Lotus performs behind his consoles, but he’s got an elaborate laser/lighting show going on around him simultaneously.
I’m not suggesting that Chet Faker needs some intricate laser light show. I just wish I could have seen what his hands were doing. There musicality and artisanship in watching a professional maneuver a drum machine and keyboards. It would have been nice to see the action on the keys.
SETLIST (unconfirmed)
- Blush
- 1998
- I’m Into You
- Terms & Conditions
- Intro
- Ciggs & Chocolate
- On You (with Goldlink)
- No Diggity
- Drop The Game
- To Me
- Gold
- Talk Is Cheap
VIDEO:
PHOTOS:
To Check Out Other Bands We Caught During Red Bull Sound Selects “30 Days In LA” CLICK HERE
Better Late Than Never: Boston | The Forum | 7/29/14 [Concert Review & Setlist]
THIS ENTRY WAS WRITTEN 12/9/14 BY A. LEVEL AND IS REPRINTED HERE BY PERMISSION.
There’s one small problem with going to see Boston in 2014: namely, their lead singer died in 2007. Of course, I didn’t actually realize that until after the show. Something had seemed a bit off – and the lead singer certainly didn’t look quite right – but I’d figured he’d ditched his 70s hair and gone for a more modern style. I suppose that’s what happens when you go to see bands whose music you like but whose career you don’t actually follow that closely.
Boston brought outer space into the Forum. (Boston in concert at the Forum.)
Stage design by Google Earth or NASA? (Boston in concert at the Forum.)
The space theme continued. (Boston in concert at the Forum.)
The opening act was Cheap Trick, which seems to have created a niche supporting bigger 80s bands. They’ve been on enough tours that I’m fairly certain that I’ve accidentally seen them more times than my favorite groups. Only one member seemed ready to rock – the rest looked like they’d come ready to play bocce and sort of shuffled around. You have to give Cheap Trick credit for longevity, but they certainly fall in the category of Bands Who Are Way Past Their Prime.
Between the two sets, this show featured one of the odder moments I’ve seen at a concert. Members of Boston came out on the stage, flanked by fez-wearing Shriners, and made a pitch for two of their favorite charities. They’d apparently sent Shriners all over the Forum to sell copies of their Greatest Hits cds as well as raffle tickets for a signed guitar, with the proceeds going to the Shriners and to Sea Shepherd.
Now, nothing says “militant anti-whaling organization” more than a concert played for an aging audience at the newly-renovated Forum. It’s a venue that seems to be marketing itself these days as the place for Music Old White People Like, with acts like the Eagles. (A fairly big shift after many years of increased disrepair, during which it mostly hosted concerts by rock bands whose audiences were more likely to trash the place.) I also have a soft spot in my heart for the Forum after years of Laker games plus my first concert, which featured the rockin’ stylings of one Neil Diamond. Anyway, a quick glance at their tour dates showed that they did a lot of their shows at tribal casinos, and maybe a raffle seems to fit in more at a venue that’s already primarily devoted to gambling.
We decided that it couldn’t hurt to have a cd, so we set off to find the nearest Shriner. It turns out that in spite of the sparkly red fezes, they’re surprisingly hard to spot in an area full of red seats. By the time we cornered one, he had sold all of his raffle tickets, but we managed to snag a cd. My companion threatened to listen to it on a loop all summer, though I politely declined her offer.
On stage: was that thing a gong? A giant steering wheel? Frisbee?
(Boston in concert at the Forum.)
Soon, Boston took the stage with a set that covered their greatest hits and made the audience happy. Though I enjoyed the night overall, the tech did distract me a bit from the performance. The screens in the background looked like cockpit windows, and it turned out that their stage designers had taken the space theme of the Boston cover art a bit too seriously. Every video swooped through the air for the duration of the show, soaring through clouds, constellations, and images of Earth in space. It had more in common with Disney’s Soarin’ Over California ride than with your average concert video. By the end, I was a little queasy and wished I’d taken some Dramamine. At other
(Boston in concert at the Forum.)
points, the lighting looked like it had come straight out of a roller rink circa 1985. They’d also taken pains to light the venue ceiling with sparkly moving constellations so that it seemed like the night sky was above us. Considering that the number of stars you can normally see in the Los Angeles sky is somewhere south of 20, it felt as unreal as the flying videos. Still, I found myself staring at the ceiling, checking out the stars like I was a cat fascinated by a laser pointer.
The music sounded great, real lead singer or no, as they rolled out the songs my sister had introduced me to as a kid. The only off note was the inclusion of a guest performance by Siobhan Magnus from American Idol; she seemed out of place, and we couldn’t figure out the point of including her in the tour. While music purists can debate the value of seeing bands in their “real” format, I’m not that kind of fan. A friend once teased me for going to see shows like an Everclear concert with so few remaining original members that he nicknamed it “Frankenclear,” but I’m more interested in the overall sound and the live experience. In this case, the venue was great, the production was just wacky enough to be entertaining and memorable, and the band put on a fun show. In terms of value for price, Boston put on one of the better concerts I’ve attended this year.
Bad Religion | Mayan Theater | Red Bull Sound Select’s “30 Days In LA” | 11/9/14 [Review, Photos, Setlist & Videos]
To Check Out Other Bands We Caught During Red Bull Sound Selects “30 Days In LA” CLICK HERE
THE ACT: Bad Religion | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
SOUNDS LIKE:
THOUGHTS: (Excerpted from M. Sloves full article which you can read by clicking HERE)
“[…] Bad Religion religion finally took the stage and started just as you’d expect them to: minimal bullshit, maximum intensity. At 50 these guys still look like freaking rock stars. Well, all of them except for Graffin. With his horn rimmed glasses held on by a pair of Chums, receding grey hairline, and an endearing middle aged dad-gut testing the tensile strength of his polo shirt, he looks more like a high school chemistry professor or an engineer from TRW. But it doesn’t really matter. Dude still runs the crowd like a G.
The set opened with “Fuck Armageddon… This is Hell”. For some reason my first impulse was to close my eyes. Kinda weird for me. But I wanted to eliminate the visual. Take everything out of the equation except for the sound. Verdict?
So damn fresh!
They’ve been doing this for so long – for decades – and yet it wasn’t even remotely stale. Instead it felt fast and crisp and …communal. Looking around The Mayan you could really feel the shared sense of stoke and mutual recognition that only happens when a group of people all bear witness to a voice that speaks truth to power.
During the front end of the set, there was very little hesitation. The band plowed forward, each song more classic than the last. But there were a few songs that hit a little harder than others. For me, the first moment where I really felt them pull at the heartstrings of nostalgia was when at about the quarter-mile mark when they burst into “Stranger than Fiction”. Hearing this song live was …electric. Literally raised the hair on my arms – and that’s not easy because I’m a hairy bitch. When they hit the chorus, I felt myself jerked straight back to UCSB circa ’97. In our crash pad on Sabado Tarde, my Orange County brochachos and I weren’t always on the same page (I was both token Jew and token South Bay member of the house) but we always agreed on three things: Cantina Breakfast burritos, Seinfeld, and Bad Religion. Generator, Against the Grain, Recipe for Hate – these albums fueled many days and many more nights of benevolent ape-shittery …and why was this night different from any other night? Because Bad Religion was cramming 30 years of punk rock classics into a single evening of musical rad.
[…]
[…] And the crowd expressed its stoke by ditching the aforementioned bro-nods for a wholesome and healthy all-American mosh pit. It was long overdue and it was also cool to see the multi-generational makeup of the moshers coexisting and functioning on the same page. For me, it was precisely Bad Religion and Fishbone who many moons ago taught me the ethics and the essence of a proper mosh pit – a lesson lost on many a meathead who still doesn’t get it. Because it’s about communal expression, not individual testosterone. You move, you shove, you take an elbow, you throw an elbow, youslam – it’s violent, no doubt – but the intention is never to take someone out and when someone goes down, the obligation is always to help them back up.
It takes a village to rage. And inside the Mayan, the village was strong.
[…]
[…] The whole night felt like a series of reencounters. Every song gave me the feeling that I was bumping into an old friend or finding that missing sock I thought I’d lost at the laundromat. So recognizable. So familiar. Filling empty space where I didn’t know anything was missing. So many of their songs are so classic and so provocative that hearing them was like standing up straight and spreading my arms after sitting slouched and hunched over in front of computer screen for hours…days…years. It was liberating …and powerful.
I think I really felt it most when they played “New America”. What a kickass anthem! What a righteous call to arms. I mean, I’m cool listening to Taylor Swift sing about ex-boyfriends. I’m not a hater. But there’s a saturation point, isn’t there? Which always causes me to wonder: where is the political in popular music? Folk was swallowed up in the angst of singer/songwriters who can’t get laid. Funk got eaten by disco which was then euthanized in the 80s. Rap started political but by the late 90s it had largely cannibalized its own prophets. Rock has pretty much sucked since Rage Against the Machine (except maybe for System of a Down). What are we left with? Basically a lot of narcissism.
[…]
But punk continues to live in a largely political realm. It’s a purpose driven music that offers more than mere catharsis. It’s not all genius but when silverbacks like Graffin, Gurewitz, Dimkich, and Bentley hold it down, most of it is.
At one point Greg Graffin PhD looked up at the plaster cast Mayan carvings that line the walls of the theater and blurted out: “These hieroglyphs are not authentic.”
Maybe that one moment summed up the entire night. Bad Religion remains relevant because they remain authentic. When they scream “Fuck you!” it sounds just as urgent and outraged as it did 30 years ago. When 55 year olds and 22 year olds are packed shoulder to shoulder on the dance floor with their fists in the air screaming the chorus to every song, for one night at least, Los Angeles indeed is burning.”
SETLIST:
PHOTOS:
VIDEO CLIPS:
To Check Out Other Bands We Caught During Red Bull Sound Selects “30 Days In LA” CLICK HERE
#DKLPHOTOS 