Am I right side up or upside down?

CONCERT REVIEW: DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
Post-Gazette Pavilion, Pittsburgh: August 10, 2007

After 15 years, the Dave Matthews Band is still sounding as good as ever. This was my 15th DMB show, and it ranks as the 3rd or 4th best. The band was very tight, Boyd Tinsley got several incredible violin solos, including one at the end of "Louisiana Bayou" that seemed like it would never end. That song was a particular highlight - it may be the band's most underrated track. Another major high point was "Sweet Up and Down," a song I love from the unreleased Lillywhite Sessions that is rarely performed live. Dave played four new songs, and "Cornbread" really stood out as a playful up-tempo track with a country vibe.

Dave's voice sounded as good as I've ever heard it. He was letting loose on some lines that he previously could only sing in falsetto.

The best moment of this concert for me came during "Crush," a song I'm still loving more and more every time I hear it. During the final chorus, when the lyrics change to "We'll be facing/My love!/By love!/We'll beat back the pain we've found," a large percentage of the crowd sang along loudly. I was really surprised to hear that, as it's an older song and (I thought) a fairly obscure lyric. Over the years, it seems the DMB fanbase has included more and more bandwagon jumpers, so I never expected so many people to know that line, let along sing along with it. It put a huge smile on my face and it was one of those moments that reminded me why I still go to see this band.

Blast from the past: The "Crush" music video. This is a cool video - the martini bar setting fits the mood of the song perfectly.

July 18: Thumbs up/ Thumbs down

This is the debut of a new feature which I'm going to call Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down, until I think of something more creative.


THUMBS UP:
Pink. Her single "U + Ur Hand" has incredibly made it to #2 on the pop airplay chart. This song was released last fall, and seemed to die a quiet death. Pop radio has a way of discarding artists after it decides they're no longer relevant, and it seemed radio had done that to Pink. I remember driving in Johnstown on New Year's Day and hearing the song on the radio for the first time, months after its release, and getting excited. Slowly, slowly, slowly, it kept building, and now almost a year later it has rightfully earned smash hit status. It is one of several great songs right now (like Kelly Clarkson's Never Again) about women telling off lame ex-boyfriends.

Shop Boyz. I have this thing where, if a song becomes a hit on the charts before I've ever heard it, I kind of resent it, and I resist liking it. That happened for a while with Shop Boyz' "Party Like a Rockstar," but I finally gave in. I love when rappers try to be rockers. What clinches this song's status as a guilty pleasure is the silly "Totally, dude!" after each chorus.

The White Stripes. They closed their Canadian tour with the shortest concert in history - one note. Gimmicks are great.

THUMBS DOWN:
Of Montreal. They announce more tour dates. And skip Pittsburgh again. I don't care how beautifully quirky their music is or how great their gender-bending, theatrical stage show is supposed to be - I won't be able to get into this band if they refuse to perform anywhere within a 4-hour drive of my house.

Neko Case. She's on a solo tour right now and thus didn't play with the New Pornographers at the Pitchfork Music Festival. Thank goodness I didn't go! I seriously considered buying a ticket and traveling to Chicago for the final day of the festival, just to see the New Porns. If I had done that, only to have Neko not be there, I would have been furious!

Paris Hilton. Word is she's decided to make a second record, which makes sense since the first one was such an immense success. Somewhere, Kevin Federline is crying.

Ike Reilly, wiseass extraordinaire

CONCERT REVIEW: THE IKE REILLY ASSASSINATION
Point State Park, Pittsburgh: June 12, 2007


Five years ago this week I started an internship at Little Big Man, and was introduced to a ton of new artists that were represented by the company. One of them was Ike Reilly, a wiseass singer-songwriter with a distinctive voice and a talent for writing clever words. His 2001 album Salesmen and Racists took a prominent spot in my CD collection for some time.

I haven't seen or heard much from Ike recently until tonight, when The Ike Reilly Assassination played the 3 Rivers Arts Festival. Their performance was refreshing, no frills, straight-ahead rock n roll... loud drums, snappy choruses, and quick, effective guitar solos. Reilly only played one song I recognized from Salesmen but it was a good one - "Hip Hop Thighs #17," one of his best wordplays. Take a seat, Jason Mraz.

Reilly's band was excellent and added solid harmonies to "Duty Free" and "When Irish Eyes are Burning," and the keys were the star of several songs, including "8 More Days Till the 4th of July." I wasn't planning to stay for the whole show - I figured I'd catch a half hour or so and then head home - but once the show started, I couldn't leave my seat, which is about the best thing I can say about a show like this.

Your makeup stains my pillow case, like I'll never be the same

CONCERT REVIEW: FALL OUT BOY, +44, THE ACADEMY IS..., PAUL WALL, COBRA STARSHIP
Post-Gazette Pavilion, Pittsburgh: May 22, 2007

The emo-heavy Honda Civic Tour swung through town last night, and being the intrepid pop music blogger that I am, I had to be front and center (actually, front and slightly to the right) to witness it.

Cobra Starship, best known for recording the theme to Snakes on a Plane, opened the show and really impressed me. Frontman Gabe Saporta has quite the stage presence, bandmate Victoria Asher rocked the keytar (I loves me some keytar), and their songs were cool - catchy and slightly more dance-y than the typical emo fare.

We skipped Paul Wall, because who the hell wants to see Paul Wall? The Academy Is... were good, not much different than the last time I saw them. The high point was their performance of their new single "We've Got a Big Mess on Our Hands."

The band I was really looking forward to was +44, the group composed of two-thirds of the former Blink-182. They did an admirable job even though nobody knew any of their songs except the finisher, "When Your Heart Stops Beating," and the one Blink number they threw in, "The Rock Show." Mark Hoppus didn't crack jokes the way he used to in Blink, which was a disappointment, but it's understandable that he wants the new band to move in a new direction.


As for Fall Out Boy, I'm a little perplexed on how to write a review, because it was exactly by the book, 100% what I expected. After following standard concert procedure by opening with track 1 from their new album, they had the obligatory acoustic ballad by the singer, the obligatory drum solo, the obligatory song where the band members go out in the crowd, the obligatory confetti and fire going off, the obligatory crowd sing-alongs, and the obligatory left-field cover (Michael Jackson's "Beat It").

The only thing at all that deviated from protocol was playing their biggest hit (a fiercely energetic "Sugar, We're Going Down") three songs into the set and closing with "Saturday," a song from one of their early, non-blockbuster albums. But that's what they've done for some time now, so even that isn't a surprise.

This isn't to say their performance was bad; in fact, it was the perfect show for this audience. The new songs were particular highlights ("Golden," "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs," "I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off".) For many of the young fans in attendance, this was their first concert. Fall Out Boy gave them a textbook example of how to play a rock show - Rock Concerts 101.

My only regret is that the batteries in my camera started dying after Cobra Starship so I could only take a handful of pics the rest of the way. It's rare that I'm that close to the stage, and I was unable to take advantage of it. Lesson learned - that will not happen again!

Girl Talk, anonymous even at his own show

CONCERT REVIEW: GIRL TALK
May 11, 2007
Mr. Small's Theatre, Pittsburgh

The first of five opening acts begins playing as we walk in the door and take a spot in the crowd. A few feet to our right stands the headliner, Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, the Pittsburgh-based mashup artist whose show tonight is sold out. He is not recognized by anyone, except for a solitary dude who comes over to offer a handshake and a few words.

Anonymous even at his own show in his hometown, Gillis has gone from unknown local guy to nationally renowned mashup artist who performs for thousands around the world. Upcoming gigs include Bonnaroo, the Pimlico festival in Baltimore, and the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. But you still wouldn't recognize him on the street. This from a guy who (we think) still holds a day job at a downtown office and has co-workers who (we think) still have no idea what he does on the weekends.

If you've read one Girl Talk review, you've read them all. He stands on stage in front of two laptops, which he uses to mashup songs on the spot. His hour-long set largely ignored 2006's acclaimed Night Ripper, which wound up on every music magazine's top 20 list, and that was a good thing, because it wouldn't be very fun to go to a show and just hear the CD over again.

Gillis came on stage dressed in a bizarrely-spotted hoodie, which he removed to reveal a Steelers t-shirt, which later came off to reveal a Penguins tank top. Paying further homage to his hometown, Gillis' first mashup was a re-working of Night Ripper's opening track, "Once Again," with the Ludacris rap replaced by one from local rapper Wiz Khalifa's song "Pittsburgh Sound." It took not five minutes for the crowd to spill onto the stage, and from there the dance party was on.

Gillis added some brand new material into his mashups, including Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend," Timbaland's "Give It To Me," and Gwen Stefani's "The Sweet Escape," which became one of the show's highlights as the audience sang along to the obnoxious "woohoo, weehoo!" lines. The high point was the most talked-about moment on Night Ripper, when Gillis mixes Notorious B.I.G.'s "Juicy" with Elton John's "Tiny Dancers." The crowd exploded as if they were watching a rock band perform its biggest hit. Another personal favorite moment was when the baseline from Hall & Oates' "Out of Touch" kicked in on "LC and Lo."

At the end of the show, Gillis, either drunk or just riding the high of the moment, asked the crowd, "Where's the after party?," then proceeded to give out his home address to the hundreds in attendance. (Sorry, stalkers, I didn't catch the street name - it's 500 Something Street in Wilkinsburg.) As he normally does, he then took the mic to end the show with an actual singing performance of Nirvana's "Scentless Apprentice," which strangely sent everyone home happy.

Girl Talk on MySpace


Here's a short, grainy clip (I wish videos looked as good online as they do on my camera...)