Category / Music

by Michael Janairo

Got jazz? You can open the 2012 Albany Riverfront Jazz Festival

Saturday, Sept. 8, will also be the date of the free Albany Riverfront Jazz Festival, from noon to 9 p.m. at the city’s Riverfront Park.

But, as with last year, the festivities really get started the night before. From 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7, jazz bands will compete at various downtown venues for the chance to be opening act for the jazz festival. Attendees will vote for their favorite performance throughout the evening and the winner will be announced by midnight on the Downtown Albany BID’s website.

If you have a jazz band, better hurry. Submissions by interested bands are due at 3 p.m. Aug. 9. Applications include a mp3 files of two songs and a promotional photo in JPEG format. They should be e-mailed to the Downtown Albany BID or received at the BID office on 40 N. Pearl Street, Albany, NY 12207. Call Marcie Bergan, director of operations at the BID at 465-2143, Ext. 13 for more information. Or visit http://www.downtownalbany.org.

The lineup for the rest of the jazz festival includes:

  • 1:15 p.m.: Way Down
  • 2:30 p.m.: PEDRITO MARTINEZ GROUP    featuring Araicne Trujillo
  • 4 p.m. : Delfeayo Marsalis
  • 5:30 p.m.: Charlie Hunter
  • 7 p.m.: THE MOSAIC PROJECT featuring Terri Lyne Carrington, Nona Hendryx and Gretchen Parlato
  • 8:30 p.m. Fireworks
by Michael Janairo

Blue Man Group returns to Proctors for three shows

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Blue Man Group is coming back to Proctors theater in Schenectady for three performances: 8 p.m. July 21, and 1 and 5 p.m. July 22.

This is a return engagement of the show that played at Proctors last year, which critic Michael Eck called “wickedly subversive” and “hugely, satisfyingly fun.”

Tickets (priced at $20, $30, $45, $60 & $75) are on sale at Proctors Box Office, (518) 346-6204 or online at proctors.org

by Michael Janairo

Phish returns to SPAC for three-night run

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Phish won’t be in any hurry to leave once they roll their summer tour into town this week. The seminal Vermont-based jam band is set to spend three nights at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, their longest stint at the amphitheater. Phish has played SPAC 11 times since 1992, most recently on June 20, 2010, according to fansite Phish.net (http://www.phish.net). The band is in the middle of an extended summer tour that kicked off in June and will bring them south and west before wrapping up with three shows in Colorado on Labor Day weekend. As for what Phish might play, only they know for sure. Then again, that’s part of the magic of a Phish show — you never really know what Phish is going to play live until they play it. 7:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday. $45-$60. Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Spa State Park, Saratoga Springs. 587-3330; http://www.spac.org

by Michael Janairo

Share your first concert experience

The Psychedelic Furs’  concert on Saturday, June 2, at The Egg in Albany has got me thinking about my first concert experience.

This was in the early 1980s in Pittsburgh, where I grew up. I was 14 at the time, and the P-Furs post-punk pop had an edge to it that my mother didn’t understand. But I also had older brothers who had gone to concerts for bands such as The Clash and Black Sabbath the previous year, so I suppose the P-Furs seemed tame by comparison.

What I remember most about the concert isn’t the music or the people I was with, but the atmosphere of the concert hall. The PFurs played the Syria Mosque, a venue that has since been replaced by a parking lot. After a drive in a packed station wagon from the suburbs, we entered another reality.

Continue reading →

by Michael Janairo

No service fees today at SPAC box office for Live Nation shows

The Saratoga Performing Arts Center box office opens for the season at noon today (May 15, 2012). Today only, Live Nation is offering tickets to LiveNation shows at SPAC with no service charges during normal business hours — noon to 6 p.m. The SPAC box office is at the venue on Route 50 in Saratoga Springs.

The no-service fee offer is only for Live Nation booked shows:

  • Zac Brown Band – Friday, June 1st
  • Dave Matthews Band –  Friday, June 8th (June 9th is SOLD OUT)
  • Yanni – Tuesday, June 12th
  • Drake with J. Cole & more – Thursday, June 14th
  • The Beach Boys – 50th Anniversary Tour –  Saturday, June 23
  • Demi Lovato with Hot Chelle Rae – Tuesday, June 26th
  • Brad Paisley with The Band Berry & Scott McCreery – Friday, June 29th
  • Phish – Friday, July 6th thru Sunday, July 8th
  • Nickelback with Bush & My Darkest Days – Tuesday, July 24th
  • Santana & The Allman Brothers Band – Friday, July 27th
  • O.A.R. with Rebelution – Saturday, July 28th
  • Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Fest with Slipknot & Slayer – Tuesday, July 31st
  • Big Time Rush with Cody Simpson – Tuesday, August 14th
  • Toby Keith with Brantley Gilbert – Sunday, August 19th
  • Def Leppard & Poison with Lita Ford – Monday, Augus 20th
  • Chicago & The Doobie Brothers – Tuesday, August 21st
  • Jason Mraz with Christina Perri – Sunday, Sepetember 2nd
  • Fresh Beat Band – Monday, September 3
  • Florence & The Machine with The Maccabees – Sunday, September 16th

Tickets for SPAC events will also be available: New York City Ballet, Bill T Jones, Jazz Festival, Philadelphia Orchestra, Saratoga Chamber Music Orchestra.

Phone sales for SPAC classical tickets will also begin at noon on Tuesday. SPAC’s phone order ticket line is 518-584-9330.

From May – September, SPAC’s Route 50 Box Office and phone sale hours are as follows:

  • Monday – Friday: noon to 6 p.m.
  • Saturday: 10 – 2 p.m.
  • Sunday:  only open if there is a show, 2 p.m. until intermission
by Michael Janairo

From the archive: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band @ Times Union Center, 4/16/12

 

Albany
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s concert Monday night at Times Union Center started nearly an hour late, but all was forgiven once the 16 musicians took the stage and gave the packed house a night of power, emotion and showmanship.

Highlights included a video tribute to saxman Clarence Clemons, who died last June; the many sax solos by Clemons’ nephew Jake Clemons, which often left Springsteen’s face beaming with pride in classics such as “Thunder Road”; Springsteen’s solo performance of his rarely played “Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart,” an outtake from 1983’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” which began with his tentative finger picking on his guitar, as if trying to relearn the song; the dueling guitar leads between Stevie Van Zandt and Springsteen during “Murder Incorporated”; hits such as “Badlands,” “The Promised Land,” and the evening ending string of “Born to Run,” “Dancing the Dark” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”; and 62-year-old Springsteen’s amazing energy and connection with his fans, pulling three people out of the audience to dance or sing with him.

Wow. And did I even mention Springsteen pouring a fan’s bottle of water down his back, then downing another fan’s beer before diving into the crowd and letting himself be carried back to the stage? Continue reading →

by Michael Janairo

Martin Sexton, Joan Osborne, Daughtry and more coming to region

Martin & Joan at The Egg
The Egg in Albany has two new concerts from artists about to release new albums – imagine that. First up on Saturday, March 3, Syracuse native Martin Sexton takes the stage solo and acoustic. If you’ve already seen him, you know the singer-songwriter’s voice can go from a blues growl to a soulful croon to a gospel-tinged falsetto, often within the same song. Get a primer when his five-song EP “Fall Like Rain” drops next Tuesday.
Speaking of the blues, Joan Osborne has a CD full of blues covers due on March 27. That will give you a few days to listen before her show at The Egg on Sunday, April 1. Osborne’s breakthrough album “Relish” with its hit single “One of Us” came out 17 years ago, but she’s been working toward this one her whole career. As she puts it, she was waiting until “someday, when the time was right and my voice was ready.” About to turn 50 – gulp! – the time seems to be now.
Tickets for both go on sale Friday at 11 a.m.
“Idol” hands at Palace
In a week when “American Idol” returns to the airwaves, it seems fitting that there is news of one of its biggest alumni – if not one of its winners – is coming to town. Season five fourth-place finisher Chris Daughtry brings his band Daughtry to the Palace Theatre in Albany on April 28, in support of their current release, “Break the Spell,” and the Malaria No More foundation. Get tickets beginning Saturday, Jan. 28. Continue reading →