San Francisco Music Blog

Dustin Rabin

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Them Crooked Vultures
November 19, 2009
Fox Theater

Better Than: Listening to Robert Plant shy away from the high notes at Led Zeppelin's 2007 reunion show.

It's no accident that the supergroup has, in recent years, gone the way of New Coke, the McRib, and Lindsay Lohan's career. For every Cream - the bluesy British trio Eric Clapton dissolved after listening to The Band's Music From Big Pink and determining that his own band had lost its soul - there are too many Oysterheads and Chickenfeet, much-hyped pretenders whose star-studded lineups add up to less than the sum of their parts.

Them Crooked Vultures, the power trio featuring Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on vocals and lead guitar, Dave Grohl on drums, and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones rocking the bass, are no pretenders. Whether the collaboration will prove anything more than a titillating one-off is anyone's guess - these guys have well-paid day jobs, Jones included - but for one night at the Fox Theater, they delivered a tight, take-no-prisoners performance that left the capacity crowd hungry for an encore.

Strolling onto the stage shortly after 9 p.m., the newly anointed Vultures launched into a thunderous rendition of "No One Loves Me & Neither Do I," with Grohl pounding the skins in typically authoritative fashion and the rest of the band (including Queens contributor Alain Johannes on rhythm guitar) joining him a few beats in with a slippery groove backing Homme's forceful but rarely overpowering falsetto.

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King Khan & BBQ
November 18, 2009
The Independent

Better Than: Kentucky jail

After driving 1600 miles and missing five shows, King Khan & BBQ rejoined its US tour Wednesday in San Francisco at The Independent.

The duo was famously accompanied by their mosh pit and rage-bones (connected to the drink-bone), and their publicized contralegal plight rang out among the intoxicated audience--some of whom may well know the struggle. But the funniest thing about KK & BBQ's return to the stage following the tour's drugged run in Nov. 12 with Kentucky law enforcement is how well their rockabilly tunes suited the country-Southern manners that apparently ensnared them.

I mean, one point of confusion may be how King Khan & BBQ is not the same as Arish "King" Khan's other outfit the Shrines, an antagonistic gospel-punk gang who specialize in installing dervish and riot among their crowds. Sure, perhaps a 6-foot-5 Indian running cockamamie music across state lines might be simply begging for trouble. But alongside Mark Sultan aka BBQ in the two-piece show featuring Sultan on drums, guitar, and at one point tambourine, Khan plays a loving doowop groove which seems rurally appropriate if not downright bluegrass. This isn't exactly the Black Lips in India  (no matter that Khan teams with the Black Lips for his other late collaboration, The Almighty Defenders).

​Julian Casablancas
Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009
The Regency Ballroom

(Not) better than: The Strokes, Little Joy, Albert Hammond, Jr.

It has to be hard, breaking into the 2000s as the symbol of the hipsters overtaking the mainstream, only to fall down to the bottom of the hype heap a decade later. As the frontman for the Strokes, Julian Casablancas has spent much of the the past ten years being the voice of cool--giving a disaffected, slightly distorted, and occasionally humorous delivery of young, privileged New York attitude. But now the Strokes are in a nebulous middle ground, where either the band members don't want to admit that they've broken up, or they're engaging in enough side and solo projects to allow the core act to atrophy on its own. (This recent article on Casablancas in the New York Times doesn't make it seem like there's been any love lost between the guys).

While the Stokes lose steam as a whole, Casablancas is late in finding his post-rock star music career. Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. and drummer Fabrizio Moretti released some great indie pop in the last couple years, the former under his own name and the latter with Little Joy. Last night, we finally heard the future for Casablancas if his original act doesn't get back together. It was the sound of too many instruments, going too many different directions, far too loudly, all at once. Any witticisms Casablancas was imparting in the lyrics were buried in a mess of emo-prog-synth pop so poorly arranged it made you wonder how much this band had even practiced together. It was a depressing scene for someone whose face once graced the cover of many a music mag--no matter how loudly all the females in the undersold venue were screaming.



 

Joseph Schell

​Ray LaMontagne

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Mission of Burma, Erase Errata,
The Independent,
Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009

Better than: Watching your dad's high school garage band relive their glory days.

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It seems like all the original indie rock icons are on a reunion, revival, or new album tour this year: Sonic Youth, The Pixies, and Mission of Burma--the latter in support of the new release The Sound, The Speed, The Light. Known for being hit or miss live, Mission of Burma was on point Saturday night musically, playing a quick n' dirty set (one barely lasting an hour) to a half-filled Independent. If the band had shown more interest in playing live, though, the show would have been a lot more fun.

The concert was a hodgepodge of material from Mission of Burma's four albums, a performance seemingly designed more to please the fans than to show off the new record. The night started off on a high note: "Donna Sumeria" lead into "1,2,3 Partyy," but by the second song, there appeared to be sound issues. A roadie came on stage to fix the mics. Aside from the mechanical hiccup, though, the band executed its 14-song set list with speedy, surgical precision.

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Massenet's Thaïs
1550 Fell
Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009

Better than: Finding Jesus

San Francisco Parlor Opera, the young company that in May introduced audiences to the concept of Faust in a house, brought its unique brand of chamber opera to the Zellerbach Mansion at 1550 Fell on Saturday night with the opening of its production of Jules Massenet's Thaïs. A run at the Met last season notwithstanding, this tale of an Egyptian courtesan and the monk who tries to save her soul while battling his desire to jump her bones is not generally considered part of standard operatic repertoire. But then, neither is it standard for performers to take their final bows in someone's backyard in front of an enthusiastic sellout crowd of maybe 50.  

When I heard that SF Parlor Opera had chosen Thaïs for its third production, I didn't know quite what to expect. The title role is one that gives even world-class sopranos pause, and without someone who can execute it brilliantly, a company may as well not bother staging the opera at all. While Patricia Urbano was a charming Marguerite in Faust, this role didn't afford her the chance to demonstrate whether she had the voice and charisma necessary to sing Thaïs.  After last night's stellar performance, there's no question that she has both.

Richard Haick Photography

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Insane Clown Posse
November 13, 2009
The Warfield

Better Than: Starlight Express

Check out more in this Insane Clown Posse @ The Warfield slideshow!

It's tough to top an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about a boy's toy train that comes to life. But this is the feat that the Insane Clown Posse managed to achieve with its carnival-esque (literally) performance at the Warfield on a brisk Friday the 13th. Thirty minutes before the horror/humor rap duo of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope took the stage, a packed crowd of rabid fans hungry for clown ambulated. One vertically challenged clown woman tapped the shoulder of a reporter in the midst of a warm-up beat box and asked him to move out of the way so she could have a better view of the empty stage where VJ and S2D would soon spill verbal blood and unleash their duel-headed beat murder. Before the lights went down, chants of "ICP, ICP, ICP" rang out at deafening volume, the dookie braids of male fans, aka Juggalos, bouncing in rhythm to the hungry chorus.

Richard Haick Photography

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Finally, a man clad in a top hat and suit in the manner of a carnival barker stepped to the center of the stage, which had been transformed into a carnival sideshow mock up. Pumping the crowd, he introduced two furry-suited humanoids positioned in cages flanking both sides of the stage as 'Many Faces' and 'Ape Boy.' Thankfully, no one from the San Francisco chapter of PETA was at the show to protest the exploitation of a caged man dressed as an ape. Shortly thereafter, the heavy beats and metal melodies that comprise the ICP sound uncorked over the crisp PA as an array of disorienting, blinding, flashing lights fired off, a spectacle that in another context might have called for anti-seizure medication.

Richard Haick Photography

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When VJ and S2D finally skipped onstage, the roar of the crowd would have overpowered any London theater audience's cheers for Rusty and Greaseball during a Starlight Express curtain call. Within moments of uncorking their horrorcore rhymes--that riff on the Halo-weaned generation's normative topics of cannibalism, dismemberment, respectfully making love to women, and peacefully resolving disputes that have the potential to turn violent--VJ and S2D demonstrated they're not just at the forefront of their genre, they're showmen and dancers with terpsichorean skills galore.

Terrence McCarthy

​Verdi's Otello
War Memorial Opera House
Friday, Nov. 13, 2009

Better than: Most professional athletes' returns from retirement

Local opera fans may not realize it, but they owe a debt of gratitude to Giulio Ricordi and Arrigo Boito. Without the machinations of these two -- a music publisher, and a composer and librettist -- Giuseppe Verdi may well have ended his career as a composer of operas after 1871's Aida, and consequently his Otello never would have premiered 16 years later. And, of course, we would not have the chance to enjoy the excellent production currently being staged by the San Francisco Opera, which capably handles nearly every aspect of what is often considered Verdi's greatest and most complex work.

Otello the opera is, obviously, based on Othello the Shakespeare play, and it was in part the opportunity to work with such compelling dramatic material that coaxed Verdi out of his self-imposed early retirement. Though librettist Boito considerably condensed the play, doing away with all of the first act and cutting out several characters and other scenes, what remains is hardly lacking in action -- the essence of the tale of the titular Moorish warrior; his faithful yet unfairly accused wife, Desdemona; and Iago, the congenitally evil presence who schemes to ruin the pair.

Saul Williams's facepaint resembled a dolphin crossed with the Star Trek logo

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Saul Williams, Earl Greyhound, American Fangs
November 10, 2009
The Independent

Better Than: Gym Class Heroes, or 2009 David Bowie

With a head full of feathers and his face painted like a glittering Star Trek dolphin, experimental polymath Saul Williams exploded his latest witchcraft, the "Niggy Tardust Experience", all over The Independent Tuesday night.

Williams served labyrinthine raps between games of space-cowboys & Indians, all the while sewing his fable of black empowerment out of psychedelic electronic accompaniment, African-American art history, and incensed finger-wagging toward wayward hip-hop idolaters. He began the assault declaring, "Scared money don't make none!" and then inverted an abused call-and-response shtick by encouraging the crowd to answer, on command, "Nothing."

But this was winking fun! At one point Williams, a convicted performance-artist and slam poet, compounded his choral outrage with a slowly-uttered string of words, "Freedom. Ignorance. Jealousy. Belligerence. ...

"...Ecstasy...

"...Religion..."

Third Annual Cannabis Cup

Joseph Schell

Cafe Cocomo

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009

Better than: I don't remember.

Imagine a place where everyone around you is smiling and laughing--where warm oozy chocolate waterfalls flow like water, and all the snacks are bite-sized. Oh yeah, and you're high. Really really high.

For any medical marijuana card holders who attended San Francisco's 3rd Annual Cannabis Cup at Cafe Cocomo last night, that dream became a reality. From slick men in suits rolling in limos, Hummers and Benzes, to glass-bead wearing hippie-types with long dreads and "Vagitarian" t-shirts - people of all shapes and sizes came out for the nearly sold-out festivities last night. But by hour two, they all had one thing in common: mad cravings for some of that free cotton candy being handed out. 

Given the price of the tickets, it was mostly the upper echelon of pot connoisseurs who showed up to the contest, where 26 entrants had their strains tested and judged and pitted against one another for the grand prize -- a giant trophy and some serious street cred. Although many attendants came to San Francisco from the far reaches of Northern California, the name of the game last night was anything but competition. You could smell the peace, love, and happiness in the air (literally) from nearly a mile away from the Cafe. 

Joseph Schell

​Inside were a range of different booths to peruse, including one featuring a glass pipe the size of my arm. [As the pipe's maker, and owner, proudly showed the pipe to one customer, he slapped it in his palm like a baseball bat: "You could defend your home with this shit," he said. Then he pointed to the bowl: "You could eat your cereal in this shit."] Pot activists handed out pamphlets, and local dispensaries provided lounging areas for patients to medicate.

View more photos in "Silversun Pickups & Metric @ Verizon Droid Launch."

Indie rock music met tech at last Friday's Verizon Droid Launch at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco, where Canadian Band Metric and Silverlake band Silversun Pickups played to celebrate the launch of Verizon Droid, an iPhone contender that has sold an estimated 100,000 units in its first weekend on the market and was much anticipated by key members of the technology community including Techcrunch demagogue Michael Arrington.

Yes, mobile snobs might salivate at the Droid's Google-powered navigation system, but the real question is (as always), "Will the product appeal to people beyond your average early adopter and win the hearts of mainstream users who are already pretty addicted to their 'Jesus Phones'?"

Perhaps that is why the company chose more low key (i.e. hipster) bands to helm its S.F. launch, winning over the tech savvy as well as the dillentate with it's eclectic taste. See: Weezer mySpace "Secret Shows" for another example of excellent target marketing.

​ Metric sparkles onstage

Let me use rest of this post to posit a theory: Our sister publication LAWeekly had an interesting run-in with the Pickups last week, which resulted in drunkeness, revelry and a torn up reporter's notebook. While I did not find a Delorean, yours truly ended up at Osha Thai (the Denny's of Thai food presumably) and don't really remember how I got home. I wasn't even supposed to write this review; my originally assigned writer also came down with a bad case of Silversun Pickups amnesia.

My theory is the Pickups are cursed; you see a Pickups show and end up remembering, well not much, but in a good way (after all the band was named after a liquor store). Perhaps then the new Verizon Droid can help you find your way home, if not your actual memories from the concert?

In any case, you know what they say about photos (and even more so, video via Handstamp Music) ...

Joseph Schell

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Jordan Overby

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The Dutchess & the Duke, Greg Ashley, and El Olio Wolof

Bottom of the Hill

Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009

Better than: Getting drunk at your own campfire singalong.

Seattle duo The Dutchess & the Duke are into the rougher side of campfire songs. Their latest album, Sunset/Sunrise, is a rusty country blues blade aimed at the nerves of terminal loneliness. On record, Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrison concentrate on the painful emotional bruises dysfunctional lovers can cause one another, Lortz singing often of being a ghost to a women he once cared for. It's heartbreaking music with a tough punk posture, a rawness to the lyrics complimented by a rawness in the recording. Last night, the band added the rawness of alcohol to the mix, offering a little levity--and plenty of humorous banter--to its material, as the mood shifted from tear-in-my-beer to have-another-round. 

The inebriated tone was set by Greg Ashely, the Oakland songwriter/producer who helped The Dutchess and the Duke record their latest album. He took the stage second, and three songs in told the crowd, "I'm really fucked up," his way of apologizing in advance if he happened to screw up a song he'd never played live before. The booze didn't make his playing sloppy as much as it turned his between-song banter into a comedy act, while helping him push the volume levels in his favor.

Ashley is the bandleader for Gris Gris and a solo performer, and in both outlets he makes great fractured psych folk. Last night it was just him and his acoustic and electric guitars on stage. It's a setup that can make regular bar chatter seem overwhelming, as the performer competes with the noise of drunken conversations around him. Ashley put up a good fight, though. "I'm gonna play something so fucking loud loud that I can't hear you fuckers talking over me," he announced gleefully. "I'm gonna making it impossible for anyone to have a fucking conversation."

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DEVO performing Freedom of Choice
November 7, 2009
The Grand At The Regency

Better than: It's a live Devo show. The fact that it still happens at all makes it better than most things.

The concept for this weekend's performances, like nearly everything Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale & Co comes up with, was brilliant: Perform two classic albums from the Devo catalog, one each in its entirety, on consecutive nights. In deciding upon their notable debut Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! along with Freedom Of Choice, Devo chose wisely. The former captured the band's punk-prophets-of-the-future vibe, while the latter housed some of their most sophisticated musicianship, notably "Girl U Want."

The execution, though, barely clocked in at sixty minutes per night. For fans who had waited over 30 years to see the band, was it enough? With both LPs' recorded material lasting only slightly longer than half an hour, the Spudboys stretched out their stage time by adding videos from their MTV heyday on the Freedom night and screening their classic The Truth About De-Evolution from their days as students at Kent State prior to performing Q: Are We Not Men?

As a band with its own philosophy - de-volution - and its own mythology - Booji Boy and General Boy - Devo predicted humanity's regression in a wired world even as the musicians themselves went about plugging into synthesizers and computerized effects. Freedom Of Choice's lyrical content about democracy, as cautionary as it was anthemic, has proven to be the ultimate Revenge Of The Nerds treatise and soundtrack. Performed on Saturday night, the album from 1980, and in particular the songs "Gates of Steel" and the title track, sounded triumphant.

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Chali 2na, Gift of Gab, & Mr. Lif, hosted by Lyrics Born

November 7, 2009

The Independent

Better Than: This year's VH1 Hip-Hop Honors

Indie hip-hop icons still pack them in up in the Bay Area. On Saturday night, the Independent was dominated by indie artists who have spent more than 15 years building their audiences and fanbases, and thus know how to give the people what they want. As a result, the sold out capacity-crowd of 500, who showed up and early and cheered often, left happy.

People were feeling a little restless by the time Boston's Mr. Lif took to the stage (the show started about 75 minutes late), but he quickly satisfied with a pair of new, unreleased tracks. Lif brought the rawest energy of the night. His set was enhanced by an interactive video-display broadcasting images, controlled by on-stage collaborating rapper/producer Willie Evans Jr. Towards the end of the set, Evans' laptop experienced a few hiccups, causing the pair to improvise with an impromptu freestyle session.

 

The Emerald Triangle
Monday, Nov. 2, 2009
The Independent

Better than: Watching Vetiver open for Chris Robinson's Wooden Family open for Jonathan Rice open for Ryan Adams open for Interpol.

Paul Scott

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"We're aware that this is a very strange thing," Vetiver front man Andy Cabic announced from the stage last night, his eyes tucked under a floppy brown hat. "It's a thing that doesn't really exist outside of here."

It was the San Francisco songwriter's way of explaining that the band he was performing with, the mostly Southern California-based Emerald Triangle, is non-traditional in every sense of the word. The group's MySpace page doesn't have songs, only a cryptic greeting promising that the Emerald Triangle tour "will melt your face off." The "new musical expedition" offers a set list of material that the five players wrote completely separately from one another. And the Independent show was only the second time these musicians had performed together before an audience. It was a special situation, one that could really go either way. Instead of falling apart, though, The Emerald Triangle was the polished '70s-leaning folk/rock supergroup that, as one observer near me put it, came off even better than the sum of its parts.   

For the next 90 minutes after Cabic's introduction, the five woodsy-by-way-of-Laurel Canyon looking musicians showed fans the myriad strengths between them. Along with Cabic on guitar, the group comprised guitarist Jonathan Wilson, a songwriter who plays with Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes (the drummer, who wasn't introduced, also plays with Robinson); guitarist Jonathan Rice, whose solo work put him on the map with the folk- and indie-pop set; solo artist and bassist Neal Casal, who plays with Ryan Adams and the Cardinals; and the dude who pulled the whole concept together, pedal steel and keyboard player Farmer Dave Scher, who has joined the ranks of Beachwood Sparks, Interpol, and Elvis Costello's band over the years.

The night moved between the Emerald's members' originals and one cover (a fitting tune for a double-Jonathan lineup, "The Trials of Jonathan" by Happy & Artie), each player taking a turn on vocals and each song giving the evening a fresh new dynamic.

Richard Strauss' Salomé
War Memorial Opera House
Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

Better than: Sunday school

Terrence McCarthy

Greer Grimsley (Jokanaan)

​Of the six operas that comprise San Francisco Opera's fall 2009 season, Richard Strauss' Salomé is the outlier -- a production that, by design, represents something of a departure from the musical and aesthetic characteristics of the season's other offerings, and challenges the company to explore different artistic terrain. With a libretto drawn from an Oscar Wilde play, which in turn was based on one of the more X-rated tales from the Bible, Salomé was the quintessential succès de scandale when it opened in Dresden in 1905 (its premiere in New York shortly thereafter was effectively quashed by patron protests).  Unfortunately, though, my reaction to Friday night's performance was less marked by visceral ick than by jaded enh.

This production marked the SF Opera debut of German soprano Nadja Michael in the title role, who has also performed in this capacity at Covent Garden, La Scala, and Berlin's Linden Opera.  Though reviews of her vocal performance in S.F. have been lukewarm (Michael is making the difficult transition from mezzo-soprano to soprano), she drew raves for her lithe, sensual physical presence, and -- perhaps most importantly -- for her stellar execution of the Dance of the Seven Veils, the infamous striptease Salomé puts on for her stepfather, King Herod.  On Friday, however, the audibly discomfited audience was informed in a pre-show announcement that Michael "had become indisposed," and was being replaced by American soprano Molly Fillmore, who had flown in from Phoenix, where she was preparing the role with the Arizona Opera.

Le Loup and French Miami
Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009
Bottom of the Hill

Better than: Staying home and working on your sexy wood sprite Halloween costume.

French Miami

​There are far worse bands to take influence from than Animal Collective. At their best moments, those zany pop freaks sound ecstatic, primal, deeply rhythmic, and electronically charged. But at its worst, Animal Collective's amorphous songs refuse to gel, giving the live show the possibility of being a drag of shapeless jams and strange tidbits that never quite take flight.

Washington, DC's Le Loup has a strong Animal aesthetic, for better and for worse. The East Coast quartet loosens the edges of its songs so the music can exist in a haze of electronic effects and emotional ebullience. But, like its main influence, Le Loup gets too lost in its own mellow experiments live, making its performance one long set of indistinguishable tunes that trade driving sonics for trippy ambiance.

Christopher Victorio

Neil Young and Adam Sandler

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Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit Concert

Combine a huge rock' n roll show with a school benefit and you're bound to attract a crowd of hip parents. It felt like family day at Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater yesterday, with all of the tiny rocker tots running around. Even Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale's kids could be spotted scampering about the crowd in their chic kid-wear.

It was the perfect family-friendly set-up: parents didn't have to put their kiddies to bed too late since the show started at 2 p.m. and ended before 10 p.m. Plus, between sets, parents could peruse the vendors outside the theater area with beer in hand, while their kids ran around in the sunshine (the kiddies only occasionally pressed their noses against the glass of the "jewelry" booths to get a better look at the smoking paraphernalia).

Christopher Victorio

Fleet Foxes, Robin Pecknold

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It was a stellar weather day for an outdoor show, as was mentioned by nearly every performer who stepped up to the mic -- of course, they also weren't forced to sit in the scorching sun of the lawn section.

Former Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale was the first all-acoustic performer after a welcome from Young. Crowds had only filled in the shady sections of the giant theater by the time he took to the stage. Even though Rossdale has had some solo pseudo-hits since the band broke up, the crowd cheered loudest for old Bush tunes like "Glycerine."

Joseph Schell

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Gossip
October 25, 2009
Regency Ballroom

By Rossiter Drake

Better Than: Staying home to watch Dexter and Mad Men. But be sure to DVR them.

"We started a band 'cause we were bored. Our mission is to make you dance, and if you're not gonna dance, just stay at home and listen to the oldies station."

So reads Gossip's unofficial manifesto, the one the Portland-based soul-punk trio cheekily settled on soon after forming in the cramped basement of their Olympia, Washington, home in 1999. Ten years later, on the heels of Music for Men, their Rick Rubin-produced major-label debut, they arrived at the Regency on Sunday night to make good on that mission.

And how they did. Beth Ditto, the band's plus-sized frontwoman, resident fashion diva, and self-described "ham," sauntered onto the stage at a quarter past 10 p.m., launching into the festivities with a searing rendition of the otherwise slow-burning "Dimestore Diamond," Music for Men's bluesy opener.

Joseph Schell

​Blind Pilot
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
Great American Music Hall
Better Than: warm milk and cookies on a cold, blustery night.

There could have been a tornado outside, or even a secret Weezer show just down the road, but anyone who was watching last night's sold out Blind Pilot show at The Great American Music Hall wouldn't have noticed. Cold, wind, Weezer -- the elements had nothing on this band's sweet melodies and humble, mellow stage presence. 

Joseph Schell

​Weezer
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
The Regency

Better than: Seeing an arena rock band in an arena.

Just to be clear, there was a lot of screaming going on at the Regency last night for Weezer's free "secret" show.

Fans screamed when the line they were standing in outside the venue--a line snaking around the corner and down the alley next to the club--started to move indoors. They screamed, in random outbursts, between the time the opening act, Natalie Portman's Shaved Head, finished, and the time Weezer took the stage a little after 9 p.m. (Which made for fresh false starts of oh my god weezer is on stage every few minutes). They screamed, of course, when Weezer jogged into the spotlight, the group dressed in matching white hoodies and white jeans and the strobe lights began flashing. They screamed every time Weezer played a hit--which was nearly the entire set list. And, as a first for this reviewer, the fans screamed again as they were exciting the building, their excitement in no way dimming as they raced toward complimentary commemorative posters from the show.

Guys, these Weezer fans were stoked.

And their enthusiasm was completely contagious. There's nothing like being sardined into a room where hundreds of people are unabashedly and undeniably giddy to be there. I guess that's what happens when you take a band that's used to playing arenas and stick them--thanks to sponsor MySpace--in a mid-sized venue that usually houses less established acts.

One of the best things about the night was that Weezer was also stoked to be there, the band's showmanship keeping the fever pitch high through to the end (including through an encore that involved a Black Sabbath/MGMT/Lady Gaga medley). "It's not every day that you get to see an arena rock band in a venue like this," frontman Rivers Cuomo pointed out to his fans. "And it's not every day that an arena rock band gets to play for this sized crowd," he added, calling the arrangement "mutually beneficial."

Christopher Victorio

The Flaming Lips

​Day Two: The Flaming Lips, Beirut, The Walkmen

October 18, 2009

Treasure Island Music Festival

Better Than: Being stranded on any other island.

Sunday's festival goers had to be a little more hardy and wind-resistant to enjoy day two of the Treasure Island Music Festival. But cooler weather also may have made the investment into a few ridiculously priced beers or Soju drinks worthwhile. By the time the day's headliners made their grand entrance onto the island's main stage, the crowd had warmed-up enough -- either from booze or furry costumes -- to welcome the characteristic Flaming Lips antics that capped off the weekend's festivities. 

Grand entrance may be an understatement. The Flaming Lips show began with a grainy, seizure-inducing video of a larger-than-life naked woman projected onto a giant, orange archway on stage. With lights turned low, and psychedelic sounds throbbing in the background, the crowd - egged on by the silhouettes of stagehands - did as they were told and cheered. As the naked woman on the video settled into the birthing position, and a blinding light emerged from her giant vagina, no one needed encouragement from the stagehands to make a ruckus. One by one, band members emerged from behind the projection on the archway so that it appeared as though the woman in the video was giving birth to the band into the neon world of the stage (literally, it looked like someone had dropped an orange and yellow paint bomb onto all of the band's equipment).

Joseph Schell

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The Pogues

There were two kinds of Pogues fans last night at The Warfield: the fans that wound up at the center of the dance floor, and everyone else. Of course there was occasional cross-pollination between these two broad categories throughout the night. But in general, the fans at the center--which by song one had turned into a surging, sweaty, pit-loving, fist-pumping mob of mostly very large men--stayed there for the band's whole set.

Joseph Schell

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These guys (and the occasional gal) knew what to expect from a Pogues show even before the lights dimmed. They knew before the five enormous security guards puffed up their chests to prepare themselves as band members took to the stage. They knew before lead vocalist, the lovingly self-destructive and toothless Shane MacGowan, stumbled and mumbled his way to the front mic clutching a red plastic cup in one hand, cigarette dangling from the other. They knew that when the accordion struck that first Irish chord, a lurching, debaucherous, brotherly kind of chaos would ensue. And anyone stuck on the floor who didn't know what was coming was either happily swept into the typhoon, or promptly spit out onto the sidelines.

Joseph Schell

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Clothes flew, beer flew, people flew -- and during the band's faster jigs, only the fittest survived standing. But The Pogues' music isn't the type one might generally associate with moshing. It's traditional Irish folk music, perhaps spiked with a small dose of The Clash. Plenty of crowd members preferred to watch the ruckus from high in the balcony areas, where they could enjoy the music without worrying about being pelted in the head with a cup of beer.

Joseph Schell

​Elliott Brood
Cafe Du Nord
October 12, 2009
Better Than: playing the pots and pans at age five.

Most crowd members looked a tad perplexed as Elliott Brood's drummer stepped out from behind his drum set mid-set, grabbed a laundry bag from the side of the stage, and proceeded to empty its contents -- wooden spoons, drum sticks, and tin plates -- onto the dance floor. But it only took one crowd member diving for the flatware for everyone else to catch on. Soon the front row area around the stage, which had previously been vacant besides a few brave dancers, had filled in with smiling crowd members wielding makeshift instruments. As Brood launched into their most foot stompin beat of them all, "Write It All Down For You," the crowd hopped, skipped, and happily banged their wooden sticks on their tin plates to create what we're sure was the best kind of ruckus Cafe Du Nord has seen in a while.

Joseph Schell

​Had the group handed out instruments to the crowd any earlier, the noise might have driven everyone out of the venue by encore time -- luckily, the timing was perfect. Instead it got anyone who had been sitting to stand, anyone who had been standing to dance, and anyone who had been dancing to go completely bananas. From start to finish, the whole set incorporated similar creative theatrics, from the homemade light show (Christmas lights, red rotating siren lights, and red lamps that were apparently hot enough to cook a hamburger, according to one band member), to the group's circus music introduction. The show was fun and makeshift enough to avoid being too gimmicky, and the music good enough to prove that, theatrics or no, Elliott Brood knows how to get a crowd off its laurels.

Joseph Schell

​Although the Canadian-based act is currently touring on its sophomore album, Mountain Meadows, the group played nearly all the songs in their repertoire last night. The gravelly vocals of Mark Sasso are as chilling live as they are in studio -- but, of course, the studio sound couldn't capture Sasso's two-stepping on stage, or guitarist Casey Laforet's intense rocking back and forth in his chair as he simultaneously pounded on the bass pedals with sock-clad feet. The set ended with the front man from the show's first openers, Wooden Sky, hopping on stage with a pair of wooden spoons and tapping out the last tune on the venue's ceiling (front man Gavin Gardner is, by the way, roughly seven feet tall).  

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Andrew W.K. and Calder Quartet
Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009
Swedish American Hall

Better than: Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony.

Hours before he took the stage, Andrew W.K. was amping up his fans. His Twitter feed was bursting with typical AWK excitement:

"PARTY MINDSET OF THE DAY: Remember that even when life feels hard or scary, I am here cheering you on, and you will KEEP GOING!"

"Walking around San Francisco & thinking about moving here. Of course I would keep my house in NYC too! CONCERT TONIGHT!"

This is a man who, in his own lyrics, "gets wet without even trying." And last night, he got wet about classical music like no other musician I've seen. (I doubt many rockers have accompanied a string quartet by whistling into the microphone while holding the entire mic stand horizontally, like a flute.)

W.K. has found his classical muse, after spending time recording an album of "spontaneous solo piano improvisations" earlier this year. Match that yearning for the ivories with a manager who has connections to the experimental classical group Calder Quartet, and you have an evangelistic evening of strings, stomping on the ground, and, at the end of the night, silence. It was a pretty amazing show. 

Joseph Schell

​Cave Singers, Lightning Dust

Chrissy Loader

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John Prine
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Golden Gate Park
Friday, Oct. 2, 2009

Better than: Listening to John Prine indoors, minus a box of cold beers and the scent of funnel cakes around you.

Golden Gate Park has played host to numerous music events over the summer, from the gigantic Outside Lands to the smaller radio station and hiphop concerts. But the season of outdoor shows is fading like evening sunlight, the change notable in the chill creeping into the air in the middle of John Prine's set last night at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Picnicers who had stripped down to tank tops and shorts to beat the blaze all afternoon pulled on their layers as it started to feel like fall in the park meadow. But no one was better dressed for the event than one of Friday's big headliners: John Prine, who sported a snazzy suit (as did all his bandmates) in a performance that helped send the park's giant music gatherings out on a highly memorable note.

Prine took the stage just around happy hour, hundreds of fans settled into the grass before him far beyond the festival-food booths, families and friends passing around BYOB cases of Pabst and airplane-sized bottles of wine. The legendary songwriter came armed with plenty of droll banter--some of which, you'll see in YouTube clips, he's used before. But he's funny enough that's easy to forgive.

He opened the song "Fish and Whistle" with the explanation, "I never meant to write this song, but I was working with a stubborn record producer." The producer was apparently pushing Prine to finish an album he wasn't happy with, and, Prine explained, "I'll show him, I'll write the worst song in the word." Of course, once the song was finished, the songwriter ended up liking it--as did the crowd around me, who swayed and sang along to every word.

Joseph Schell

​Mason Jennings