Department of Eagles Live on KCRW

I’ve spent the last half hour listening to this Department of Eagles performance from KCRW. They sound amazing live, er, on the interentz, but yeah, I wish I had tickets to see them tomorrow night. The silly little player above isn’t the handiest of ways to listen to this, but if you need to kill some time with some great music, this is a sure bet.

Also, they play two new songs which is fun alone, and they also talk about how Grizzly Bear is a fancy bitch, and Department of Eagles is a less classy ho. I might be paraphrasing that a bit, you’ll have to listen to find out.

Bobby

Bobby Solomon

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January 22, 2009 - See more posts by Bobby

Bon Iver and AA Bondy at The Troubador

This last week has been kind of a blur, what with my birthday on Thursday and then parties and fun times to be had the rest of the weekend. Well the fun didn’t stop, as last night I headed out to The Troubador with my friend Nick to see Bon Iver and AA Bondy, two of my absolute favorite artist/bands. The show started out with AA, who plays all alone with his trusty guitar and a collection of harmonicas. He proceeded to sing some beautiful country ballads and talk about mushrooms to a largely filled room. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t play American Heart, but c’est la vie. But he did happen to play song called O The Vampyre that I liked quite a lot, which is the second video up there, so check it out.

By the time he finished the room was packed, and eventually Bon Iver made their way out. If you haven’t heard they’re record, For Emma, Forever Ago, then this post might not mean much to you. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when they came on stage. Their record is pretty bare and minimal for the most part, so to my surprise, they TOTALLY jam when they play live. Like improving, noise, feedback, you name it they probably did it. Well, they didn’t smash any guitars…

Overall though I was so thoroughly impressed, they are absolutely fantastic to see live. They played a new song as well called Blood Bank, which if this is a preview of things to come, then the new album is going to be much richer and full of life. They had reached the end of their set, and hadn’t played For Emma, and I was starting to freak out because it’s my favorite song on the record. Thankfully they came back out for one more song, so I yelled at the top of my lungs, “FOR EMMA!!!”, to lead singer Justin Vernon replied, “You got it.” And so they played my favorite song, and all was well in the world.

I posted a Take Away Video they did up top, to give you a sense of the sheer genius these guys possess, I hope you all enjoy it and get the chance to these guys live some time soon.

Bobby

Bobby Solomon

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August 26, 2008 - See more posts by Bobby

Radiohead at The Hollywood Bowl 2008

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing my favorite band in the world, Radiohead, perform at The Hollywood Bowl, one of the best concert venues I’ve ever experienced. This was my third time seeing Radiohead, the first being post Kid A, and the second being post-Hail to the Thief, the first time being one of my favorite concerts ever, the second being a pretty big disappointment, mostly because Hail to the Thief is crap. But last night could easily be described as one of the single best, if not THE best concert that I’ve ever seen.

The playlist was awesome, hitting songs from every album, and to my enjoyment, they finally didn’t play Creep, thank the gods. Of everything played the most surprising song was definitely Street Spirit, which I totally enjoyed, and was glad they played that instead of The Bends. The most improved song they played was The Gloaming, which is the second video above. I LOATHE The Gloaming, it’s probably my least favorite song ever, but they made it a little dancier, almost a remix of it’s original self, and it was pretty damn rad.

The absolute BEST part of the show though (and possibly the show-stealer), was the lighting. The top video up there is a performance of The National Anthem which should give you a taste of how extremely overwhelming and beautiful the effects were. The Gloaming was also really beautiful and helped to enhance the mood as well. The colors being shot out by those bars was absolutely incredible, I haven’t ever seen anything like this done to this level, it’s a pretty damn hard act to follow.

Hopefully some of you will be seeing Radiohead in the near-future, or possibly already have? I really hope they release a DVD of a live-performance, I’d snatch it up in a heartbeat.

Bobby

Bobby Solomon

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August 25, 2008 - See more posts by Bobby

English House by Fleet Foxes

I was checking out some of the clips from the recent Pitchfork Music Festival when I ran across this Fleet Foxes performance and I thought I’d share it. The song their performing is called English House, which is of off their Sun Giant EP which was released earlier this year before their full length dropped. I’d actually never heard the song before, and I didn’t even realize they had an EP, so it was kind of double exciting for me personally. The song itself is pretty good, and it’s always cool to see these guys perform, as they’re simply amazing. If you’d like to see some more of the performances from the festival, click here.

Bobby

Bobby Solomon

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July 26, 2008 - See more posts by Bobby

Conor Oberst / Live at 400 Club

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Cape Canaveral by Conor Oberst

Sometimes when I come across things online, it feels like it was fate. Take for example the Live Conor Oberst album I’m writing this post about. Yesterday I was reading the line-up of this year’s Reading Festival, and I noticed that it said “Conor Oberst” on the list, not Bright Eyes. That struck me as being kind of weird, but I didn’t think much more about it.

Cut to a few hours later when I’m going through an MP3 blog and I come across this live Conor Oberst album. It turns out he recorded it at the end of last December, and it features a TON of brand new songs by him, accompanied by Jason Boesel of Rilo Kiley and Nate Walcott who’s also in Bright Eyes. After hearing this it definitely sounds like Conor has officially grown up. The dark days of his youth have started to disappear and he’s become much more interested in the world around him. The album does keep the folk/country-tinged aspect to it, but honestly this sounds like he’s hit a brand new stride in his music.

My favorite song of them on the album is easily Cape Canaveral, which he dedicated to anyone in the audience who’s been to space camp, because he was never able to get it together and go. There’s also an absolutely beautiful version of Lua which features a trumpet playing along with the song. It sounds so good I wish that he would have recorded it that way for I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. If you dig Bright Eyes at all, you’re gonna love this. If you hated Bright Eyes cuz’ he was always so damn depressing, you just might like this.

Click here to download Conor Oberst / Live at 400 Club (Be sure to use the MegaUpload link)

Bobby

P.S. I made those covers up there because there weren’t any.

Bobby Solomon

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April 5, 2008 - See more posts by Bobby

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