The Gossip @ Terminal 5 NYC

Now, it must be said up front that Terminal 5 is a lovely venue. It's a bigger venue than The Gossip has ever played in NYC before. There's the stage level floor, the second floor with good balcony views of the whole stage and the crowd below, and the third floor which is much like the second, but with smoking permitted. And there are at least two well-stocked full-service bars on each floor. Terminal 5 is a lovely venue, and I hate it. I hate it for many reasons, but mostly because no matter what I do, I can't seem to get in with my camera because it's "professional" (even though my camera's almost 6 years old and now even the little point-and-shoot cameras that Terminal 5 staff does let in have more megapixels and zoom than my camera does). But that's just my own personal Heavy Cross...moving on!

Opening for The Gossip this evening were Apache Beat and MEN (fronted by LaTigre vet, J.D. Samson). The venue doors opened at 7pm, and when I arrived on the scene at 7:30pm-ish, Apache Beat was already tearing it up onstage. I can usually take or leave a lot of opening acts, but Apache had something else going on. They are a five piece ensemble with some really kick ass drums (courtesy of Neil Westgate) and bass lines (big ups to DosSantos). With Christina Aceto on synths and Phillip Aceto rounding it all out on guitar, it's obvious that these kids know how to have a good time. Lead singer, Ilirjana Alushaj is a bit manic but really knows how to belt it out. It's no wonder Gossip chose this band to get the crowd warmed up. Here's a little taste of what they had to offer captured on my trusty camera phone:

Apache Beat Live @ Terminal 5 in NYC

As for MEN, LeTigre veteran J.D. Samson's latest little something to do, it was a non-stop, hop up and down, pump your fist in the air, and make a silly face kinda good time. I think we wouldn't expect (or accept) anything less. With J.D. synths and sound boards with all the beats and special effects, Michael O'Neill on guitar, Ginger Takahashi on bass, and "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" hyping the crowd, it was a good way to get the blood pumping back to the feet ('cause three hours is a long time to wait in one spot for Beth Ditto to happen) and get the body dancing. I was gonna post a video snippet, but the sound wasn't so great and the picture was obscured by the very polite monolith of a man who slid in front of me at the last second...sorry guys. But no worries: On to the main attraction!!!

The Gossip took to the stage at precisely 10pm (I love a band that loves the fans enough not to keep us all waiting forever and ever). The show opened with track no. 1 off their new album, Music For Men. An as yet unnamed bass player (who we now know is none other than Chris Sutton - thank you Anonymous Commenter!) climbed onto stage first. Whoever he is, he worked it out at this show. Anyways...drummer Hannah Blilie was next to step on stage, and though I'm certain she was beloved before, I'm sure that her new status as the album's cover girl didn't hurt either. Guitarist Nathan "Brace Paine" Howdeshell stepped up and the two of them started the opening licks of Dimestore Diamond. Beth Ditto started singing from somewhere in the ether, and when she finally set foot on stage, the crowd went berserk...but quickly reigned themselves in so as not to miss a single second of Bethtastic vocal goodness. The band's universally loved frontwoman sported a new shorter 'do in Kool-Aid red or Sunkist orange (depending on the lighting), She wore form-fitting black, knee-length dress covered in silvery glitter sparkles that shimmered as she shimmied around the stage to the beat, giving the impression that Beth Ditto is not the centre of the universe, but the universe itself...and we mere mortals are all just playing at her game. Side note: all the video is shot on my camera phone (as usual), BUT my screen is broken, so I couldn't actually see what I was recording. I just had to hope I was pressing the right button to start and stop. Please forgive any Beth Ditto headlessness and try to focus on her awesomeness and the sublime sound quality.

The Gossip - Dimestore Diamond Live @Terminal 5 in NYC

Not a bad way to kick off a show! The Gossip covered old favorites like Your Mangled Heart

The Gossip - Your Mangled Heart Live @Terminal 5 in NYC

as well as the newest of the new album with 8th Wonder

The Gossip - 8th Wonder Live @Terminal 5 in NYC

And in between songs, Beth came with her trademark blend of down-home, big sisterly chit-chat with the audience. When one fan held up a photo of herself with Beth at another show, the singer took the photo ("I need a Sharpie! Who has a Sharpie!"), took a few minutes to write something sweet and passed it back to the fan. In another case, when security tried to break up an argument in the audience, Beth halted her song opening to settle the dispute (a guy had called some girls dirty c***s and wouldn't apologise even after Beth gave him the mic to do it, so she let security escort him out). At one point between songs, Beth was having a little tete-a-tete with drummer Hannah Blilie, and when the audience got impatient with waiting, Beth turned to the crowd and said, "Shhhhhh...Band meeting! Don't be rude, now!" Some of the shows other highlights included my favorite cut off the new album, Four Letter Word:

The Gossip - Four Letter Word Live @Terminal5 in NYC

And what Gossip show would be complete without a kick-ass cover song, right? Here's Beth & Co. doing it up during the "encore" to the Tina Turner classic, What's Love Got To Do With It. And yeah, after the main set was over, she came back out barefoot and with just her skivvies on! Love this girl!:

The Gossip - What's Love Got To Do With It Live @Terminal 5 in NYC

The show finally (for really-real) closed with the song that put Gossip on the map, Standing In The Way Of Control, but not before some more love from Beth to the fans. She shouted out one girl for her 26th birthday, and invited another fan, the UK's own DJ Lindsay, onstage to celebrate DJ's 50th Gossip show before launching into the song ("You can stand here, but it might get awkward..."). Oh, and the other thing I hate about Terminal 5? The barrier moat between the stage and the crowd for press photogs. Granted, I might feel differently if I was in the moat with my camera, but I think that is neither here nor there. The point is, it keeps the fans away from the artists, and keeps the artist away from the fans. And Beth (bless her little heart) was having none of it. During the song, Beth dropped herself into the moat and was helped by fans and security over the barrier so that she could walk through the audience belting it out, spreading love, and giving hugs to anyone who could lay a hand on her. For Beth, it seems, making music is not just about touching people, it's also about touching people...

The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control Live @Terminal 5 in NYC

And just because enough is never enough, Beth came back out for a minute afterwards to lead the crowd in a chorus of Queen's classic anthem We Are The Champions. Declarations of love were made. Warm-fuzzy feelings were had. And that, boys and girls, was The Gossip in NYC. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Gossip. Beth Ditto. Happy Warm Fuzzies. Rainbows. Unicorns. Hugs.

G'nite babies. See you at the next show!

Bat For Lashes @ Webster Hall NYC & Paradise Rock Club Boston

I saw these two shows back to back. If you're not interested in why, skip to the next paragraph. If you find yourself curious, then here's why: Way back in April, I went to see Bat For Lashes throw down at a sold out show at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. Immediately following said show, I felt an urgent need to see Natasha & Co. throw down again...soon...urgent! The best I got was a glimmer of hope in some canceled Boston dates that Natasha said she'd try to make up for in early August some time. So I waited, and I bided my time. And then I saw my chance. In June, new tour dates were announced for Boston...and as far as I could tell, no one knew about it yet!! SCORE!!!! I facebooked all my relevant Boston peeps to see who might be down to see the show with me (it was a courtesy call, really...I would have been there with or without someone to keep me company). I bought a ticket. A friend I hadn't seen in 15 years bought a ticket. And I commenced to get really excited despite the two months between my ticket purchase and the actual show date. Then, some time end-of-June-beginning-of-July-ish, I got word that Bat For Lashes was coming back to perform in NYC again, this time at Webster Hall...the kicker: The NYC show was 12th August, and the Boston show (for which I already had a ticket) was 13th August, AND this was all in the week following my return to work from a month long work-holiday in Europe and the UK. Could I do it? Should I do it? Could I stop myself? The answers to these questions were: Yes. Yes. And No, respectively. I sent an emergency text to some of the NYC peeps who missed the last show because they didn't get in on it early enough. Tickets were purchased. Plans were made, and after having a great night out with Natasha and her friends and my friends in NYC, I took a half day from work to ride up to Boston and see Natasha work it out yet again. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO worth it!!!

So, because of the consecutive showings on the same leg of the same tour, rather than review each show on its own, I've decided to compare and contrast the two shows (with some added insight, of course). For the NYC show, the venue was Webster Hall. I love the old school, art deco style of the theatre, and I love the fact that it's a bit bigger than Bowery Ballroom, but doesn't lose any of the intimacy. For this particular show, however, there was a barrier set up in front of the stage leaving a big gap between the crowd and the band where the press photographers could come and go until after the headlining opening number. It was annoying because 1) even if you were standing at the barrier, some photog with a ginormous flash mount could step in front of you obscuring your view of Bat For Lashes awesomeness, and 2) once all the photogs are ushered out, there's a sort of moat separating you from the foot of the stage - what if Natasha wanted to reach out and touch people's hands and stuff? That coulda been you! Dammit barrier!!

The Boston show was at Paradise Rock Club. I'd never been there before, but as you walk in, you can see all the posters on the wall for the cool sh*t they've got going on (Emiliana Torrini, Zap Mama, School of Seven Bells...check'em out if you're in the Boston area). The venue is "cozy" and there's a giant column just a few feet from centre stage (and there was some poor person crammed behind it the whole show...). But they really pack the crowd in and the stage itself is quite low (only 3 or 4 feet off the ground), so you're really just all up in the show. For those that don't wish to jockey for position on the floor, there is also a non-VIP balcony area where you can see it all. So everybody wins (except for that poor person behind the column on the floor...sucker!).

The opening act on this leg of the tour is Other Lives, a band out of Oklahoma. And they ain't half bad. If you're not frightened off by lead singer Jesse Tabish's facial hair and general lack of grooming, you will find yourself in for quite a treat! Tabish, Josh Onstott, and Jonathon Mooney switch off amongst themselves for guitar, autoharp, violin, and piano duty while Colby Owens holds it all down on drums, and Jenny Hsu adds that touch of something special with her cello and backing vocals (and y'all know how I love the cello rock!). Their songs are bluesy rock and roll, with an atmospheric feel and a story to tell. Altogether, I found Other Lives to be a really good fit as an opener for Bat For Lashes.

Okay, here's what you came for: Bat For Lashes (with picturez b*tchez)!!! As for the set itself, if you like wolves and full moons, then this is the show for you! There was an enormous full moon-with-howling-wolf painted on the backdrop behind the stage, as well as a tapestry featuring full moons and wolves hanging across the front of the piano. In NYC, Natasha stepped on-stage in a shiny black bodysuit flecked with splatters of gold and fur-fringed tie-on sleeves, in her bare feet (if you caught her on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the previous night, you know exactly what I'm talking about). In Boston, the costuming was quite the opposite: a black boat-neck 3/4 sleeve top, pouffy white skirt, a thick black belt, white leopard printed leggings, and again bare feet. No ginormous wolf-and-moon tapestry as backdrop, but I get the impression that the stage at Paradise just wasn't big enough to fit it in. In any case, Natasha was lovely and adorable, and looked like she might hop off stage after the show to go vintage shopping with Zooey Deschanel. And then she started singing and we all lost our minds!

If it weren't for the fact that I could hear Natasha breathing and giggling and chatting to the crowd during and between songs, I might have suspected that all the vocals were pre-recorded. Natasha Khan turned in a pitch perfect performance of the most sublime vocal imagery ever let loose from a microphone. Both shows opened with the Two Suns biblical album Intro followed by Glass and Sleep Alone with it's primal, jungle dwelling bass and percussion thanks to Charlotte Hatherley (on bass, autoharp, percussion, backing vocals, balloon animals...you name it, this woman does it) and Sarah Jones (who I would still like to be be my best friend) on drums, percussion, and backing vocals. Giving the sets an otherworldly feel with the keyboard arrangements and seemingly random ambient noises and samples is the ever present Ben Christophers. Horse & I - one of my all time favorite tracks - followed to raucous applause...tho in Boston, there was a bit of a giggly false start from Natasha on this one (check out the video at the bottom). The set lists for the two shows did diverge a bit. Some songs swapped places with others. Some appearing at one show, but not at the next (they skipped out Sad Eyes completely at the Boston show). If it can even be conceived that anything could surpass the recorded version of Siren Song, the live version is a world changing experience. It starts off slow and quiet, adding layer upon layer of sound until you find yourself caught in the centre of a sonic storm so powerful you're not sure if the walls will hold. Two Planets is another song in the live repertoire that may just make you believe (as I do) that Sarah Jones is the best drummer in the history of EVER. The thundering drums and Natasha's raw energy on stage make your tingles tingle. And for the record, I don't understand people who go to concerts and don't dance. Who are these people and why do they even bother to leave their hovels to come and take up dance space at shows I go see? In Boston, the set "ended" with Pearl's Dream; in NYC the "ending" was a sparser version of Prescilla with Natasha alone on stage and accompanying herself on harpsichord. The Boston "encore" started with this same lonely version of Prescilla and the crowd was so moved by the performance, spontaneous hand-clap percussion erupted in pockets of the audience while Natasha sang, in hommage to the album version. It was a very warm and fuzzy moment for all, and Natasha paused a moment to look up in the direction of the claps and give a smile before continuing on. Back in NYC, the "encore" of Moon & Moon elicited a manic shout of "YOU'RE AMAZING!!!" from somewhere in the crowd, which in turn elicited an equally spastic response of "THANK YOU!!!" from Natasha before starting the song.

The last song for both shows was Daniel. Not a bad way to end a show, really. The band going crazy on-stage, Natasha singing, dancing, and smiling like a Make A Wish kid at Disneyland, and the entire room jumping up and down, dancing, and vibrating to the music. Yeah, I can think of worse ways to spend an evening (or two). I've said it before and I'll say it again, I want to be Natasha Khan when I grow up. And when I'm all grown up and Natasha Khan, I want Sarah Jones to be my very best friend! I'll even listen to all of those "When-I-was-On-Tour" stories for the thousandth time, and do so with a smile on my face and a (Bat For Lashes) song in my heart. And even though I know what's coming next, I will try to give all of my responses as unstudied an air as possible. Honest! I promise, Sarah! Call me!...*sigh* Do not, I repeat: DO NOT miss this show if it comes to your city!!!

In the meantime, here are some vids i recorded on my cellphone...the images may not be the bestest of the best, but i promise the sound quality is so good y'all!

Bat For Lashes performing Intro/Glass Live @ Paradise Rock Club in Boston

Bat For Lashes performing Horse & I @ Paradise Rock Club in Boston



Bat For Lashes performing Trophy @ Paradise Rock Club in Boston




Bat For Lashes performing Moon & Moon @ Paradise Rock Club in Boston





Bat For Lashes performing Two Planets @ Paradise Rock Club in Boston



Click Here to see all the photos from these shows...

See you at the next show babies...

Jenny Owen Youngs @ Bowery Ballroom NYC

I came to see Jenny Owen Youngs, but the other bands kicked a lot of ass in their own rights. The show opened with a band called These United States. These boys are fun Fun FUN!!! they opened their set with some monster guitars and killer bass, and followed immediately with the most kick ass drums I've heard all year on such a modest set-up. The music is kinda bluesy, kinda rock & roll-ish, 100% kick ass with a side of down home goodness and foot stomping. Let me put it like this, if the new season of True Blood on HBO opened with These United States playing in a bar on the bayou and followed with vampiric goodness and mayhem, I wouldn't be a bit surprised; and these fellas would not be a bit out of place. Usually, an opening act is pretty good, but you'd much rather be watching/listening to whatever band you really came to see. In this case, when the boys announced their last song, the entire room was all, "Nooooooooooooo!!!...but we do want to see Jenny. But still...Noooooooooooooooo!!!" For those that have only heard them, I must point out that bass player, Mark Charles, is one of the best dressed men in music right now. Period. Also, front man, Jesse Elliott, is the sweatingest man in music, and that is a fact. This man sweated more than all the other performers in all the other acts combined. He took one for the team. He was sweating on everyone's behalf. Seriously, I was in the front with my camera praying that he wouldn't shake his head in my direction. Sweat dripping from his guitar! Rounding out the foursome is J. Tom Hnatow who was wicked on the steel guitar and slide, David Strackany who worked it out on electric guitar, and drummer Robby Cosenza (who played nearly the entire set with his eyes closed - love this guy!). But I digress...please find their myspace and show them some love.

Jenny stepped up next. To say that Jenny Owen Youngs is extremely talented would be an understatement at the very least. Of course, when talking about her spectacular new cd, Transmitter Failure, she, herself, would probably be more likely to tell you that "...the packaging is beautiful! The music's okay..." Jenny rocked, rolled, folk'd,and joked her way through a nearly hour-long set, playing mostly new songs with a few solid assists from the first album. The show opener, Voice On Tape (from Jenny's debut, Batten The Hatches), got a huge crowd response...followed by an almost solemn hush as everyone leaned in and listened intently. The live version does not pale in the least to the album version with recorded voicemail snippets from Jenny's old college chum, Regina Spektor. Jenny was joined on this leg of the tour by Dan Romer on guitar, Chris Kuffner on bass, Elliott Jacobson on drums, and someone whom Jenny described as "...Destroyer of worlds, breaker of hearts, and my favorite part of the band Tegan & Sara...", Bess Rogers on guitar. Since the new album was just released officially the day before this show, the new songs were a pleasant and very welcome surprise to nearly everyone in the room. The driving force behind newer songs like Led To The Sea, Dissolve, and Clean Break definitely left a stamp of "Mission Accomplished" on Jenny's mission while writing and recording the album, which was to bring a collection of songs that would be more fun to perform live. They got the crowd moving, head nodding, dancing to the beat, and singing along to the chorus after not too long. Nods to Batten The Hatches were the afore mentioned Voice On Tape, Drinking Song, and everyone's favorite, F*ck Was I. My personal favorite off the new album performed during the show was the title track, Transmitter Failure which, in my opinion, is the most melodically beautiful song Jenny's recorded so far. This is no small feat from a woman who can make you sing the words "What the f*ck was I thinking..." absentmindedly in a room full of small children before you catch yourself and look around to see if anybody heard you (I'm not saying it's happened to me, but I'm not saying it hasn't either...). Catchy melody is clearly her thang! Transmitter Failure (the song and the album) has so many layers. Performed live it is stripped down to its bare essentials and it is after the big, thrashy guitar opening comes to an abrupt halt that you have to hold your breath so you don't miss out on Jenny softly singing the verses and chorus. By the time the end of the song comes around and the guitars and drums are going at full force again while Jenny sings serenely over the entire arrangement, you're not ready for it all to dissolve into the near silence of the last lone note. It's a breathtaking performance live, and its only improvement on the recorded version is the addition of a string quartet to round out the lushness of the sound. Beautiful. She followed this up with a lovely rendition of Nighty Night, and finished big and raucously loud with Last Person. The only thing that could have made this a better show would have been if Jenny closed the show instead of being sandwiched between These United States and Jukebox The Ghost. There's really no room for name chanting and encore songs when another band is waiting to go on stage....*sigh*

If you told me that Jukebox the Ghost was the mastermind behind the vampire puppet opera in the film "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", I would totally believe you. The movie's leading man, Jason Segel, keeps insisting that he actually wrote all of those songs though, so you'll just have to check out Jukebox the Ghost live in concert to see why I'm drawing parallels between that film and this music. Pretty much every song they played sounded like something from some gothic puppet opera. This was helped along by the chatty lead-ins to the songs ("This one is about what the world is like if you're coming from underground after the apocalypse and seeing the planet again for the first time..."). The harmonies are sublime. The falsettos are BeeGees-era goodness. This is a live show you don't want to miss.

Here's a clip of Jenny performing "If I Didn't Know" live at the show.



And here's Jenny performing "F*ck Was I" live at the show...enjoy!

See you at the next show...

Thao Nguyen with The Get Down, Stay Down @ Bowery Ballroom NYC

Having seen Thao Nguyen once already on the Hotel Cafe Tour with Rachael Yamagata, I was pretty excited to hear she'd be headlining a show of her own in NYC. She is one of the most fun people to watch perform. I was even more excited when I arrived at the Bowery Ballroom and realised that Samantha Crain would be one of the opening acts. I'd seen Samantha and her band on the Hotel Cafe Tour as well and she is full of adorable, wise cracking, blue-grassing fun.

Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers opened the show with their special blend of blues, blue grass, and folk rock. Their set was full of energy and Samantha's unmistakable charm. At one point, she asked if there were any famous people in the audience and had the house lights put up so that she could take a look. Specifically, she asked if America Ferrera was in the audience. Samantha invites America Ferrera to all of her shows in the hope that they will be able to take a picture together and pretend to be sisters...I'm sure she was only half joking when she said this. I mean, if you saw the two of them together, you would totally think they were related...

Next up was Sister Suvi. This band of three was made all the more amusing by the fact that its lead singer played a child's toy guitar with an amp lead taped on for the majority of the set (she also played bass on a couple of numbers). Sister Suvi's indie rock-ness made sense as a show filler on this tour, but it was definitely more in the vein of thrashing guitars and shouting/screaming than Samantha and Thao's skillful guitar plucking and thoughtful lyrics and singing. The biggest hinderance to Sister Suvi's cause was actually the very same toy guitar that made them so endearing. Being a tiny toy thing without a strap, it was necessary for the band's frontwoman to play the instrument while resting it on her chest; but since the toy was already mic'd, its close proximity to the vocal mic gave it twice the volume, drowning out the singer for the better part of the set. The overkill on the twangy toy guitar made Sister Suvi an awkward stage filler to follow Samantha Crain, but also served to make Thao Nguyen's appearance all the more welcome.

When Thao finally took to the stage at 11pm-ish, the room went electric with the energy of the crowd. She was exuberant and amazing to watch as she played guitar and navigated her way about the stage. This is a girl bursting at the seams with talent (all self-taught, by the way). Her stage presence gives off more energy than cold fusion. She was matched word for word by the fans on nearly every song she sang during the evening. She opened Bag of Hammers with a surprise a capella beatbox before the guitar riff kicked in. Skills. Mad skills. At one point, she even pulled out a fat magic marker and used that to strum the guitar strings while she sang. I'm not sure how she can pluck guitar strings with such precision and dance, jitter, and vibrate all at the same time without missing a beat or mangling a chord. Seriously, if she were a little more depressing, I think her guitar skills would draw a lot of comparisons to golden boy, John Mayer. But her songs are so infectiously upbeat (even the ones about loser boyfriends who may be just keeping you around for sex - Body) and so damned catchy that one can't help but sing along after hearing the hook just once. The truth is, Thao is a blues guitarist wrapped up in a pop singing, girlie dress wearing, dancing whirligig of a package. Even in the songs about love and loss, Thao doesn't make you want to cry. She makes you want to shout out and sing along at the top of your lungs. Oh, and she also happens to be mad cool. She even posed for a photo with me after the show...Shweeeeeet!!! Bottom line: Thao Nguyen is one to watch. Don't miss out on her live show if she comes to your area.

Here's a snippet of Thao performing 'Bag of Hammers' live at Bowery Ballroom...Please go see her live show. And BUY HER RECORDS!!!



Thao performing 'Body In Your Bed' live at Bowery Ballroom...run by her MySpace and show her some love y'all.