Photos courtesy of Jennifer Macchiarelli | www.jennylow.com
Posts Tagged ‘Photos’
MNDR - Mercury Lounge - August 30, 2010
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010A Full Day of Hip-Hop on Governors Island
Monday, August 30th, 2010Rock the Bells - South Island Field at Governors Island - August 28, 2010
With less than a month remaining in the summer, many of hip-hop’s living legends and cunning contemporaries assembled on South Island Field at Governor’s Island for the seventh annual Rock the Bells. Thousands dressed in Wu-Tang Clan T-shirts and tank tops took the short ferry ride to the festival grounds where thousands more crowded around two stages to share in the American pastime of hot dogs, lemonade and blunts. With so many great acts to see and ridiculous people watching, the following is a list of the best moments at this year’s festival:
Best Underdog: Brother Ali, the self-proclaimed, “Fat-ass Muslim, albino rapper,” used his competing set time with KRS-One to captivate his loyal audience. Although the sun’s unforgiving rays seemed to deep-fry the MC, Brother Ali fought back with fierce rhymes, preaching tolerance and thoughtfulness. You came for the Minnesota rapper but you stayed for DJ Snuggles, the multitalented 22-year-old who spun, beat-boxed and even rapped on Brother Ali’s beats.
Best Looking Tent Food: Sweet corn cakes with mozzarella. I didn’t get them but I’ll be damned if I didn’t ogle the precarious sounding treats every time I walked past the tent.
Best Extended Breakdown: More than a decade after The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Ms. Lauryn Hill played Rock the Bell’s main stage with a full band, backing singers and an outfit somewhere in between Little Miss Muffet and a church lady. It was a treat to see her perform such songs as the Fugees’ “Ready or Not” and “How Many Mics,” however the best moments came when versions of “To Zion” and “Fu-Gee-La” spun into a pageant for friends and family members. Highlights included Hill calling all her children to the stage as well as Chris Rock, Jay-Z and a very pregnant Alicia Keys.
Best in Show: A Tribe Called Quest and Wu-Tang Clan (tied). Call me biased, but how can you top New York City’s two legendary hip-hop groups playing their classic albums? You can’t, and that is why the Queens and Staten Island natives drew the largest and most devoted crowds at the festival. Q-Tip and Method Man played frontman to their respective group’s sets, both coming out into the crowd for their go-for-broke performances. Personally, I give the slight edge to A Tribe Called Quest solely for Busta Rhymes’ ground-shaking cameo during “Scenario.” However, the late ODB’s son Boy Jones’ flawless impersonation of his father during Wu-Tang Clan’s set is a very close second. —Jared Levy
Photos courtesy of Jennifer Macchiarelli | www.jennylow.com
The Machine - Brooklyn Bowl - August 27, 2010
Monday, August 30th, 2010
Ninjasonik - Mercury Lounge - August 26, 2010
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Foreigner - The Wellmont Theatre - August 26, 2010
Friday, August 27th, 2010
It’s a Family Affair
Monday, August 23rd, 2010Hacienda - Mercury Lounge - August 21, 2010
Hacienda—three Villanueva brothers (Rene, on bass and vocals, Abraham, on piano and vocals, and Jaime, on drums and vocals) and one Schwebel cousin (Dante, on guitar and vocals)—caught an early break when Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys got a hold of their six-song demo. One thing led to another and eventually the band finished an album at his studio and was opening for the likes of the Black Keys and Dr. Dog and gaining wider exposure. Last year, along with My Morning Jacket drummer Patrick Hallahan, they backed Auerbach on his Keep It Hid tour.
This year, Hacienda released their second disc, Big Red & Barbacoa, and they played plenty of it on Saturday night at Mercury Lounge. With their four-part harmonies, early-Kinks intensity and surf-rock influences, the plaid-heavy San Antonio quartet played a sweaty, energetic 45-minute set of swaggering, hip-shaking rock and roll, punctuated by Schwebel’s vibrant guitar solos. Onstage, songs like “Shake Ya” and “Mama’s Cookin’” emerged more rollicking and raw than their studio versions. At one point Schwebel said, “Here’s a song for Saturday night.” And he was right. —R. Zizmor
(Hacienda opens for My Morning Jacket at Terminal 5 on October 19th.)
Photos courtesy of Sean O’Kane | seanokanephoto.com
Tears for Fears - The Wellmont Theatre - August 21, 2010
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
Crystal Castles - Terminal 5 - August 21, 2010
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
You Can’t Keep a Good Ska Band Down
Monday, August 23rd, 2010The English Beat/Bad Manners - Webster Hall - August 21, 2010
The English Beat
The floor at Webster Hall probably never shook as much as it did last night when 2 Tone ska revivalists the English Beat and Bad Manners were onstage. During both sets, the crowd filled every foot of the main floor, skankin’ and boppin’ to each note from these legendary music makers. Bad Manners—perhaps best known for bald-headed frontman Buster Bloodvessel’s outlandish personality, oversize tongue and animated onstage antics—played a rowdy set of career favorites, with an amped-up horn section, including the up-tempo “Lip Up Fatty” (the band’s most well-known song about being fat had Bloodvessel swinging his gut every which way) and the slightly slower-grooved and perfect for this time of year “Walking in the Sunshine.”
Upon taking the stage, the English Beat immediately jumped straight into their rendition of “I’ll Take You There” before an onslaught of original chart-topping material, including “I Confess,” “Save It For Later,” which segued into a few bars of Pearl Jam’s “Better Man,” and “Can’t Get Used to Losing You.” They also covered General Public’s “Tenderness,” did a newer original, “Loving You Lasts Forever,” and closed with “Mirror in the Bathroom.” Although singer Dave Wakeling was a man of limited words, except joking about calling one’s mum to let her know you’re safe (and not drinking too much), first-class toaster Antonee kept the interludes moving and the ladies in mind with chants like: “I want a 2 Tone lady, a 2 Tone girl,” which eventually morphed into something raunchier, “I want a 2 Tone BFF, so we can go home and just F, F, F.” —Kirsten Housel
Photos courtesy of Kirsten Housel
Devendra Banhart Defies Expectations
Friday, August 20th, 2010Devendra Banhart and the Grogs - Terminal 5 - August 19, 2010
Devendra Banhart and the Grogs opened their set last night at Terminal 5 with Cripple Crow’s “Long Haired Child.” Fans who have followed Banhart’s music over the years likely associate the artist himself as a long-haired child—originally gaining popularity as a bohemian, shaggy-locked musician, prone to singing winding freak-folk tales over a gently plucked guitar. Yet the Banhart who appeared onstage last night, hair and beard trimmed short, dressed sharply in a tailored blazer, spent the night defying expectations.
In addition to performing tracks like “Angelika” and “First Song for B” from his latest release, What Will Be, a collection of mellow folk peppered with Latin influences, Banhart enjoyed shifting among different sounds, genres and moods throughout the show. He hammed it up as frontman, strutting and dancing around the stage during songs like “Baby,” and then Banhart picked up his guitar and revisited older favorites, with delicate solo renditions of “The Body Breaks” and “A Sight to Behold,” the latter as lovely and mournful as ever. When the band returned to the stage, Banhart shifted gears yet again, performing an intense, snarling cover of Johnny Thunders’ “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory,” an extended classic-rock-style jam of “Seahorse” and an ebullient “Carmensita.”
Although perhaps neither fans nor the shaggy, psych folk-leaning Banhart of yesteryear would have predicted that by 2010 he would be clean-shaven and dancing goofily while performing a rocking cover of the 1988 Taylor Dane hit “Tell It to My Heart”—perhaps the night’s biggest surprise—I’m guessing if Banhart saw how much fun he’d be having, the long-haired child would approve. —Alena Kastin
Photos courtesy of Jennifer Macchiarelli | www.jennylow.com
Counting Crows - The Wellmont Theatre - August 18, 2010
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Not Even Nerves Can Stop MGMT
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010MGMT - Radio City Music Hall - August 17, 2010
MGMT performed the majority of their first of two sold-out Radio City Music Hall shows covered in shadows. The focal point of the venue’s cavernous stage instead fell upon an onslaught of colorful psychedelic images and lights projected onto a backdrop of large abstract shapes. The eager crowd danced and waved glow sticks as the band played material from their most recent album, Congratulations, with the trippy visuals complementing the eclectic-retro sound on songs like “Brian Eno,” “Flash Delirium,” “It’s Working” and “Siberian Breaks.”
In addition to newer material, MGMT also played a sizable portion of their 2008 breakthrough album, Oracular Spectacular. Though two years have passed since its heyday, one of the loudest cheers of the night erupted with the opening notes of “Time to Pretend,” the group’s tongue-in-cheek tale of rock-star excess, which unwittingly became the soundtrack to every hipster BBQ and house party from Brooklyn to Brisbane that summer. Despite the fact that in the years since the song was written, MGMT founding members Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser have actually become what most would consider bona fide rock stars, with fancy magazine-cover stories and headlining slots at festivals around the world, their understated performance further cemented the fact that they have certainly not become the rock-star clichés they once wrote about.
As the show began to wind down, the modest rockers finally let the lights come up a bit during the undeniably catchy “Kids,” with Goldwasser and VanWyngarden stepping away from their instruments and awkwardly, endearingly attempting to dance with the crowd—but mostly just looking down, nodding their heads to the beat and wandering around the stage as they sang. When the song finished and the crowd erupted with approval, VanWyngarden seemed relieved, admitting in utter un-rock-star fashion that when faced with the task of playing Radio City Music Hall, “I think we were a little bit nervous.” —Alena Kastin
Photos courtesy of Greg Aiello | www.ga-photos.com
Dr. Dog - The Beach at Governors Island - August 15, 2010
Monday, August 16th, 2010
Photos courtesy of Charles Steinberg
Neon Indian - The Beach at Governors Island - August 14, 2010
Monday, August 16th, 2010
MewithoutYou - The Bowery Ballroom - August 12, 2010
Friday, August 13th, 2010
Looking August and Feeling October
Thursday, August 12th, 2010Memoryhouse - Mercury Lounge - August 11, 2010
It felt like October last night at Mercury Lounge. Certainly not because of the weather, but because the packed bill of would-be headliners smashed together made for a show pulled straight out of the CMJ Marathon. Following a raw and catchy set by Brooklyn’s Oberhofer and a breathtaking hour from Twin Sister, the top-billed Memoryhouse had big shoes to fill. But the Canadian trio didn’t miss a beat, pumping out swirling music as the crowd pushed closer and closer to the stage as the night progressed.
Despite playing one of their first local shows, the band looked and sounded like they’ve been around far longer. Completely bathed in cool light projected from the sound booth, Memoryhouse started with a slightly remixed version of “Lately (Deuxième).” Intensely memorable and sweet to the ears, it was a perfect introduction for those new to the group.
The rest of the set was filled with eerie beats like on “The Waves” and “To the Lighthouse,” another single-worthy song that was easy to get lost in. Luckily the show wasn’t completely like one from CMJ, as Memoryhouse played for more than 30 minutes, ending with a brilliantly irregular cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep.” —Sean O’Kane
Photos courtesy of Sean O’Kane | seanokanephoto.com
Melvin Seals & JGB - Brooklyn Bowl - August 11, 2010
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
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