For very few artists would I venture into Providence, RI, but for Alanis, I traveled to Mohegan Sun, so why the hell not?

Well, for one, this was the biggest shitshow audience I have ever seen in my Goddamn life. I have seen some shit at concerts, but never concentrated in one show. Pretty much the only thing that didn’t happen was someone careening off the balcony on the main floor below, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if some asshole did.

Alanis was masterful, but she had compete with people in audience for attention. The few people that attended this show to actually see Alanis were interrupted, disappointed and probably annoyed by the 500 people or so whose sole purpose for being there was to get out of the rain. Among the highlights was the piercing, off key wailing from the girl behind me who didn’t know the words to the songs and would break from her own singing to shriek at Alanis in ear-busting decibels. Honey, Alanis ain’t answering. She’s getting on the bus and getting the hell out of Providence as fast as those damn wheels will spin.

The first half the set was a bit hampered by an inattentive audience and a setlist that vacillated too much in tempo. After Uninvited (which was perfection) the shit hit the fan in the audience and it wasn’t until Citizen of the Planet when half the audience exited en masse to refill their beer hats and fill up on hot dogs that the concert became the central focus again.

For her part, Alanis devoted some time to Junkie tracks, and they were easily the best of the night. The full version of The Couch put the concert into another gear, followed closely by a surprisingly pounding beat to anchor Sympathetic Character. You Oughta Know finally got the audience to their feet and for one brief, flickering moment you could pretend you were at a normal concert.

Fortunately, Alanis ignored the sideshow and it was when she brought the band closer for an acoustic take on Hand in My Pocket, Everything and a sublime pulsing version of So Pure that she finally connected. Not her fault, in my opinion, but one couldn’t help notice that she raced through the set like she had somewhere else to be (maybe Cincinnati will treat her better on Wednesday.) Thank U, as always, concluded the show on a natural high and the audience stupidly embraced the line “Thank U Providence” as if she wrote it about them. Fuck Providence.

Alanis setlist
The Couch (intro)
Uninvited
Versions of Violence
All I Really Want
The Couch (partial)
Not the Doctor
Not As We
Citizen of the Planet
Head Over Feet
The Couch (full version)
Sympathetic Character
Flinch
Moratorium
You Oughta Know
Tapes
Hand in My Pocket
Everything
So Pure
Encore
You Learn
Ironic
Encore 2
Thank U

Joshua Bennett-Johnson’s one-man show made its debut at Cholmondeley’s Coffeehouse at Brandeis University affectionately known as Chum’s. Chum’s, as the story goes, is the inspiration for Central Perk in the Friends TV show.

The six-song set was complete with quiet memorable hooks and his performance style, though understated, was perfect for the setting. The showcase exhibited Bennett-Johnson’s nimble songwriting craft, striking tunes evoking an assortment of autumnal imagery. Iranian Delight, a song about heroin, appropriately had the feel of a sweeping love song. Working through some tension early in the set, he hit his stride during Chase the Road, which he wrote in the last month. The Spaces in Between was the crowd favorite.

As Bennett-Johnson himself told the audience towards the last song of the night, “What’s the point of having these songs if you can’t go out and play them for people?” Indeed, hopefully this just the first time he does so.

The Joshua Band setlist
Iranian Delight
Gone Away
Chase the Road
The Spaces in Between
Untitled
Eleni

these unassuming boys put on an intense show, a loud wall of noise though definitely not psych-metal – the meticulous melodies and indie yearning hurtled forward as if on a upward bound rumbling train give them a sound that is quite their own

Rockboy discovered this band at SXSW this year and I’d come to like them a lot too – I kept telling him that she sounded like some 70s singer! Janis Joplin! but that wasn’t quite right – it became suddenly and blatantly apparent seeing them live: the round expansiveness and tone of every note of her voice is verbatim Jefferson Airplane/ Grace Slick – her voice is the band though the other aspects are just as appealing – she sits playing drums in the center while outputting this incredible voice flanked on each side by matching boys: lead and bass guitars – Rockboy describes them as a mix of White Stripes and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs which is accurate with the bluesy driving minimalism of the former and the feminine intensity of the latter – incredibly young crowd who of course could not understand in totality the greatness of this little band

Ben Folds spent the first “60 minutes or so” on his new material Way to Normal. It was a confusing romp, typical Ben Folds melodrama…er, melodies, some playfulness and a few outstanding tunes. But it all got lost in the mix because the new album isn’t out until Tuesday and so the songs were largely unfamiliar. Then there was the continuous switch between the “real” songs and the “fake” songs.

He explained it something like this. After the album details had been locked in, the band went back into a studio and spent three days recording “fake” songs to leak out to the internet. So Folds and co. brought the real and the fake to the show. So we got two versions each of Brainwascht, Frown Song, Free Coffee, Dr. Yang and set closer Bitch Went Nuts. It is wrong that a few of the fake songs (in particular Brainwascht) came off better than the real ones? The best of the fakes was what he called Free Coffee Town (the original’s just Free Coffee.) Better than the original? Okay, maybe that’s harsh. But at least equal.

He opened with Way to Normal, which isn’t even on the new album. The fourth song of the set, the single You Don’t Know Me, was the best of the night. Runner-up was the tune Effington. Kylie from Connecticut was a mercifully short detour into balladry.

Folds’ band are totally game for his high drama style of performance, from the bassist singing respectable harmonies in place of Regina Spektor (on You Don’t Know Me) to the frequent forays to the front of the stage for the guy who plays the glockenspiel. The background images were projected onto a curtain, an innovative way to give the backdrop a bit of texture. After a while though, the images started to blur together. And frankly, for anyone in the mezzanine or balcony, the lighting the entire night was obnoxious (and unfortunately, seemed purposeful.)

The encore of sorts was a short set of Ben Folds hits including Rockin’ the Suburbs and Army.

Ben Folds setlist
Way to Normal
Brainwascht (real)
Effington
You Don’t Know Me
Free Coffee (real)
Brainwascht (fake)
Errant Dog
Cologne
Free Coffee (fake)
Frown Song (real)
Hiroshima (B B B Benny Hit His Head)
Dr. Yang (fake)
Dr. Yang (real)
Kylie from Connecticut
Bitch Went Nuts (real)
Bitch Went Nuts (fake)
Encore
Zak & Sara
Rockin’ the Suburbs
Underground
Landed
Army
Frown Song (fake)

Fairly generic female-empowered pop. Rambled between songs and not in any focused way. The set included Steer and Angela from her 2008 album On a Clear Night but none of it was particularly memorable.

knew them from one song that I really liked on Pandora but was more interested when I found out that Stephen Malkmus of Pavement is a member – turns out they\”ve been around since the late 80s – the lead singer David Berman is very engaging – he\”s thin (a la melancholy drug abuser) with swagger and sunglasses and a speak-singing low voice that alternated between sounding like Lou Reed and David Bowie – they\”re like a lo-fi country or indie rock band with a poet/glam rocker fronting them – Emo\”s was overflowing with random people – the whole band had class and I am a new fan

drum and bass that was so loud and fuzzy that it made my insides hurt in a bad way and I had to step outside

had pigeonholed this band as brainless hardcore but both the bass and guitar players are superb: fingers flying throughout the entirety of the songs in complicated arrangements, math rock, the bass player had a Munsters look to him that was a nice juxtaposition with the shorter brainiac-metalhead-looking guitar player, there was a drummer too who of course nobody noticed

started by informing the crowd that he\”d started the tour with a band but was with a band no more, generally seemed bitter and Emo\”s is just a venue entirely unsuited to a singer/songwriter, otherwise he did a good job for being a lone guy on a big stage, nice voice and sufficient stage presence, think his purported nuance was lost on a crowd of that size though

really disappointing, bill themselves as NY-style experimental country but it\”s more like average-Joe alt-country with a lot of pretension, some five guys sitting in a row without instruments but with sunglasses provided the vocals, lots of jangle, low-key and uncomplicated, vocals were especially low quality

Prologue:

A long-time closet favorite of mine – her melodies are soothing – her lyrics are smart, interesting and relatable – she’s stunning – realized tonight that her incongruently deep speaking voice may be what makes her songs within my range

Austin City Limits tapings:

Only my second because they make the tickets practically impossible to get (not for sale so have to have connections), this of course creates the requisite mystique, plus they generally only book high-quality musicians and have a tremendous sound system, the crowd (seated and genteel) is basically middle-aged musicheads and suburban people who otherwise don’t go to see music

Impressions:

Quite awkward with gangly and ungraceful height and shoulders hunching up to her ears – her face matches her deep voice with sharp features, a defined brow and oft-blinking eyes – despite all of this she is an attractive person – pretty rigid on the stage outside of her mildly ribald between-song commentaries and a seemingly intentional stage presence (smiles, rock star poses, etc.) for the last song – seemed to be using “fuck” to convince the audience that she is not mainstream

Started with single “Freeway” from her new album – the song that her fans supposedly hate, “The Great Beyond,” was clearly a departure (almost proggy classic rock) – but then I realized that she’s genuinely got a prog rock bent what with the moog and organ accompanying on every song – had a token world-music song – did a very nice job with “Save Me” and “One is the Loneliest Number” from Magnolia – hit every song from my favorite album (Bachelor No. 2) except for “Hanging Around” – the three encore songs were all from this album: “How Am I Different,” “Nothing is Good Enough,” “Calling It Quits”

Moog player was clean-cute-cute with Converses – organ player was old rocker with long frayed hair in a Mean Eyed Cat t-shirt (a Johnny-Cash themed bar in Austin) and velvet jacket – buddy on bass was 80s geek with bold tie and striped shirt under business jacket – drummer was a healthy round bald guy with heavy glasses – not sure that she has a regular band outside of the geek

Her singing voice is very natural and effortless – it can be melodious and perfect but then there’s a constraint or stiltedness to it (somehow a part of that effortlessness) – something about this and her general minor-chord aura reminds me of Townes Van Zandt – realized that part of the stiltedness is her voice sliding into nasal restraint for the higher notes – I figured all of this out when she did my favorite song “Red Vines” without her band, slowed down and acoustic

Doesn’t try to sound like the boys but definitely not a girly girl singer – she’s a good pop song writer: melodies with some driving loops but some of her songs sound too much like her (repetitive or too clearly Aimee Mann) but some are lovely and take you in – high quality pop that endures

Her between-song banter largely involved mocking the pee-ers – admitted she was very nervous – told a story about a song that she wrote for Shrek 3 that was in part inspired by Snow White and the dwarves that she quite liked despite it not being quite her style (try-try-try again theme) – but after they asked her to speed it up and then asked her to make it sound like Fall Out Boy and then didn’t accept it anyway she totally reworked it and changed the meaning to a twisted fairytale theme

Epilogue:

So I was operating under the impression that she was a fellow child of the 90s in her Doc Martens, jeans and funky little t-shirt and vest – not to mention she sang a song about being 31 and realizing that your life isn’t what you expected it would be and that you really ought to have your shit more together – but upon some googling when I got home I figured out that she’s 47 (!!!), was in a punk band called Young Snakes when she dropped out of Berklee music school and then a new wave band Til Tuesday in the 80s.

James was transcendent. The sound problems from the night before were fixed (if anything, they overcompensated by lowering the mics too far down) but everything about this show was otherwordly. The band came out and launched into Laid and from there wove a number of hits and fan favorites among their new material. It was clear that their fans were out in force tonight. People in the audience knew the words to every song, even the relatively obscure Lullaby and enthusiastically sang along to the new tracks, of which my favorite tonight was Whiteboy with Tim Booth wagging his finger along to the audience.

Of the new material, Oh My Heart featured an addictive James harmonies between lead singer Tim Booth and uber-saxophonist Andy Diagram (who hadn’t worked with the band since Seven). Waterfall, which was released as a single on iTunes ahead of the U.S. release of the album, is heavenly in the live setting. And the slow burn intro of I Wanna Go Home builds the entire song to a crescendo that comes crashing down with the last line “My heart is dying, dying.”

Booth introduced Upside by saying, “This is the sound of a breaking heart.” During the song, a planned pause stretched for over a minute while Booth sat patiently like a statue and the crowd went crazy. Finally, he shushed everyone to hear the melody that was playing softly to cue the song back up. He introduced Hey Ma, the new album’s title track, by saying that all politicians should have to resign the day after they declare war because “they failed as politicians.” They started Hey Ma and had to abort because of a mishap with Larry Gott’s guitar. But he just picked up another and Booth joked, “we aren’t allowed to play a political song tonight,” before they started the song from the beginning.

It was, quite frankly, a monstrous concert for such a intimate venue clocking in at a little over two hours. Sometimes closed the main set with a five-plus minute sing a long between the bandmates and the crowd, just chanting “Sometimes, when I look in your eyes I can see your soul.”

James came back on stage for an extended encore. During She’s a Star, Tim Booth went into the audience to touch hands, never missing a beat to the song. He went up in to the upstairs area of the venue and then came back down to the main floor and hopped on to the bar and sang much of the song from there. It’s unclear whether they planned to play anything after Born of Frustration but Booth asked if anyone had a train to catch (well…probably someone did, though no one would admit it). They played Lullaby, then launched in Don’t Wait That Long and finally, played Come Home.

There’s a story there too. Last night, (though I thought it was insignificant at the time) early in the set, a guy in the audience asked if he could play guitar on Come Home. Tim Booth looked at him and said, “Sure, if it was on our setlist. Are you going to be here tomorrow night?”

Well, and that guy, one Jonah Soolman, was in the audience again tonight and was invited on stage to play Come Home. Saul Davies gamely handed off the guitar and banged a tambourine during the song. Jonah was fucking ecstatic, and rightly so. Transcendent. There’s no other word for it.

James Setlist
Laid
Seven
Oh My Heart
Ring the Bells
Waterfall
Bubbles
Say Something
Five-O
I Wanna Go Home
Out to Get You
Upside
Hey Ma
Sit Down
Sound
Whiteboy
Tomorrow
Sometimes
Encore
She’s a Star
Born of Frustration
Lullaby
Don’t Wait That Long
Come Home

Swans again. Yeech.

We arrived towards the end of Unkle Bob’s set – completely accidentally. The show started a half hour earlier than the night before. Still grossly underimpressed from the 2 1/2 songs we heard, including that damn swan song Swans. I met one member of the band after the show and he offered me an Unkle Bob pin. Yeah. I didn’t tell him I couldn’t even be bothered to trash his band in my review.

James last played in the United States 10 years ago and telling my friends that I was going to see James evoked the same response all around. “James who?”

Exactly.

I discovered James on 120 Minutes in 1991, and MTV show dedicated to what was then off the mainstream music videos. The song was Sit Down which for a while became their hallmark. Nowadays, the only song anybody stateside knows is Laid (you’d know if you heard it) but James has had a stellar almost 30-year career in the U.K. A return to the U.S. began tonight in Boston, MA.

The band opened with Say Something which immediately got the crowd shouting along to the chorus. “Say something, say something, I’ve shown you everything.” They mixed in a number of new songs including the bursting Oh My Heart and Whiteboy. James has a talent for making their sound larger than life and on no other track were they more transcendent than the gorgeous and plaintive I Wanna Go Home.

For their past material, they stayed mostly on their better known songs, Out to Get You, a stripped down version of Sit Down and She’s a Star. The audience seemed to know the words to everything, new and old.

The band had to forgo a soundcheck due to electronic problems before the show, and it was noticeable at times, particularly in the vocals. But that aside, it’s nice to see them on this side of the Atlantic. Their sound and vigor with which they put on a show hasn’t dulled one bit. And it was notable that this line-up, including Andy Diagram, was the same line-up that recorded Gold Mother and Seven. It was awesome to see them together again.

Unkle Bob, imported from the Scotland for their first U.S. tour dates, opened for the band James. Unkle Bob is perhaps loosely best known for their track Swans a contribution to the TV soundtrack for Grey’s Anatomy.

The band’s set was bland alternative rock. There was nothing particularly bad about it, but the songs were just kind of generic. Clocking in at 30 minutes, their set was to the point. The Hit Parade was a highlight, if you need to have one. Put a Record On was also a good showing and they ended their set with a substantial jam but otherwise, the set was memorable for being exactly unmemorable.

The Zac Mac Band put on a energetic set to cap the night at Kennedy’s Midtown bar in downtown Boston. Tonight was the debut live performance of guitarist Ben Dwyer who had about 10 days to learn the songs. The other band members, including frontman Zac McIntyre, bassist Jeff Bates and drummer Justin Casanave, themselves have only been together since last spring but you would never know it from the way the band played seamlessly through the hour-long set.

The band’s chemistry was evident right from the playful sound check song called…The Sound Check Song, sung to the tune of the band’s other track, Red Light. The song’s one line is “This is a sound check song” to which McIntyre later joked, “I have to write better lyrics to that.” Launching into the set proper with Red Light, the band played through some mix problems (the vocals were swallowed up through the first two songs). But by the time they got to their first single Roll Me Over, they found their stride. The dynamic from that point on was at true rock band level.

On a small stage, and without much room to maneuver, the band managed to channel their energy into a wave of great songs, a few of them played before an audience for the first time. One in a Long Line emphasized McIntyre’s keyboard work. The song, about a loved one with a drinking problem, hit on an ethereal vibe reminiscent of The Police. The set picked up the pace with The 1st of November, which McIntyre introduced by remarking the song was about “finding out about your ex lovers on MySpace or Facebook.” The band then launched into a fantastic version of Radiohead’s Creep.

For all the tendency to describe a new band by their musical influences, the songs tonight singularly marked The Zac Mac Band’s own sound. Even Creep was molded perfectly to fit in with the rest of the set. If anything, any Radiohead influence was more apparent on the next song The Best Thing, which included a masterful bridge. The band closed out their set with a lengthy jam during the track Stepping Stone. Cries of “one more song” from the crowd were thankfully heeded (and blessed by Kennedy’s) which gave the audience the encore Highest Level. Besides being treated to an excellent finish, Highest Level also highlighted the comfortable interplay between the musicians as effectively as any other song of the night.

Sure, maybe they’ve only been playing together for half a year (or in Dwyer’s case, a little over a week) but the night showcased, if nothing else, a band that we can expect many great things from.

The Zac Mac Band Setlist
The Sound Check Song
Red Light
Darcie
Roll Me Over
Trap
One in a Long Line
The 1st of November
Creep
The Best Thing
Lonely Me
Stepping Stone
Encore
Highest Level

Jacqueline Smith was charming with a 45-minute set that mixed in original tunes with some well-chosen cover songs. Accompanied by a guitarist and occasionally tapping on the keyboard in front of her, Smith’s primary weapon was her voice and she perfectly captured the audience with her sweet voice. She described all her songs as being about “heartbreak or songs about ‘done me wrong’.” Occasionally offering the audience a joke that “sounded better in my head” she said laughingly after, her banter was way more alluring than she may have realized.

She followed the bittersweet Ticket for a Train with a Ray LaMontagne cover Jolene. But she shined best on her own material, from the jazzy Cavalier to NY State and the simmering All Over Me. The absolute highlight was the gorgeous lament Siren Song, which she promised would be the title track of her upcoming LP release. “Where did all the good men go?” she crooned on the cut, “pretty girls took them every one.” That track alone makes the heartbreak worth it.

Andrew Mitchell hit the stage at Kennedy’s Midtown bar with his guitar, opening with a more than respectable version of R.E.M.’s (Don’t Go Back to) Rockville. His 45-minute set also included the Styx cover Come Sail Away and Woody Guthrie’s Pretty Boy Floyd, a throwback to 1939. Considering he was playing to only a handful of people, he still gamely put on a noteworthy show.

not as dirty (“music for the unwashed and well-read” as they say) as I remembered them “darling curly haired middle-aged member still smoked on stage but nobody else did” think the vision I have of them all living together in a trailer in a incessant jam session is just that (a vision), easy to pick out the member who sang on the cover of Gin and Juice with his highish irreverent voice, had them classified in my head as hard bluegrass but totally inaccurate, covered a huge range of styles on a generally “rootsy” (as they said) foundation, started off with strong twinges of Cajun but depending on who sang veered toward British invasion, Southern rock, etc. etc., they’re a more countrified Grateful Dead, you should know that guitars, mandolins, bass, accordions, keyboards, drums, fiddles, banjos, lap steels are employed

there were two epiphanies during this show that I haven’t been quite able to recollect, something about grunge and how it has such a distinctive sound and a sound so distinctive from contemporary sounds and all of this despite being such an amalgam of old sounds, and how grunge was the defining sound of my adolescence and I couldn’t break it down to you now nor then with words more descriptive than “grunge,” so I tried to hear this band as if there were no history between us – as if they were any old band – and they were so good but I had a hard time piecing them out, firstly Mark Arm has a tremendous and passionate voice that sticks with you, they are a mix of blues and punk and garage, they are thoroughly influenced by the Stooges, lastly I am not as thoroughly tired of them as I am of all of the other 90s bands

The Zac Mac Band has two Boston dates on tap including a return to All Asia in Cambridge, MA where the band played their first public gig together. The band, comprised of Zac McIntyre, Jeff Bates, and Justin Casanave, is working in the studio recording their debut LP. A handful of tracks are currently streaming tracks on the band’s myspace page.

Zac Mac Band dates
September 13 Boston, MA Kennedy’s Midtown Write a review

October 3 Cambridge, MA All Asia Write a review