Live Reviews
Steely Dan live!
The idea of centering a tour around a classic album is nothing new, but it’s a concept that always seems to attract both the radio browsers banking on the hits and more studied aficionados craving deep cuts. Few have perfected the formula better than Steely Dan, who first tested it out in 2009 during multiple […]
Kids These Days, Gold Motel, + Maps & Atlases backstage @Palooza
To call Kids These Days sudden upstarts on the scene would be an understatement. The group began turning heads earlier this year on high profile blog-curated bills at SXSW, and have been making moves ever since. IE caught up with the group’s Liam Cunningham, Vic Mensa, Nico Segal, and Macie Stewart backstage at Lollapalooza to […]
Deftones backstage interview @Palooza!
Following a serious car accident in late 2008, Deftones bassist Chi Cheng entered a coma, with his current condition described as “minimally conscious.” In the aftermath of Cheng’s tragedy, longtime friend of the band and previous musical collaborator Sergio Vega, formally of Quicksand
Sade live!
Ten years is a lifetime to wait for new music in this age of instant-gratification media like iTunes, YouTube, and Facebook. With maximum and constant exposure as the mantra for most artists, a musician who dares to ignore this doesn’t stand much of a chance. Unless of course, you are Sade.
Lollapalooza Day 3
Local natives Gold Motel get Day 3 moving at the north end of Grant Park. Their innocuous brand of pretty pop music is proof that Lolla 2.0 isn’t about being on the cutting edge.
Lollapalooza Day 2
Face paint alert! Walk The Moon are rockin’ the Dayglo makeup and it would appear plenty of those already planted in front of the Music Unlimited stage got the memo. The boys are churning out buoyant pop music for the crowd of believers who are getting an early start on Day 2.
Lollapalooza recap: Day one
It’s was 20 years ago today, Perry Farrell told the bands to play. O.K., maybe not to the day, but two decades ago the Jane’s Addiction lead singer took a concept already popular in Europe and gave it his own alterna-twist. Huge music festivals like Reading and Glastonbury always bring in huge crowds on the […]
Paul McCartney live at Wrigley!
Paul McCartney managed to do in one evening what the Chicago Cubs haven’t been able to do all season: he generated countless hits in Wrigley Field.
Journey, Foreigner, and Night Ranger live!
For any gate-receipt certainty these days, package tours are a must, especially those that are so well stacked they’re impossible to ignore. For classic-rock fans, the idea of seeing Journey, Foreigner, and Night Ranger together in the same night certainly looked appealing on paper. But with significantly shifted lineups for those first two bands, only […]
Bon Iver live!
Say goodbye to the sad sack Justin Vernon exemplified on his 2008 stunner of a debut, For Emma, Forever Ago. Selling out the Chicago Theatre and surrounding himself with eight multifaceted backing musicians (everything from the violin to the trombone to the French horn was represented) Sunday night,
Jennifer Hudson live!
There’s nothing like playing the home field, especially in a loyal town like Chicago. That’s true for our sports teams as well as our musicians, as South Side native Jennifer Hudson demonstrated in an emotional homecoming at Ravinia on Saturday the 16th. Flaunting her newly trim figure in a neon-yellow blouse and tiny hot-pink skirt […]
New photo galleries!
We have Tim Hiatt’s shots from Soundgarden/Mars Volta, Steve Forstneger’s from the first day of Pitchfork, and (belatedly) Brian Ormiston’s from Rihanna last month! Visit illinoisentertainerphoto.com!
#P4K 2011, LOL
Overheard in Union Park on Friday night, from two separate pairs of people – two girls, then two boys – were the following snippets of conversation: “He has so many girlfriends”; “I have totally compromised myself.” And that seemed to sum up this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival fairly well.
U2 live!
At a Grammy Awards ceremony a decade ago, U2 frontman Bono proclaimed that his band was “reapplying for the job of the best band in the world.” In order to accomplish this Herculean task, the Irish quartet would fall back on a dependable approach, specifically aping their own sound for maximum impact. The side effects, […]
Eddie Vedder live!
Dark and depressing are rarely, if ever, words that get appropriated when referring to the ukulele. The fragile instrument usually stirs visions of grass skirts and Hawaiian sunsets. But on his first, non-soundtrack solo effort (Ukulele Songs) Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder searches the shadows beyond the palm trees, finding surprising sadness in the twine […]
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