Archive for the ‘Live Review’ Category
Live Review: Smashing Pumpkins at The Fillmore 7/15
July 25th, 2007 | 
Author: Billy Corgan asked the question with the straightest face he could muster: “Are you ready to die for rock and roll?” It was the Smashing Pumpkins’ first Bay Area concert in seven years, featuring a reconfigured lineup around the core of Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. Two months before, tickets for the band’s historic eleven-night stand at the Fillmore — from July 15 through August 1 — had sold out online in less than twenty minutes. Some fans without passes had waited since 5:30 that morning to get in. Yet not until the show’s second hour, during a ten-minute medley of late-period material “Rock On” and “Heavy Metal Machine,” did we grasp Corgan’s meaning.
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Live Review: Arcade Fire at the Greek Theatre 6/1-6/2
Arcade Fire, the four-year-old Montreal indie band that has made fans of David Bowie and David Byrne, may now be the most important rock group in the world. On the final two nights of its five-week North American Neon Bible tour June 1 and 2 at the Greek Theatre, eleven capable musicians were one writhing, singing, strumming soul onstage. But the real magic came as they fused sell-out audiences of more than eight thousand people into ecstatic masses who sang and danced and cheered more deeply than perhaps they ever had before.