cuddlyeconomist, Rhys, and I went to The Gorge to see Lilith Fair. It was the first time we'd been to the venue, and it was pretty spectacular. We saw A Fine Frenzy, Colbie Caillat, and Sheryl Crow, but we left before Sarah McLachlan took the stage--it is a 3 hour drive each way and we had been there for about 4 hours. Rhys was pretty fussy from the moment we got out of the car until he found another bored kid to entertain each other. None of us particularly cared for Erykah Badu yet she played an extra long set. There were quite a few more Lilith artists I'd like to have seen, but they weren't playing the Gorge date.

All in all, it was fun and we only managed to spend money on 3 GA tickets, one over-priced hot-dog, and one over-priced soda.

There were a number of the younger artists who were reminiscing about the original Lilith Fair series and how they had seen them as a kid. Yes, it was over 10 years ago and they were probably 12 at the time...

Saturday night Penelope Swales played a house concert at Erosong. As cuddlyeconomist had previously stated that if Penelope were playing anywhere on the continent, she would be attending, it was quite convenient that she was already in town. drakemonger took care of the childcare so that jeliza, cuddlyeconomist, and I could attend. She played mostly stuff from her new album, and it was great to finally hear/see her live.

I put Penelope up at my place the weekend before last at the outset of her visit to the States, and had a day of hanging out and chatting with her. A very interesting and dynamic person indeed. Thanks to my Lord of the Rings Online voice-chat-with-the-Aussies habit over the past year, I was mostly inured to the charms of the Aussie accent. Mostly.

Great concert at The Moore. jeliza was not available, which was just as well since the whole opening act was a 'slam poetry' act. Not my favorite, but I can put up with it. Last time Ani was in town was Marymoor a few years back with tavalon. Ani had to cancel her last tour due to wrist problems.

She did in fact use her favorite word: "patriarchy". Check.

She played some of my favorites off of Knuckle Down and Little Plastic Castles. Check.

She played her new political rant song about New Orleans. Check.

She played Untouchable Face. Check and check.

Now to bed for a far too early morning.

I've seen Tori Amos many times over the past decade or so, and it's always best to see her in a smaller venue with excellent acoustics over any arena setting, and The Paramount Theater fits that bill nicely. The opening act was decent enough, but falls into the same mold as most of Tori's openers, much in the vein of Howie Day.

The American Doll Posse tour is largely Tori as her most inscrutable and strange, but she's clearly having a good time dressing up. After a particularly defiant rendition of The Waitress and a costume change, the show seemed to settle down a fair amount. I've not heard much of the new album, and it was interesting to hear much of it live for the first time. She also played a fair number of the Tori favorites including Cruel, The Waitress obviously, Corn Flake Girl, Tear In Your Hand, Sugar, Precious Things and a selection of songs from various albums including Putting the Damage On, Rattlesnakes, and Smells Like Teen Spirit.

A solid performance as always. I miss the more personal songs of her tours years ago, like Baker Baker and Cooling, but I was always a fan of more piano and her obtuse yet haunting lyrics. Her showmanship has certainly gotten more complex, and her band including two local Seattle boys did a great job as always.

jeliza and I went to see Brandi Carlile at The Paramount Theater last night. So far we've seen her at the Woodland Park Zoo and The Moore near the start of her tour, and this was the last show of her US tour.

Parking sucked because it was a Friday night downtown, but the venue was good and the performance excellent. Brandi did a few songs on piano, a new element to the show, plus some favorites like a cover of Johnny Cash's Fulsom Prison. She did the intro to Bohemian Rhapsody to warm-up on the piano, which was a hoot. The tour was being sponsored by Biore of all things, and it's good to see her getting some well-deserved success. She's off to overseas gigs including Australia, but she did do three Seattle shows just this year so I've probably seen her enough for the moment.

The opening act was a band called A Fine Frenzy fronted by a young redhead woman. First impressions of Tori Amos come pretty quickly, but she lacks Tori's psychologically rich neurosis and the associated lyrics I love so much. She does have some solid vocal talent, and when doing torch-style heartbreak songs I was quite impressed. She did a bit of Fever as well.

I listen to a lot of chick rock so it's hard to avoid comparisons with other singers, and her vocal quality reminded me strongly of Fisher. Frankly I think her music is too 'sweet & innocent' to hold my attention for long, and a few too many of the songs included the annoying ding of the xylophone, but perhaps as they get older they will start writing some more interesting stuff. There was also a bit of the 70's prog rock sound at work with the keyboardist. jeliza said she couldn't recall a female-fronted prig rock band, so perhaps their time as finally come... gods forbid.

In the era of 'iTunes' music I can always buy just the songs I actually like. She's one of those "Starbucks" featured artists, which I find distrubing. Then again, it's less distrubing than Wal-Mart controlling a fourth or a fifth of the world-wide distribution of CDs given their routine censorship.

In any case, an excellent concert and I didn't even feel too bitter about the $11 parking by the end of the evening.

Update: While I'm not sure I'd recommend the whole album, A Fine Frenzy's Ashes & Wine is prettty damn solid.

Update 2: I'm pleased to report the Glockenspiel problem was the sound mix at the live show. It doesn't sound nearly as annoying on the album :>

jeliza and I went to see her show at the Moore Friday. Damn, she's just as impressive for a full show as she was for the one song I saw her do at Indigo Girls last year. Her new album The Story sounds great, and the hometown audience was quite lively. Don't have any tickets to see her at the Zoo later in the month, but hopefully I'll manage to finagle one somehow.

Melissa put on another great show last night at Neumo's, and I picked up her new album In the Eyes of Strangers. As usual, the place was packed with women and maybe a dozen or so men including the bartenders, bouncers, etc. As I get older, I wonder if my appearance in these venue's makes me look like a serial killer or something. It was an all-ages show, so at least I was in the "drinking section" instead of hanging out with the teens. Besides, it was hard enough to find a place to stand that didn't block people on the 'adult' side of the room.

Anyhow, the new album has a number of songs she played last time she was in town that I'm glad to have a copy of now, and as usual my favorite song is another sad one: Stuck, largely because the performance is amazing. Her cover of Dayna Kurtz's Miss Liberty is also excellent. She's a great lyricists, but mostly her performance is what blows me away--the sound sucks, but here's a You Tube clip of Miss Liberty.

In some past performances, Melissa has looked like she was on the edge of a breakdown, but this time she seemed to be in a much better place. She had a band along instead of playing exclusively solo, and last night was the last gig of the spring tour and they were putting a lot into it. Drive with a violin and a trumpet was a bit strange, but she's got to keep herself entertained about a song the audience would be up in arms about her not playing. Personally I was happy that she played Burn This Guitar from her 1998 album, and I'm clearly just not lesbian enough to find Drive the end-all-be-all of MF songs.

I've come to the conclusion February is a tough damn month. appleang and I separated in a February, making this the eighth anniversary of my return to living alone. It's far enough into winter that you are sick of the cold, but there's still at least another month of it. Throw in things like the silly Hallmark-holiday that is V-Day and you've got a recipe for depression. For most of my life I had no real opinion about Valentine's as a holiday. The only person who was really into it was Kim, which translated into one great Valentine's Day for us and five years of disappointment to follow. Actually, the same thing happened with birthdays. Well, really my entire relationship with Kim could be summed up in the same terms.

As I've repeatedly told myself for years: let. it. the. f*ck. go.

In any case, at the concert last week I heard this song by Dar and it seemed to really capture the angst of February.

( February Lyrics )

The show at the Moore Monday night was great. The opening act was a local artist who has a very mellow Latin-jazz-like sound. The audience was by in large part older than most of the concerts I attend (like night-and-day compared to Regina Spektor), and had a very passive energy for a live performance. The opening would have been right at home at some pleasant small jazz club, but their set's tempo never really picked up. I can totally see people making out to her music playing in the background, but as a live concert I found it hard to stay awake. Shawn was fabulous, and while she did not in fact play Sunny Came Home she did play plenty of old and new songs.

jeliza and I theorized an evening of listening to an hour of light jazz followed by two hours of folk guitar would probably be rubylou's idea of a personal hell. I thought of that today when reading a story in The Onion: Brunch Livened Up By Jazz Trio's Violent Breakup

Just got back from seeing Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians. Well, more like Edie Brickell & The Aging Bohemians, still they put on a good show. She still has an amazing voice, a frighteningly cavernous mouth, and can't really figure out what to do with her body while performing. The band is well-practiced and long-time partners in music-making, and while they do look like they've put on miles they are clearly having fun.

I'd never seen her live before, and the last album of hers I purchased was published in 1994. Still, she played some new stuff I liked and of course several of her old hits from Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars: Air of December, Circle, What Am I, Love Like We Do, Beat The Time, and Nothing. Looks like she took a 9 year hiatus between the Picture Perfect album and putting out a solo-album in 2003 while she raised three kids with Paul Simon.