This Week's Shows

The festival scene may be dead, but the live music scene is still, well, alive.  Here in Atlanta, this coming week starts off a little slow but picks up momentum as it goes along, eventually turning into a veritable bonanza for jam-band fans, but there's lots of other things going on as well.  

MONDAY, JANUARY 11

Aneurysm, Black Beach, Midriffs, Lethal Tender (529)

The only active stage for the evening is at 529, with headliners Aneurysm (Athens/Atlanta) providing a set of grunge-, progressive-, punk-, and hard-rock.  A pair of Boston bands provide support, including loud, dirty rock 'n' roll by Black Beach and fuzz/surf punk by Midriffs. Local openers Lethal Tender are from somewhere Outside The Perimeter and promise "deadly and titillating," high-energy punk rock with female lead vocals.  Nothing against the bands, but my advise for that night is to do what I'll be doing and find a sports bar somewhere and watch Alabama take on Clemson in the College Football Championship Game.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 12

Glen Iris, Out of the Fire (529)

For the second night in a row, all stages are dark except at 529, where Atlanta's Glen Iris, consisting of members of Rock*A*Teens, Brass Castle, The Close, and Sharps, promise "brawny, scalding, guitar-dominated rock that sounds concurrently blunt, brazen and invigorating." Spartanburg's Out of the Fire open.

  

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13

x_______x, Obnox, Shocked Minds (The Earl)

Nothing at 529 on Wednesday night, but The Earl will provide a pair of Ohio punk bands, x______x and Obnox, supported by Atlanta's Shocked Minds.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 14

Bowie In Sweats, Alexa Dexa, Jeffrey Bützer (The Earl)

This promises to be a unique-to-Atlanta, one-of-a-kind, anything-could-happen kind of a show featuring some unique but like-minded musicians. Jeffrey Bützer collaborator T.T. Mahony (of the annual Charlie Brown Christmas shows at The Earl) will perform a "sweatsuited tribute to the Thin White Duke to celebrate his 69th birthday."  In addition, New York's Alexa Dexa will perform her toy piano pop and Bützer will play two mini sets with his bands The Bicycle Eaters and The Compartmentalizationalists.

Fantasy Guys, Tamarron, Dryspell, Talk Radio (529)

Meanwhile, Atlanta's Fantasy Guys will generate some groovy, tropical dream pop at 529, with support from two Austin bands, Tamarron and Dryspell, and Talk Radio opening.

Railroad Earth, Town Mountain (Variety Playhouse)

The week's jam-band jamboree begins Thursday night with the first of a two-night stand at Variety Playhouse by these two jazzy, groove-based, free-flowing, bluegrass-influenced jam-bands. 

The Soft Moon (Terminal West)

It must have been a tough week for the talent bookers at Terminal West - first, Wednesday night's planned show with Rob Garza of Thievery Corporation was postponed, and then Killing Joke cancelled their North American reunion tour, leaving the venue with only planned opener The Soft Moon as the Thursday-night headliner. Oh well, the show must go on.




FRIDAY, JANUARY 14

Grand Prize Winners From Last Year, Revel in Romance, General Heat, Judah, Fox Grin, and Bloodplums (The Earl)

This is a benefit show by Ignite The World to raise money and awareness for the MLK 40/40 Community Service Project (complete forty community service projects in forty days) and features a diverse line-up of Atlanta acts.  We've seen GPWFLY before at the Atlanta Film Festival Sounds + Vision event at The Goat Farm, but the rest of the lineup is new to us, so here are a few samples to get us all acquainted.

 

Railroad Earth, Town Mountain (Variety Playhouse)

Second of the two-night stand by these jazzy, groove-based, free-flowing, bluegrass-influenced jam-bands.

Chris Knight, Radio Birds (Terminal West)

Country-influenced singer-songwriter set. 

Slang,  Shepherds, Heavy Eyes, Satisfiers of Alpha Blue (529)

Album-release and tour-kickoff show for Atlanta-based Slang, whose music is "stylish and dark, dramatic, yet dance-able, blending elements of the comic, the gothic, and the divine." Atlanta's Shepherds, Heavy Eyes and Satisfiers of Alpha Blue will provide soulful rock, garage punk, and experimental psychedelic pop, respectively.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 15

Those Darlins, The Gaye Blades, Justin & The Cosmics (The Earl)

Those Darlins at Variety Playhouse, July 12, 2012

Nashville's country-punkers Those Darlins will be calling it quits soon, but before that they're engaging in one last victory lap across the country with a farewell tour, which come through The Earl on Saturday night.  The Gaye Blades and Justin & The Cosmics will open,

The Grapes, The Jeff Mosier Band (Variety Playhouse)

If you didn't get enough of a jam-band fix the previous two nights at Variety Playhouse, there's always Saturday night's 30th anniversary, special reunion show there by The Grapes.  We caught The Grapes in 1994 at the Atlanta Pot Festival, but unfortunately, we have no existent reliable photographic documentation of that set (it was that kind of day).  Fun fact:  Back in the 90s, during the burgeoning days of clunky, Compaq office computers and the early internet, the first IT guy hired by any company I ever worked for was this seeming young savant who brewed his own beer, had an improbably hot girlfriend, and was a huge fan of The Grapes.  Just sayin'.

Grace Potter, Eliza Hardy Jones (The Tabernacle)

Grace Potter & Th Nocturnals at Atlantic Station, 2010

Alternately, if you want your jam-band experience laced with a bit more soul and blues, with the occasional oldie thrown in, there's always Grace Potter at The Tabernacle.

Finally, it wouldn't be Saturday night in Atlanta without hip-hop, EDM, and metal:

Waka Flocka Flame, Russ, Kelechi (Center Stage)

The Atlanta rapper's set is billed as the Flockaveli 1.5 Release Show.

Wick-It The Instigator, Ployd, Andy Bruh (Terminal West)

Nashville-based EDM d.j.

Palaces, Hello Cobra, Zruda, Spore Lord (529)

Four sludgey metal bands for your musical enjoyment.

Blind Pilot at Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta

It seems fitting on so many levels that the Final Four championship, aka March Madness, is being held in April. Southern March weather didn't really arrive until this month, and my March Madness series of concerts didn't really turn out exactly as I had anticipated, although it looks now as if the real madness is going to occur in April.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Yesterday, as part of it's Final Four celebration, the NCAA promoted a series of concerts, really a mini-festival, in downtown Atlanta's Centennial Park.  They kept this one quiet, and I didn't even hear about it until I learned at about 7:17 pm on Friday that My Morning Jacket were playing the park starting at 7:00.  I didn't make that one, but while I was at the Caveman show on Saturday night, I was told that Sunday's lineup was going to open with Portland's Blind Pilot

I love this band and wanted very much to be a part of the audience, not so much for my own enjoyment but to show some support and appreciation for the band.  I was worried that their often quiet brand of laid-back folk-rock wouldn't be well received by the audience, most of whom were probably there just for Sting and Dave Matthews later in the day, or at least for Grace Potter and the Nocturnals who were on right after Blind Pilot.  But Blind Pilot are the kind of band with whom, after you've seen them in the right setting, you form a deep emotional bond with, and I wanted to get close to the front and send out some appreciative vibes as they played.

Turns out that getting to the front of the stage was tougher than I had anticipated.  By the time I got to the park, 30 minutes before show time, there was already a line stretching around the block.  It was a free show, but access to the park was tightly controlled for security reasons (all bags were inspected as the audience came through the gates).  By the time I made it through the checkpoint, there were already about 15 rows of people standing in front of the stage, not to mention acres of people stretched out on blankets.  However, I was able to work my way up to about the seventh or eighth row without too much difficulty or being too aggressive.  

On stage, a d.j was working the crowd, and won me over when he threw Duck Sauce's Barbara Streisand into the mix.

Blind Pilot took the stage as scheduled right at 2:30 and almost immediately won over the audience.  We last saw Blind Pilot at The Earl, where someone was blowing soap bubbles toward the band from stage left, but the really memorable performance was their record-release party for We Are The Tide at Portland's Crystal Ballroom during MFNW 2011 (on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 at that!).  I've even got a podcast recording of a show of theirs earlier that day (thanks, KEXP!), a show I missed to go see The Joy Formidable at The Wonder Balllroom, and, yes, I'm listening to that MP3 right now even as I write this.

The weather was perfect, a sunny spring day with comfortable temperatures and low humidity.  The crowd was reasonably attentive, except for a bunch of bros trying to jockey for a stage-front spot so they could see up Grace Potter's skirt during the next set and some frat boys behind me who were there simply to par-ty.  But Blind Pilot was putting out such a warm, friendly vibe that none of this bothered me.

Whenever the Jumbotron projected the audience onto the screen behind the band, the crowd cheered jubilantly, confusing the band until they realized the reason for the sudden and unexpected bursts of enthusiasm.  At other times,. the band seemed dwarfed by giant projections of their own performance.

Blind Pilot ended their set with their traditional closer, a triumphant rendition of We Are The Tide, the title song from their album.  

Overall, it may not have been one of those perfect performances that would form one of those aforementioned deep emotional bonds for someone in the audience hearing them for the first time, but it was as fine and wonderful as one could hope for a show whose real purpose was merely to entertain basketball fans between games.

So, yeah, now this was the real March Madness, and the madness will continue through this week.  Tonight (Monday), Chad Valley is playing at The Earl, and tomorrow night, Savoir Adore and On An On are playing at The Drunken Unicorn.  Wednesday night, Scotland's Frightened Rabbit play at the god-forsaken Masquerade, and Thursday night, New Orleans' Hurray For the Riff Raff are at The 529.  The weekend will bring jazz-rock guitarist John Scofield to Variety Playhouse, and Saturday there's the third annual Buddhapalooza up at the Barking Legs Theater in Chattanooga.

After Blind Pilot's performance on Sunday, I headed back home.  I've already seen Grace Potter live, so I've checked that one off my bucket list already, and I wasn't going to hang around for Sting because it's not 1983 or for the Dave Matthews band because it's not 1993, either.

But, yeah, Blind Pilot on a really big stage in downtown Atlanta.  For free.  Now that was way cool.