Welcome to the official Lollapalooza 2013 Preview Guide! In this post, you’ll find an hour-by-hour breakdown of all the bands you won’t want to miss during each of the three days at Lollapalooza this year. Whether you’re an experienced Lolla attendee or a newbie showing up in Grant Park for the first time this year, there’s probably no chance you’re familiar with every single artist that’s part of the lineup. This guide is intended to help. Maybe you’d just like to familiarize yourself with the artists by listening to them. I understand that logic as well. Find something that suits your tastes, and then go see that artist, even if you’re not necessarily very familiar with their catalogue. Allow me to provide some assistance in that aspect. Here are Spotify playlists for Friday, Saturday and Sunday so you can let your ears make some decisions. All of those three playlists are organized by musical genre, to help everything flow just a little smoother in case you want to give the whole thing a listen. Moving past the sonics and into the nuts and bolts of the lineup, after the jump are my thoughts on what you should see each hour during each day of Lollapalooza 2013. Please note that I’ve restricted myself to one and only one artist during each hour of each day. There are some tough conflicts I’ve been forced to make decisions on, and in some cases you might want to do split sets and see half of one and half of another. Have a look at the full schedule here for all of those details, and keep in mind that things are so spread out it takes at least 10-15 minutes to walk from one side of Grant Park to the other. Plan accordingly. I do think that if you follow the game plan that I’ve set out for you below, you’re guaranteed to have a great time at Lollapalooza this year. Without further ado, here’s my preview guide to Lollapalooza 2013!
Category: live music Page 10 of 17
The third and final day of the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival was just as incredible than the first two, if not more so. After the jump, enjoy the visual odyssey that was Sunday with photos of R. Kelly, M.I.A., Yo La Tengo, Chairlift, Sky Ferreira, Waxahatchee, Run the Jewels, Killer Mike and Foxygen. For complete coverage of everything related to this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival, simply click here.
Here’s a selection of photos that I took during Day 2 of this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival. Click past the jump for photos of Belle & Sebastian, Solange, The Breeders, Savages, …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Phosphorescent, Ryan Hemsworth, Parquet Courts and Metz. Check out more photos, day-by-day recaps, and a whole lot of other stuff related to the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival by clicking here.
In case you missed all of the action out at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival, I’ve certainly written plenty about it, but haven’t SHOWN you what it all looked like. Well, this and the next couple of photo posts should change all of that. Join me past the jump for a bunch of photos that I took on Day 1. In this set, you’ll find photos of Bjork, Joanna Newsom, Wire, Woods, Angel Olsen, Mac DeMarco and Mikal Cronin.
I’m pleased to be wrapping up this week-long adventure into coverage of the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival with a quick look back at the weekend that was. Having attended the festival for the last few years, you really get used to how things are run and where you need to go for everything from water to food to restrooms. So as you return in a sense it’s like coming home, and that’s comforting. I never once felt out of my element or like I had no idea what I was doing over the three days. Of course I didn’t quite see everything I wanted to see and hear everything I wanted to hear thanks to traffic delays and one too many hits of the snooze button, but what I missed was miniscule compared to what I saw. Hopefully you’ve read all about those adventures in my daily recaps (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). That should give you a pretty good idea of the best and worst of the music side of things this year. But just for fun, I put together a little list of superlatives, helping to highlight some of my favorite and least favorite musical treats from the weekend. Check that out:
Most surprising set: Killer Mike
Most disappointing set: Yo La Tengo
Set that best lived Up to the hype: Savages
Band that sounded better live than on record: Parquet Courts
Most openly fun set: Solange
Most likely controlled the weather during their set: Bjork
Set that proved punk rock is alive and well: Metz
Veteran act that still has “it”: Wire
Veteran act that has lost “it”: The Breeders
Band whose set would have been far more popular in a different decade: Chairlift
Band that felt so right in the middle of a sunny afternoon: Phosphorescent
Quietest set (artist + crowd): Joanna Newsom
Funniest set: Mac DeMarco
Most gratuitous use of the word “SWAG”: Lil B
Flashiest performance with the least amount of genuine substance: M.I.A.
Most pathetic attempt to attract attention: Foxygen
Outside of those superlatives, I want to talk for a brief minute about how things went overall. Since we’re on the topic of music, let me say a few words about this year’s lineup. To me, it felt just a little bit weaker than in the last few years, though all of the headliners were certainly nothing to sneeze at. Perhaps that’s where most of the budget went this year. I suspect it was telling that unlike the last couple years, the festival wasn’t a total sell out this year. Sunday was sold out, most likely due to obsessive R. Kelly fans who camped out at the Green stage for much of the day just waiting for him. But Friday and Saturday didn’t sell out, as far as I’m aware. I did keep hearing that there were a “very limited number” of tickets left for Friday, so maybe that eventually sold out too. When I look at it, I like most of the artists on the lineup for this year, but I’m not overly passionate about a lot of them. It made for another fine festival overall and I’m glad I saw what I did, but for whatever reason it sometimes felt like something was missing. Not a whole lot of artists really jumped out and grabbed me by the ears, so maybe that’s what it was. If I were put in charge of naming one act each day that was my favorite, the list would be the following: Friday – Bjork, Saturday – Savages, Sunday – Killer Mike. Of all the days, I’d classify Friday as my least favorite, primarily because many of the artists that performed that day were either relatively bland (Woods, Mikal Cronin) or didn’t quite feel like they belonged at an outdoor festival (Angel Olsen, Joanna Newsom). Perhaps I should have made it to Union Park in time for Trash Talk, I heard their set was crazy.
Music aside, let me comment on the amenities this year. Considering the capacity of Union Park every year, festival organizers have gotten everything at just about the right levels to make things comfortable. The restrooms are plentiful and you’ll never wait too long for one. The food booths offer a wide variety of cuisine for even the most sensitive of palates or dietary restrictions. I had some amazing tacos on Sunday. The return of Goose Island as the provider of alcoholic beverages was an inspired move. The availability of key beers like 312 and Green Line was nice, but even nicer was the special Goose Island booth that had a rotating cast of different beers from the brewer’s catalogue, not to mention two beers crafted exclusively for the festival. I tried both of the fest-exclusive beers, and they were delicious. The singular gripe I have, and it’s basically always been a problem, is with water fountains. Union Park has a distinct lack of water fountains, and therefore the few it does have resulted in long lines. There’s nothing that can really be done about that, but I’ve got to hand it to the volunteer crew at the festival for often walking around with cases of bottled water, handing them out to anybody that wanted one. A lot of people were likely spared a trip to the medical tent as a result of such gestures, though I did see at least a few people go down due to heat exhaustion and dehydration. On the whole, this year’s festival went rather swimmingly, where the sets all started on schedule and the lines were never astronomically or annoyingly huge. It’s a sharp reminder that no matter what the lineup might be, this is one of the best-run music festivals in the country. As I stated in my earlier coverage, Pitchfork Music Festival weekend is my favorite weekend every single year I attend. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true again by the time we reach the end of 2013.
Phew, what a weekend! As usual, I’m feeling quite a bit drained from three long days of experiencing the dizzying highs and physical tolls of attending a music festival. It doesn’t get any easier as you get older, I can tell you that. Judging by the average age of the attendees this year, I’m beginning to fall on the older half of the spectrum. In spite of this, I’m never less than excited to attend the Pitchfork Music Festival each year, as I consistently claim it is my favorite weekend of the 52 that take place annually. So I may be tired and writing about the festival in a timely manner has brought its own set of unique challenges, but I’m not anything less than satisfied with how everything turned out. I’ll have my final set of thoughts on how I think the festival went this year, along with a massive photo set from the entire weekend, coming up in the next few days. In the meantime, please enjoy this summary of all the acts I saw perform on Day 3 of the festival, aka Sunday.
It always bothers me when things don’t work out according to plan, and the start/end to my Saturday at the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival was one of those times. In what was supposed to be an early arrival to catch sets from White Lung, Pissed Jeans and Julia Holter, bad traffic turned a short drive into an extraordinarily long one. Thank goodness I finally made it in time for Phosphorescent. Then of course there was the weather. On checking the weekend forecast on Friday afternoon shortly before heading out on Day 1, it said a chance of severe storms on Friday night, then partly cloudy for the rest of the weekend. All was going according to plan until about 9 p.m. on Saturday when it started to pour. Of course it would. Let’s hope the park stays dry enough for Sunday that there’s not mud/sand pits everywhere like last year. As for the music itself, most everything on Saturday was an improvement over the somewhat shaky or mediocre sets on Friday. Let me break things down for you, band by band.
Most things about Day 1 at the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival could be considered challenging. Or, perhaps described a little differently, most things except the performances. The main factor on Friday was the weather. A glance at the temperature would tell you the heat index was in the upper 90s, and therefore it bordered on oppressive. Then again, it’s nothing particularly new for this festival or mid-July in Chicago. Still, the volunteer staff could be credited as doing a fair to good job of distributing bottled water to the sweaty masses, even walking around with cases of it through the crowd during sets. Yet if you went to one of Union Park’s few water fountains, the lines were long. The same could be said for all the beverage tents. Everyone was in need of some fluids. And while outside of the heat it was a nice and sunny day, it became less so when severe storms rolled in during the evening hours and effectively shut down Bjork’s set 30 minutes early. It hadn’t rained a drop when organizers pulled the plug on the evening, but there was a pretty great lightning show that could hypothetically have put people in danger. The actual rain, as it was reported to me, started about 30-45 minutes after the park was cleared. Hopefully it won’t be a soggy mess for the rest of the weekend. Beyond weather and lines though, let’s talk about the music itself. Here’s a recap of the artists I saw:
I’m pleased to say that we’ve arrived at Day 3 of the Pitchfork Music Festival preview guide. This of course falls during Pitchfork Music Festival Week here on the site, which kicked off on Monday with an Artist Guide, and featured a preview of Day 1 on Tuesday and a preview of Day 2 on Wednesday. So yes, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground so far, and there’s plenty more to go. After today’s preview guide of Day 3, I’ll have day-by-day recaps of all the festival action, and we’ll wrap things up with a final look back at the weekend, plus look at a whole bunch of photos. This is going to be fun! If you’re headed to Union Park this weekend, please remember to dress for the weather (it’s going to be HOT, but will get progressively cooler with each day, and with the potential for severe storms all day Friday). Sunscreen, bug spray, etc. will be your best friend. Also remember to stay safe. Drink plenty of water, and if you’re moshing at any point, keep an eye out for your neighbor. This is one of the friendliest, nicest music festivals you’ll ever go to, so please don’t be “that guy/girl” and take away the enjoyment factor for so many. Sit back, relax, and party with great music and amazing vendors. Here’s your preview guide to all the artists you’ll see on Sunday at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival!
If you’re headed to Union Park this weekend, I sincerely hope you’re following along with this 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival preview guide. There’s a lot of great and interesting artists playing the festival this year, as there are every year, and I just want to make sure you have the absolute best time possible. That’s why I try my hardest to educate you on all the artists on the lineup and try to help you make choices about what bands to see during what hour of each day. Yesterday we previewed Friday, and that’s a shorter day than Saturday and Sunday. So now here’s the guide for Saturday, which is longer and ideally more compelling. I think much of the day on Saturday is beset with fascinating conflicts, so you may want to skip around and catch pieces of different sets all day just to get a fully rounded experience. Now then, without further ado, let me present to you a guide to Day 2 at the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival!
Welcome to Day 1 of the preview guide to the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival. In this guide, the purpose is to take a look at the artist schedule hour by hour and recommend the which acts to see when. I’ll be doing this for each of the three days of the festival, for the next three days leading up to the festival. That will be followed by daily recaps of all the action happening in Union Park in Chicago each day. In case you missed it, yesterday I started off Pitchfork Music Festival week with an Artist Guide, providing web links, audio streams, mp3s and even a Spotify playlist to help get you more familiar with the full lineup of this year’s fest. It’s gonna be a great one, I suspect. Now then, let’s get right into this preview of Day 1 (Friday) at the Pitchfork Music Festival. If you’re going, I hope you find this guide helpful!
Welcome to Pitchfork Music Festival Week! For the next seven days, you can count on more coverage of the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival on this site than you can shake a stick at. What does “shake a stick at” mean and how does it apply in this context? It doesn’t matter! Just go with the flow. Anyways, as a grand introduction to this whole week’s worth of coverage, I wanted to help you get fully acquainted with all of the artists performing at this year’s festival. There’s somewhere around 45 or so (I’m too lazy to count), and depending on your tastes there’s a chance you might fall in love with all of them. Of course you’ll never know unless you listen to all of their music and judge for yourself. With that in mind, click past the jump to see a listing for every artist on the lineup, complete with links to their websites, songs you can stream on Soundcloud or Spotify (depending on your preference), and in some cases mp3s or full album/mixtape downloads. It’s quite comprehensive, and I hope you’ll discover something new and great as a result. The listings are ordered by day and (technically) set time, though I haven’t listed the set times here. Additionally, if you’d like to find almost every artist put together in a handy playlist that’s organized by genre (for flow purposes), look no further than this Spotify mix that I put together. Check back tomorrorw for the start of the day-by-day preview guide, where I’ll suggest what bands to see each hour of each day. And I promise that WILL include set times.
Japandroids like to refer to themselves as a touring band. They’ve said in many an interview that if they could get away with it, they’d simply tour all the time and never actually record new albums. As such, in the last year since the release of their second record Celebration Rock, they’ve been around the world and back a couple times. They’ve played shows in Chicago at least three, if not four times in the last 365 days and show no signs of slowing down. Crowds love the band, and in turn the band loves the crowds. Their albums purposely sound like their live performances, because they design them that way to achieve maximum quality control. A Japandroids show at this point has become less of a concert and more of an event. You don’t just go to a Japandroids show, you experience it, and that requires preparation. They’re such a thrilling live act, especially for a duo, that they can sell out the 1,100 capacity Metro well in advance, even though they already came through town a few months earlier. The people that love this band truly LOVE them, and their dedication shows when they turn up in force time and time again.
Before getting to the intense and dynamic show that Japandroids put on this hot summer night in mid-June, I want to turn the attention to the band that opened the show, Crocodiles. If you’ve never heard a Crocodiles song before, you’re missing out on one of the great lo-fi, garage rock revivalist bands of this current era. That’s intended to be a compliment, however this band hasn’t exactly won the affection of a lot of critics as they draw unfavorable comparisons to The Jesus and Mary Chain and Echo & the Bunnymen. The basic reaction from many seems to be that they’re a one trick pony who have found their sound and plan to stick with it, each new album providing slight variations on the same melodies. It’s not hard to agree with that sentiment, however the real truth is that this band has been refining and focusing their talents with each new album on a quest to be the best at what they do. Their situation (and sound, actually) remind me a lot of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, another band that’s been critically misunderstood over the years, but who have managed to establish a strong, loyal fan base anyways. We can’t help what attracts us to a particular sound, even when we know plenty of others will disagree with us. While I’ve heard their first three albums as well as their fourth coming out in August and can definitely verify that they keep getting better on record, what I can’t tell you is if the same thing is true for their live shows. This was my first time seeing Crocodiles perform live, and in that regard I can proclaim it a rousing success. The band sounds absolutely great, not only accurately recreating the sound of their records, but doing so with additional energy and aplomb. The four guys on stage appeared to be having a good time, and with a set that featured old favorites and a couple of intense new ones, the crowd seemed to soak in that same vibe. While most were undoubtedly there to see Japandroids, there were some that already knew what Crocodiles was capable of and wanted to make sure they were present for that set as well. Those such as myself who had never seen them before but had heard good things were pleasantly surprised at how accurate the rumors truly were. These guys remain a band to keep an eye on, with the thought that maybe sometime soon they’ll be able to sell out a venue like Metro all by themselves.
Buy Crocodiles’ Endless Flowers
The first thing I realized when watching Japandroids launch into their song “Adrenaline Nightshift” at the start of their set was that this would mark the very first time I’ve ever seen the band perform a full set. I’d seen them three times prior to this, but each took place at a music festival or radio session, meaning they had limited time and could essentially only play half-sets. Granted, those 45-minute half-sets were really damn good, but suddenly now that they’ve got 90+ minutes to do whatever they’d like the focus automatically turns away from the immediate new album concerns and instead towards the breadth of their seemingly small catalogue. But despite the fact that they’ve only got two full lengths to their names, they made sure to give each one its due while also tossing in non-album cuts and covers to keep it spicy. So while there was “Heart Sweats” and “Wet Hair” off the Post-Nothing record (those song titles also describe how the band and crowd would feel by the end), there was the great inclusion of “Art Czars” and the brief reference back to “Press Corps” off the band’s little-known 2007 EP All Lies which also later appeared on the Japandroids compilation No Singles. So there was quite a bit of diversity in the set list, with the requisite Celebration Rock cuts like “The Nights of Wine and Roses” and “The House That Heaven Built” fitting right in next to “Rockers East Vancouver” and such.
As great as it is to see a crowd sing and sometimes shout along with the band, the set list itself didn’t matter nearly as much as the band’s blitzkrieg approach in their live shows. See, the duo of Brian King and David Prowse make a whole lot of noise and perform with a whole lot of force to the point where you refuse to believe that they didn’t leave everything out there on the stage that night. No wonder they love performing so much, because the crowds soak it up like what they’re doing is magic. In many ways it is, because so few bands play with such intensity and vigor. Well, maybe passion is the right word to use. How anyone can get excited about performing almost the same set of songs night after night is a mystery to me, but in the end it probably has more to do with the fans than anything else. They want to make sure that when you walk away from their show, you’re going to have a lasting memory of it etched into your brain. Hopefully all the moshing and other intense movements the crowd was doing for most of the show didn’t give anyone brain damage (though if you ask me, if you’re in a mosh pit your brain might already be damaged). Normally those sorts of things are frowned upon at shows, but as King himself yelled at the start of the set, “Tonight there are no rules!” There were even a couple of people that climbed over the barricade and took stage dives, because I’m sure the band is used to it by now. Overall it wound up being a crazy yet incredible evening of live music, and one I certainly won’t soon forget. If you have the chance to see either Japandroids or Crocodiles perform live, jump at the opportunity, for the very reasons I just described.
“To make tonight’s show a more intimate experience, the artist has asked that you refrain from taking photos, talking or opening and closing the venue doors during the performance. We will also be closing the bar at the back of the venue in the next few minutes for the same reason, so please purchase any drinks you might want during the show now. Thank you.” That was the announcement made shortly before Rhye took the stage on a rainy Thursday night in April at Schubas. In case you hadn’t heard the message, there were also signs posted all over the venue that said “The artist requests no photos during tonight’s performance.” As such, there is/are no photo(s) accompanying this show review. Ironically, there are very few photos of the duo known as Rhye in existence, live or otherwise. They’re a band somewhat built on mystery, at least in the sense that they’d rather let the music speak for itself rather than bombard you with other associations to attach to it. For their live performance, the last thing you should have been doing was staring at the stage through the screen of your smartphone. That creates an invisible wall between the artist and the audience member. The goal is to devote your full attention to what’s coming out of the speakers, and it’s similarly distracting if you run to the restroom, chat with a friend or go order more drinks. Rhye make intimate, bedroom music that’s earned plenty of comparisons to Sade and The xx, and it’s difficult to achieve the intended effect if your head is somehwhere else.
So from my vantage point towards the front of the venue, everyone complied with the band’s instructions (except that one guy standing next to me, who snapped a very quick photo during the final song). Was the show better as a result? I’d say absolutely. As much as I try to respect and give all my attention to the stage, most shows I snap a few photos and might grab a drink mid-set if I’m close to the bar. With a hushed room and nobody standing in front of me with their phone or digital camera in the air, I didn’t get annoyed a single time during the full 50 minute set, which is an accomplishment. Much more accomplished however was what happened on stage. The lights were set to a minimum level, to the point where an exit sign next to the stage was the brightest thing in the room, and there were lit candles everywhere from atop amps to the stage floor. It was a wonder nobody kicked one over. Rhye is the duo of Mike Milosh and Robin Hannibal, but in a live setting it’s only Milosh with five backing musicians because Hannibal doesn’t tour. It made for a fascinating set up, primarily because the songs on the band’s debut album Woman are so minimalist in their construction. To have six people on stage for that ultimately meant expanding what was already there. That wound up applying to not only the overall sound, but the length of the compositions as well. “Last Dance” got a fun little trombone solo thrown in during the bridge that not only got the crowd riled up, but the rest of the band too. Milosh signaled his keyboard player to keep playing at the end of “Major Minor Love,” which he did for a bit while the rest of the band looked on amused. The strings and drums each got their own times to shine during the bridge of “Open” as well, really hammering home the point Milosh made between songs mid-set: that hearing extended or different takes on songs you’re familiar with brings them to life in new and interesting ways. It keeps the audience and the band on their toes, which is really what you want out of every live show.
Not everything about Rhye’s set worked. It felt like there was a key misstep relatively early in the set during “The Fall,” one of the band’s key singles and most upbeat tracks. What could have turned into a small dance party instead stumbled when the tempo of the song purposely slowed to a crawl for its midsection. Basically, one minute there was a good groove going, the next it was a stoic ballad, and the next the crowd was hit with smelling salts as the pace returned to normal. Why such a choice was made is a mystery, though it’s likely for the same reasons the extended jam sessions on other tracks happened. Everything else, including “3 Days,” “Shed Some Blood” and “Hunger,” were perfectly situated in the set and sounded fantastic. Because they’ve only got one album, things started to get a bit dicey towards the end. There was no opening band, which also helped give everyone the feeling like there should be so much more to go. Alas, after about 40 minutes Milosh candidly apologized to the crowd as they cheered for more, explaining that they were out of songs and were going to have to wrap things up without an encore. Technically speaking he was wrong, because the band never played “One of Those Summer Days” or the title track “Woman,” but to be fair those are also the slowest and weakest tracks on the debut album. They closed things out with the song “It’s Over,” which is actually a song off of Milosh’s 2006 solo record Meme, which I’m sure most if not all of the crowd hadn’t heard before. It was a perfectly lovely ballad, but also felt a little out of place and lacking the pure beauty and charm that the Rhye tracks have going for them.
For a show that was so restrictive/demanding in its requests for audience behavior, it’d be easy to think that you weren’t allowed to have any fun or that it might be difficult to have fun given the circumstances. It really was the band’s candor and Milosh’s moderately comedic banter between songs that put everyone more at ease and helped turn the show from stoic intimacy to playful intimacy. If you ask me, that’s the best kind of intimacy. And that voice! There were audible gasps from the crowd the moment Milosh first started to sing, because it seemed so unlikely that the voice you hear on the record could be replicated with such ease. He made it all look and sound pretty effortless, and beyond that the rest of the band would occasionally add five-part harmonies that made perfect use of the venue, the atmosphere and the quiet, attentive crowd. It’s hard to believe that this band can sound so great and so professional when they’ve only played a handful of live shows in their existence. With any luck, there will be hundreds more to come, complete with fans who understand that even music’s most intimate moments can be charming and great when performed live so long as you’re respectful and attentive of the material.
Buy Rhye’s debut album Woman from Amazon
Set List
Verse
3 Days
The Fall
Shed Some Blood
Last Dance
Major Minor Love
Open
Hunger
It’s Over (Milosh cover)
To be perfectly honest, I’m not the biggest Darwin Deez fan in the world. I don’t dislike the guy (whose real name is Darwin Smith), and I think he makes some remarkably addictive and sometimes goofy indie pop songs through a simplistic lens, but there are times to me when it seems like he’s trying a little too hard. That’s much more apparent on his second album Songs for Imaginative People, which beefs up his sound a bit more but forgoes some of the lighthearted and silly elements that made his self-titled debut such a treat. Obviously he wants to move beyond whatever labels that have plagued him in the past, however if he’s not true to himself then you get those forced situations that turn people off. That serious, all-business side of him thankfully failed to show itself during his show at Schubas Tavern this past Friday night. It was clear right from the get-go that Deez and his band had every intention of putting on an off-the-charts fun show, and I’m pleased to report that they did just that.
It started with a choreographed dance number. All four guys in the band stood across the stage and grooved to a beat in unison for about 30 seconds, before going to pick up their instruments. The crowd loved it, so of course they’d do it a couple more times during the set. Consider them little interludes connecting the songs, because there certainly wasn’t a whole lot of between song banter. Deez didn’t need it though, because in many ways his songs said everything he wanted them to anyways. It was a very smart set list, split almost evenly between his two full lengths to date, and he hit all the necessary highlights. The crowd went nuts for classic cuts like “Radar Detector” and “DNA,” but moments like “You Can’t Be My Girl” and the ballad “Redshift” off the new album struck like lightning too. That a weaker track or two like “Good to Lose” and “All in the Wrist” popped up and didn’t really detract from the overall success of the set either suggests they improve in a live setting or are raised to a higher level thanks to the songs that surround them. Whatever the reason for that, things went very smoothly overall and there was rarely a lag in the energy or mood on stage or in the crowd. When they weren’t doing choreographed dances, most of the band members were bouncing around in the small space of the Schubas stage. Everyone in the audience was in a tight spot too, as the show was sold out, but that didn’t stop the toe taps, hip thrusts and alcohol-infused sing-alongs. You really couldn’t have asked for much more out of a Darwin Deez show, and why would you? The guy may not be the most brilliant musician in the world, but he knows how to leave you wanting more both on record and on stage. To many, that’s worth its weight in gold.
Darwin Deez – You Can’t Be My Girl
U.S. Tour Dates
March 26th – Pittsburgh, PA at Stage AE
March 27th – Cleveland, OH at Beachland Tavern
March 28th – Buffalo, NY at Soundlab
March 29th – Toronto, ON at The Garison
March 30th – Montreal, QC at Casa del Popolo
March 31st – Burlington , VT at Signal Kitchen
April 1st – Northampton, MA at Iron Horse
April 2nd – Allston at Brighton Music Hall
April 3rd – New York, NY at Bowery Ballroom
April 4th – Philadelphia, PA at First Unitarian Church
April 5th – Washington at Black Cat
