DC's biggest blog for concert reviews
MTV Moon Man (Photo courtesy MTV)
Your editor came to truly love music as an MTV Kid, riding the UK new wave acts that fueled the Gen X imagination with their pop hooks and colorful music videos.
The breadth of legacy new wave/ post-punk acts performing around the DC metro area in 2022 is unprecedented.
While Parklife DC won’t cover all of these shows, we are excited that these performers who started in the ’70s and ’80s are enjoying so much demand at present.
For Allison Russell, taking a chance and sending a message to Brandi Carlile’s Instagram paid off. It started a conversation with Carlile’s wife, which lead to getting detailed, track-by-track feedback on her debut solo album, Outside Child. From there, it led to yet bigger things: a contract with the label Fantasy Records, which released the powerful record to “universal acclaim” (per Metacritic) last May. It has been nominated for Americana Album of the Year at this year’s Grammys, and the standout song “Nightflyer” has been nominated for Best American Roots Song and Performance.
“I have a great team behind me,” Russell told the audience at the sold-out Barns at Wolf Trap recently. “That’s why I’m ’emerging’ at 42,” she said, referring to her nomination for Emerging Artist of the Year at last year’s Americana Music Awards.
Indigo Girls (Photo courtesy High Road Touring)
Some of folk music’s leading lights were on stage when Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls played a co-billed show at Wolf Trap recently.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (Photo by Alysse Gafkjen)
Jason Isbell referred to himself, his band, and opening act Waxahatchee as ambassadors for the state of Alabama when they appeared at Wolf Trap on Tuesday evening.
Indigo Girls (Photo courtesy High Road Touring)
Indigo Girls, “one of the finest folk duos of all time” (NPR), and feminist icon and singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco return with a Grammy-winning blend of female-driven folk, rock, and pop on Wednesday, Sept. 22, at Wolf Trap.
Lake Street Dive perform at Wolf Trap on Sept. 9, 2021. (Photos by Ari Strauss)
There was a lot of soul in the air when Lake Street Dive and Valerie June took the stage at Wolf Trap last week.
Lake Street Dive (Photo by Shervin Lainez)
In support of Lake Street Dive’s acclaimed album Obviously, the band is set to perform at Wolf Trap on Thursday, Sept. 9!
Brandi Carlile performs at Wolf Trap on Aug. 28, 2021. (Photo by Marc Shea)
Wolf Trap is back to full capacity shows — and when Brandi Carlile played there Saturday night, the venue was absolutely packed. The show started with a dynamite opening solo set by Amythyst Kiah, a singer-songwriter from Johnson City, Tennessee, whose style is based in the blues and folk music.
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.
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!