Psychedelic Furs at the Grove of Anaheim

Check out my photos of the Psychedelic Furs and She Wants Revenge at the Grove of Anaheim over at OC Weekly.

My review is also over at OC Weekly.

She Wants Revenge at the House of Blues San Diego

The Nylon Magazine tour kicked off in San Diego with a quadruple line up of The Switches, The Virgins, Be Your Own Pet and She Wants Revenge.


The Switches








I seem to keep missing The Switches when they come through town and was determined to catch one of their shows. The Switches play a brand of tightly wound electro pop rock songs that employ equal parts of rambling guitars, slinky synthesizers and topped with a helping of vocal harmonies. "Message From Yuz" got the crowd moving early with razor sharp guitars from Matt Bishop (Vocals/Guitars) and Ollie Thomas (Guitars) who were armed with their Fender guitars. The microKorg keyboard screamed as the band worked through "Snakes & Ladders" before breaking down into a very Queen like bridge. They quickly lived up to my expectations and I had only heard two songs from their set. The crowd started to clap along in time to the wiry guitars of "No Hero" as Matt showed off his impressive falsetto. I detected some Weezer influence as they played a new song entitled "Lady" which could have easily been a track from the Weezer album Pinkerton. Matt provided some humor during the set when he explained that they were the only band from England on the tour and did an impromptu version of "So Lonely" by the Police. "Lay Down The Law" and "Drama Queen" punctuated their thirty minute set and I went to the merch booth to pick up their album Lay Down The Law.


The Virgins






I honestly didn't know what to think about The Virgins at first. "Private Affair" opened their set with its propulsive bass as their New York sound was extremely evident after a few singing notes from Donald Cumming (Vocals/Guitars). It would be easy to lump them in the category of the Strokes but as their set progressed, other bands like the Cars and Buddy Holly started to ruminate as reference points. Wade Oates (Guitars) looked like a character from "Happy Days" until I saw his retro Air Jordan III sneakers. Wade had the flashy guitar chops to prove he had substance to match his style as his fingers danced over the neck of his Fender Stratocaster. Erik Ratensperger (Drums) did an excellent job propelling their songs as he frequently smashed his cymbals and kept a steady backbeat. Wade also won points in the guitar department for working in his Electro Harmonix Stereo Memory Man pedal with Hazarai to the intro of the dance rock song "Rich Girls". Their debut self-titled album hits the streets on June 3rd.


Be Your Own Pet






Be Your Own Pet was also another band that I seem to always miss when they come through town. I was especially sad to miss their recent tour with the Raveonettes as I had a concert conflict on that particular night. If you could harness the energy that Be Your Own Pet puts out on stage during their show, I think you would solve the energy crisis. Jemina Pearl (Vocals) was all over the stage running into band members and crashing into microphone stands as they ripped through more then fifteen songs as most numbers border on the two minute mark. John Eatherly (Drums) earns his paycheck every night as he was drenched in sweat after a few songs. Jonas Stein's (Guitars) hands were a constant blur all night as he rapidly downstroked power chords like he was in the Ramones. "Heart Throb" from their new album Get Awkard would be the perfect song for the gym if you were trying to run a mile in two minutes. "The Kelley Affair" was fast and furious as I barely could keep up with the lyrics as Jemina raced through the song. Be Your Own Pet finished up their set in a flash as Jemina was writhing on the stage floor possibly for effect or due to exhaustion. I was sold either way.


She Wants Revenge






I remember seeing She Wants Revenge at the Troubadour back in 2005 and thinking that the band would ascend the ranks propelled by the catchy synthesizer programming and dark vocals of Justin Warfield (Vocals/Guitars). Once "Tear You Apart" garnered major airplay on KROQ and Indie 103.1, She Wants Revenge would later find themselves playing Coachella and opening for Depeche Mode. She Wants Revenge released their second album This is Forever that didn't seem to be too heavily promoted as some of my friends didn't even know the album was released.

She Wants Revenge recently released a new EP Save Your Soul that the band previewed during the show. The icy guitar lines of "Sister" gave way to the driving bass line as Justin swayed in front of his microphone to the delight of the screaming girls in the front row. Adam 12 (Bass/Synthesizers) was decked out in black with his hat shielding his eyes as he played his Fender Bass. The sexually charged "These Things" really had the crowd dancing as I enjoyed the lonesome hollow sounding guitar riff. "Sleep" from their new EP had a biting bass line as Thomas Froggatt added various sound textures on his Gibson hollowbody guitar. "Save Your Soul" matched "Sleep" in energy and sharpness as the new songs were very catchy. It had been awhile since I had seen She Wants Revenge and I can attest that they have sharply honed their live sound. "Written In Blood" absolutely rocked as Scott Ellis (Drums) worked the cowbell as Justin continued to dance across the stage. Adam also seems to have traded his Moog Little Phatty keyboard in for a Korg MS2000 but still frequently used the Roland Phantom X8. The band received a huge ovation from the San Diego crowd prior to closing out their set with a blistering version of "Tear You Apart". She Wants Revenge finish up their tour with a date at the Wiltern on June 21st. I will try and add the show to my upcoming show list as I don't think I have reviewed an opening and closing show of a tour.

Download Festival at Shoreline Amphitheatre

One of my first concerts in the early years included an amazing performance by The Cure at the Rose Bowl back in 1992 with Dinosaur Jr. opening. I had a bunch of The Cure shows lined up but was disappointed when they announced they were postponing their shows in order to work on their new double album. One of the few dates they kept was the Download Festival at Shoreline amphitheatre. I opted to miss one of Morrissey's shows in order to go to Mountain View to catch The Cure.

I was too late to catch Love Like Fire and was disappointed I missed them. They totally rocked the Detroit Bar last time I caught up with them. I still can't get enough of their new EP "An Ocean in the Air". I will catch them again for sure.

She Wants Revenge



I wondered into the Shoreline Amphitheatre as She Wants Revenge were rounding out their set. I saw the debut of their new tunes at the OC fair . They have recently released a new album entitled "This is Forever" that I have on deck for evaluation. I did catch the new track "This Is The End" which ironically had a Cure vibe to it. I will see their full set at the Grove in Anaheim.


Black Angels



They had two stages in different locations at Shoreline Amphitheatre and I ran to the other stage to catch the Black Angels. Black Angels have a hallucinogenic vibe that conjurs visions of sitars, pipes, and kaledioscopes. I enjoyed both of their sets when I saw them open for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club earlier this year. The Black Angels are touring behind their psychedelic offering "Passover". I did spot a Moog Opus 3 on stage and a Vox Jaguar keyboard that helped transport the audience back in time. It was still early in the day and weird seeing them behind a gorgeous blue sky versus a dark smoke filled club. I left their set after a handful of  songs because I didn't want to miss any of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.


Metric



My friend texted me in the middle of BRMC to tell me that Metric was destroying over at the side stage. I was not going to miss BRMC, but quickly walked over to catch the remaining songs of Metric. I realized that my friend was right as Emily Haines (Vocals/Synths) was jumping all over the stage. When I wasn't admiring Emily's performance, I spotted a Sequential Circuits Pro-One that she was hammering on to get some warm analog patchs. I manuvered closer to the stage to see that James Shaw(Guitars/Synths) had a Dave Smith keyboard. I was thinking that Dave Smith would probably approve. It turns out he did, because he was standing in front of me. I recognized him from my trip to NAMM last year, and managed to talk to him for a bit. I forgot to ask him about the drool worthy new Prophet '08. Metric did a phenomenal job and got the crowd really going when they played "Stadium Love". If I didn't have my Morrissey marathon, I would have checked them out at one of their shows.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club




Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (BRMC) in the middle of the day was another odd site to see. The sun must have baked Robert Levon Been (Bass/Vocals) as he wore his black leather jacket. The sun was outshone by BRMC's set as they simply killed it. They opened with "Took Out A Loan" and never looked back. Peter Hayes (Guitars/Vocals) managed to grab a violin bow to use on his guitar for the opening noise washes of "All You Do Is Talk" which happens to be one of the best tracks off of "Baby 81". "Weapon Of Choice" was a crowd pleaser as some of the audience members started to rise out of their seats. I was surprised that they played "American X" as it included the feedback symphony ending by Robert that runs for about eight minutes. I laughed when I saw Robert had a strip of black tape over his Fender Telecaster as they are sponsored by Gibson Guitars.
 
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Setlist at the Shoreline Amphitheatre
"Took Out A Loan"
"Berlin"
"Love Burns"
"Spread Your Love"
"Ain't No Easy Way"
"Stop"
"All You Do Is Talk"
"Weapon Of Choice"
"666 Conducer"
"Need Some Air"
"American X"
"Whatever Happenend To My Rock 'N Roll(Punk Song)"

Kings Of Leon


Kings Of Leon were closing out the second stage and I checked in with them. They sounded great but were having monitor problems and could not hear themselves that well. "My Party" was extra loud with Jared Followill (Bass) knocking out the fuzz drenched bass line on his Gibson Thunderbird bass. I heard some more of their set in the background as I went to get some dinner.


AFI



I heard of AFI back in the day when I saw Screw 32 play up in Northern California. Screw 32 had a bunch of AFI stickers on their guitars and told the audience to check them out. I never got into them that  much but their stage lighting was fantastic for photography. Jade Puget had a bright white Gibson Les Paul. I heard they did a cover of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust".


The Cure



The Cure postponed all of their North American dates except for this show. I imagine they were contractually obligated to fulfill this date as they were the headliner for the Download Festival. I was curious to see how the band would fare without keyboardist extroadinaire Roger O'Donnell .  The Cure is now a four piece with Jason Cooper (Drums), Porl Thompson (Guitars), Simon Gallup (Bass) and Robert Smith (Guitars/Vocals).  They opened with the logical track of "Open" and I couldn't help but have flashbacks from the 1992 Rose Bowl show. "alt.end" was next and I was waiting for a song that had keyboards to come up in the set.Robert Smith was playing his custom Schecter Ultracure signature guitar. Porl Thompson was playing his custom Schecter signature white guitar with a Bigsby Tremolo. Porl was attempting to play some of the keyboard parts on his guitar but it didn't sound quite right in the context of the song. Robert Smith sounded timeless as ever and commented to the crowd how it was such a big departure to be in the studio one moment and then in front of a large screaming audience the next moment. Simon Gallup knocked me to the floor with his low hanging bass and trademark high bass notes. Jason Cooper must run marathons to keep in shape in order to keep the beat for almost 3 hours. The sheer length of their set makes me wonder why other bands can't play longer sets.

The Cure Setlist for Download Festival at Shoreline Amphitheatre (10/06/07)

"Open"
"Alt. End"
"A Night Like This"
The Baby Screams"
"The End of the World"
"Lovesong"
"Pictures of You"
"Lullaby"
"Maybe Someday"
"Kyoto Song"
"Please Project"
"The Walk"
"Push"
"How Beautiful You Are"
"In Between Days"
"Just Like Heaven"
"Primary"
"If Only Tonight We Could Sleep"
"The Kiss"
"Never Enough"
"Wrong Number"
"Signal To Noise"
"One Hundred Years"
"Shiver and Shake"
"End"
"Three Imaginary Boys"
"Fire In Cairo"
"Boys Don't Cry"
"Jumping Someone Else's Train"
"Grinding Halt"
"10:15 Saturday Night"
"Killing Another"
"Play For Today"
"A Forest"

She Wants Revenge at the OC Fair

She Wants Revenge hit every single venue it could while supporting their debut self titled album. They played the Henry Fonda theatre, the Wiltern, the Troubadour, The El Rey, The Grove in Anaheim, The Galaxy Theatre, The Greek Theatre, Coachella, and managed to snag an opening slot for some of the Depeche Mode dates. Their live show has evolved since the first time I saw them at the Troubadour. I figured I would check out their evolution process at the Orange County Fair.




I missed The Make Out Party who went on stage exactly at 7:30. The Orange County Fair apparently runs on a strict time table as well as a strict curfew.

Louis XIV by the way of San Diego was next and play a sleazy, tongue in cheek brand of dirty rock. They used to open for the Killers back in the day and pitched in some background vocals for the Killers latest album. The sound mix for Louis XIV was pretty bad. "Finding Out True Love Is Blind" was slaughtered in the mix and the main keyboard parts were not heard. Jason Hill (Vocals/Guitar) was swaggering all over the stage with his Epiphone Hollowbody flanked by vintage Silvertone amps. Jimmy Armbrust (Bass) was rocking the Rickenbacker bass. They played an assortment of tunes from their debut album with only one new song in the batch. They will be resuming their tour with the Killers in September and have their sophomore album due this fall.





She Wants Revenge opened with a tension filled new tune titled "Written In Blood". It featured the baritone vocals of Justin Warfield (Vocals/Guitars). The song manged to melt in some cowbell along with the dark tension filled guitar lines. Adam 12 (Bass/Synths) had the rhythm section interlocked with Scot Ellis (Drums). Adam 12 was using a Roland Fantom-X8 most of time but twiddled with a sweet Moog Little Phatty synthesizer for "True Romance". Justin was showing off his tobacco Sunburst Gibson Hollowbody guitar running thru his Marshall half stack which is a far cry from his old setup of a small Fender amp and Fender thinline telecaster. "True Romance" had a shuffling drum beat with a pulsating synth line augmented by a walking bass line. "What I Want" was the most impressive of the new songs with a dangerous slinky bass line and a complementing guitar line that would make the boys of Interpol blush. Their sophomore album is due in October and I will go on record to say that "What I Want" will be the first single. I also hope to hear a lot more Moog Little Phatty on the album.


She Wants Revenge Setlist for the Pacific Amphitheatre at the Orange County Fair
"Written In Blood"
"Out of Control"
"These Things"
"Broken Promises For Broken Hearts"
"True Romance"
"Sister"
"What I Want"
"Red Flags and Long Nights"
"Someone Must Get Hurt"
"She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not"
"Disconnect"
"Tear You Apart"

KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas Night 2 at Gibson Amphitheatre

Barely surviving the drive home from San Diego, I drove up to the Gibson Amphitheatre for the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas night number two. I have somehow made it to about 6 years of Acoustic Christmas and it becomes more difficult to get tickets every year. The back up plan was to go to Spaceland and see Jet with Bloodcat Love if I didn't get tickets but I lucked out and got front row loge. The new debacle KROQ used this year was to make you listen to KROQ through the weekend untill they played "Everlong" by the Foo Fighters and tickets would then go on sale. I listen to KROQ periodically but 3 days in a row was waaay too much. How many times do you really need to hear My Chemical Romance? The whole ordeal confirmed how shallow the programming is over at KROQ. Even though the line up was not as strong as years past, The Killers and Foo Fighters were more then enough reason to be in attendance. She Wants Revenge was up first and played a strong set. They have come a long way since I saw them at the Troubadour before their album came out. After an opening jaunt with Depeche Mode and multiple crossing of the states, their set is very tight. They also got huge points for covering "Hazy Shade of Winter". It was one of two and a half Christmas songs played that night. Snow Patrol was up next and received a warm reception playing "Chasing Cars", "Open Your Eyes", and "Run". Angels and Airwaves came up next and received a lukewarm reception. The songs sound good on CD but when performed live, Tom uses way too much reverb on his vocals. He was in a rather chatty mood talking about how his music can change the world. This is a hard sell coming from a former member of Blink-182 who was known for their potty humor. The only person that can get away with saying that their music can change the world is Bono. I still liked "The Adventure" even though the guitar line is a rip off of "Space Age Love Song". Tom also blatantly hijacks The Edge's guitar sound so I think I am on to something here. Gnarls Barkley came on next and played an entertaining set. They always come out in different costumes so it was no surprise that they came out in Santa and Elf costumes. Cee-Lo was funny as he checked his blackberry while singing a song. Dangermouse was rocking the Moog Voyager which sounded great. Some favorites included "St. Elsewhere", "Crazy", and "Gone Daddy Gone". Cee-lo also referred to the band as Dirty Santa and the Ho-Ho-Hoes. Evanescence was clearly out of place with the hard rock guitars. Amy has a beautiful voice and is really talented but the whole group seems contrived. Panic at the Disco came out with their circus/cabaret show and entertained the teenagers in the crowd. When they played their popular song, they mentioned that they were sick of playing it which I thought was funny.Raconteurs played a solid rock set with "Steady as She Goes" being the highlight. I do say I like the White Stripes more. Jack was singing a little differently with the Raconteurs from what I remember. Beck was up next and finally got the whole amphitheatre standing and rocking out. Opening with "Loser" and playing one hit after another. Beck had puppets of himself and the band dancing behind him and being projected on the big screens. It was quite the spectacle. Other highlights include "Devil's Haircut", "Nausea", " 2 Turntables and a Microphone".The Killers kept the momentum rolling with some strong selections from their two albums. "Read My Mind" was my favorite as well as the new Christmas song "A Great Big Sled". Foo Fighters came out acoustically and did "My Hero", "Skin & Bones", and "Everlong". The stage spun during "Everlong" and they switched to an electric set to play "Monkey Wrench" and "Times Like These". Quite the night of rock if I say so myself.