Live Review: Drive-By Truckers @ Rams Head Live! — 8/27/21
Drive-By Truckers pulled into Baltimore recently to rattle the rust off the walls at Rams Head Live on the second date of a tour that was only wishful thinking just a year ago.
Snapshots: Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue @ Wolf Trap — 8/24/21
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue perform on the Filene Center stage at Wolf Trap, Aug. 24, 2021 (Photo by Ari Strauss).
Multi-instrumentalist Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and his R&B, rock, rap, and funk band, “Orleans Avenue,” delivered a New Orleans-style, “Treme Threauxdown,” to an audience armed with face masks and picnic suppers at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center outdoor concert venue on recently.
Live Review: Joe Russo’s Almost Dead @ MECU Pavilion — 8/21/21
Joe Russo’s Almost Dead performs at MECU Pavilion in Baltimore on Saturday Aug. 21, 2021. (Photo by Casey Vock.)
The Grateful Dead certainly aren’t done yet, as a recent stop at Jiffy Lube Live by Dead & Company showed us last week. But even if they were, there are so many musicians dedicated to carrying their torch that fans of the San Francisco-based band can rest assured they’ll be able to enjoy the catalogue of music in some live form for years to come.
Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, a highly talented five-piece outfit obviously led by respected veteran drummer Joe Russo, who himself is not yet close to passing away, made a timely stop in the Charm City this past weekend to drop two world-class sets of music paying tribute to the Grateful Dead.
Preview: Brandi Carlile @ Wolf Trap, 8/28/21
Brandi Carlile (Photo by Neil Krug)
Americana singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile is set to release her highly anticipated new album, In These Silent Days, on Oct. 1 via Low Country Sound/Elektra Records. On the way to her album release, she performs at Wolf Trap on Saturday, Aug. 28!
Interview: Willie Nile (@ The Hamilton Live, 8/28/21)
Willie Nile (Photos by Cristina Arrigoni)
Willie Nile is a man all about New York City, his longtime home. The man about town was in the process of releasing an album about New York City, titled New York at Night, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world and put things on hold.
In May 2020, Willie released that album. Not long before he did so, he chatted with Parklife DC’s Mark Engleson. Now, Willie is back with another album about the place he loves to live — The Day the Earth Stood Still, his 14th studio album, which was released on Aug. 13.
Willie is on tour again with a stop at The Hamilton Live in DC on Saturday, Aug. 28. But Parklife has been sitting on this unpublished interview from when Willie was promoting New York at Night. And in this interview, Willie chats about how much he also loves DC. So with no further ado, we present this chat and strongly suggest you catch Willie live at The Hamilton this weekend.
Preview: Hot August Music Festival @ Oregon Ridge Park (Cockeysville, Md), 8/28/21
Shakey Graves (Photo by Magen Buse)
The long-running Hot August Music Festival hits Cockeysville, Maryland, with an exciting summer lineup that includes Greensky Bluegrass, Shakey Graves, Dumpstaphunk, Andy Frasco and The UN, and more at Oregon Ridge Park on Saturday, Aug. 28!
Live Review: Dead & Company @ Jiffy Lube Live — 8/18/21
Dead & Company performs at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia, on Aug. 18, 2021. (Photo by Casey Vock)
What’s not to be appreciated about a musical act — more so a community and now essentially a culture — that has stood the test of more than 55 years? Nearly six decades after a band calling itself The Warlocks randomly switched its name to Grateful Dead, the most current amalgamation of some of the group’s original members and carefully chosen friends can still draw thousands of people together for a kaleidoscopic celebration of music.
Dead & Company rolled into Bristow, Virginia, last week for a show at Jiffy Lube Live, their second stop of the current tour, and created two robust sets of songs that not only paid tribute to the large family of musicians and songwriters that is the Grateful Dead, but gave many of the band’s songs a refreshing new twist that brought out the best in the group gathered on stage.
Preview: Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue AND Michael Franti & Spearhead @ Wolf Trap, 8/24/21
Trombone Shorty (Photo courtesy Blue Note Records)
Experience an evening of good vibes with the funky jazz rhythms of Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue (“Hurricane Season,” “Tripped Out Slim”) and the high-energy, inspiring music of Michael Franti & Spearhead (“Say Hey (I Love You),” “The Sound of Sunshine”) at Wolf Trap on Tuesday, Aug. 24!
Live Review: Wilco @ Merriweather Post Pavilion — 8/20/21
Just before things started closing down, just before 2020 was the last time I saw Wilco perform at The Anthem and hot on the heels of the release of their last LP, Ode to Joy. Since the nearly two years since I’d seen them last, Jeff Tweedy and the band have kept fans engaged with things like the Instagram show (there has to be a better word for this) “The Tweedy Show,” broadcast from Jeff’s home with his family and sometimes guests like the other members of Wilco — a homemade variety show with Jeff, Sammy, and Spencer Tweedy often singing / guitar playing / drumming to Tweedy and Wilco songs along with some fantastic covers.
And just in the past month, Jeff has even started a weekly substack which is like a personal newsletter / inspirational / confessional, maybe called “Starship Casual” where the songwriter shares musings and even rough bits of new songs (or songs-to-be). Basically, the band has been keeping things fresh and us fans fed, so to speak. So, after the announcement that Wilco would be touring again this summer, I couldn’t wait to see the guys — Jeff, John, Mikael, Nels, Pat, and Glenn — back again in the DC area. This time at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.
Live Review: Colin Hay @ The Birchmere — 8/17/21
Colin Hay performs at The Birchmere on Aug. 17, 2021. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
Colin Hay was in lockdown at home in California, searching for ways to pass the time like the rest of us. He concluded, as perhaps many others did, “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself.”
Thankfully, the quick-witted Scotsman immediately connected the thought to a hit song of that title, written by Burt Bacharach and covered by Dusty Springfield in 1964. It was a song Colin loved from his youth, and he scoured his memories of his father’s record store in the ’50s and ’60s for other inspirational tunes. Colin recorded and released 10 of them as a covers album
So it turns out that Colin did in fact know what to do with himself, which was abundantly evident in a wonderfully engrossing show by the drily humorous veteran in the first of two nights at The Birchmere recently.
