DC’s top blog for live concert reviews
Art Alexakis performs at City Winery in DC on Jan. 10, 2020. (Photo by Chris Smyth)
“Don’t you feel old being at a dinner theater and listening to ’90s rock?” the affable Art Alexakis quipped during his recent performance at City Winery DC. In the small, quiet venue, Art appeared comfortable on stage all by himself, regularly joking and telling stories to the fans in attendance.
Judas Priest made the list of Chris Smyth’s Top 10 photos of the Year (but not this particular one). (Photo by Chris Smyth)
Editor’s Note: This year, we asked our bloggers to name their Top 10 shows of 2019 or choose their Top 10 photos of the year. We will run them over the course of mid-December as our Best of the Year posts.
It is an odd feeling when you love and hate something simultaneously. The emotions don’t make sense, yet it’s fully real. That is how I feel each time I am tasked with creating this year-end list. I love looking through my old photographs and remembering each concert that I was fortunate enough to attend, and reliving each show through the images that I was able to capture along the way.
Killing Joke performs at Capital One Arena on Nov. 25, 2019. (Photo by Chris Smyth)
Tool burned through DC recently to close the band’s Fear Inoculum Tour in spectacular fashion, and to our surprise the prog rockers brought along perhaps the best possible opening act — English post-punks Killing Joke.
The gothic quartet even shared a bow with Tool at the end of the stage. Given that this was quite a combination, Chris Smyth took some photos of Killing Joke performing at Capital One Arena to open Tool recently.
Tool performs at Capital One Arena on Nov. 25, 2019. (Photo by Chris Smyth)
For the band’s final performance of 2019, prog-metal icons Tool brought the Fear Inoculum Tour to Capitol One Arena recently. Known for putting on one of the best concert performances across all genres of music, Maynard James Keenan and company did not disappoint. A light- and laser-filled spectacle, a Tool show is a two-hour long sensory overload.
Brent Smith of Shinedown participates in the Out of the Darkness Walk on Nov. 2, 2019. (Photo by Chris Smyth)
An hour before sunset on Saturday, more than 2,500 people disembarked from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for a long trek around the tidal basin. The walk was part of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Out of the Darkness Walk.
Leading the walk for the second straight year was Brent Smith, lead singer of Shinedown. Invited by radio station DC 101, and walking as part of their One More Light team, Brent took the time to talk with many of the participants, and to lend a compassionate ear to those who told him of the reasons why they were walking.
Andy Grammer performs at The Fillmore Silver Spring on Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo by Chris Smyth)
It takes supreme confidence to begin a concert with a spoken word poem followed by a gentle, acoustic ballad. Neither tend to elicit the excited energy that is often expected at the start of a pop show, but Andy Grammer proved that expectations can be mistaken when he recently electrified the crowd at The Fillmore Silver Spring by doing exactly that.
Dirty Honey performs at MECU Pavilion on Sept. 22, 2019. (Photo by Chris Smyth)
The amber sky from the evening’s sunset set a beautiful atmosphere as Dirty Honey took the stage to open the Victorious Sky tour with Alter Bridge and Skillet. While nature’s beauty was on exhibit high above, beneath the canopy at Baltimore’s MECU Pavilion recently, a night of music was commenced by one of rock and roll’s next big things.
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