Sarah Shook put on a great performance of familiar songs despite the fact that she wasn’t feeling her best, having rescheduled her previous West Virginia stop the night before.
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Music Photography
Recently I listened to an unknown satellite station in a bar, where I heard an entire Weezer concert set from their current tour. It made me think I should check out this year’s Spring tour with the Pixies. During their March 20th performance in Columbus, Weezer played music picked from their entire discography. There were a few LPs omitted, that I have only recently gone back to find I really enjoy, but you can’t please everyone all of the time. There are so many songs that I love by Weezer, it is naive of me to believe they could play a show of just my favorites. I don’t think they have that much time to perform. They would have to continue playing even while the workers are going home.
The loudest sound in downtown Columbus is the freight train. It’s a howling menace claiming its territory at a leisurely pace. As It thunderously coasts through Columbus, it emits a rhythmic, yet abrasive screeching. This echoes throughout the city as the metal wheels of each car grind the metal track that guides it. The intrusive scraping is magnified at every uneven stretch. One such section occurs right outside of Promowest’s Express LIVE! concert venue. On the second Weds in August this year, the train was silenced for a few hours by Lindsey Stirling’s inspiring outside performance.
If you’ve had the misfortune of traveling with me, you know things don’t go as planned. I don’t mean you forgot to pack your deodorant and you have to make time to pick some up near your destination. I mean, you find out that your cousin Eddie has Asteroids, and you arrive at Wally World to find the park is closed. I’ve been photographing music festivals since 2014, where at my first festival, I fell asleep transferring files from my camera to my laptop. This caused the battery to die on my camera before the headliner performed on the last day—novice mistake. The next year, I bought a fancy, bluetooth hard drive that I essentially catapulted into the rain on the second day. None of the files were salvageable. In Chicago, I was pick-pocketed on the L and lost my tickets and car keys. I couldn’t go back to the show, or drive home.
Green Day is the only band I can remember where I was when I first heard them. No, I wasn’t first on the scene. It was the latter half of 1993 at two in the morning. I was staying over at my friend Buz’s house. We spammed the Breeders Last Splash during another evening of shared drawing space on his drafting table. Buz had already gone to bed while I was just finishing up. In the 90’s, we had something that would intermittently report on music called Music Television. It was here were they introduced Green Day’s live performance at a festival and played Longview. I bought the album as soon as it came out.
was able to follow up on his interview from last year’s Nelsonville Music Festival when they made their way to Columbus’ Rumba Café. Mackenzie Howe and Sharon Silva were available for questions.
Woodland's Tavern
Columbus, OH
I don’t know how this band was able to come together for a love of such classic and retooled sounds. I think they do it as well as anyone ever has. JD McPherson is three years younger than me, so it is easy to believe we must have shared a similar experience in a younger America.
Waterfront Park
Louisville, KY
Have you ever marveled at the improbable stacking of smooth and heavy rocks by an artist? It takes planning, balance, and an understanding of how to make them all fit together. It’s amazing to see everything come together in such harmony. That was Louisville, Kentucky’s Forecastle Festival this year.
There’s one thing I’ve learned from playing Rock Band—when you’ve hit every note and have done right by the audience, the crowd gets energized and sings along. Frank Turner didn’t miss a note. His fans took his request from his song Four Simple Words to heart and didn’t let him sing a single song alone at his Columbus, Ohio performance.