Author Archives: Matthew Donnelly
Donnelly: Sporting Offense Sputters @ Home but Defense Best in MLS
Sporting Kansas City moved into second place in the Eastern Conference this weekend with a lackluster 0-0 draw at home against the lowly New England Revolution… The one positive to take from this game: Sporting’s defense. Jimmy Nielsen and the … Continue reading
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Donnelly: Dirty Projectors at the Granada, July 18, 2012
"Sometimes they sound like they’re playing two different songs at the same time."
That’s how one concert-goer explained to me her experience with Dirty Projectors Wednesday night at the Granada in Lawrence.
And it’s kind of true.
The Brooklyn-based, experimental indie rock band has certainly never taken a page out of the songwriter’s handbook in crafting their intricate, and at times, off-putting tunes. And I’m guessing they wouldn’t be caught dead rhyming a lyric or doing the typical verse-verse-chorus-bridge thing, either.
Nope. Dirty Projectors pave their own musical way with unusual three and four part vocal harmonies that sometimes come blasting out at the audience like a warning siren. And plenty of hand claps, but not the Kid Rock kind. The three part, complicated, syncopated kind.
Sounds Good: mewithoutYou@Granada, Dirty Projectors@Granada, Josh Ritter@Crossroads, Chicago, Doobies@Starlight, Phantom Blues@Frontier Park, Old Crow@Crossroads
The music scene here – like the weather – is on fire, so let’s get on to this week’s picks, of which there are many…
Tuesday, July 17th
mewithoutYou at the Granada in Lawrence
Damn, the Granada’s been killing it lately, bringing in a wide variety of interesting acts. And this one’s no different.
mewithoutYou plays indie rock and all its members have beards. Their latest release, Ten Stories, is a throwback to the band’s truer sound, after it ventured into more commercially accessible territory with its prior album.
“They’re not quite children’s songs,” vocalist Aaron Weiss explains, “with not quite coherent storylines, but there is an overarching and kind of child-like narrative: a circus train crashes in 19th century Montana. Some animals escape, others stay in their cages. The traveling menagerie re-rails, stays its course, and struggles to fill in the missing attractions. Meanwhile, freed from institutionalized life, the rice-cake rabbit takes to a peripatetic fortune teller, the monastic walrus is tempted by a hedonistic owl, a fish falls for an eggplant.”
Nuff said.
Donnelly: Win Free Tickets to Josh Ritter Show Thursday @ The Crossroads
Lately, here in the lavish music wing of KC Confidential, we’ve been getting hit up with tons of concert ticket giveaways…
And winning them is way easier than being the 96th caller or whatever. Which is great for you guys if you’re paying attention. Who doesn’t like free stuff?
This go around we’re giving away tickets for the Josh Ritter show at Crossroads Thursday.
We’ll choose several winners who each will get two tickets to the show.
Donnelly: Gaslight Anthem at the Bottleneck, July 12, 2012
The Gaslight Anthem stormed into Lawrence Thursday for a sold out performance at the Bottleneck…
And man was it hot in there.
Not only was the band up for the occasion, but the masses of sweaty dudes inside the venue created a fog in the air reminiscent of my high school locker room. The closer to the stage I ventured, the more suffocating the heat and humidity became, so I was content to chill for most of the night by the soundboard.
The band started off strong with Great Expectations, 45, Old White Lincoln, and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, before unleashing a searing version of American Slang that set off an already pumped up crowd.
Nothing could stop gregarious front man Brian Fallon as he rollicked through the band’s material old and new.
