Few touring bands today channel a joyful, soul-stirring energy of street-corner party music quite like The California Honeydrops. On Saturday, Oct. 3, the Bay Area-based outfit brings their mix of Bay Area R&B, New Orleans second-line brass, southern soul, and delta blues to the iconic 9:30 Club for a night guaranteed to transform the room into a dance floor.
When close relatives (especially siblings) sing together, the result is often what is called “blood harmony,” the similarities in the two voices almost melding together into a single instrument. Lydia Slagle and Laura Rogers, who perform as The Secret Sisters, are part of this long tradition in country and folk music.
They’re also fantastic songwriters; they may have only released five albums (they’re recording a new one soon), but they already have a number of gems, and they delighted the audience at The Birchmere with a selection of their best material on Friday evening.
If you’ve been paying attention to the underground circuit lately, you already know that Quebec’s microtonal math-rock duo Angine de Poitrine is currently delivering some of the most bizarre, exhilarating, and technically jaw-dropping live music anywhere on the continent. Wrapping up their two separate nights in Washington DC at the historic Lincoln Theatre, Khn de Poitrine and Klek de Poitrine delivered a masterclass in controlled sonic chaos.
On this humid September eve, our fearless reporter braved the not so mean streets of Northwest DC to catch two very different performances at Black Cat: Lancaster, PA – based folk-punk act Apes of the State, and Los Angeles’ sardonic pop-rock favorites, Cheekface.
Steve Winwood and John Fogerty might not seem like the most natural pairing. Winwood’s career, which began in the ’60s with the British invasion band The Spencer Davis Group, ranges from blue-eyed soul to progressive rock. Winwood was a teenage prodigy, an immensely gifted vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. As the driving force behind Creedence Clearwater Revival and beyond, Fogerty has always drawn on old-school American rock, country, and blues. Revered for his songwriting, he towers over roots, heartland, and even punk rock.
While it may have been an unlikely pairing, it worked out splendidly on last week, when Winwood and Forgerty shared the bill at Wolf Trap.
Some artists just seem custom-built to play certain venues. If his batshit-delightful appearance there last week was any indication, Jeff Rosenstock is most certainly a perfect match for Baltimore’s Ottobar.
The poster promised three bands: HammerFall, Evergrey, and Elvenking.
Virgil was excited for Elvenking because of “Seasonspeech,” their four-seasons song from the early aughts. We walked into Tally Ho Theater hoping for some of that Italian folk flair.
The First and Second British Invasions collided in a night of wonderful and inventive tunes at Warner Theatre as MTV-era innovators The Fixx teamed with chamber-pop pioneer Colin Blunstone of The Zombies for a thoroughly enjoyable bill of English pop music. Adding even more class to the evening was the dapper Peter Asher, once of the duo Peter and Gordon, who opened the show with a set of timeless songs and the stories behind them.
Important Capital One Arena Construction Updates Ahead of Garth Brooks Concerts This Weekend
Superstar entertainer and Country Music Hall of Famer Garth Brooks will bring his Blame It All On My Roots tour to Capital One Arena this weekend for two nights, Friday, Sep. 18 and Saturday, Sept. 19. It’s Brooks’ first time playing a full arena concert inside the district proper. His last time playing a major concert in DC was during his 1996 world tour. He stopped in Landover, Maryland, for a run of shows back then.
Three legendary groups. Decades of hits. And one stage that rarely had time to cool down.
TLC, Salt-N-Pepa, and En Vogue brought the It’s Iconic Tour to Jiffy Lube Live Wednesday night, turning the Virginia amphitheater into a celebration of the women who helped shape an era of R&B and hip-hop.
