Concerts Worth Seeing... Live Music Thread

[Godspeed]

Bejar was doing the same thing back when they played the Pabst in 2007 (Neko was there, too). I've always loved his contributions the best. I sing "Testament to Youth in Verse" to my son when he's acting up.

[thebruce44]

Bejar was doing the same thing back when they played the Pabst in 2007 (Neko was there, too). I've always loved his contributions the best. I sing "Testament to Youth in Verse" to my son when he's acting up.

 

Yea, his songs were excellent live as expected. Its not too often a "rock" group can get half of a packed Grant Park to join in a harmony of no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no's.

[ilikewisco]

Saw Johnny Lang at the State Theater in Eau Claire last night, great show. Did not know he was from Fargo, for a kid from the Dakotas he can rip the guitar.

[brettac1]

The last few shows I have seen were great... I drove to Fayetteville, AR to see Lucero twice at the end of February and then saw Merle Haggard/Kris Kristofferson in Green Bay on March 1st.

 

Next up is James McMurtry/The Bottle Rockets on Wednesday night in Madison at High Noon.

[jjkoestler]

Bright Eyes & Titus Andronicus @ The Riverside on April 3

[Glennron]

Bright Eyes & Titus Andronicus @ The Riverside on April 3

How was it? Wanted to go but couldn't swing it.

[jjkoestler]

Youth Lagoon @ The High Noon Saloon in Madison tonight. $10 cover. It should be interesting to see how he performs the tracks from The Year of Hibernation live. I'd describe the music as Modest Mouse meets early lo-fi Bright Eyes.

 

Review of "The Year of Hibernation"

[chadomac]

I know there are at least a couple of Ryan Adams fans here... anyone going to his Chicago show in December? I would've loved to have gone, but didn't see he was coming until 4 days after tix went on sale. Scalpers bought them all up already... and I don't really want to give a scalper my money.

[Glennron]

Youth Lagoon @ The High Noon Saloon in Madison tonight. $10 cover. It should be interesting to see how he performs the tracks from The Year of Hibernation live. I'd describe the music as Modest Mouse meets early lo-fi Bright Eyes.

 

Review of "The Year of Hibernation"

Are you kidding me? I knew he was in Chicago in January but it sold out a while ago, no idea he was in Madison tonight. Oh well.

[jjkoestler]

The show was solid, but it was only 40 minutes long. He basically played TYOH from cover to cover.

[ABQPacker]

Saw Johnny Lang at the State Theater in Eau Claire last night, great show. Did not know he was from Fargo, for a kid from the Dakotas he can rip the guitar.

Saw him a couple years ago. It was a free outdoor gig and most of the audience didn't seem to know him. But by about the middle of the show they were giving him standing o's after every song.

 

 

[jjkoestler]

Anyone going to Bon Iver on Saturday @ The Orpheum? Anyone seen them live? I'm not sure what to expect because of the lack of protools/autotune/production.

[theavrock]

Anyone going to Bon Iver on Saturday @ The Orpheum? Anyone seen them live? I'm not sure what to expect because of the lack of protools/autotune/production.

Wish I was going. I saw him at the Pabst after For Emma came out. He had 3 other dudes with him and it was amazing. 2nd best show I have ever seen.

The thing that was amazing about it was the hush that came over the crowd. Usually when you go to a show there will always be background noise/chatter in the quiet parts of the songs. You literally could hear a pin drop there everyone was so in to what was happening on stage.

This was a few years ago and I haven't seen him since, but I would expect nothing less than an amazing show.

[Glennron]

Anyone going to Bon Iver on Saturday @ The Orpheum? Anyone seen them live? I'm not sure what to expect because of the lack of protools/autotune/production.

I saw him/them at The Riverside this summer which I think was the first night of the tour. I'd be surprised if you don't love the show. I want to say there were about 9 people on stage so they were able to recreate a lot of the sounds from the new album. They opened with Perth, and it was LOUD. And awesome. They had some pretty awesome lights too for many of the songs (Blood Bank comes to mind.)

 

My only regret is not seeing them after For Emma came out, as they only played four songs from that one. Theavarock is right about the hush over the crowd though. Re:Stacks is my favorite song and I was afraid people would be talking over it. It felt like no one in the crowd even wanted to blink during it.

[brettac1]

I was lucky enough to see Justin play all of For Emma when it was just a self-release and then later for when they played the re-release show when it came out on Jagjaguwar. Both at the Nucleus in Eau Claire. Pretty special stuff, especially the first one. Listening to him play those songs and thinking "wow, this is going to be a really big deal". I saw the band play at the Pabst in like August of '08, and that was great, too. I really don't care much for the new stuff, though.

[TooLiveBrew]

Saw Johnny Lang at the State Theater in Eau Claire last night, great show. Did not know he was from Fargo, for a kid from the Dakotas he can rip the guitar.

Saw him a couple years ago. It was a free outdoor gig and most of the audience didn't seem to know him. But by about the middle of the show they were giving him standing o's after every song.

 

He's excellent, but I'm a sucker for some good blues guitar

[ilikewisco]

Goin to see Bon Iver Monday in Eau Claire. Saw him once at a kickball tournament they do up here, just him and a drummer and he was great. Amazing voice and guitar player, though after talking to him after the show, I think he might have been a little drunk. It was a free show so who cares, but I'm thinking Monday will blow that out of the water. If your fans of Justin's, try to check out Megafaun, its a couple of my friends from high school who played with Justin before Bon Iver and another guy when they were Mt. Vernon.

 

TLB, I'm also a sucker for some good blues guitar.

[brettac1]

Goin to see Bon Iver Monday in Eau Claire. Saw him once at a kickball tournament they do up here, just him and a drummer and he was great. Amazing voice and guitar player, though after talking to him after the show, I think he might have been a little drunk. It was a free show so who cares, but I'm thinking Monday will blow that out of the water. If your fans of Justin's, try to check out Megafaun, its a couple of my friends from high school who played with Justin before Bon Iver and another guy when they were Mt. Vernon.

 

TLB, I'm also a sucker for some good blues guitar.

And DeYarmond Edison were pretty awesome.

[theavrock]

Goin to see Bon Iver Monday in Eau Claire. Saw him once at a kickball tournament they do up here, just him and a drummer and he was great. Amazing voice and guitar player, though after talking to him after the show, I think he might have been a little drunk. It was a free show so who cares, but I'm thinking Monday will blow that out of the water. If your fans of Justin's, try to check out Megafaun, its a couple of my friends from high school who played with Justin before Bon Iver and another guy when they were Mt. Vernon.

 

TLB, I'm also a sucker for some good blues guitar.

So how was it?

[jjkoestler]

The show in Madison was excellent. It had a very big sound. I'm normally very critical about music, but I have nothing but good things to say about this performance. The tracks off "For Emma" had a completely different vibe with a 9-10 piece band. They weren't as haunting, but Vernon made them work.

[homer]

I think I'm going to see Cage the Elephant New Year's Eve in Chicago. They play Milwaukee tomorrow night I think so if anyone goes and can post a review that'd be awesome.

[ilikewisco]

So how was it?

 

It was great. To be honest, I had never listened to much of his stuff. They put on a great show. It was in the university gymnasium, sold out, and I had kind of a bad seat in the back. But it was still a great performance. I had never even realized it was him that did the "skinny love" song until just before the show. I was blown away, the whole band put on an amazing performance, lots of them playing multiple instruments through out the show. If anyone gets a chance I would advise going to see him.

 

I don't get out of the area much to see music so it was nice to see a good show near home. I don't know why I haven't listened to Justin's Bon Iver music much before, but I have been now. He writes really good songs. And the Gayngs thing they do is alright from the little I youtubed of it. Here is a cool song of Justin's former band, my buddies from high school playing banjo and guitar.

 

Megafaun

[Godspeed]

I saw three concerts this year:

• My Morning Jacket (Riverside, Milwaukee). This band puts out, hand down, the best show out there. Their recent studio efforts have waned in quality (although I do believe Circuital was a step up from Evil Urges), but they still bring it top notch on tour. Two hour sets are the norm. This was my second time seeing them live though, and I thought their 2008 show was tighter.
• Bon Iver (Pabst, Milwaukee). I scored a last-minute ticket to the opening night of their tour mostly out of curiosity of how the dense and textured latest album would translate on stage, curious enough to make me attend solo. They definitely pulled it off. Great, great show.
  
• TV on the Radio (Pabst, Milwaukee). This was my second time seeing TVOTR live, after seeing them in 2007 at First Avenue in Minneapolis. The sound for this show was extremely muddled, but was either resolved sometime mid-show or it just turned awesome enough as is that I stopped caring.
  

I've noticed that when I see an act the second time, I'm less in awe of the artist and probably more nitpicky than I should be about the performance. But that's probably a result of the higher expectations I place on my dwindling freetime as I grow older...

 

[jjkoestler]

• TV on the Radio (Pabst, Milwaukee). This was my second time seeing TVOTR live, after seeing them in 2007 at First Avenue in Minneapolis. The sound for this show was extremely muddled, but was either resolved sometime mid-show or it just turned awesome enough as is that I stopped caring.
  

Where were you sitting? I was sitting in the third level for the beginning of the show and moved because the sound was so bad. I ended up sitting in the second level and the sound was much better. I thought the sound was poor because of the location of my seats, but maybe the sound tech cleaned things up a few songs into the show.

[brettac1]

I saw a lot of shows this year, but my favorites by far were the Two Cow Garage 10th Anniversary shows in Little Rock at the White Water Tavern. The 14 hour or so drive was worth it - got to see several of my favorite bands all under one roof and drink far, far too many PBR tall boys for $1.50 a piece.

 

Honorable mention goes to the Lucero two night stand in Fayetteville, especially night one with Cory Branan opening. Crazy that I made two road trips to Arkansas this year, but both were amazing.

 

As far as WI shows go, I loved being able to see The Jayhawks and Alejandro Escovedo at Summerfest. It was beautiful that night.

 

Looking forward to a three night run of Lucero shows in April in Madison, MKE, and Chicago that I will be going to. My favorite band on earth.