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When Mandy Moore took to the stage this week for her show at 9:30 Club she faced a daunting task. After an 11-year hiatus between releasing albums (and 15 years between tours), Moore was due for a DC area performance back in 2020 to promote her new Silver Landings album. As the world shut down and the tour was forced into postponement, Mandy Moore hunkered down to write and record yet another new album, In Real Life.
Yungblud performs at Rams Head Live on Feb. 15, 2022. (Photos by Rashad Polk)
“We want Dom! We want Dom!” The chants for Dominic Harrison, performing as Yungblud, echoed throughout Rams Head Live recently as the house lights went down and he prepared to take the stage. Despite the show being his first time performing in Baltimore, the suspense had been building for years. Yungblud has a handful of shows in DC under his belt, but the closest to Charm City he’d come has been performing on the 2018 Warped Tour at Merriweather Post Pavillion in Columbia, where he not only blew minds with his own set, but also joined Canadian pop-punkers Simple Plan on stage to lend vocals on their hit “Just A Kid.”
Gogol Bordello perform at Rams Head Live! on Dec. 31, 2021. (Photo by Rashad Polk)
It can sometimes be a struggle to decide on what to do for New Years Eve. Many people choose the ring in the new year in a variety of ways. In the DMV there’s no shortage when it comes to venues for the most common styles of New Year’s celebrations – places of worship, raucous parties, or gathering to take in live music. At a Gogol Bordello show music is religion, their live show is always a party, and Rams Head Live was understandably the ideal place to welcome the magnificent year of 2022.
The Struts perform at Lincoln Theatre on Sept. 7, 2021. (Photos by Rashad Polk)
The Struts rolled through D.C. recently, taking over the historic Lincoln Theatre to deliver a genuine rock and roll show.
A photo from Beck’s summer concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion ranked among Rashad Polk’s Top 10 Photos of 2019 (but not this photo). (Photo by Rashad Polk)
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.
Editor (again): The very skillful Rashad Polk picked 10 of his photos as the best of 2019 — take it away, Rashad!
The Reverend Horton Heat performs at Black Cat on Dec. 15, 2019. (Photo by Rashad Polk)
As the year winds down, we enter a period of mandatory social gatherings. There’s the ugly sweater parties, the holiday party at the office, Chanukah with the in-laws, Christmas dinner at a tableful of third and fourth cousins… but the one holiday event that should truly be mandatory went down recently at the Black Cat. The Reverend Horton Heat came through town for the 2019 edition of Horton’s Holiday Hayride.
Highly Suspect performs at 9:30 Club on Nov. 17, 2019. (Photo by Rashad Polk)
Anyone in attendance at 9:30 Club can easily deduce that DC is dope. The logic is simple — according to the title of Highly Suspect’s brand new album, MCID, their crew is dope. It was evident at the band’s recent sold-out show, the band’s first D.C. performance since a two-night stand at 9:30 Club last year, that Highly Suspect’s crew has a large presence in the nation’s capital.
Con Brio performs at The Hamilton Live on Oct. 10, 2019. (Photo by Rashad Polk)
The stage at The Hamilton was recently host to one of the funkiest bands to come out of the San Francisco Bay area — Con Brio. While Con Brio can easily be compared to other legendary groups from the same area such as Sly and the Family Stone or Tower of Power, another group that comes to mind is Metallica. Though there isn’t too much in common on the surface, both bands seem to continually deliver on the promise of their respective band names.
Agnostic Front performs at Cafe 611 on Oct. 3, 2019. (Photo by Rashad Polk)
The Godfathers of hardcore, Agnostic Front, recently graced the stage at Cafe 611 in Frederick, Maryland, during a DC-area stop of their tour celebrating the 35th anniversary of their debut studio album Victim in Pain. Throughout the years since their first release, the New York Hardcore legends’ sound has evolved while still retaining the essential elements that have cemented their status as a band whose style is so often emulated.
Beck performs at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Aug. 22, 2019. (Photo by Rashad Polk)
In preparation of the release of his upcoming album Hyperspace, Beck stopped by Merriweather on his co-headlining tour with Cage the Elephant.