writeup by kathy
May 05, 2007, New York City, NY

Once again, Chris is the sneakiest husband in the world! After being certain that tickets were completely sold out for a beloved and rare Bjork concert in the New York area, I received an email from Chris saying “look at this picture”. When I opened the attachment, it was a map of the United Palace Theater in New York, with “you are here” pasted next to some orchestra seats. I can’t believe what a cool hubby I have!!!
Continue reading →

writeup by kathy’s
February 10, 2006

Friday night we went to the comedy club in Boston to see a favorite comedian of ours-Jim Gaffigan. For those of you who haven’t been there, the comedy club is located on the 2nd floor of Fanieul Hall. It was a relatively small club with plenty of tables, and Chris and I were lucky enough to be pretty close to the stage! They had a “2 item” minimum on the menu and we ordered martinis, which I have to say were kind of a dissapointment-small and not very good, but I guess what do you expect? They’re selling laughter not lavishness!
Continue reading →

writeup by kathy
December 19, 2006, Noho, MA

Chris and I got to see Ray Lamontagne in concert at the Calvin this weekend (can’t believe we got tickets cuz it sold out so fast!). Tristan Prettyman opened for him, she was a cute California surfer girl who sang un-poppy music–kind of sounded like Suzanne Vega mixed with Edie BRickell. Nice
Continue reading →

On December 4th, Chris and I took a drive to Mass MOCA in North Adams MA to see Cat Power perform. Cat Power is a 20-something year old musician with a cult following and an amazing voice. Unfortunately, her live performance left something to be desired. More on that later. For anyone who has never heard of Mass MoCA, Mass MoCA is an art space in North Adams (a town in the middle of nowhere—literally!) that has ongoing art exhibits and dance, music and theater performances, often of a unique kind. It is a beautiful, interesting place well worth the drive to–an off-beat artist’s mecca.

While we were there, we bumped into a girl I knew from my dental hygiene program at school and her girlfriend. It was a nice surprise and we all sat together during the performance. Our impression of Cat Power’s performance was the same. Like a slow motion car-wreck waiting to happen.

The performance began with an uneasy Cat Power approaching the stage and shyly trying to make idle chatter. From the very beginning she had a look of apprehension on her face which foreshadowed the rest of the event. She would often stop in the middle of a song to comment “this just doesn’t sound right you guys” or “my mike sounds weird”, or “I’m sorry for such a sucky performance!”. Her voice was undeniably gorgeous and edgy, but her song list was something even her most avid fans could not figure out. She would start a song and then change to a new song mid way, make up lyrics, or add lyrics from other musicians (one song ended up with an impromptu version of the White Stripes’ “Dead Leaves and the dirty ground”). Very few of her songs were from her albums, and when the few that were from her albums were song, they were barely recognizable.

The mood worsened as she switched from piano to guitar and then back again. The drama of doing a solo performance in a small arena was taking its toll on her, and although kind fans would shout “you’re doing fine”, Cat seemed to know better. From then on was a futile attempt to save the performance, and Cat seemed to know she was drowning without a life preserver. She shyly requested that the lights be turned off in order to “help her not too feel as uncomfortable” , but it was too late. She was too darned uncomfortable from the get go, and we all knew it. After a painful attempt to sing a song from “You are Free”, Cat stopped abruptly and said, in a guilt-ridden tone “I think I’m just gonna walk off stage now”. She walked off in a hurry and I was afraid she would burst into tears.

I had to feel slightly sorry for Cat. I was amazed at her utter lack of confidence in her skill on stage. I wasn’t sure if she was uncomfortable because she rarely performs, and even more rarely performs solo, or if she had walked on stage without a definite game plan for what to sing and was stuck in a bad moment. Reviews of past performances likened her to those of Neil Young’s , where “you never know what you’ll get”. Unfortunately, what we got was the short end of the stick. Her performance left us slightly disappointed, but we are still fans of her recorded music and know “that artist is still in there SOMEWHERE”, we just wouldn’t see her live again. At least she could SING, though. Mass MoCA itself was a great place and we hope to return for another performance of some kind, just NOT Cat Powers. Sorry Chris for dragging you into that one!

write up by kathy
November 28, 2006, Boston, MA

Last weekend Chris and I headed to Boston to catch the Detroit Cobra’s at TT the Bears.
We ended up staying overnight at the Boston Park Plaza hotel because the concert didn’t start until 11:45!
We had a fun time ambling around Bean-town for the day and picked up a couple of ornament at Crate & Barrel for our tree (a tradition when we go to Boston around the holidays–as well as eating gelato 🙂 ). Downtown was decorated cheerfully and the weather was balmy.
Continue reading →

Dar Williams, write up by kathy
August 20, 2006, Lowell, MA


This past weekend Chris and I trekked up to Lowell, MA to see Dar Williams at their outdoor Summer Music Series. It was a gorgeous day, and tickets were cheap, so we thought…why the heck not??

Lowell MA is an artsy mill town. It being such, there were quite a few frighteningly barren areas of empty storefronts (the dead mill town part)–and then quite a few beautiful, artsy areas (the artsy part). We passed a Jack Kerouac monument (apparently he briefly stayed in Lowell?)-and tried to take pictures, only to find out that the battery to our digital camera wasn’t properly charged (phooey!). There are several art museums in Lowell, the most intriguing of which was a revolving art museum! If we had more time we would have gone in.
Continue reading →

writeup by kathy
August 11, 2006, Mideast Club Boston , MA

Mick Jagger and Muc01ha
This past weekend Chris a0nd I saw Throwing Muses live in Boston.
They perfomed at a small club in Cambridge called the Middle East—actually it wasn’t really small, it was 4 small restaruants/bars put together and one downstairs club. But the club itself had room for slightly under 600 people–so all in all I guess you could say it was a relatively “small” concert.
Continue reading →

writeup by kathy
June 24, 2006, Pearl Street, MA

Chris and I have some exciting concerts planned this summer, for some reason we decided we wanted to “live it up” a little. We went and saw Morningwood at Pearl Street a few weeks back and it was a killer concert! Chantal (lead singer) had so much energy and was just insane! She was very naughty but in a fun way. She brought a whole bunch of props on stage, which included:
a beach towel with a horse on it
a red cape (James Brown style)
a sailor hat and moustache (which she would interchange to put on the drummer, the bassist and the guitarist throughout the night)
crutches
a hobbyhorse
Continue reading →

writeup by kathy
June 21, 2006, Boston Pavillion, MA

This weekend Chris and I had the pleasure of going to Boston to see Fiona Apple perform at the Bank of America Pavilion.
There were only 2 bad things about the night:

It rained like hell during part of the concert and the opening singer (David Garza) only played 1/2 a song before he got whisked off stage and they had to delay the rest of the concert until the lightning stopped.

We were procrasinators who got tickets at the last minute, so we ended up WAY back in the nosebleed section where we were uncovered by the pavillion tarp–so you guessed it–we were stuck in the rain.
Continue reading →

writeup by kathy
March 10, 2006, Mullins Center, Amherst MA

Chris and I were so impressed from the last NIN concert we saw (please read the review), that when we heard that Trent was playing in Amherst at the Mullins center, well, we just HAD to go!

This time Saul Williams opened for Trent-only one opening act.
When we arrived at the Mullins center we were told that if our ticket said “G.A” that we needed to enter at a different point than anyone else. Chris had bought the tickets assuming that “G.A” meant Row G, section A. He didn’t realize that it meant general admission; translation: Mosh Pit Center Stage.
We were slightly anxious to be in this situation as we didn’t know what to expect.

The Mullins center was decidedly smaller than the Fleet center, seating almost 1/3rd of what Fleet could handle. A number of seats were empty possibly due to the fact that the concert had been postponed from a week earlier (Trent was sick) and Friday night was the beginning of Spring break, meaning many Umass students were headed home. That said, even though there were empty seats there was still enough of a crowd to make it a wild night!

Saul Williams and his D.J (a diminutive fella who looked like Mr. T and had something like “Tronix” in his name) came on stage promptly at 7:30 with a great-but short-set. He wowed us with his poetry/music but we were saddened to see that his performance was only about 20 minutes long. I felt bad for him because a lot of his poems/songs dealt with issues of his race—and the entire front section was full of pasty white college kids who seemed to have no idea what he was talking about (nor did they seem to care-perhaps thats why he had such a short set?).

About an hour later, Trent came on and rocked the house! He played a similar set to the one at Fleet with a few variations, including more songs from “With Teeth”. He still knows how to put on one hell of a concert and Friday night was no exception. The guitar players were wilder than ever and threw a number of things into the audience-a shirt, a few water bottles, some glow sticks, a microphone, a keyboard, and at the very end, both of their guitars! (Thank God they didn’t hit anyone). They were prancing all over the stage kicking over everything. I’m not sure if Trent was annoyed or amused.

Highlights of the show were the perfomance of “Hurt” (not a lighter was unlit), “Only”, “the Hand that Feeds”, “Head like a Hole”, and “Terrible Lie”. Everyone sang long and there was surpisingly little moshpit danger—(alas no adventure for us wild and crazy kids!) It appeared to be more like “the text messaging” pit as most of the college kids would be standing there text messaging their friends on their cell phones throughout the concert—it got a bit annoying. I think as far as injuries the paramedics came twice-a pretty good record for this kind of concert.

We were happy we got to see the “With Teeth” tour one more time before it was on its way out. It was great to feel the energy of one of the original alternative masters who have been around since the early 80’s and is still alive, kicking and edgy as ever.