As recently as last summer, I would groan and grouch and roll my eyes at shows in strange venues; the light is wonky, or the background is awful, or everyone is sitting down and I feel totally awkward standing on the side of the stage taking photos. Sometime in the last year that changed —…
Category: opinions about concerts
bull city undercover
Bull City Undercover — three nights of locals doing cover sets by a single artist of their choosing — has its roots in the old scene at the old Kings, but I, for one, am thrilled that Tamplin brought it over to Motorco with him when he left Tir Na Nog; it was a funny,…
the magnolia collective @ the station, may 2011
One of my favorite things about MagCo’s ongoing Thursday residency at the Station, besides the facts that they’re fantastic, I’ve gotten to meet a bunch of amazing people hanging out there, and the always excellent challenge of shooting the same band over and over again, is their rotating cast of local opens — I haven’t…
dax riggs @ local 506
There’s something deeply soothing to me about Dax Riggs’ complex, gothic garage rock; he’s a great musician and his voice sounds like oil slicks under a car, and I can absolutely zone out on the sound of his music, just completely blissed out on rock and roll. That’s how the show at the 506 was…
skylar gudasz & the ugly girls @ local 506
I am holding good to my goal to see more new-to-me local bands this year, and I love it when I can do that in my own backyard; Skylar Gydasz and the Ugly Girls (who are all, in fact, adorable dudes) threw a kickass CD release party at the 506 last Friday, and I hung…
wintersleep @ kings barcade
Like every good Canadian band I go see, Pam turned me on to Nova Scotians Wintersleep earlier this year with their 2007 album Welcome to the Night Sky; y’all know me and you know that every attempt I every make to describe a band descends into incomprehensible comparisons to trees, but if somebody, in a…
holly golighty & the broke-offs @ local 506
I’m not quite sure how Holly Golightly & the Broke-offs ended up in my iTunes library1. Like Ryan Bingham, it took me a few albums to warm to her very particular brand of bluesy, gothic Americana, but by the time this year’s No Help Coming came out, I was ready to give in. It’s a gorgeous, weird,…
dave hause @ the pinhook
I don’t always go out for the headliner of a show, or the last band, whatever you want to call them — if I hadn’t been completely wiped out from a weekend in Charleston, I likely would have stuck around Durham for some of Mikey Erg’s set, but straight up I was at the Pinhook…
cameron mcgill & what army @ local 506
The only good thing about the otherwise wretched emptiness of the 506 last night was the space itself; the 506 is basically a big concrete and cinderblock box, and the quiet but appreciative crowd distributed along the benches up against the walls let Cameron’s voice and his band’s sheer enormous sound echo and vibrate off…
old 97’s @ cat’s cradle
The Old 97’s proved, to a mostly full house at the Cradle last night, that you might get older — but you can still rock just as hard as you did five years ago. I hadn’t seen them since 2008, and even that was at Raleigh Downtown Live, which is not an optimal situation for…
brand new kind of photography 