Tue 17 May – Bob Seger

The key to my luke-warm feelings about Bob Seger is that he simply is not 'cool.' He does not exude a rockstar persona by any stretch of the imagination and for some reason this makes me like his music a little less than I should.

Seeing him live only confirmed my previous claim as he continuously pumped his fists into the air with his awkward tanktop and silly sweatband on his head. But once I got past these obviously inhibiting traits, I really came to respect Seger's music like I never have before.

The…

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Wed 4 Aug – Arcade Fire, Spoon, Owen Pallett

I’m still trying to get over the fact that this actually happened. The Arcade Fire at the Garden.

And the thing is, it didn’t even feel like the “little Indie band that could.” It felt like a full-blown rock ‘n’ roll band that belonged. It’s not like Interpol who was at the peak of their popularity and will probably never get the chance to take the stage at MSG ever again. This is a band on the upswing, a band that is still growing its fanbase, a fairly young crew, relatively…

I’m going to do a little something different for this post and measure expectations versus outcome. I never thought I could get excited for Warped Tour again, but after being absent from the festivities for the past 3 summers, I’m going back to my roots and revisiting the event that planted a seed for my love of live music. This time around, however, the surroundings will be a little different. I’m from the Detroit area, so my past Warped experiences have taken place in the Silverdome and Comerica Park Parking Lots, and this one will be at a racetrack in…

Sat 26 Jun – The Creators Project Launch Event

The best way to get to know a musician is to spend some time with their music. Unfortunately, I have not done so with any of the above artists. But live sets at the Creators Project remedied this void, most for the better, one for the worse.

Sleigh Bells-The perfect mixture of Crystal Castles, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and The Handsome Furs. So much energy. It's a little bothersome that at least half of the energy comes from samples. But Alexis Krauss makes up for it by holding nothing back. She…

Tue 15 Jun – Dan Deacon, Lower Dens

The best and worst parts about Dan Deacon were amplified during his live set at Red Hook Park.

What's so appealing about Deacon's music is the way each song threatens to fall apart at any moment, only to push through and make something bizarrely melodic and totally transcendently euphoric. Somehow he makes sense of technology and turns noise and chaos into music.

The downside to Deacon is that all of his songs have the same formula. They start out with a beat that builds on itself, and the song crescendos and sometimes…

Fri 21 May – LCD Soundsystem, Holy Ghost!

I was fully expecting James Murphy to be a drunken buffoon. I mean, nothing I've read would have led me to believe otherwise.

Needless to say, I was shocked to see how emotive he was throughout his Friday night performance. Furthermore, it seemed like he genuinely cared about putting on a high-quality performance for his audience. My guess is that this is how he normally performs, but music journalist, for whatever reason, have exaggerated or mistaken his intense catharsis for apathetic carelessness.

I guess it's all part of that whole 'ironic' persona…

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Thu 22 Apr – Against Me!, Moneybrother, Dead to Me

The unavoidable fate of a punk rock band in the 2000s is to be judged on whether or not they are, in fact, "punk." Placing the raw sounds and politically-charged lyrics of 2001's Crime EP into that ambiguous category is a heck of a lot easier than calling 2007's New Wave–with its major label and slick sound–a vehicle of DIY production and anti-establishment rebellion.

However, after making a bit of money and enjoying some (in my opinion) well-deserved success, AM! got back to their roots in a big way. They…

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