Unwound @ Irving Plaza - NYC
March 10th 2023: Unwound, Horsegirl @ Irving Plaza - New York, NY
fans at Unwound - Photos Courtesy of Edwina Hay
Olympia, Washington’s Unwound disbanded in 2002. This was around the time I first discovered their music and quickly became one of those bands who I really enjoyed but liked other acts such as Pixies, Bikini Kill, or Murder City Devils where I was either born too late to see them when they were active, or connected with their catalog right as they were disbanding and figured I would never see them live. Twenty years after their final shows, Unwound revealed they were performing again in July 2022. They announced a concert at New York’s Irving Plaza on Friday, March 10, 2023, which quickly sold out, and then two more shows at the same venue were added.
Friday night’s show began promptly at 8 PM with a performance by Horsegirl, the trio from Chicago that relocated to New York City. The group didn’t say much while on stage during their 45-minute set, but Penelope Lowenstein disclosed that they were excited when this show was first announced and long before they were invited to play, that they would have been in the audience with us too. Before performing “Forecast,” Penelope announced it was the first song they ever wrote in her basement at the age of 15. In addition to playing songs from their record Versions of Modern Performance, they also included a Guided By Voices cover in their set (“As We Go Up, We Go Down”).
For their first New York show in two decades, Unwound performed two sets. The first one began at 9:15 PM, followed by a 15-minute intermission, and resumed again at 10:20 PM. Their drummer, Sara Lund, asked before their fourth song how many people were supposed to see them at Bowery Ballroom in 2001 (they were scheduled to play on September 12, 2001), and not many people responded. She quickly modified the question by then asking who was born after 9/11/01 and dedicated their next song to the numerous young fans in attendance who qualified.
Unwound’s vocalist/guitarist Justin Trosper mentioned after intermission it was an honor to be here and when someone yelled out a song that they wanted to hear, he laughed and said they don’t take requests and that everything was pre-planned. He then dedicated the next two songs to their departed bassist Vern Rumsey, who sadly passed away in August 2020. Their current bassist is a longtime friend, Jared Warren of Karp, Big Business, and Melvins, plus Unwound now features Scott Seckington on guitar. With the show coming to an end at 11 PM, we all departed Irving Plaza in the cold rain, and I felt extremely grateful that I finally got to experience Unwound live after all these years.
Horsegirl
MAX @ Irving Plaza - NYC
November 26th 2022: MAX, VINCINT @ Irving Plaza - New York, NY
MAX - Photos Courtesy of Ann Storlie
“Young Pop God” MAX (Max Schneider) took over NYC’s Irving Plaza for the second of two sold-out hometown shows Saturday night.
VINCINT (Vincint Cannady) was the night’s opener, and he warmed up the crowd with his soaring voice and danceable tracks “Taste So Good (The Cann Song)” and “Hard 2 Forget.”
MAX began his set with an explosive energy that continued throughout the night as he played fan favorites “Basement Party,” “Colour Vision,” and “Blueberry Eyes” including the Korean rap verse originally done by SUGA of BTS in the single.
Growing up in the nearby Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, MAX spoke multiple times throughout the evening on how lucky he was to be performing in one of his favorite venues among his fans. A former Nickelodeon star (he starred in 2012’s How to Rock), MAX’s energy continued to inspire the crowd as he performed “Someday” from Rags - a Nickelodeon Original film where he was the lead; before performing more tracks and closing his set with his chart-topping hit “Lights Down Low.”
VINCINT
Wire @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
Photos and review courtesy of Edwina Hay | March 11 2020
The influential punk band Wire is currently touring the US in support of their 17th album, Mind Hive. The tour brought the English band to Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY for two shows on Wednesday, March 11th and Thursday, March 12th. Both nights featured support by a rotating Wire member DJing for the audience at 8PM. On Wednesday night, we were lucky to have Robert Grey (Wire’s drummer) play a music set that I truly wasn’t expecting or experienced before. An early song in his set featured a harpsichord, another featured foghorns (“Song For Our Ancestors” by Steve Miller Band), and another was the familiar “Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major” by Yo-Yo Ma, and we also heard Jimi Hendrix in conversation with Dick Cavett after Hendrix’s performance of the National Anthem.
After he was done DJing, Wire took the stage promptly at 9:15PM with bassist Graham Lewis addressing the crowd with “Thanks for turning out,” and vocalist/guitarist Colin Newman remarking “What strange circumstances we find ourselves in,” alluding to the pandemic of COVID-19 (a.k.a. Coronavirus). There were many people in attendance of their first night in Brooklyn but Coronavirus was on all of our minds and may have explained why it wasn’t a sold out show for the long-running band.
Beginning their set with a song from 1989, “The Offer,” Wire transitioned to “Be Like Them,” the first track on 2020’s Mind Hive. The quartet of Newman, Lewis, Grey, and guitarist Matthew Simms presented songs both old and new, fervently and loudly to an enthusiastic audience. I was absolutely elated when they performed “I Should Have Known Better” the first song from their third record, 154, that features Graham Lewis on vocals, another favorite, “French Film Blurred,” off their second record Chairs Missing, and people near me were very jubilant when “Ex-Lion Tamer” from their debut Pink Flag was performed, dancing and singing along with the band.
Before the show on Wednesday night, Wire announced that they are releasing a vinyl only album for Record Store Day called 10:20 and will tour the US west coast in October. As Coronavirus dominates the news and impacts our lives more and more each day, it felt wonderful to briefly escape it all with such a momentous band and their music for two hours while I washed my hands thoroughly in between sets.
Refused with Racetraitor and Youth Code @ Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn, NY
Photos and review courtesy of Stephanie Augello | February 22 2020
On Saturday, February 22nd, Swedish hardcore punk legends Refused stopped off at New York’s Brooklyn Steel to give fans a hard-hitting performance of both classic and new songs. Frontman Dennis Lyxzen danced around the stage throughout the whole set, conjuring the spirit of forefathers Mick Jagger and James Brown. Rather Be Dead, Deadly Rhythm, New Noise, and Coup d’etat comprised the list of older songs that many crowd goers had grown up listening to, while songs such as Blood Red and Malfire gave everyone a taste of the shape of the band to come.
Opening that night were Racetraitor and Youth Code. Formed in Chicago in 1998, Racetraitor includes Fallout Boy Drummer Andy Hurley. They reformed in 2016, and remain a well-loved political force on the scene.
Industrial duo Youth Code followed up, generating electricity through the crowd as vocalist Sarah Taylor screamed, snarled, and flipped hair to the bands angsty beats. The Brooklyn stop was only the second night of tour. Refused will be on the road in both North America and Europe through August.
Kate Tempest with Akinyemi @ Elsewhere, Brooklyn, NY
Photos and review courtesy of Edwina Hay | October 1 2019
British multihyphenate Kate Tempest (spoken word artist, rapper, poet, novelist, and playwright) announced four US shows along the west coast and one taking place on the east coast in Brooklyn, NY. The brief tour was done in support of her third record, The Book Of Traps & Lessons.
The sold-out concert in Brooklyn on Tuesday night began with an opening set by a young, energetic local rapper from Queens, Akinyemi. He spent much of his set running across the stage and engaging the audience in call & response. Despite most of the audience not being familiar with his music beforehand, he easily won the room over as it was quite difficult to not enjoy his enthusiasm and sense of humor (after knocking down a microphone stand, he quickly joked to Elsewhere that he valued their equipment).
Kate Tempest took the stage promptly at 10PM, joined by Clare Uchima.
Tempest began her set with songs from her first two albums Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos such as “Marshall Law,” “We Die,” “Europe Is Lost,” “Circles,” and “The Beigeness,” before performing Traps & Lessons in its entirety. All of her songs were delivered with such passion, to be heightened by Uchima’s live synths and mixing plus the impressive lighting design; during “Brown Eyed Man,” the lights went out quickly, only to return to a deep red during a dramatic part of the song while “Circles,” the spotlights on stage naturally went around in circles.
I last saw Tempest perform live in 2015 after the release of her first album, “Everybody Down” at the intimate Mercury Lounge and as I made my way home just before midnight, I couldn’t help but wonder when I’d be able to see her perform these songs again.
Hot Chip with Holy Fuck, Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn, NY
Photos & review courtesy of Edwina Hay | September 3, 2019
On Tuesday, September 3, 2019, Hot Chip kicked off their North American tour in support of their newest record, A Bath Full of Ecstasy, in Brooklyn, NY. The show, which took place the day after Labor Day, began their three night stand at Brooklyn Steel. Holy Fuck, of Toronto, began the show at 8:30PM and performed a new song which featured vocals by Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. Hot Chip had many in the audience dancing until the very end of their set. Although the band planned on ending the night with second encore (a cover of “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys), it sadly didn’t happen because they exceeded the venue’s 11PM curfew.
Hot Chip
Holy Fuck
Cursive with mewithoutYou @ Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY
