Archive for December, 2010
Elvis Costello’s Coffee House Show
Chicago Theatre, Chicago Monday, December 20, 2010 You would have been forgiven, on a cold and snowy winter’s night, if you chucked your Elvis Costello tickets and just hunkered down in front of a crackling fire. Never mind the Bears were also playing, nothing else seemed to matter to the 3,500 who saw Costello at […]
Satch-a Claus is coming to town
Thanks to Trans-Siberian Orchestra, orchestral guitar rock has joined instrumental acoustic-guitar picking as a default holiday-music setting. (Along with rockabilly, oddly.)
Holly Days
Metro presents its annual “Home For The Holidays” concert series, which begins tonight and runs through the 30th. The idea is to draw separated college kids together over cheap — er, inexpensive — music and help some less-fortunate folks out, as well.
Digital Divide: November 2010
The Killer Inside Me IFC Films In the literary world of the ’40s and ’50s, there are writers of mystery and crime novels with standard whodunit plots that involve characters and situations to be neatly resolved at the end of act three.
Plus or minus
The plus/minus stat remains unique to hockey, an exploitable but generally accepted measurement of a skater’s defensive worth. It’s an aggregate of the number of times a player is on the ice when his team scores either at even-strength or shorthanded, versus the amount his side concedes while at equal numbers or on the power […]
Win Tix To See Halford at House Of Blues!
House Of Blues and IE giving away TWO (2) pairs of tickets to see Halford at House of Blues on Thursday, December 9th at 7:30pm. Email service (at) illinoisentertainer.com by Noon tomorrow (12/9/2010) and we’ll pick two winners at random to receive 1 pair of tickets for each winner. Show details: Rob Halford With special […]
Usher & Trey Songz live!
Allstate Arena, Rosemont Friday, December 3, 2010 While Usher could’ve very easily ended up in the early-’00s R&B bargain bin, his career found an unexpected resurgence thanks to a pair of hot new projects (Raymond v. Raymond and follow-up EP Versus), plus an arena show that had no trouble selling out the Allstate Arena. But […]
‘Aftermath’ Recreates Vintage Rolling Stones
Satisfaction Guaranteed Aftermath, a dramatic play with live music that runs through January 23rd at Signal Ensemble Theatre on the North Side, takes audience members back to a critical point in the career of The Rolling Stones.
Cover Story: Umphrey’s McGee
The Taming Of The Stew This year won’t be the first time Umphrey’s McGee end a year playing sold-out shows in Chicago. In fact, it will be the fifth consecutive. The venues differ (Vic, Riviera, Auditorium, Aragon) yet each time that Jam Productions announces the on-sale, it’s a surprise. Like, “These guys are headlining the […]
Interview: The Bad Examples
Put The Kids To Bed This article is an accident. It was spawned by a chance encounter with the FitzGerald’s Web site, where the words “The Bad Examples (Record Release)” were spied on the December schedule. IE’s instinct was to sneer, “Hasn’t anyone in Berwyn ever heard of updating a Web site?” and navigate away.
Interview: The 1900s
The Dawn Of A Century Don’t call The 1900s deserters. The band might have wasted a bundle of positive media buzz and eager fans gained from its promising 2007 debut, Cold & Kind, on two years of near-seclusion (the group did grace a handful of Chicago summer festivals and lent its talents to a benefit […]
Interview: Lee DeWyze
Roughing It Long before he won “American Idol,” Lee DeWyze was slugging it out in Chicago with an eponymous band, having released a pair of albums on WuLi Records, drawing some WXRT airplay, and getting cameos on a sports show called “The Chicago Huddle.” Though that path could’ve maybe/possibly/eventually led the 24-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist to major-label […]
Caught In A Mosh: December 2010
But The Metal Is So Delightful It’s that time of year. The days are shorter. The weather is colder (it’s actually, like, 60 degrees out as I write this, so . . . ). And your neighbors have that really goddamn obnoxious wreath on their door.
Hello, My Name Is Ryan & Dan
Q&A With Sleeping At Last IE: What inspired this “Yearbook” project? Ryan O’Neal: We were tired of the wait between records and it gives us more of an opportunity to make music. I heard an interview with [producer/film composer] Hans Zimmer who was talking about how being in a band means you talk about music […]
Sweet Home: December 2010
When Mike Raspatello was thinking about what was missing in Chicago’s crowded music-festival calendar, he immediately considered the lack of roots music. “There was nothing offered in the winter months at all,” he adds. “The roots genre was relegated to the summer months.”
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