Usually the preamble to these Top Five Must-See Phoenix Shows posts is longer than this, but I spent most of the week sending long letters to venues suggesting that they make inroads into the state fair market by also selling novelty fried foods before and after shows, possibly year-round. Nobody’s…
Over the past few years, Apache Lake Music Festival has made the just-barely-perceptible leap from curiosity to institution, and it’s easy to see why. As with most institutions, the core of it is a really simple idea done well: What if you could see a bunch of local bands in…
Cheap TrickVeterans Memorial ColiseumOctober 16, 2013 (View the full slideshow.) It was business as usual at the Arizona State Fair when Cheap Trick took over the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Last night, the band that recently crossed over the 40-year mark of life in the rock ‘n’ roll business played nearly…
Bruce Hornsby has not rested on “The Way It Is.” He probably could — sometimes it seems like he could rest on the hip-hop songs that sample “The Way It Is.” But in the 27 years since his biggest hit came out, he’s been working not just on follow-ups –…
Six LPs into a decade-long career led by frontman Will Sheff, few bands have produced such consistently excellent output as Okkervil River; to deviate from what’s made them so well-loved (soaring, literate pop, heavy on theatrics and startlingly affecting vocals) for the riskier waters of confessional, first-person songwriting this far…
Do you like Steve Earle? Were you able to see Steve Earle and the Dukes last night at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts but for some reason did not attend? If you considered it but decided to spend the night as a couch potato instead, go ahead and cry…
For 40 years–a pop music eternity–the four original Rascals, among the only ’60s bands still with all its original members, have been at war with each other in various combinations. For too long The New Rascals (with Dino Danielli and Gene Cornish) and Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals have toured in competing…
A few years back I went to the Polish Oktoberfest Festival at Our Lady of Częstochowa church in north Phoenix. Many Polish and Polish-American bands performed at the event. Most played some classic folk tunes from the various regions of Poland, but at least one played some rock and roll…
For the second time in a row there’s a state fair show among these top five Phoenix shows this week. Please take it as read that its status as a Must See Show is partially but not entirely dependent on buying your favorite fair food in an enormous basket or…
Norteño music pioneer and undisputed “King of the Accordion” Ramon Ayala celebrated his career’s 50th anniversary with an impassioned show Friday night at the Ovations Live Showroom at the Wild Horse Pass Hotel and Casino. Emotions flared in the quaint theater as the stout Mexican legend moved from greatest hit…
There’s always an odd kind of nervous tension at the beginning of a museum show. The hushed and painfully reverent atmosphere of the museum carries over into the amphitheater. The audience doesn’t know what to do with themselves — museum audiences would applaud a grocery list if you read it…
Arizona State Fair concerts aren’t like most concerts–and this isn’t even about the average age of the performers involved. They’re different because you can go to them almost by accident. Exhausted your fried food budget? Unwilling or unable to win your sweetheart a gigantic, unlicensed Angry Bird by shooting a…
It’s not easy competing with the fair. For one thing, it has a built-in audience; you can go to a fair concert on a whim, having gone there first to watch a team of expert divers or pig racing or whatever it is people do here in Arizona (I’m extrapolating…
I’m going to be totally honest with you, here: I love state fairs, but I’m mostly in it for the lemon shake-ups. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the concerts–it’s just that I only enjoy them after I’ve eaten a lot of unconventionally fried food and then spun it…
Lots of music fans have a cult-favorite band, and lots of those cult members certainly believe they’d spend 30 years of their life, on and off, trying to get them back together. E Street Band guitarist and Rascals fan Steven Van Zandt was part of an even smaller subset–a fan…
ZZ Top formed in 1969, a rough and tumble blues band forming amongst the gritty backdrop of Houston’s oil greed and NASA’s continuing space race. But it was the summer of 1974 in the community of Friendswood–a small town then, a thriving Houston suburb now–that my curiosity with ZZ Top…
Depeche Mode (See the complete slideshow)Ak-Chin PavilionOctober 8, 2013 Synth-Pop legends Depeche Mode paid a visit to Ak-Chin Pavilion last night to a sea of fans that ranged anywhere from early 20s fans to 40-year-olds who brought their children. While most bands lose steam as they get older, Depeche Mode…
It wasn’t just Depeche Mode that brought their road show to the Phoenix area last night – – though you’d never have known it by the seemingly endless amounts of pictures and videos that were flooding Facebook all night. Downtown’s Crescent Ballroom featured another prolific band formed in early ’80s…
There are very few legitimate extreme metal festivals in the United States; typically fans have to head overseas to events like England’s Damnation Festival, Netherland’s Eindhoven Metal Meeting, or France’s Hellfest to get their fix. However, in the past couple years we’ve slowly gained some speed. Maryland’s Death Fest has…
Is it a little surprising to see Keith Urban and Depeche Mode headlining the same venues in the United States in 2013? Well, yes. Is it a pleasant surprise? Well, also yes, even though parking is somewhat less than ideal. (View our complete concert calendar here.)…
By Jeff Moses Judging by the main event Saturday at Pub Rock Live, Phoenix Ska Punk Bowling was a smashing success. It seems as though the entire ska punk community came out to support Andrew Jones and his crazy dream of putting Phoenix on the map as a punk rock…
Booker T.MIM Music TheaterOctober 3, 2013 Heading to the Musical Instrument Museum to see Booker T. Jones, I–and probably many other concert goers–expected a soul revival. Instead, the sold-out audience was treated to a rock and roll show. To be fair, the bulk of the nearly two-hour long concert from…
