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This humble blog was started to document our travels around the country during the summer of 2006, We have opted to continue updating it due to the requests from family & friends. Enjoy!

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Live Music Review 2019


December 31, 2019

The Cure

Lizzo 

The Who

Bret Michaels

Squirrel Nut Zippers 

The Revivalists

Frank Turner


Live Music Review 2019

For the first twenty-five days of 2019, Kathy and I did not attend a single concert or music event. It wasn’t until we caught Air Supply playing at the wonderful Key West venue Sunset Green that we saw any live music. It was an uncharacteristically slow start to our musical year. Once we got going though, we quickly kicked things into high gear as we attended 35 stand-alone concerts and 4 large music festivals that had me once again seeing over 100 bands perform in 2019. 

Air Supply

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Donovan Frankenreiter 

the Avett Brothers


As usual, anywhere that I traveled, I always check the local concert calendar to see who might be playing while I was there, I also made a number of trips just to see music and thankfully as has been the case the past few years, the Key West music scene continues to improve and there were a plethora of options right here on the island. 


 

The Avett Brothers

Tank and the Bangas

Jenny Lewis

The Key West music scene is in as good a place as it has been in the close to 30 years that I have lived on the island as the folks at Rams Head, Coast, The Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center, Mile 0 and more continue to bring top notch entertainment options to our island community. It seems there are concert options now almost every week and even a couple of excellent festivals in the Mile 0 Festival and the Coast is Clear Festival as well as the stellar Key West Songwriter’s Festival which brings many of the best songwriters in America to the island.

 

Shastina Chiles


Bret Michaels

And while I am at it, I must mention that the quality and quantity of local musicians is awesome as well. While this blog will focus on National Acts, there are a number of high quality local bands and musicians who play regularly in town. In addition, venues like the Green Parrot continue to bring some of the best regional rising talent to town on a regular basis making this truly a golden age for live music in Key West.


Metric


  Banks 

Katie Toupin

This year found me back at some of my favorite large music festivals which included weekends at the Gasparilla Music Festival in Tampa, Folks Fest in Lyons, Colorado, and another visit to my favorite large music festival, the ACL (Austin City Limits) Music Festival in Austin. ACL this year had an absolutely amazing line-up of historic greats and cutting edge new talent and I probably could just do a top ten of the bands that I saw there.


Shawn Colvin

Squirrel Nut Zippers 


Another cool thing about attending big festivals is that they often have after-show concerts at local venues where you can see some of the acts in much more intimate settings without the throngs that accompany many bands during the main stage performances. 

Raul Malo 

Metric

The Cure

With Carter Sampson and Erik Oftedahl at Mile 0 Festival 



So who did I see that stood out? I will list my top ten shows below, but there were enough great shows to fill a few lists and I want to mention a few excellent bands that just missed making the top 10. Among these was a killer set by the Mavericks at the Mile Zero Fest, fantastic performances by Tank and the Bangas and the Avett Brothers at the Gasparilla Music Fest, and performances by The Cure, Kacey Musgraves, Metric, the Raconteurs, King Princess, Banks, Tame Impala, Mumford and Sons and James Blake at ACL.

The Raconteurs 

With Donovan Frankenreiter

The Amazons

the Mavericks

As far as smaller club venues, I saw some terrific shows by the likes of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Guster, Katie Toupin, Brass Against, Donovan Frankenreiter, Ben Folds, the Violent Femmes, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Jenny Lewis, Shawn Colvin and Los Lobos. Possibly the most fun and best surprise of the year was a set by former Poison frontman, Bret Michaels at the Key West Theater, he put on a really fun and energetic show, that just missed my top ten.

Mary Gauthier

Ben Folds

With Katie Toupin and Megan 

Katie Toupin

So after much thought and deliberation, here is my list of the top ten live music shows I saw this year:

10) Ganstagrass- The HiFi, Indianapolis, Indiana, May 15, 2019. I had never seen or even heard of Ganstagrass when I got tickets to their show at the Hi-Fi while in Indianapolis in May. I just know that the Hi-Fi brings in excellent, often eclectic bands to the small intimate venue in Fountain Square and I took a chance. I am so glad I did. This band combines rap and bluegrass into an entirely unique and interesting new genre. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but they are good at both and it creates an entirely new and wonderful concert experience and they perform with an energy and abandonment that made this show sneak into my list. 

Gangstagrass

 


9) Guns n Roses- ACL Festival, Austin, Texas, October 5, 2019. Often times I will avoid the headlining acts of large music festivals, the mass of humanity, late nights after long days and sheer exhaustion have me only watching a small portion of the set or at times skipping it entirely. I couldn’t bring myself to do that when I learned that the classic line-up of original Guns n Roses was headlining the first night of ACL. I had not seen them perform live since 1990 and I am sure that I had not seen so many fans donning GNR gear since then. It was like a throw-back in time, except that unlike many bands, this was not an exercise in nostalgia. The band truly rocked and looked and sounded as good as I remembered them. I am so glad that I stayed up to watch the show and it was an amazing start to what was truly a magical weekend of music.

 



 


8) Psychedelic Furs- The Key West Theater, Key West, FL, April 19, 2019. The PFurs keep touring and I keep going to see them, always nervous that this show may be the one where they finally drop off and inevitably decline, leaving me disappointed. It still hasn’t happened as the 80s icons brought their tight, well-oiled and amazing band back to the Key West Theater. I had my usual table in the front row, but was accompanied by my friend Caitlin, who was not alive during the Furs heyday and was totally unfamiliar with their music. They even managed to win her over, which is saying something as they are at least a generation removed from what she normally likes. I love this band and may be a tad bit biased in my ranking, but they put on a truly amazing show.

The Psychedelic Furs


7) Billie Eilish- ACL Festival, Austin, Texas, October 6, 2019. The ACL festival always does a great job in booking acts that become break-out stars, this year was no exception as the two hottest new artists of 2019 both appeared on their stages on consecutive days. I had heard of Billie Eilish and certainly had heard her songs which seemed to be on constant radio airplay over the summer and into the fall. The seventeen year old singer and songwriter had exploded onto the music scene and I wanted to check out her set and see what all the fuss was about. She has received six Grammy Award nominations, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist, becoming the youngest artist ever to be nominated in the four main categories in the same year While I was only vaguely familiar with her music, watching her set in front of a crazed crowd of mostly the younger portion of the ACL crowd was a real treat. She was amazing and her talent and charisma was evident from her terrific set. It is easy to see why she now is routinely selling out major venues around the country. I feel really fortunate to catch her perform live.

Billie Eilish 



6) UB40/ Shaggy/the Green- Mizner Park Amphitheatre, Boca Raton, Florida, September 15, 2019. We always enjoy revisiting our youth by going to see the bands that we loved back in the 80s. It is often a hot or miss occasion, as many of them have lost a step, if not most of their original members. I am also sometimes leery of anniversary tours where bands celebrate however many years since they first started or released some significant album. With that in mind, we headed up to Boca Raton to catch the 40th anniversary tour of reggae/pop legends UB40. There are actually two bands touring claiming to be the original UB40, but this one is the more legit as it has original singers Ali Campbell and Asto who were the heart and soul and sound of the band during their heyday. Openers the Green were strong, a real slice of the current state of reggae which seems in good hands. It was the other opener that propelled this show into my top ten though. Shaggy the Jamaican singer, reggae star, actor and musician put on what was simply one of the best live performances that I saw this or any year. I was familiar with his hits like, “It Wasn’t Me” and “Bombastic” but had never been much of a fan and had never seen him perform live. Well color me converted. He was truly spectacular, charismatic, energy packed, sounded great and was a ton of fun. One of the rare artists whose live music is better than what you heard on his recordings. I absolutely loved it. UB40 was great as expected as well, sounding as good as ever, but Shaggy was the star of the night and the reason this show is on this list. I hope to see him again soon.

Shaggy 


UB40

5) Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band- the Funky Biscuit, Boca Raton, Florida, February 20, 2019. This band should probably have made my top ten list a couple of times previously but I think the fact that I am friends with them, getting the pleasure of hanging out with them when they spend a month each year in Key West recharging and relaxing from their constant worldwide touring schedule, has made me do a sort of reverse bias, not giving them the their due. They are consistently one of the best live bands around, their immense skill honed by nearly year round tours and hundreds of shows a year. And talented they are, Reverend Peyton is easily one of the greatest guitar players of his generation and Breezy and Max (on the washboard and drums) make this band one of the most unique and interesting bands you are likely to hear. While I love their music, I get that it may be an acquired taste for some as they are not readily radio-friendly, but seeing them perform live is one of the great joys of my long music loving life and never have I taken anyone to see them who has not come away with a deep appreciation of their talent and the fun that their shows always are. They are truly on my top live shows ever list, especially if you want to experience something completely new and different.  And while I am happy to count them among my personal friend, that is not the reason they are listed here. Chances are that they will be appearing near you at some point during the next year, if so make sure you head out to check them out. 

 


4) Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls- The Culture Room, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 7, 2019. I have to send out a thank you to Flogging Molly for this one, as Frank and his band were booked for this year’s Flogging Molly Cruise which departed out of Miami and thus allowed for this show to happen the night before departure at one of my favorite venues, the Culture Room in Lauderdale. It is a perfect match for one of my favorite bands (and my top ranked concert just last year). Frank and the band had been doing a special seated acoustic tour in support of his brilliant new album, “No Man’s Land”, and while I am sure I would have enjoyed one of those shows, this was a return to his more traditional live set as sort of a warm up for the more raucous sets that would happen on the cruise. I was able to catch a sample of the acoustic stuff during the pre-show set at a local record store and then the amazing full band, full on set late into the night at the Culture Room.  Frank is a truly amazing live performer, one of my all-time favorites and this show found he and the band in top form and Frank in a fantastic mood as he was reunited with his new wife for the first time since their honeymoon as he had been away on tour and she was joining him for the cruise. I really hope that he tours again next year, he is certainly one of the acts that I will travel to see.

  Frank Turner 



3)The Alarm, Modern English, Gene Loves Jezebel- The Ground, Miami, Florida, September 7, 2019. In all my years and thousands of live shows, there are really just a small handful of bands that I count among my all-time favorites. The Alarm are near the top of that list and during the 80s, I saw them more than 25 times before the band broke up in 1991 and while they have been reunited in various incarnations in the years since, It has been thirty years since I saw them live. When I saw thy were making a rare return visit to Florida along with fellow 80s icons Modern English and Gene Loves Jezebel, I snapped up VIP tickets. The VIP tickets included a cool pre-show set by each artist and a meet and greet which was awesome. The show was terrific, all three bands were amazing and the Alarm, led by the indomitable Mike Peters were as good as they ever were even back in their prime. They are one of the best live bands that I have ever seen. I have no idea how the Alarm never hit major superstardom in the US. People seem to forget that at one time they were bigger than U2 and I still prefer their music over almost any of their contemporaries. I had not seen either Modern English or Gene Loves Jezebel perform live before, and they were both great as well. Getting to hear both a slow acoustic and a full on live jam of the iconic “I Melt With You” was a real treat. Three fantastic bands in one show makes this one of my top three music experiences of the year.

Gene Loves Jezebel 


The Alarm

Modern English


2) Lizzo, ACL Festival, Austin, Texas, October 6, 2019. In addition to Billie Eilish, the other superstar breakout sensation of 2019 was Lizzo. The release of her third album this year opened the floodgates for attention and adoration for the amazing performer. She is nominated for Best New Artist and received eight nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for the deluxe version of Cuz I Love You and Song of the Year and Record of the Year for "Truth Hurts". Her performance at ACL came at the absolute top of what was an amazing year for the artist. I wasn’t about to miss this and made my way very early to get a decent spot for her set. In the fifteen years that I have been attending ACL, this was by far the largest crowd I ever saw assembled for a single performer. The crowd was unbelievable and I literally felt sorry for those tasked with playing opposite of her on the other stages as about 90 percent of the ACL crowd, about 80,000 people jammed in to see Lizzo. They were not disappointed as she delivered a wonderful set of her high energy, body positive songs. I thought the crowd would be dominated by young women and girls, but everyone seemed to love and appreciate this bright new star on the music scene. I am so glad that I got a good spot early and that I was able to see this talent perform, it almost made my top show of the year.

Lizzo

1) Muse, Austin 360 Amphitheater, Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, March 23, 2019. I never would have gone to see Muse if they had not been booked to play at the awesome mid-track amphitheater at COTA during the Indy Car inaugural race in Austin. While I knew some of the band’s music, I never had the chance to see them live and was not quite sure what to expect. What I got was one of the best concert experiences of the decade, let alone this year.  I was completely blown away by the entire experience, the staging, musicianship and entertainment value of the show was all incredible.  The show featured a bright glowing stage with lights that criss-crossed the arena. The opening scene alone was a sight to behold: a line of dark LED-bodysuit-wearing brass players encircled the stages ramp into the crowd as Howard pounded a drum dramatically. Bellamy rose up from the floor with his arm in the air, his Thanos-like metal glove reflecting the laser lights throughout the arena. The high drama mixed with the bombastic visuals and added supporting cast made the show feel like a futuristic video game come to life; a post-apocalyptic Cirque du Soleil. The show went uphill from there and was one of the best full sensory concert experiences ever. I loved it and it easily stands alone as the best show of the year. Muse freaking rocks and now I can’t wait to see them again.

Muse

Muse







So that’s my list for this year, It was another fantastic year of live music. I hope you enjoyed the list and that you had some amazing music experiences of your own,








 


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