It's taken us a few days to decompress from the Super Bowl. But now that the out-of-towners have fled, we've thought back onto the previous weekend and come up with some reflections on some of the nightlife events that had our fair Valley looking more like Las Vegas than Arizona. Here are our thoughts on what happened.
See also: The Phoenix Music Scene Bucket List
Beacher's Madhouse is Insane Beacher's Madhouse in Los Angeles used to be a favorite nightclub hangout for Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. Now, the performance troupe, which combines vaudeville, midgets, impersonation, and stripping into the most insane, senses-bashing party you'll ever attend, has a residency in Vegas. In Scottsdale Saturday, the full spectrum of insane was on display. Two mini Lil Waynes did back-up dance for a Big Beyonce. A Rocky Balboa and a Chris Farley impersonator schmoozed their way through the crowd. A tiny stripper less than two feet tall, Sassie Cassie, pole-danced and did handstand push-ups. Dollar bills were flying everywhere. It was like being in a twisted circus on acid all night, viewed through a fish-eye lens. DAVID ACCOMAZZO
You Don't Have To Be a Country Fan to Enjoy Darius Rucker Country singer Darius Rucker (it's still hard not to refer to him as Hootie) played the Coors Light Birds Nest, and his show was a success. He had the ladies dancing and the guys holding their drinks in the air as he belted out his country jams while mixing in some fun covers, including Prince's "Purple Rain" and, of course, some Hootie & the Blowfish tunes.
It turns out that the ladies still wanted to hold his hand during the sold-out show. We wouldn't be surprised to see back next year. JIM LOUVAU
Kid Rock Was the Best Birds Nest Performer in Years Fans were clearly excited to see the self-proclaimed American bad-ass Kid Rock, and he sold out the Birds Nest quicker than any artist to ever play what is the best party of the year. Rock couldn't have been a better fit for the rowdy party atmosphere in the tent .
The "Kid" who is now 44 years old was as youthful as ever and did a great job of playing early heavier material like "American Badass" and "Devil Without a Cause," with songs your mother would enjoy, like "Picture" and "Born Free." JIM LOUVAU
One of the most sought out and most expensive parties to get into on Saturday night was the Rolling Stone party at Venue of Scottsdale featuring performances from Charlie XCX and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler. The general admission tickets originally started out around $900 and people in the VIP section told us they payed closer to $3,000 to see the legendary Tyler from the balcony of the intimate venue. If you were wondering what the VIP access would get you it was an open bar upstairs (general admission also had an open bar) ,grass fed burger sliders and the option to rub elbows with celebs like David Spade and Aaron Paul both who left hours before either performance.
While no one should ever pay that kind of cash to see any show Charlie XCX did a fine job getting the crowd full of people away from the bar with her all-female band who sounded great. She played for about 30-minutes and closed with her hit "Boom Clap" which is when people realized who she was.
Steven Tyler hit the stage around 1 a.m with his solo band and dove right into the hits including opener "Sweet Emotion." Admittedly it was pretty surreal to see him on such a small stage and he sounded fantastic. Aerosmith classics like "Walk This Way" were accompanied by covers like "Piece of My Heart" made famous by Janis Joplin and "I'm Down" by The Beatles. JIM LOUVAU
Florida-Georgia Line is the Worst Band Ever There are only two positive things I can think of to say about the awful bro-country of Florida-Georgia Line, which performed at the Madden Bowl at Livewire in Scottsdale Saturday night. First, no one who attended the show has tested positive for measles. Yet. I guess this means that all the members of Florida-Georgia Line are vaccinated. Second, no one's face melted, Indiana Jones-style. As much as audience members might have felt that their brains were melting in spectacular Claymation, like Nazis gazing at the ark of the covenant, no one actually died due to exposure to Florida-Georgia Line. DAVID ACCOMAZZO
Local Bands Got to Shine at Pepsi's Hyped for Halftime One of the biggest and most attention-grabbing concerts of Super Bowl weekend was arguably the free show put on by The Roots at Verizon Super Bowl Central in downtown Phoenix on Saturday, January 31, not only in terms of prominence, but also because of its crowd size. While we don't have exact headcount of the crowd that gathered to see the influential hip-hop band, it most definitely was at or near capacity for most of the evening.
And one of the bands that many of those in attendance got to see before The Roots' performance was the Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra, which hit the Hyped for Halftime stage a few hours prior. They weren't the only esteemed Arizona band to gig in front of Super Bowl Central's during the weekend as Harper and the Moths, Jaleo Band, Jared and the Mill, Party Gardens, The Sugar Thieves, and Tucson's Chicha Dust all worked their magic at the event. BENJAMIN LEATHERMAN
Jan Brewer Might Be Considering a DJ Career Now that she's no longer serving as Arizona's governor, Jan Brewer has plenty of spare time on her hands. While the 70-year-old politician is reportedly mulling over writing an autobiography or maybe even running for another public office sometime in the future, ol' Jan might just be considering getting into the DJ game.
As wild a notion as that might seem, the idea of becoming a mixmaster definitely crossed the mind of the controversial politician during Super Bowl week, even if it was just a lark. At a private after-party at the Arizona Biltmore following a taping of the Friar's Club roast of hall of fame footballer Terry Bradshaw last Thursday, Brewer jokingly donned headphones and stepped behind the record decks for an amusing photo op.
According to DJ Slippe, who was performing the event along with DJ P-Body, the politician didn't actually get into the mix or anything. "She just jumped on and pretended so her people could take a picture," he said. "[She] thought is was funny." And while it would've been more than fitting if Public Enemy's "By the Time I Get to Arizona" was playing when Brewer staged the stunt (think about it), Slippe reports that the Marvin Gaye hit "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" happened to be booming over the sound system at that particular moment. BENJAMIN LEATHERMAN
Knife Party's Performance Lived Up to the Hype
If you wanted to check out Knife Party's first-ever gig in Phoenix at the Pressroom on Super Bowl eve, you really had to earn it. Getting to the venue and inside the show were both a bit of an experience, due to downtown being clogged with bodies, traffic, and activity, as well as some long lines outside. And once you got inside, things were packed to near-capacity with people all the way to the back of the room, which resulted in a sweltering scene.
You know what? It was totally worth enduring such hassles, however, since Knife Party put on an absolutely phenomenal show. The wildly popular and often-enigmatic electronic dance music duo jacked up the energy level in the Pressroom from the very second they started their two-hour-plus set of harder sounds, dubstep, drumstep, and bass-heavy blasts that exploded throughout the Pressroom and tore the roof off the joint. And those in attendance responded with just as much energy, writhing about in a frenetic sea of raging as the night wore on, never seeming to tire, and getting every more amped when the duo of Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen dropped one of their many hit tracks ("Antidote," "Internet Friends," "Destroy Them With Lasers," "Centipede," "Bonfire," and "Sleaze") during their gig, which also was heavy on more recent efforts from their debut disc, Abandon Ship. Knife Party seemed suitably impressed by the crowd's vibe and enegy, as Swire noted at one point, "You guys are fucking incredible." With a maelstrom of crimson LED stage drenching the place with red, the thunderous soundtrack, and swarm of sweat-soaked bodies, the heated scene resembled a hellacious milieu out of to Dante's Inferno, only with a dubstep soundtrack. BENJAMIN LEATHERMAN
You Can't Believe Everything US Weekly Tells You One of the hottest parties of the weekend was DirecTV's invite-only Rihanna show, which capped off the company's series of killer concerts for their DirecTV Fan Fest. The day of the show, the journalistic stallions at US broke the news that both Paul McCartney and Kanye West would join Rihanna on the stage. Those of us in attendance hoped that meant the trio would do the first-ever live performance of their new single "FourFiveSeconds." Well, only about half of that prediction came true. Kanye performed, and the two superstars did some amazing duets, including "All of the Lights" and "Run This Town." But instead of Paul Mac, we got Rae Sremmurd, Good performers, but nowhere near the league of everyone else on stage that night.
Another thing we learned: DirecTV throws a fucking fantastic party. DAVID ACCOMAZZO
People Love Shark Costumes No one gave a crap about Lenny Kravitz. No one noticed that Katy Perry sang "I kissed a girl and I liked it" on live national television and it wasn't a gigantic scandal. No one batted an eye when Perry admitted that some of her vocals were pre-recorded. Hardly anyone snickered when she rode a giant "the more you know" star through the air. But everyone loved the sharks. DAVID ACCOMAZZOFind any show in Metro Phoenix via our extensive online concert calendar.
9 Tips for Using A Fake ID To Get Into A Show 10 Classic Punk Records That Actually Kind of Suck The 10 Coolest, Scariest, Freakiest Songs About Heroin The 30 Most Disturbing Songs of All Time
Like Up on the Sun on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest local music news and conversation.
