Raised with roots in the southern church, gospel music and the gospel give her a natural gravity and grace, blending terrestrial and celestial grooves and moods in a seamless secular-sacred stew of stunning flavor and sanctified favor.

Four albums into her career, Wright remains a rising star with a dedicated and diverse fanbase. Her current tour includes only a select few dates which prompted driving several hours to catch a show at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Under an October moon and in the epic spiritual and architectural shadow of the Duke chapel, we found our way to the Reynolds Theater just as the show started with a scratchy and catchy rendition of Neil Young’s “Old Man.”

Now, we all know that classic rock owes its genesis to gospel and the blues just as we know that the best men were born of and nurtured by women. With her treatment of masculinized FM radio standards made famous over-saturated airplay and stoner sing-alongs, she takes a genre full-circle, reinterpreting in a way that’s so much more than a “cover song.” Her version of Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You” sends shivers as a soul-shaking and heart-tugging date-song sure to make your sweetie quiver. The version at this show had the desired riveting and romantic effect.

Wright’s seductive recontextualizing of rock classics is more than enough to make me adore her, but what’s equally compelling and mind-blowing to me comes with how well and with what a sense of maturity she inherits a voice that recalls freedom movement anthems by the likes of Odetta, The Staples Singers, and Sweet Honey In The Rock. In particular, Wright’s collaboration with Sweet Honey founder and matron Bernice Johnson Reagon resonates so religiously it’s just stunning to hear Wright keep the tradition and the message alive.

On a previous record, Wright treated a Sweet Honey standard “Hey Mann,” and on her recent records, she moves us with the miraculous Reagon track “I Remember, I Believe”—the definite and distinct highlight of Wright’s most recent record Fellowship. Getting to hear this song performed live was worth the price of tickets and the journey from Tennessee all on its own. The song’s opening and sustained refrain of “I don’t know why” reminds us that so much of life’s glory comes not from certainty but from mystery and doubt, that belief and courage come from fearlessly facing and embracing regardless.

To close the show, Wright had the crowd that had been modest and well-behaved most of the night suddenly singing and clapping and dancing in their seats. Her encored edged us into throwdown gospel-revival mode with multiple shouts and shoutouts coming from the crowd. From start to finish, Wright’s stage presence was friendly and radically unpretentious, and the almost two-hour show just whizzed by, ending as exuberantly as it began.

As we walked around the campus for a few minutes before finding our car, we stumbled across a dozen or so students sharing a ‘Jesusy’ jam session on the front steps of the Duke chapel. This seemed fitting. As much as the Spirit had been “in the house” for Wright’s set, this was an obvious reminded that the Spirit is everywhere that people sing. —Andrew William Smith, Editor

Photos are from previous Lizz Wright shows by Greg Aiello, from ga-photos.com

 ‘Ole Ole Ole Ole… Red Hot, Red Hot’ With non-stop chants and constant clamoring, 45,000 people greeted the Red Hot Chili Peppers back to the concert stage during a perfectly chilly, chili pepper night in Bogota, Colombia. 

Having not performed an official show since 2006, anticipation was high for opening night of the Chili Peppers World Tour 2011-2012, and there were certainly questions and doubts from critics.

How will the addition of new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer affect the group’s dynamics?

Can the group maintain their chemistry on stage now that mainstay guitarist John Frusciante left the band?

Well, at 8:01 pm, Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith and Josh Klinghoffer took the stage with their 2002 single “By The Way,” and with no hesitation, answered the critics in one swoop.

Like caged animals waiting to unleash their fury, the Chili Peppers exploded for 115 minutes of non-stop energy, a bonanza which took the Colombian audience and those hardcore fans who had traveled to Bogota into a ride that included such classics as “Californication,” “Under The Bridge,” “Otherside” and most of the band’s new album I’m With You including current radio mainstay “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie.”

Supported by four 30ft tall LCD video screens reminiscent of U2’s 1997 landmark POPMART Tour, the Southern California band acted like a group on a mission, a mission to show that no only had they not missed a beat, but they were better than ever.

As for the debut of new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, it must be said that John Frusciante’s presence is certainly missed. Being Klinghoffer’s first official show, his nervousness sometimes got the best of him, and he seemed more at ease staying in his spots and not trying anything out of the script. This said, his musical talents are not arguable, and the other three members were constantly helping him, giving him nods of approval and checking on him between songs.

After every other song on this evening, Kiedis appeared awestruck. Wide-eyed, the singer now sporting a 70’s mustache looked around the Bogota sold out park, seemingly overwhelmed by the love that hasn’t faded from their fans.

In short, it’s a thrill to have the Red Hot Chili Peppers back on the road. A group that has overcome multiple obstacles throughout their history, but yet refuse to relinquish the unique spot they have in rock n roll’s current hierarchy. —Jaime Rodriguez, Contributing Writer

Originally composed of Vernon himself, Bon Iver has added eight new members to the name. This change has occurred as Vernon’s musical style has evolved from his unique take on the one man and a guitar sound into something far deeper and more beautiful, and the Ryman Auditorium – built in the late 19^th century as a house of worship – would be the stage where we would all witness this change.

The opening group The Rosebuds built the excitement with their short set. Their sound has a classic feel to it, carried by a lovely combination of keyboard and an electric violin.

When Justin Vernon appeared on the stage, it was as though our prodigal son had returned, and while we are in awe, Vernon seemed equally in awe of the reception he received. There is no sign of the typical musician’s arrogance. Instead, there is a humble look to him. The rest of the band took their places – nine characters in the play about to unfold before us.

Opening with “Perth” started slowly, like the first rays of sunlight coming over the horizon in the early morning, then rising higher and higher. The sound filled the room entirely, occupying ever possible space, until the air was saturated entirely with the raw sound. Vernon’s voice is high and while not exactly melodious, it is beautiful. Drums drilled a beat almost military in nature. The drive of the song tapped every heart in its energy and longing. In the height of the song, I found myself soaring to a place with the music that brought me to tears, and looking around, it was easy to see that many in the room felt the same soaring emotion.

The night flew through many highlights as the band played most songs from both the original album For Emma, Forever Ago, the EP Blood Bank, and the new album Bon Iver. In tribute to Nashville, Bon Iver performed a cover of Don Willams’ “If Hollywood Don’t Need You,” which was both surprising and beautiful.

For all the highlights we experienced, for all the joy that we felt and tears brought to our eyes, the true high point in the evening was the encore. Bon Iver returned to the stage to perform three of the original hits from For Emma, Forever Ago. “Flume” was first followed by “The Wolves,” during which we were asked by Vernon to join in singing the second half of the song, repeating the words “what might have been lost,” eventually raising our voices to a fever pitch in what Vernon called “something magical.”

Feeling increased excitement, we knew what to expect: the one song that had, to this point, not been heard. For many, “Skinny Love” has a deep connection, a tune about lost love that is as beautiful as it is full of hurt. It is the heartbreak song to end all heartbreak songs. Vernon approached the front of the stage and addressed us all, asking for our help in doing the song like it was in early days of his touring career.

He reached for a weathered steel guitar and began to play, unplugged, with the band at his sides. Even from my place near the back of the room, his voice called out, crystal clear and resonant. Overwhelmed, he carried us all to a place we are all familiar with. In one of the most beautiful moments I have ever witnessed, the first chorus began, and we all joined our voices as one, connected through the power and beauty of song. –Jordan Frye, Contributing Writer

Photo is from http://www.alyssainnashville.com/

The social barometer consulted by our neighbors in the mid-South sees us as suffering a mild form of insanity, but that doesn’t stop us from returning again and again – despite logic and basic boundaries as to what a human can endure. This year, in a late spring where the weather’s been remarkably wet and mild, our convergence weekend wore us out by being unusually hot and dry.

With an outer composure hiding an excitement that hasn’t subsided even in my sixth year attending and an inner howl of “Bonaroo-hoo” warming my blood,  I headed off with a crew of coworkers and best friends for the tenth anniversary of a world-renowned and somewhat risky weekend of concerts, community, and collaboration.

Doing three days instead of four this year, I knew that Friday alone would be worth the journey. Making my first stop at our “home base” inside the Academy tent in Planet Roo meant stumbling into a mesmerizing and mellow chanting workshop led by the Rahasya crew from Athens, Georgia. In general, Bonnaroo doesn’t need to sell counterculture stereotypes or cultivate its jam band reputation because these notions tagalong regardless of how close they resemble reality. But in the case of these folks bringing the day by humming “Hare Krishna,” this welcome flashback to the early 1970s calibrated our inner spaciousness in a way that we could spread across the weekend. (Besides all the overt instances of jam band and classic rock that populated the schedule, the indy-Americana of Low Anthem came sweating into Saturday afternoon so steeped in retrophilia that a song like “Hey, All You Hippies” functioned as a sort of audio time machine for those who hadn’t already left the temporal realm by other means.)

Seeking my first serious headliner on Friday took me to The Other Tent at the edge of Centeroo for a rousing afternoon revival with the incomparable rockabilly hipster Justin Townes Earle. Like his father did in this same tent a few years ago, JTE reminded us how crazy we were for spending the whole weekend roasting in the heat with our fellow fans. His sizzling set brought our first Ben Sollee sighting of the weekend, as the Kentucky singer-cellist-activist came onstage to add cello to “Mama’s Eyes” and background vocals to “Harlem River Blues.”

As afternoons at Roo this year meant grilling one’s flesh like a burger in a global solar barbecue, we decided to seek refuge in the fabled and air-conditioned Cinema Tent. After cooking some more in line, we were able to score seats for the screening of Louisiana Fairytale, Danny Clinch’s documentary about the collaboration between My Morning Jack and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Immersion in the cool dark room as deep journey into dynamic devotional: a musical and cultural cross-pollination placed me in a religious mood that would last into the night. My Morning Jacket pay homage to the past as it lives in the present, presenting themselves to us as a tribal tributary that links heart and sound, sharing a roots reverence and popular lineage that taps history without cheapening it. At the movie’s conclusion, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band kicked it out live, much to the delight of the packed house of patrons.

Even though we were able to catch some of Ray Lamontagne’s set on Which Stage that included many of my favorite tracks from last year’s excellent God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise, his lack of conversation between songs combined with the day’s lingering heat, gave the performance a detached mellow and lazy mood that has historically been a real detriment to artists who’ve performed on Which Stage during daylight hours. Such was the steamy curse that I recall from a particularly alienating Animal Collective show in 2009 and that this time around afflicted the wispy waiflike work of Lamontagne and Amos Lee later in the weekend. Luckily, we’d see some folks defy the dusty odds and do their best to play their best even in the daylight.

Field of Dreams: the Jacket’s Victory Dance

As dusk quickly approached, though, we found ourselves on the crowded walk towards What Stage to grab a spot for the Jacket’s 8pm slot, seeking a particular piece of lawn where we could spread out and dance. Leaving the pit and the several rows after it to the patient folks willing to press, we really got a sense of the vastness of the main Bonnaroo venue by laying our blanket halfway back, with the VIP section just behind us and the waxing moon above. Seeing this band for about the tenth time brought layers and levels of emotion based on how their music meets me on a spiritual plane and in sheer anticipation of how they’d weave in the new songs that I’d been listening to for about ten days since Circuital had been released.

The opening one-two of “Victory Dance” and “Circuital” perfectly tones the crowd to connect with the new tunes – from the spine-chilling trumpet solo that kicked off the set as though “Taps” were playing in the belly of our common memory to Jim’s otherworldly wail at the end of “Victory Dance” to the comforting way the new record’s title track tracks our cellular responsiveness to the Jacket’s versatile jangle and sparkle.

Immediately switching gears to three soaring hits from 2005’s Z, the setlist immediately attracted anyone who wasn’t already reeling towards bliss. “Off The Record” opens slowly before slinking into lyric and hook and a danceable refrain that had the mass of thousands grooving along joyfully; then, suddenly, at midsong we meet the kind of whacked and wicked jam that makes the Jacket the Jacket, that stretches every player in the band to follow its tangly riffs into the manna of meaning as Bo Koster’s keyboards carry us to the misty mountaintops of rock and roll bliss. Followed by the fierce glory of “Gideon” and the playful abandon of “Anytime,” the party was fully underway, with James then greeting the “ocean of humanity” by announcing the occasion as an entirely surreal, mind-blowing, and “magical honor.”

At Roo, the everyfan’s festival, many bands forget their roots as fans, arrive just in time to do their set, and leave with similar haste. That’s not the case with My Morning Jacket who have been like pillars of the whole Bonnaroo project since its earliest years, always hanging out to catch other artists and really taking things to the next level with late-night sets of legend in 2006 and 2008.  For two hours on Friday night, we got to give the Jacket their due by giving them such a premier place in the schedule, and the Jacket just poured the love back out on us.

Even though only a handful of tracks from 2008’s excellent but polarizing Evil Urges have remained in the set, the journey that injects “Smokin’ from Shootin’” into a snippet from “Run Thru” (a 2003 track) and then collapses into the arms of “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Part Two” undoubtedly torques listeners into a state of rotation and levitation that leaves little doubt that this band has no qualms about bending the tilt of the universe for the time that it’s onstage each night.

Intentionally or inadvertently, My Morning Jacket give a ton of credibility to the narrative that the moment of Circuital signals a retro movement all about returning to the band’s roots by playing more songs from the 2003 pre-breakout album It Still Moves than they do from either Z or Evil Urges. And even though I did miss hearing “It Beats for You,” “Wonderful,” Librarian,” “Dondante,” and “Evil Urges,” to name a few, neither the focus on the new album nor on the older, jammier jams from earlier in the century in any way diminished the devastating beauty of the entire evening for me.

From their funkiest and freakiest with newer tracks like “Highly Suspicious” or “Holdin’ On To Black Metal” to the culminating guitar-god pyrotechnics of “Dancefloors” diving into “One Big Holiday,” My Morning Jacket made my night and my weekend with what may have been one of their career’s most important sets to date. For me, it meant watching and dancing from a vaster vantage point, from a different distance and angle, from a more mature but no less appreciative perspective. As far as I can tell, the latest album embraces all these added textures in what is already a many layered rock and roll masterpiece of a musical vocation.

Festival Gospel and Living Greats

Nobody pretends that Bonnaroo is a gospel festival or that when most people use the term “religious” to define the weekend that they really mean it in any other than the figurative, symbolic, or mythopoetic sense. Nonetheless, in ways that might surprise people who have never caught one of these shows or are skeptical of such old-fashioned spirituality in general, Bonnaroo offers plenty of bonafide soul songs for people who want to get their Jesus on or feel the Holy Spirit moving in ways that don’t require chemically-induced imitations of infinity.

With Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens and then Mavis Staples, both Saturday and Sunday afternoons kicked off with healing services on main stages, giving us what Staples said would be the closest thing to church we’d find inside Bonnaroo. Complete with arm-waving ambiance and “Amen” shouts, the altitude and attitude of the sun-kissed masses shifted as we got a taste of the Son – whether that’s what we were looking for or not.

Later Saturday afternoon saw the sought after Mumford & Sons show overwhelm the capacity of the Which Stage field for a stunning 90-minute set that included several new songs and all-out closing jam of “Amazing Grace” with support from members of Old Crow Medicine Show and Apache Relay. As great of a show as the Mumfords was, we snuck away to catch some of a veritable legacy Loretta Lynn over at That Tent. In a similar fashion on Sunday, we decided to forgo Iron & Wine to watch Cold War Kids but then ditched CWK to hear a few tracks from living legend Gregg Allman.

Such is the reality of seeing shows at Bonnaroo: you don’t ever see all the shows you want, and you often stop short of seeing all of one show just to catch a moment of another one. Sometimes this decision making is based on which artists I have seen before and which artists I expect to have the chance to see again.

One set that stood out among the others as a “must see” and “might never see again” came Sunday afternoon with Daniel Lanois’s new project Black Dub, featuring Lanois on guitar, Trixie Whitley on vocals, Brian Blade on drums, and Daryl Johnson on bass. For years, I’ve followed Lanois as the legendary U2 co-producer, and this was my first opportunity to hear him with his own group. For some reason, This Tent wasn’t terribly packed for the set; we got a great spot in the center of it all, in front of the sound board, and just sank our toes into the sandy floor and soaked in the funky, jazzy, clubby, soulful, and pleasant assault on the senses.

Cheesy Does It & Our Late Night Danceathon

Sleep at Bonnaroo is both rare and precious, and the musical schedule both dares sleep-deprivation and defies what’s even possible. As I grow older into the festival, I’ve had to sacrifice some shows for others, and I’ve had to prioritize rest. Now, many people might think I was crazy to skip both Buffalo Springfield and Eminem (skipping Black Keys was no big deal, having seen them many times before, including a real disappointment at the Ryman last year). But as soon as the sun set Saturday, I took a nap in order to be able to enjoy one of the fabled Bonnaroo late nights (which are in fact very early mornings).

Rising from my rest around midnight meant enjoying shows under the cover of darkness, with thinner crowds and cooler temperatures. And we found it amazingly easy to make our way from tent to tent to stage, taking in bits of Scissor Sisters, Dr. John, String Cheese Incident, and STS9 – and still making it back to the tent long before dawn. I don’t what it is about slipping from the simply sleazy gay disco of the Sisters to the mojo-moving Louisiana hoodoo of Dr. John to the eclectic cheesy jammy-pleasing work of String Cheese or STS9, but I was able to get my dance on in every case and loved the last stroll home with Cheese ripping through their closer, an awesome cover of U2’s “Mysterious Ways.”

The Wild World of Ben Sollee

On Sunday morning, we were browsing some booths when we stumbled across Ben Sollee giving an impromptu unplugged concert outside the Oxfam American tent in Planet Roo. We heard his track “Electrified” and a cover of Cat Stevens’s “Wild World.” Having arrived at ‘Roo in 2009 by bicycle, Sollee required many golf-cart shuttles this time around to show up at just about everything.

Even though we missed his actual headline set, we saw him jam with Justin Townes Earle, My Morning Jacket, and Low Anthem. We caught a bit of his set on the Sonic Stage and this spontaneous Planet Roo set. We also saw him marching in a protest parade around Centeroo with the folks from Mountain Justice Summer, advocating an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. And when we were deeply enjoying the Black Dub show, we looked behind us to see Ben Sollee just digging the set as a fan.

In a musical and cultural world where borrowing is both blessing and necessity, it’s hard to call very many artists original anymore, but Ben Sollee’s invigorating and innovative blend of cello, songwriting, and singing sure comes close. Add to that his warm activist spirit, and we have a real force for good in the world, embodying the best of what we’d like a festival of Bonnaroo’s magnitude to be.

With an anchor in the arts, music, theater, spoken word, gardening, drumming, and dancing classes we taught back at the Academy and with as many shows as I could manage when not working, eating, or sleeping, another Bonnaroo came and went quickly. With attendance such a miracle in logistics and a marathon in persistence, each year I tell myself that it could be my last. We’ll wait for the lineup to be announced in early 2012 and for our Academy plans to coalesce. We’ll wait and see and recover and rest. In the meantime, we have dusty memories (as well as pictures, videos, and downloads) documenting our dreams all over the web. –Andrew William Smith, Editor

My Morning Jacket pictures by Jeff Kravitz; Black Dub picture by Morgan Harris; courtesy of Bonnaroo.com; all other pictures by Andrew William Smith. For more information: Bonnaroo.com

The media buzz for the tenth annual Bonnaroo’s been building for months, but this year, the fanboy’s Christmas in June just kind of snuck up on me.

Even though this will be my sixth consecutive year volunteering creativity and time in exchange for my wristband, it requires a certain confidence in a higher power to conjure the carefree courage to suffer the punishing sunlight and celebrate the musical delight. Working at the Academy in Planet Roo anchors my Bonnaroo experience by providing a focus and a sense of service, with our diverse offering of gardening and arts classes. But during the hours when I’m not staffing the tent or supporting our staff, if I am not sleeping or eating, I am off exploring the festival grounds and catching as many concerts as I can manage.

The temporary city as cultural carnival—constructed in tents and motorhomes and countless other improvisations of functional art as life—defies logic and requires logistics of a heroic level. Back in 06 and 07, I needed the medical tent more than I want to admit, and in sheer amazement and need, I witnessed a team and facilities of stunning compassion, resources, and efficiency. All the Woodstock slurs and hippy stereotypes and permitted debaucheries asides, running this festival is a serious business, and the ‘roo producers possess a deep ethical and humanitarian ethos to provide such an excellent backend of support.

Planning and packing are a project in themselves, but the annual joyful anticipation comes from really studying the schedule and imagining what shows I might get to see. Making a playlist that progresses through the schedule helps plot my weekend and hones my longing, knowing of course that I will inevitably miss a show I wanted to see or stumble across something new that takes my breath away.

This year, I waited until a few days before to really ponder the offerings and the order in which they’re scheduled to unfold.  Along with looking at the extended weather forecast, learning the schedule is a fan’s perfect pre-Roo pastime. Entire online discussion communities exist just to talk about this festival. My first few years, I lived on these boards for weeks, trying to grasp what awaited me.

Just to remind myself that I am a new and better person than the one who started coming to this festival in 2006, an added aspect of my more recent Bonnaroo experience comes from the clean and sober community that hosts a table and meets as a fellowship for sharing in meetings twice each day, always gathering near the yellow balloons near the Sonic Café where we might see stickers such as “One Show At A Time.”

Landing onsite on June 8^th for the last pre-day before the 2011 festival kicks off today,  I was amazed and grateful for how well-organized the intake and setup proceedings have become, stretching our human potential to construct a harmonious four-day music and arts society from the chaos that remains part of the larger reality inside and outside our warm, dusty, temporary zone of fandom and fun. –Andrew William Smith, Editor

They come from the four corners. They could hear the train whistle blow. They bleed fandom and spit lyrics and live for the emotional salve that great art gives a wounded world.

Some brought children. Some decorated themselves in costumes. Some were the real hobos and had to stand outside the venue with their dogs and grimy faces, catching the show for free. Some dodged downpours and downed trees and took devilish detours through tornado-tortured Alabama just to get to the gig.

But by Wednesday night, we stood as one congregation, our backs to the hot dirty breeze of the Mississippi River breathing on our necks. Some of us remember where the word “revival” comes from in the American south, reverently noticing the report from Rolling Stone that the bands celebrated Easter on the train, singing hymns and reading verses from the Holy Bible.

The evening unfolded as spiritual celluloid on the big screen of our souls. We slipped into the French Quarter to feast on oysters, salmon, and shrimp. Thick muggy air never turned to rain, but it’s as if we could get baptized from the sheer moist density of it. The train late, we postponed going inside and hovered near the tracks with a gaggle of other fans. We’d been hearing boats blaring all afternoon, mistaking their waterlogged drone for the particular moan of a metal snake slithering down the rails.

Finally, the entourage arrived, instantly surpassing any hype and entering the realm of the hallowed. Antique Amtrak cars bear names of states. The words “California Zephyr” zapped a pit in my chest as I immediately wept inside for Jack Kerouac and momentarily longed for the song penned for On The Road’s author by Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard .

De-training with backpacks and duffles and suitcases, the artists hurried into the backstage area. There was no time to dawdle, as showtime lurked imminent. All night, warm breezes tickled the hairs on my neck. Long lines at porta-potties, the merch table, and the food-beverage tents were never too long. Large crowds watched for free from outside, and no one seemed to care.

We found a patch of grass, up close, off-to the side, near the stage but nearer the river with a little leg and elbow room to dance with abandon. Bright young kids from toddlers to pre-tweens danced and goofed around, fighting over a Frisbee or fondling a glowstick.

I’m not sure who the stage announcer was, but he seemed to take some joy in mis-naming the bands as he brought them on: Old Crow and the Medicine Show or Edward Sharpe’s Magnificent Zeros.

Thanks in part to this tour and to Old Crow Medicine Show, fast and furious old-time string band music—previously found at fiddling festivals and Appalachian fairs—has successfully infiltrated the jam band scene and now the perimeters of the mainstream rock world. Animated and energetic, Old Crowd reveled in our riverside digs as they kicked down several hybrid jigs. Some songs took on tender subjects like choosing corn liquor over cocaine while others traveled a higher ground like “Take Em Away,” where Marcus Mumford joined the band on lead vocals, belting this beatific chorus: “Take ‘em away, take ‘em away, Lord/Take away these chains from me /My heart is broken ‘cause my spirit’s not free /Lord take away these chains from me.”

Through patches in the clouds, we watched the sun sink slowly into the New Orleans skyline. “Wagon Wheel” was the wanted and expected first-set closer. It turned out each band would play a little less than an hour, and with relatively brief breaks between sets, the whole show stretched just a little more than three hours.

Giving this whole Railroad Revival thing an extra edge of counterculture cred, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are everything you’d heard and expected: thrown-down and thrown-together, a throwback gypsy caravan recently teleported from the planet of good vibes. Packing as many people onto the stage as possible like a high school musical on acid, with this band, all of our messianic hallucinations of Jesus hippies have been realized. Move over fans of Rent and Glee, we’re bringing back Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar with an improved and original soundtrack.

Amid this great and glorious set, lead singer Alex wore his road weariness a little too close to the brink, his vocals scratchy, screeching into incoherent rambles between songs. But he improved the further he fell out of himself and deeper into the songs, closing with an epic and euphoric rendering of the anthem “Home.”

From Lollapaloozas to Lilith Fairs, we’ve seen many attempts over the years to package the true road-rambling spirit of rock and roll for a mass audience. From each successful and failed festival, lessons are learned and then forgotten. But some surpass all previous attempts. If Glastonbury and Bonnaroo and Coachella have bettered on Woodstock, the Railroad Revial Tour did its best to top the all-but-forgotten Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin Festival Express. Distilling the dynamic mojo of true folk music and elevating the nostalgia industry past its obvious pretensions, the Railroad Revival Tour framed a moment in time, invoking Woody Guthrie’s art of the great depression to embark on a universal mission trip to nodes in our great recession.

Within the fragility of our souls, to paraphrase Marcus Mumford, we all secretly craved and waited for this experience—even though we only even learned about it a few weeks before it was to take place. It’s like it had been planned for subtle eternities by supernatural engineers, and each fan heard her own unique call from the innermost innards to follow the train whistle, no matter the cost.

So we found ourselves at the closing set of the closing night of a whirlwind week, the night dark but still balmy. After Mumford and Sons took the stage, it didn’t take long for them all to attain soaking sweats. Delivering songs with the joy and vigor that God intended, Mumford and Sons make sonic myths from simple mysteries, crafting spirited and spiritual songs about love and faith and failure and redemption that everyone can hear themselves in.

As I shouted each refrain of  “Awake My Soul” at the top of my lungs much to the annoyance of fellow fans within my orbit, the song told me stories and taught me lessons about myself, of what I have lost and what I have gained by risking so much for adventure and pilgrimage over the years. But for the better part of three hours tonight, it went passed the burned bridges and the grace of new starts to a familiar place. This show took me to a place I’ve always been looking for but in reality have always been, if only I just noticed and gave thanks—the place of love and God and friendship and freedom.

Whether belting the familiar tracks from their bestselling album or crooning new songs “Lover of the Light” and “Lover’s Eyes,” Mumford and Sons owned the gorgeous Woldenberg Park. They owned the park and the night and the times when music like theirs is so obvious and necessary—they owned it all only to let it go and give it away to their fans and family of fellow-travelers on the tour.

It’s great to be growing older while watching a scene that’s growing up give the world some of the greatest popular music it’s ever known.  The Railroad Revival Tour was all that and then some. Rock and roll history instantly rolled into legend, and for just one night, we got to live it with a community of fellow travelers.

–Andrew William Smith, Editor

All Photos by Jimmy Grotting, courtesy of http://nola.livemusicblog.com/

This spring, like a gang itinerant preachers, the West London quartet that reinvented gritty Americana with a touch of British posh have hitched themselves to the train of a literal revival. Opening this Thursday on the West Coast and taking six days to reach New Orleans, the Railroad Revival Tour brings a triple bill that adds two artists of a similar disposition: Old Crow Medicine Show and Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros.

Addressing attendees on the tour website as “fans, friends, railroad enthusiasts, hobos, drifters and saints,” the deep vintage nostalgia caravan shows only a thimble of resemblance to the Joplin and Dead 1970 Canadian railway hippy chaos immortalized on the film Festival Express.

In this far-flung, fast-paced, fragmented culture, hardcore music fans form a devout intelligentsia, willing to travel long distances and squander significant quantities of cash in search of life’s deeper meaning. This tour reaches this demographic like a perfect, sacred parchment of the super-authentic, as the postman delivers by hand our souvenir tickets resembling railroad vouchers and embossed with the 3D-effect of novelty-store postcards.

With music as soulful as America’s imagined spirit of the early 20^th century, these artists have loaded all our collective dreams onto a vision that’s “1,500 feet long and consists of 15 vintage railcars from the 1950s and 60s, pulled by two locomotives.”

The tour’s official announcement explains, “The bands will eat, sleep, and record on the train as they travel across the American Southwest, bringing their collaborative vision to fans from California to New Orleans. The bands will have equal billing and equal time on stage, in an environment that encourages creativity and cross-pollination. The entire tour will be the focus of a documentary that captures the spirit of the journey and gives intimate insights into the creative process.”

With Mumford’s Winston Marshall invoking Woody Guthrie and describing the whole idea as a “glorious disgrace,” fans across the country booked their own travel and scrambled to score tickets to one of the six sold-out shows. Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show explains the tour like this: “It’s bound to be one hell of a steel-wheelin, railroadin good time…while the western country rolls by and the smoke rises blacker than musical notes pouring out of that stoked-up-and-chuggin iron chariot.”

Imagining that a tour just like this will probably never occur again, or will at least need to wait another 40-years (the time since the aforementioned psychedelic train ride across Canada), we’ve decided to disembark from the daily grind for two days and dispatch to New Orleans for the tour’s conclusion. Check back at the end of next week for the report.

–Andrew William Smith, Editor

Visit http://railroadrevivaltour.com/

The fantastic and charismatic frontman of the Dirty Guv’nahs, Trimble sent tremors and trepidations from floor to rafter as soaring vocals and a vivacious stage presence promised to rip the building at the seams if the show lasted any longer.

On the one hand, it’s hard to imagine the Dirty Guv’nahs rising star of genuinely gritty southern rock in 21^st century that had not already witnessed Kings of Leon and My Morning Jacket. But so pure and American are the threads of Trimble and Company’s trajectory, they could as easily owe tribal allegiance to the likes of the Allman Brothers or even Bruce Springsteen as anyone in the current resurgence of boot-kicking and ear-prickling rock passion.

Further confirming that old is new, the Dirty Guv’nahs’ songs all seem to pulse in the raw milk and red meat of religious meaning, summed up in the strikingly sincere anti-posture of anthems about love and courage.

Having loved the album Youth Is In Our Blood for its shameless simplicity of truth and drums, conviction and keyboards, gravity and guitars, I still knew from rumor and reputation that the band preferred fans willing to get it on the inside by immersion at one of the band’s live shows.

Knowing that the band currently tours relentlessly, it’s humbling to reckon that the Guvs give all each night like they gave us that one Friday night or harrowing to imagine that Trimble tests his mortality each night with the same shamanic insanity and manic gymnastics that we saw in Nashville. Tremble trespasses the boundaries between singer and fans in the same fashion that the early Bono did or like his peers in Delta Spirit or Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros do, and we all benefit because of it. I just wonder if anyone in his camp has asked him to invest in stage-diving insurance or to simply give the assurance that he’ll hold back and won’t throw himself from the stage like animal bounding from its cage.

To rock out in the raucous sense that the fans of the Dirty Guvs get to is to be bruised by beauty, branded in the ears, and born again with fewer fears. It’s a great time to be a rock fan in part because so many bands today share the same blend of talent and abandon.

-Andrew William Smith, Editor

Photos by Andrew William Smith, Mercy Lounge, Nashville, 2.28.11

visit http://www.thedirtyguvnahs.com/

To fill the void of boredom, a favorite January pastime is the annual “predict this year’s Coachella Festival lineup” sweepstakes, a ritual that always produces a litany of outsized expectation, faked posters, and inexplicable attention for the tattered carcass of L.A. radio station KROQ.

This year’s rumor mill included everyone from Daft Punk to Radiohead to The Rolling Stones to even U2, as well as perennial favorites The Smiths, David Bowie, and The White Stripes. However, Morrisey would apparently still rather eat his own genitals than reunite his old band, Goldenvoice has apparently not thrown enough money at the erstwhile Ziggy Stardust to lure him from his gilded spiderweb, and Jack White III apparently has another four or five side projects to form before he and Meg are seen on a stage again.

In lieu of all that, we have this year’s headliners:  Pigeon-dodgers Kings of Leon, fishstick enthusiast Kanye West, and The Arcade Fire.

It would appear that Coachella has settled into a comfy <rut> niche of picking a festival vet that has successfully crossed over to the mainstream (Arcade Fire, The Killers), a juggernaut pop or hip-hop icon (West, Jay-Z, Madonna), and some stalwart of the classic rock scene to draw in a wider audience (Roger Waters, Prince, Paul McCartney).  This year, the closest thing the bill has to a “classic rock stalwart” is Duran Duran, an act probably picked more for kitsch value than credibility. Arcade Fire, meanwhile, are a great live band – and have risen in stature on every Coachella bill since their first record – so perhaps it was inevitable they would receive a coveted headlining spot following the release of their third record. However, The Suburbs was released last year, and enthusiasm over their return has died down somewhat in the interim.

So… the headliners are rather underwhelming.  But what about the rest of the lineup, you say? As always, there are some great names here and there, but many of them are buried in font so tiny you can barely see them:  Titus Andronicus, Gogol Bordello, The New Pornographers, The Swell Season, Elbow, and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (of The Mars Volta) have all been marginalized for the likes of Paul Van Dyk, Brandon Flowers, and The Bloody Beetroots.  Odd.

Anyway, before I become too much of a ranting curmudgeon, judge for yourself.  Here’s the lineup in full:

I don’t begrudge the decision at all, of course; when one needs to grow up, one needs to grow up. Still, it’s been difficult to part ways with a scene I’ve become rather firmly entrenched in, particularly when it comes to my most persistent (and expensive) addiction: live music.

Making things even more difficult is the fact that a non-stop parade of awesome was dangled tantalizingly in front of my Bay Area nose all throughout 2010; no doubt the past twelve months provided one of the most bountiful concert seasons in recent memory. Avoiding shows was like trying to quit heroin whilst living in an opium poppy field, so needless to say, I wasn’t avoiding any of the stuff I really wanted to see.

Here is just a sampler of highlights, pictures, and video from the best Bay Area concerts I attended in 2010.

ATOMS FOR PEACE – Fox Theatre, 4/14 and 4/15

Thom Yorke‘s experimental supergroup, formed in 2009 for a pair of tiny shows in Los Angeles, did not even have a proper name at year’s beginning; Yorke eventually named it Atoms For Peace, after the sixth track of his solo album The Eraser, which itself derived the name from a speech given by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953.

The band embarked on its first proper tour in April, hitting major U.S. markets in anticipation of a high-billed Coachella gig.  Two of the stops along the way were at Oakland’s Fox Theatre, and – thanks to some inspired surprises and a relentlessly enthusiastic audience – these shows ended up being arguably the most memorable of the band’s short history.

Each night, the main set featured The Eraser performed in its entirety – translated remarkably well from electronic bloops and bleeps into organic orgies of bang and skitter – while the encores were dedicated to solo Radiohead covers and full-band performances of newer tracks, including some work-in-progress Radiohead tunes such as “Lotus Flower”, “Skirting on the Surface”, and “The Daily Mail”.

Memorably, the first evening featured an unplanned, impromptu final encore – the band returning to the stage after fifteen minutes because the audience simply wouldn’t go away – the first time in my 32 years of concertgoing I’ve ever seen such a thing happen. That encore included the utterly priceless sight of Thom Yorke sitting on the stage, jamming out improv riffs with Flea whilst teaching him chords to the little-played Radiohead B-side “Follow Me Around.”

Such spontaneity informed the whole of both gigs.  The band itself was such an odd amalgamation of styles – the punk and funk-inflected bass of Flea rumbling underneath the multi-ethnic percussive magic of Mauro (David Byrne) Refosco, while Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich hung around in back because, hey, Nigel Godrich! – all in support of Yorke’s gloomy menagerie of paranoia anthems.  It was like attending a dance party soundtracked by Joy Division, a description underscored by the scintillating cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” that acted as the final encore of the second night.

ORBITAL – The Warfield,  4/17

Perhaps the greatest band to emerge from Britain’s Techno movement of the early 90′s, Orbital reunited in ’09 for a handful of 20th anniversary gigs at European festivals, but neglected to bring the party across the Atlantic to the U.S..  Not much changed in 2010 except for a scant few dates Stateside in April… but thankfully, one of those dates was a solo headlining gig at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre, scheduled ahead of their Coachella appearance a couple days later.

Long a staple of my Concertgoing Bucket List, this was my first-ever chance to see the brothers Hartnoll do their thing live, and it was well worth the wait.   Much as it could’ve been a couple old dinosaurs riding the nostalgia of a dead genre, instead the band and beats sounded just as vital and forward-thinking as they once did, with a near-capacity crowd ably demonstrating how to get one’s Four On the Floor-on.  Throw in the the famous head-mounted torches and a guy decked out as Rave Jesus, and for a brief moment, it was almost as if the past fifteen years never happened.

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – The Fillmore, 6/3

Before dropping their third – and purportedly final – record, This Is Happening, LCD Soundsystem – AKA James Murphy and Co. – did a string of Summer warm-up dates in small-ish venues across the U.S., including a sweaty, sold-out affair at the vaunted Fillmore Auditorium.   Brilliant as they are in the studio, LCD is really best experienced live, where the somewhat airy album beats gain much-needed weight and momentum, and Murphy himself is set free to drop an endless cavalcade of priceless Murphyisms between songs, like the ones below….

Murphy on San Francisco:  ”You have very nice groceries.”

Murphy on stage towels:  ”These never feel clean, and they always leave little things on me… just like relationships.”

Murphy on the swealtering heat, and calls from the audience to remove his shirt:  ”Nope.  I get a little self-conscious about that shit.  <points to shirt> I shower like this.”

MATT AND KIM – The Fillmore, 9/30

One of the fun things about attending concerts over a long chunk of time is seeing your favorite bands progress up the ladder from lowly opening act to full-on headlining superstar.  Some fans hate this process, and want a favorite band to remain their perpetual “little secret”.  I, however, love seeing a band I remember from back in the day bask in the glory of all the souls they’ve picked up during their hard-earned quest for an audience.  It’s sort of like watching a kid grow up.

No band better illustrates this phenomenon for me than Matt and Kim.  The first time I saw them, they were opening for Against Me! at the tiny Phoenix Theatre in Petaluma, California.  With drummer Kim and nerdy, bespectacled synth-vocalist Matt both sporting ear-to-ear grins worthy of the middle-school motivational speaking circuit, they did not necessarily look like the types to win over a load of jaded altera-punks.  But win the punks over they did, with the relentless, athletic energy of Kim’s drumming, the lanky showmanship of Matt, and the sheer joy of people who genuinely adore what they do.  And what they do, of course, is create irresistible 3-minute slabs of music that bridge the not-as-distant-as-everyone-thinks gap between punk and pop.

With the help of a wheel-greasing minor hit in “Daylight”, the pair spent the time in-between that first encounter and their most recent effort evolving into the bubbly dance analog to The White Stripes.  Their sold-out Fillmore performance in September cemented their status as one of the funnest acts I’ve ever seen grace a stage; between bouts of crowd-surfing and covers of Biz Markie, their boisterous audience made the front rail shake like a 6.5 quake, and vocalized every single word of every single song at a decibel level that would make even My Bloody Valentine run for cover.

It was, in a word, grand.

For more photos of Matt and Kim, see gallery below:

GORILLAZ – Oracle Arena, 10/30

I suppose that – given my proclivity for favoring great live bands – it’s no surprise Gorillaz slipped under my radar for so long, given that they were known mainly as an abstract, multimedia construct with a revolving cast of both real and virtual players.  That all changed this year with the band’s first proper world tour – basically a traveling road circus with slews of animation from the band’s complicated “mythology” doing battle onstage with a galaxy of faces from the British rock and pop scene.  Lead singer/mastermind Damon Albarn‘s project could’ve seemed overblown and chaotic when I caught the band’s Halloween show at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, but the result, thankfully, was invigorating instead of alienating, an imaginative and forward-thinking collusion of mass media with international music culture.

Although the live version of the band was decidedly ad hoc, it was a really good ad hoc band, featuring no less than two surviving members of The Clash (Mick Jones and Paul Simonon), as well as former Verve guitarist Simon Tong.  Backing them up was a veritable army of guest performers – De La Soul, Bobby Womack, Yukimi Nagano, Bashy, Rosie Wilson – and no less than two large ensembles (Hypnotic Brass and the American Syrian Orchestra), brought in for cameos on specific tunes. (I can only imagine the travel expenses.)

With the added bonus of the band members dressed up in Halloween outfits – and a collection of intricately-carved jack-o-lanterns lining the stage – there was so much going on visually and aurally that it was simply impossible not to be entertained.  I look forward to seeing what the band does next to top this spectacle.

SIDE NOTE:  The band recently released a “musical tour diary” called The Fall, which is composed entirely of tracks culled from off-the-cuff recordings made by Albarn on his iPad during the tour.  It’s essentially a high-powered collage project, but a fascinating and enjoyable one.  One of the tracks – “California and the Slipping of the Sun” – was recorded the day of the Oakland show.  The album is available for listening at www.gorillaz.com.

THE FRAMES – The Fillmore, 11/28

Glen Hansard has been a busy guy in recent years; after winning an Oscar for the indie phenomenon Once, his side gig, The Swell Season, ballooned to such international popularity that it ended up smothering his main gig, Dublin-based rock band The Frames, to the point where they all but disappeared for a few years.

The Frames finally got back to touring this Fall with a 20th anniversary celebration, and one of their stops was a typically magnificent offering for a sold-out Fillmore audience in November, their first show in the area as The Frames since 2007.

The mood in the audience before the show was one of nervous optimism, as it was Hansard’s first return to the Bay Area following a well-publicized suicide at a Swell Season concert in August.  Though Hansard did tacitly acknowledge the tragedy by dedicating “Friends and Foe” to the members of Kara – a service that, on Hansard’s dime, provided grief counseling to audience members afterward – the vibe of the show was overwhelmingly one of high spirits.

Hansard has a knack for making each gig feel very personalized for the audience seeing it, and this one was no exception, with the band heeding audience requests for songs, and Hansard wearing a cap knitted for him by a fan in the crowd for most of the gig.  There were some song surprises as well, like an off-mic cover of REM’s “Hairshirt” performed at the foot of the stage with a mandolin, or the final encore, which featured perhaps the band’s lightest and funniest song, the reggae lark “Bananaman”.  It was an appropriately NorCal way to end the show, and a fantastic conclusion to a superlative showgoing year.

For more photos of The Frames, see gallery below:

All Words and Photographs by Luke Pimentel, Editor  All videos courtesy the diligent denizens of Youtube.