Lewis Capaldi performs at The Anthem on April 3, 2023. (Photo by Katie Child)
Lewis Capaldi is the epitome of an entertainer. Not only one of the most incredible vocalists I’ve had the pleasure of photographing but easily the funniest, Capaldi entrances a crowd like no other. Naturally hilarious, fans from the barricade all the way through the back at his recent show at The Anthem were engaged with their eyes glued to Lewis.
Skinny Puppy (Photo by Emilie Elizabeth and John Kraw)
In celebration of their 40th anniversary, Skinny Puppy hit the road for the Skinny Puppy: Final Tour featuring special guest Lead Into Gold. Produced by Live Nation, the tour arrives in the DC area for a show at The Fillmore Silver Spring on Wednesday, April 19.
The Boulet Brothers (Photo by Scotty Kirby)
You’ve watched these Titans battle all season long, now come see the winning Supermonster LIVE! The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Titans is hitting the road and bringing the haunts and screams to the Lincoln Theatre in DC on Thursday, April 13!
Arlo McKinley (Photo by Emma Delevante)
Cincinnati’s Arlo McKinley may have been discovered by the late John Prine, who signed him to his Oh Boy record label, but he recently showed at the Pearl Street Warehouse that his musical range goes far beyond that familiar country-folk territory.
In addition to his covering Prine’s “How Lucky,” Arlo threw in a couple of unexpected numbers: Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” INXS’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (“a song by an Australian songwriter who’s no longer with us”), and “Nothing Compares 2 U” in the style of Sinead O’Connor, using the same gendered pronouns.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Photo by Juan Ortiz Arenas)
Unknown Mortal Orchestra recently released V, their fifth studio album, via Jagjaguwar, and they are hitting the road on a tour that includes two dates at 9:30 Club!
UMO have sold out a first night at 9:30 Club but tix remain available for a second night on Wednesday, April 19.
Joe Pug performs at Wild Buffalo House of Music on March 31, 2023. (Photo by Mark Caicedo)
If a song is a short story, then Joe Pug’s songs are novels, epic and engrossing. With his uncanny knack for narrative and powers of description, Pug wove tales of hope, and despair, on a chilly, rainy March evening at Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo House of Music.
And I’ve come here to ignore your cries and heartaches
I’ve come to closely listen to you sing
I’ve come here to insist, that I leave here with a kiss
I’ve come to say exactly what I mean
And I mean so many things
“Hymn #101”
Hymn #101 opened Pug’s first EP, Nation of Heat (2009), its arrival serving notice of a singer-songwriter whose vision mirrored the breadth and width of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (whom Pug credits as inspiration for Nation of Heat). His first full-length album, Messenger, arrived in 2010, with five more albums released through 2022.
Alaina Moore leads the band Tennis in the first of two sold-out performances at 9:30 Club on March 29, 2023. (Photo by Casey Vock)
Even in 2023, it’s rude to gawk. But when you catch a glimpse of Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley getting high on the sexy magic they’ve found in making illusory, provocative music together as the outfit they call Tennis, you can’t help but gaze at this captivating and talented pair of multi-instrumentalists.
The duo from Colorado visited the nation’s capital last week for a pair of sold-out shows at the 9:30 Club, and in performing back-to-back nights to packed audiences at the V Street venue, Tennis dazzled, delighted, and proved itself to be the uncommon entity born out of passion and purview.
9:30 Club (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
In September 2021, alt-rockers Foo Fighters performed a show at 9:30 Club to formally rechristen it after pandemic closures (although the club had sporadically stirred back to life at this point).
But Foo frontman Dave Grohl also took the stage with a surprise announcement of new beginnings. He announce that 9:30 Club would open a smaller venue next door to its location on V Street NW, DC — a location that would recall its original location at 930 F Street NW.
Today, IMP Concerts, owner and operator of 9:30 Club revealed that new, more intimate club is called The Atlantis, and that it will officially open on Tuesday, May 30, 2023, with a show by — the Foo Fighters!
The Bobby Lees (Photo by John Swab)
Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Henry Rollins — these are just a few of the punk icons who have shown support for the Woodstock, New York-based band The Bobby Lees. The Bobby Lees bared their teeth — and their souls — on their new album, Bellevue, in 2022.
Xeno & Oaklander (Photo by Liz Wendelbo)
There is no more glorious sight to my eyes than a tabletop of modular synthesizers. And cold wave duo Xeno & Oaklander recently arrived at Pie Shop in DC with a fantastic array of modular synthesizers in rugged cases. They were beautiful things indeed, and Sean McBride and Liz Wendelbo used them to create hauntingly beautiful music.
