Belly, the alternative-rock band led by Tanya Donelly, had a short initial run, producing just two albums: 1993’s Star, which went gold, and 1995’s King. (In 2018, they reunited to record a third album, Dove.) Their current tour celebrates the 30th anniversary of the latter album, and they rocked as hard as they ever have when they recently played an early show at the 9:30 Club.
Forty years ago, the cities of London and Philadelphia hosted the biggest arts event of the ’80s: Live Aid. And there was no bigger star in London than David Bowie.
Bowie did not perform his four-song set alone, of course. He recruited a talented band that included breakthrough artist Thomas Dolby on keyboards. The experience left a deep impression on Dolby, who now resides in Baltimore as head of Music for New Media for the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins, and so Dolby occasionally incorporates elements of the experience in his modern day performances.
Such was the case in Professor Dolby’s recent performance at Rams Head on Stage, where he unleashed an experimental new project under the banner of his latest tour, Iconic ’80s: My Personal Recollections.
When she was a teenager in Old Town Maine, Patty Griffin found Rickie Lee Jones’s self-titled debut in a record store. She was intrigued by the gorgeous, “honey-blonde” girl on the cover; in those days, she said, sometimes you’d find an image of a beautiful woman who had nothing to do with an album on its cover. But it really was Rickie, and Patty fell in love with her music.
Recently, these two beloved and highly influential singer-songwriters shared the bill at the Strathmore.
Hailed as the “reincarnation of Liszt” (Fanfare Magazine), youngest winner of the Gilmore Artist Award Alexandre Kantorow makes his Washington DC debut! He performs live in a matinee show at The Kennedy Center on Saturday, Nov. 1.
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience Kantorow’s artistry, sensitivity, and technical piano prowess on full display. (Please note: the NSO does not perform on this program.)
Although Thundercat does not have a new album, the versatile musician released two new singles in the past year — “I Wish I Didn’t Waste Your Time” and “Children of the Baked Potato,” featuring Remi Wolf.
Thundercat is also on tour, and he performs live tonight at The Anthem in DC! It’s not too late to join him and opener Filterman for a night of cool, breezy fun.
Cage the Elephant Throws a “Neon” Night in DC
Words by Matt Bailey
Photos by James Todd Miller
Cage the Elephant recently brought non-stop energy to The Anthem in DC with an undeniable explosion of lights, sounds, and the unmatched stage presence of frontman Matt Shultz.
Multi-GRAMMY and Academy Award winner Jon Batiste released his new album Big Money on August 22 via Verve/Interscope.
He’s now on tour, and he brings the Big Money Tour to The Anthem in DC on Friday, Oct. 31 with special guests Andra Day and Diana Silvers!
Darkwave synthpop band Lebanon Hanover made it to the Black Cat recently for their first-ever show in Washington, DC. The European duo have toured the United States before but it wasn’t until the release of their latest album, Asylum Lullabies, that they made it here.
That said, Lebanon Hanover played only one song from the new album — “Parrots” — in their encore! The rest of the show was a baker’s dozen of dance tunes picked from across their catalog and back to their first studio album, 2012’s The World Is Getting Colder. These selections held the fully engaged audience spellbound as Larissa Iceglass and William Maybelline brought down the temperature in the room!
The Queen of the Sugar Trap, Rico Nasty, shut down a sold-out Fillmore Silver Spring not long ago for her homecoming show on her Lethal Tour, in support of her most recent album of the same name. The Maryland rapper has consistently been one of the most diverse artists to ever come out of the DMV music scene, and the way she had the alt-kids along with everyone else packing out the crowd moshing, twerking, and bouncing all in the same show confirmed it.
Rodney Crowell has been a fixture in the Nashville music establishment for more than five decades. While he’s achieved his greatest success with over artists covering his songs, he’s a fine performer in his own right, which he more than showed in his recent appearance at the Lincoln Theatre, with a set that spanned the length of his remarkable career.
