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Anita Baker (Photo courtesy Blue Note Records)
Anita Baker is one of few leading R&B acts to garner critical and musical acclaim with a husky ember tone and jazzy tempo, a pleasant contrast with many of her contemporaries. These traits afforded her a 30-year career, which is now its on farewell tour — a tour that visited MGM National Harbor recently.
“You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?” David Byrne ponders being my No. 1 concert in 2018. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
Editor’s Note: This year, we asked our bloggers to name their Top 10 shows of 2018 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.
Hi, I’m Mickey, editor of Parklife DC. I’m an MTV-bred New Wave and Post-Punk kid at heart, and it will come as no surprise to you that my Top 10 concerts of 2018 mostly burst right off your television screens in 1985.
Keith Sweat performs at MGM National Harbor on Oct. 27, 2018. (Photo by Chris Castillo)
Keith Sweat released Playing for Keeps, his 13th studio album, on Oct. 26 via Red Music. The very next day, the Harlem soul singer was at MGM National Harbor for a show, and Chris Castillo got some pix.
Maxwell performs at MGM National Harbor on Oct. 4, 2018. (Photo by Will Colbert)
Grammy award-winning R&B singer-songwriter Maxwell made a recent stop at The Theater at MGM National Harbor as part of the 50 Intimate Nights Live Tour. It has been over 20 years since the release of his debut album, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite (1996), but the silky soul singer showed that he’s still got it!
Maxwell, along with artists like Erykah Badu and D’Angelo, have been credited as the originators of neo-soul. The genre that dominated the late ‘90s and early aughts incorporated jazz, funk, and hip-hop into a contemporary R&B sound.
88rising (Photo courtesy Biz3)
88rising isn’t a band — it’s a company! But in the 88 Degrees and Rising Tour at MGM National Harbor on Oct. 9, he media, marketing, and record firm heralds its hot mix of artists, including Joji, NIKI, Rich Brian, Higher Brothers, and others.
Pat Benatar sings her heart out at MGM National Harbor on July 24, 2018. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)
With a sparkle in her eyes and brilliance in her voice, Pat Benatar was all fired up at MGM National Harbor on Tuesday, as she and husband Neil Giraldo rocked through a smashing catalog of thundering anthems and hushed serenades.
Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo (Photo courtesy the artists)
Pat Benatar returned to Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart after an absence of 16 years in November with “Dancing Through the Wreckage,” a strong new song she recorded for Served Like a Girl, a documentary about female veterans returning to the United States after their military service.
It really is a great song, but we fully realize that you wanna hear all of the Benatar classics too — powerful and liberating numbers like “Love Is a Battlefield,” “Invincible,” and “We Belong.” Well, you can if you buy one of the few remaining tickets for a performance by Pat and Neil Giraldo at MGM National Harbor on Tuesday, July 24!
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