Tag Archives: Gregg Greenwood
Deer Tick – Music Hall of Williamsburg – November 10, 2010
November 11th, 2010
Florence and the Machine – Terminal 5 – November 2, 2010
November 3rd, 2010
Big Band, Big Sound, Big Night
September 20th, 2010Broken Social Scene – SummerStage – September 18, 2010
Labor Day has come and gone, but summer technically lives on. The weather cooperated on Saturday, and an outdoor party in Central Park with Broken Social Scene providing the soundtrack was a brilliant idea. Bathed in red light and wasting no time, the Toronto collective launched into “KC Accidental,” the kind of anthem with which normal rock bands close their big-time NYC gigs. Of course, BSS is no normal rock band, and sometime between the blistering three-guitar start and the pogoing, fist-pumping finish, the number of musicians onstage doubled, with horn players and guitars everywhere you looked.
Later on, after an especially powerful “Cause = Time,” frontman Kevin Drew introduced himself to a horn player he said he’d never met. “This type of thing happens all the time in Broken Social Scene,” he exclaimed, and no doubt it does. The music was a magnet for more music and more musicians to make it. And there were enough on hand for a tour de force middle section of “Art House Director,” “Hotel” and “Romance to the Grave.” The latter was perfectly atmospheric and well served by the Sam Prekop’s vocals. In the opening slot, his band, the Sea and Cake, was a perfect foil. Their sound was slim and clean, a late-summer breeze floating on Prekop’s vocals and Archer Prewitt’s drifting guitar. Their bandmate John McEntire was an honorary BSS member for the night, providing double drumming on highlight after highlight.
The sound was big and when coaxed by the soundman to throw caution to the wind and just pay the fine for excessive volume, Drew and Co. didn’t require any arm-twisting, screaming out “Superconnected” with plenty of Andrew Whiteman guitar solos. Pushing up against curfew, even the encore was larger than life: four songs—each of which would have done the trick on its own—anchored by Whiteman’s beautiful “Looks Just Like the Sun.” Summer may have saved its best for last. —A. Stein
Photos courtesy of Gregg Greenwood | www.gregggreenwood.com
Robyn – Webster Hall – August 4, 2010
August 5th, 2010
Spiritualized – Radio City Music Hall – July 30, 2010
August 2nd, 2010
The Black Keys Sell Out
July 29th, 2010The Black Keys – Terminal 5 – July 28, 2010
Historically any musical innovation has come from a hybridization of styles. In the case of the Black Keys, they’ve taken their love of the bare-bones sound of drums and an electric guitar and traced its origins all the way back to the Delta blues, then combined it with a variety of influences like Link Wray and Wu-Tang among others, eventually collaborating with Mos Def and Q-Tip on the rap-rock album Blakroc. Longtime friends since high school, guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney didn’t necessarily set out to pioneer a unique sound. They took elements from the music they grew up with and added tried-and-true classic-rock screaming distortion.
The Black Keys played three sold-out show in two days, and they headlined Terminal 5 last night, having just left Central Park’s SummerStage a few hours before, not that it showed in their performance. The stage show was as stripped down as the duo—although they played their new material as a foursome, adding keys and bass to the mix—no lasers or elaborate lights, just a huge drum kit stage right, a stack of amps behind Auerbach and a huge banner of two black hands clasped together inside a tire, a reference to their recent album, Brothers, and even Auerbach and Carney’s personal connection, at the back of the stage.
The Keys played their Zeppelin-referenced blues with big crunchy distortion guitar that became another voice alongside Auerbach’s eerie Hendrix-like vocals, which are as equally at home delivering hushed falsetto on “The Lengths” as getting the Led out on “10 A.M. Automatic.” Hardly pausing between songs, they seemed to be taking their Ohio Midwestern work ethic to heart onstage, delivering on the promise of two friends getting to do what they sincerely love: Brothers in riff-heavy blues rock. —Jason Dean
Photos courtesy of Gregg Greenwood | www.gregggreenwood.com
The Flaming Lips Light Up SummerStage
July 27th, 2010The Flaming Lips – SummerStage – July 26, 2010
Earlier this year Wayne Coyne, frontman and face of the Flaming Lips, turned 49. For lesser musicians and performers, the late 40s mark artistic decline and looming retirement. However, for Coyne, aging is simply an opportunity to express bold new ideas, bolstered by the credibility of psychedelic rock’s premier band. Last year the Flaming Lips released Embryonic, a double album sprawling with bizarre imagery and extended psychedelic meditations. While the album fit comfortably in the band’s sizable discography, spanning 12 studio albums, it also came as a surprise. Embryonic, ironically, finds the Flaming Lips pushing forward rather than retreating into the comforts of their definitive style. Similarly, on a tepid Monday night at Central Park SummerStage, Coyne and the rest of the band displayed their boundless energy, presenting a live show unlike any other current group.
The entire performance unraveled as a life-affirming experience with “songs about optimistic ways of life.” This mantra began with Coyne descending into the crowd in a giant bubble. OK, maybe that wasn’t original for the Flaming Lips. However, over the course of their two-hour set spanning the group’s choice tracks, Coyne brought out new tricks such as a light-triggered gong, an audience sing-along for Embryonic’s “I Can Be a Frog” and a music visualization that would make iTunes jealous. Additionally, long-time fans gained their rewards from Transmissions from the Satellite Heart’s hit “She Don’t Use Jelly,” while more recent admirers got to sing along with “Do You Realize??” and the politically charged “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song.” So, though Coyne and the rest of the Flaming Lips are quickly aging toward AARP membership, their penchant for engaging live shows progresses and thrives. —Jared Levy
Photos courtesy of Gregg Greenwood | www.gregggreenwood.com
CocoRosie – Terminal 5 – June 11, 2010
June 14th, 2010
Public Image Limited – Terminal 5 – May 18, 2010
May 19th, 2010
Massive Attack – Terminal 5 – May 12, 2010
May 13th, 2010
Broken Social Scene – Webster Hall – May 7, 2010
May 10th, 2010
Sia – Terminal 5 – May 6, 2010
May 7th, 2010
Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears – Bowery Ballroom – February 25, 2010
February 28th, 2010
Don’t Miss Dawes the Next Time They’re in Town
February 22nd, 2010Dawes – The Bowery Ballroom – February 19, 2010
The L.A.-based quartet Dawes played a handful of NYC shows last year, all of them as openers. But on Friday night, serving as headliners, they sold out the venerable Bowery Ballroom. Much has been made of their musical roots and the precociousness of their debut album, North Hills—most often mentioning Americana and alt-country, or comparing their sound to that which has come out of the legendary rock and roll neighborhood Laurel Canyon, comparing their evocative lyrics to those of the Band and comparing their harmonies to those of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Instead, though, let’s just go with this: If Dawes were a van, there’d be a DON’T COME A KNOCKIN’ sticker on the back bumper ’cause this band rocks.
The group is led by its 24-year-old frontman, Taylor Goldsmith, who has serious pipes, dexterous guitar skills and exuberance and stage presence to spare. (Plus, he resembles a beardless Charlie Day.) And although he sings and rips it on guitar, the rest of the band—Wylie Gelber on bass, Griffin Goldmsith (Taylor’s 19-year-old brother) on drums and Alex Casnoff on keys—is just as talented. The show began with a mellow one-two punch of “When You Call My Name” and “Give Me Time” before Taylor happily addressed the crowd: “Last February, we were the first of three bands to play here. And look at us now!”
But something special about this band is how easily they move from a slow song, like the harmonious new tune “So Well” to an upbeat one, like “My Girl to Me,” which really comes to rocking life onstage. Of course, the high point of the night was probably the band’s set closer, the anthem “When My Time Comes,” which inspired the most rousing, fist-pumping sing-along The Bowery Ballroom has seen in quite some time. That moment would have been a fitting end to the show. But this was Friday night in New York City, and the headlining Dawes didn’t disappoint with their two-song encore—a pitch-perfect take on Warren Zevon’s resplendent “Lawyers, Guns and Money” and a dreamy, swirling, jammed-out “Peace in the Valley.” It made for one hell of a Friday night. —R. Zizmor
Photos courtesy of Gregg Greenwood | www.gregggreenwood.com
