We’ve closed the shop for our annual summer break and the Labor Day holiday. While we’re away, why not fire up our free Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores?
Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up and we’ll see you back here on Tuesday, 9/4.
Greetings from Laurel Canyon!
Amame dos veces, nena / amame dos veces hoy / amame dos veces, chica / me estoy llendo lejos / amame dos veces chica / Una para mañana una para tan solo hoy / amame dos veces / me estoy llendo lejos…
As I sit to write, it’s deep into the night of Cinco De Mayo. Honestly I was pretty moody until I had tacos for lunch yesterday. It’s funny how a simple thing like a song or plate of tacos can teleport me to serenity. Props to the Candela Taco Bar on La Brea for keeping the old family tradition of the “cinco celebration” alive. The Candela’s warmth and hot sauce flipped my day.
This week the Idelic Hour is celebrating “el cinco” as well. In many ways it’s a predictable theme for the hour’s playlist.
Song swapping may be the best way for a couple of esteemed singer/ songwriters to tour. Rather than one opening for the other, sitting on stage together and taking turns playing songs allows the evening to unfold in unexpected ways. One performer is inspired by a line in the other’s song and brings out one with a similar theme; the other, inspired by some intricate finger picking he’s witnessing, tries his own.
That’s how it went for a show by Joe Ely and Alejandro Escovedo Tuesday at the tony new City Winery outlet in the Ivy City district of Washington, DC. Accomplished writers and performers each with deep roots in not only the Austin scene, but connections with punk’s beginnings, the two took advantage of decades of songs and experience to trade off all night. Each had the best seat in the house for the other’s performance and sat rapt and respectful to listen.
Oddly, there were only the slightest collaborations emerging. Ely provided a solo for Escovedo’s “Broken Bottle”; they combined on a version of Ely’s “Silver City” that Escovedo recorded for his upcoming album The Crossing, due out September 14, and combined forces once more for a version of Woody Guthrie’s “Goin’ Down That Dusty Road” (a song also known as “Lonesome Road Blues” that is often cited as “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad,” though it never includes those precise words).
More often they were students and deep listeners of the other’s music and, in the case of the DC, show, their respective family histories. Escovedo, 67, began with a song about his family’s travels to California from Texas and Mexico. Ely, 71, followed with his own song of other weary travels between the Golden and Lone Star State, “Homeland Refugee,” a Dust Bowl rumination with the striking line “We’re all just migrants on this earth / Returning to the dust where we came.”
John Hiatt became eligible for Medicaid Monday, marking his 65th birthday at the first of two sold out shows at The Birchmere music hall in Alexandria, VA. But there was nothing suggesting anything close to retirement in his show with The Goners, the ace Louisiana trio led by guitarist Sonny Landreth.
Indeed, on a night largely dedicated to the 30th anniversary of his 1988 album Slow Turning, Hiatt began the evening showing how much life there still was in him during a succinct seven-song solo set dominated by songs from his impending album The Eclipse Sessions due out October 12.
It’s something like his 24th studio collection and the examples he shared — “Cry to Me,” “All the Way to the River,” and “Aces Up Your Sleeve” (coincidentally also the first three songs on the LP) — are as well structured, simple, and memorable as any from his catalogue, the best of which he also sampled in the solo acoustic spotlight.
He began with “Perfectly Good Guitar,” on a night when Joe Perry was smashing another instrument as part of an Aerosmith collaboration with Post Malone on the MTV Video Music Awards, a world away. Its indelible melody was enhanced not just by a harmonica solo, but also whistling.
He sang “Angel Eyes” by request of a couple marking their 40th anniversary. And he closed with the classic “Crossing Muddy Waters,” which recently had a terrific cover by the female bluegrass trio I’m With Her, and the indelible wail of “Cry of Love.” He acted in this set as if he were the hopeful rising opening act, thanking the headliners for having him on the tour, and adding, “They even let me ride in the main bus.”
If you stress it, they’ll press it. —Ed.
VIA PRESS RELEASE | With 47 Pop hits and 52 R&B hits to their credit spanning nearly 25 years of recordings, The Four Tops are one of the greatest vocal groups in the history of pop music, hands down. But a big chunk of their hits, the ones they recorded for the ABC/Dunhill label, have been almost entirely unavailable in the CD era. This 2-CD collection from Real Gone Music answers the prayers of soul fans worldwide by presenting, for the first time ever on CD, all 33 rare single sides that the Tops recorded for the ABC/Dunhill label from 1972 through 1978.
Though The Four Tops (Renaldo “Obie” Benson, Abdul “Duke” Fakir, Lawrence Payton, and lead singer Levi Stubbs) had dominated the charts with their classic recordings for Motown in the ‘60s, when the label decided in 1972 to move to Los Angeles, the group, like many of their celebrated label-mates, felt it was time for a change. They thus signed with ABC Records’ Dunhill imprint and hooked up with producer Steve Barri (The Grass Roots) and songwriters Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, who re-created their classic Motown sound on Top Ten hits like “Keeper of the Castle” and “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got).”
In all, The Tops recorded 17 A-sides (including a Spanish-language version of “Keeper of the Castle”) for ABC/Dunhill during their six years on the label, notching a total of 11 Billboard Pop hits and 15 R&B hits, but those original hit singles (and their even rarer B-sides) have been almost impossible to find on CD.
Why? Well, in a sad tale we’ve told before on our previous Dunhill singles collections featuring The Mamas and The Papas, Steppenwolf, and The Grass Roots, legend has it that label head Jay Lasker threw out the tapes, deeming them worthless. A few singles—those identical to the album versions—have leaked out on CD, but here is the breakdown: of the 33 tracks (the seven earliest mono, the rest stereo), 27 have never been available on CD in their correct single versions, and 13 songs have never appeared on CD in any version.
We remember Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ed King who passed away on Thursday, August 23 with a look back from our archives. —Ed.
When people—and by people I mean people who can’t believe a person of reasonable intelligence could possibly like the rednecks in Lynyrd Skynyrd—ask me why I love the band, I always tell them the same thing. I tell them that Lynyrd Skynyrd was the best Southern rock band ever, Fight Club, a future meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that was never held, and rock’s greatest tragedy all rolled into one. Of course it doesn’t convince them for all kinds of reasons, including Skynyrd’s prominent display of the Confederate battle flag, its contentious celebration of the state of Alabama and mock feud with Neil Young, “Free Bird”—you name it. Some people just love hating Lynyrd Skynyrd, and I wish I knew why.
I get the “Free Bird” bit—it’s long and goes on for a really long time and its been played to death on the radio—but as for the rest of it, I say phooey. I don’t believe—Stars and Bars and pro-Alabama song notwithstanding—that Lynyrd Skynyrd had a racist bone in its body, and people consistently fail to hear female back-up singers Clydie King, Merry Clayton, and Sherlie Matthews singing “Boo boo boo” after Ronnie Van Zant sings “In Birmingham they love the guv’nor” in “Sweet Home Alabama,” perhaps because they simply cannot conceive of a bunch of ignorant rednecks like Lynyrd Skynyrd possessing a sense of irony.
But I always thought Ronnie Van Zant was one highly intelligent guy, albeit rough around the edges and when intoxicated prone to punching people in the face and on occasion even attempting to push them out of airplanes in mid-flight. But I always found Ronnie’s foibles amusing, endearing even, and the fact is that when he wasn’t knocking Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell’s teeth out—twice—he was writing great and nuanced songs in the vein of Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings, only set to a rock beat. And still he couldn’t win; the same people (Yankee hipsters all) who think loving Merle and Waylon proves their open-mindedness still despise Skynyrd. As Robert Christgau noted when MCA released the compilation Gold and Platinum in 1979, “It’s not fair, really–everybody who was dumb enough to dismiss them as another pack of redneck boogie freaks now gets to catch up.” But most of ‘em failed to catch up even then, and what is to be said about such adamant close-mindedness except their loss?
“I remember being a little kid and having this mahogany chest in my house that was full of vinyl and wondering why my parents still kept it around. It looked prehistoric to me.”
“It wasn’t until many years later, when I was in 9th grade, that I got heavy into sampling music and making beats that the world of vinyl came alive for me. Suddenly I was riffling through every left over record and yelling at my parents for getting rid of them!
You could sample from mp3s, but sound wise it was never even close. Vinyl just had a third dimension to it. It’s like when the needle drops you can feel the band there in the room with you. It gives you the feeling that your standing inside the music, not listening from the outside.
I still feel guilty to this day about the fact that I used to swap the good records into the cheap sleeves at the pawn shop. I used to take the good soul records and slide them into the Barbra Streisand sleeves and walk away with 30 dollars worth of good soul records for 5 dollars. Poor Barbra, her records were everywhere in pawn shops!
You have to hand it to Boston’s Galaxie 500; they sure knew how to make a lot out of a little. First they made a fetish out of the third Velvet Underground album, then they proceeded to fashion an entire (if relatively short-lived) career paying tribute to it with their minor key but often thrilling dream pop.
Which is pretty amazing when you think about it. We all have our role models, but Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), Naomi Yang (bass), and Damon Krukowski (drums) took slavish hero-worship to the V.U. about as far as you can without offering human sacrifices at an altar of Lou Reed.
But hey; if you happen to love 1969’s The Velvet Underground (and who doesn’t?), the band that took its name from a friend’s car is guaranteed to light up your pleasure receptors like a pachinko machine. Their droning (but often exhilarating) shoegaze has a way of colliding with your synapses and causing them to sizzle like bug zappers, and if you’re like me the result is a low-dose case of happy delirium.
On 1988 debut Today, Galaxie 500 established the blueprint for their entire career. Slow tempos, delicate melodies, lots of cool strumming and chiming guitar, a dependable drone–and let us not forget Wareham’s (and sometimes Wang’s) fey, tender, and almost tentative vocals. This is music that will break your heart, and not because it evokes heartbreak, terror, pity or any other recognizable human emotion. No, it will break your heart simply because it’s there.
Wanganui, NZ | Vinyl is back in the groove: The attraction back to vinyl has occurred for many reasons and generally depends on the buyers’ preferences. Some people have rediscovered that the sonic qualities are a little different than the digital, compressed stuff. The visual element can play a big role with creative art work, inserts and posters. The use of vintage amplifiers and big speakers is an attraction for the sound folks. Some just like to “hold” their music, and the hunt for vinyl is and of itself an attraction as folks hit flea markets, independent retailers, second-hand stores and junk stores to find vinyl. And what’s essential to the collector?
London, ENG | London’s Kristina Records To Relocate: East London record shop Kristina Records is set to close. The shop opened in 2011, largely pre-empting the wave of vinyl outlets that have opened across the capital in the past few years. Paving the way, Kristina helped underline the commercial potential for Kingsland Road, and through its links to local labels helped build a real community round the shop. All good things come to an end, though, with Kristina Records set to close their East London hub with a view to relocating elsewhere in London. The final day is August 31st.
Lipstick Crush Records brings synthwave classics to vinyl: Lipstick Crush Records, a forthcoming synthwave vinyl label, is kicking off its launch this month by issuing some important earlier releases of the genre on wax for the first time. There’s Betamaxx’s crucial 2012 album Lost Formats, Vincenzo Salvia’s 2013 album Auto Radio, and synthwave pioneer and Girlfriend Records founder Sferro’s 2015 favorite Ornaments. Accompanying those releases is the 2017 album Static Shock from prolific Sellorekt/LA Dreams. (Keep reading for brief interviews with all of those artists.) Label founders Minneapolis-based Adam Black and New Orleans-based Matthew Weeks met in the Synthwave Vinyl Collectors Facebook group and in January 2018 started formulating the concept and mission for Lipstick Crush Records…
Five Classic-Era Yes Albums Get the Remix Treatment: The Steven Wilson Remixes Provide an Interesting Counterpoint to the Originals. …Wilson’s remixes of five Yes albums have made their way into a new vinyl box set, with each disc bearing reworked artwork from Roger Dean. These mixes were originally released on deluxe Blu-ray editions, for which Wilson rejiggered—in both stereo and 5.1 surround—the English band’s best-loved work, including 1971’s The Yes Album, 1971’s Fragile, 1972’s Close to the Edge, 1973’s Tales from Topographic Oceans, and 1974’s Relayer. This run of albums found Yes becoming one of the most successful prog bands of the era, as their song lengths swelled to 20-plus minutes and their lyrics embraced abstract and cosmic conceits. Close to the Edge is frequently lauded as the high-water mark for prog rock; the double album Tales from Topographic Oceans is often laughed at as its indulgent nadir.
Maxwell Announces Embrya 20th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue: The 1998 record has been remastered by Maxwell and Sade’s Stuart Matthewman. Maxwell has announced a 20th anniversary re-release of his 1998 album Embrya. The new edition is out September 28 (via Sony Music’s Certified Classics). The reissue, available as a 2xLP white vinyl, will include a 12-page booklet featuring previously unreleased photos from the Embrya photoshoot, taken by Mario Sorrenti. In addition, the record has been remastered by Maxwell and Sade’s Stuart Matthewman. It’s also been re-sequenced, with the original opening track (“Gestation: Mythos”) moved to the end. Maxwell heads out on a massive North American tour next month. He most recently released blackSUMMERS’night in 2016.
Pearl Jam fever hit Chicago last week and Wrigleyville is just now returning to normalcy. The buzz when the boys (Eddie, Jeff, Mike, Stone, Matt, and Boom) are back in town is contagious. There’s a Northside euphoria, and now we’re all on the comedown.
Of course this time around Pearl Jam gave us plenty to reminisce about. On Saturday there was the band’s cover debut of David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” with the MLB Commisoner’s Trophy on stage, Eddie waxing rhapsodic about the Cubs, beautiful tributes to the late greats Chris Cornell and Tom Petty, a rousing rendition of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” a weird Dennis Rodman appearance, and a 3-hour set that went well past Wrigley’s noise curfew.
On Monday there was the hour+ thunderstorm delay; the live debut of “Evil Little Goat,” some killer covers (The White Stripes, The Beatles, The Who), an appearance by former Chicago Blackhawk Chris Chelios capped with a beautiful tribute to the late hockey Hall of Famer Stan Mikita, and my personal favorite memory: Eddie smashing his guitar to pieces to end their 2018 Wrigley residency.
VIA PRESS RELEASE | The best in vinyl packaging will be recognized October 1, 2018, at the Making Vinyl Packaging Awards at the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit at Making Vinyl, the first B2B conference dedicated to the rebirth of the vinyl record manufacturing industry. In its second year, Making Vinyl will closely examine the circumstances leading up to the astounding comeback of a format deemed to be dead and forgotten less than 15 years ago is now regarded as physical media’s only shining star in the digital age.
The Making Vinyl Packaging Awards competition garnered 237 online submissions from both sides of the Atlantic, and were reviewed by a stellar jury of more than two-dozen award-winning judges in music design the U.S. and Europe the likes of Roger Dean (Yes) and several Grammy Packaging Award winners. The winners, who will be picked among the finalists below by a panel of judges at the New York offices of the prestigious design organization AIGA, will be announced at the awards ceremony on October 1 in Detroit.
Among the 12 categories are “They Said It Couldn’t Be Done,” recognizing innovation in vinyl packaging structural design; and “Best Record Store Day Vinyl,” recognizing the best limited-edition releases created for RSD 2018 in April and RSD Black Friday 2017. Record Store Day is a partner in Making Vinyl. “The awards competition recognizes the importance and critical role that compelling physical packaging plays in selling music,” says Bryan Ekus, president of Making Vinyl producer Colonial Purchasing Co-op, a raw material buying group of physical media manufacturers.
VIA PRESS RELEASE | NRBQ’s new single, “April Showers,” is set for digital release by Omnivore Recordings in late September. The song will be featured in the new Dianne Dreyer film Change in the Air, which was scored by NRBQ’s Terry Adams and Bill Frisell and opens in theaters on October 16, 2018. The digital release includes two additional tracks to promote Omnivore’s reissue of All Hopped Up, which is due out October 26, 2018. The two bonus songs, live recordings of All Hopped Up’s “It Feels Good” and “Still in School,” time-travel back to that album’s original record-release party on April 23, 1977.
Omnivore Recordings will re-issue the 41-year-old All Hopped Up on CD and vinyl, faithful to its first release, with the same front and back artwork and with the original sequence. Both formats will include new liner notes from John DeAngelis and extra images, and the vinyl will be released with a deluxe gatefold jacket.
All Hopped Up, NRBQ’s fifth album, was an album of firsts. The quartet of Terry Adams, Joey Spampinato, Al Anderson, and Tom Ardolino — the line-up that would tour and record for two decades of the band’s 50+-year career — made its first recorded appearance here. All Hopped Up was the first on NRBQ’s own independent label, Red Rooster Records (which would go on to release such NRBQ classics as Kick Me Hard and Tiddlywinks, as well as the first-ever vinyl reissue of The Shaggs’ legendary Philosophy of the World). It was the first album to feature songs from guitarist Al Anderson, and the drumming of Tom Ardolino. It was also the first to include extensive contributions from the Whole Wheat Horns — Donn Adams on trombone and Keith Spring on saxophone.
Part four of the TVD Record Store Club’s look at the new and reissued releases presently in stores for August, 2018. Part one is here, part two is here, and part three is here.
NEW RELEASE PICKS: Ohmme, Parts (Joyful Noise) Chicagoans Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart are both trained classical pianists, but for their first album as Ohmme they choose to focus upon rich vocal harmony and guitar crunch. What they and drummer Matt Carroll put together (with assistance from hometowners Doug McCombs of Tortoise, cellist Tomeka Reid, and saxophonist extraordinaire Ken Vandermark) is solid and occasionally splendid, displaying confidence and range that’s rare in a debut. In a better world, the hooky opener “Icon” would be a huge pop hit, but stuck in this reality, the whole of Parts, experimentally edged while essentially inhabiting a pop-rock zone, is improving my existence considerably. From the title track: “I don’t like little things touching my face.” Hey, me neither! A-
Roy Montgomery, Suffuse (Grapefruit) In 2016, after a long break in activity, New Zealand u-ground cornerstone Montgomery came back in a big way with the 4LP R M H Q -Headquarters. When first reading of this project, which stems from the R M H Q LP Tropic Of Anodyne (featuring the singing of reluctant vocalist Montgomery) with a troop of female voices (Circuit des Yeux’s Haley Fohr, She Keeps Bees’ Jessica Larrabee, Katie Von Schleicher, Purple Pilgrims’ Clementine and Valentine Nixon, Julianna Barwick, and Grouper’s Liz Harris), I thought of Stephin Merritt’s 6ths project, but the results aren’t like that at all, being much more invested in the spirit of collaboration (the Nixon sisters, Barwick, and Harris wrote the lyrics for their tracks). The results are superb, with Montgomery’s artistry shining through. A-
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICKS: Jimmy Smith, The Sermon! (Down at Dawn) A fine but limited spate of jazz wax (300 copies each) has arrived from this upstart label, so if the objective is fortifying your shelves with a few classics of the form, don’t flake. When organist Smith hooked up with Blue Note a massive recording spree resulted, and this album, gleaned from two ’57-’58 sessions, just might be the best of the bunch. Taking advantage of the then novel LP format, side one’s 20-minute title track is hard-bop soul-jazz par excellence, and the flip picks up and slows down the tempo without a hitch. The personnel add major value, with Lee Morgan, Lou Donaldson, Donald Bailey, Eddie McFadden, the underrated Tina Brooks, a young George Coleman, Art Blakey, and Kenny Burrell all on board. Essential. A
The Posies, Frosting on the Beater (Omnivore) As detailed in the liner notes by Wilco’s Pat Sansone and author Craig Dorfman and the track-by-track recollections of the band’s core duo Jon Auer & Ken Stringfellow (‘twas they who wrote the songs), The Posies’ second release for Geffen is considered “the loud one,” which is unsurprising as it was produced by Don Fleming, who’d notably assisted on Sonic Youth’s Goo and Hole’s Pretty on the Inside. But he also worked with Teenage Fanclub, which made him a good fit for the helming of this excellent record (my favorite from the band). As detailed by Sansone, if you dig The Beatles and Big Star and also the heyday of SST Records, this is the one for you, offered, like the reissue of Dear 23, as either a bonus cut-loaded 2CD or a standalone 45RPM 2LP sans download. A
Sioux Falls, SD | Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan stops into Sioux Falls record shop: Billy Corgan was just a few hours away from rocking Sioux Falls on Tuesday with his band The Smashing Pumpkins. But first, he had to make a stop at Crosstown Vinyl. Owner Steve Zastrow was busy cleaning records and at first didn’t notice the afternoon visitor was Corgan. “I didn’t recognize him at first because I was doing something else, which I hate to admit — the guy is 6-and-a-half feet tall,” he said. “And all of a sudden I’m like, ‘I know who that is.'” Corgan picked up up a wide range of records including classic country and some 99-cent vinyl. “He was really cool,” Zastrow said. “He said he liked smaller record stores instead of big city ones or whatever.”
Belmar, NJ | Beat Goes On in Belmar for Popular Jersey Shore Record Store: Lofidelic Records, one of the Jersey Shore’s “vinyl only” record stores, has moved onto Belmar’s Main Street. Store owner David Hernandez packed up his shop in nearby Manasquan and relocated earlier this month to 904 Main Street, where die-hard collectors, newfound enthusiasts and the curious are stopping by to see the thousands of new and used albums that fill bins, shelves and walls of the former cupcake shop. To welcome Lofidelic to the downtown district, borough officials and Belmar Business Partnership board members held a ribbon-cutting on August 18. Those attending were Mayor Brian Magovern, and council members Mark Walisfer and Jennifer Nicolay, and BBP trustees Thomas Burke, Patricia Tecza and Christine Cardellino. The grand opening also was highlighted by a performance by local band Flourish and DJ Danny Stax who spun tunes the old-fashion way — on turntables.
Davenport, IA | Saturday vinyl record sale to benefit HAVlife: …The Big Spin, a sale of classic vinyl records sponsored by the University of Iowa Community Credit Union, will run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 230 E. 2nd St. Attendees are invited to browse through thousands of LPs and enjoy classic sounds spun by local DJs. Pizza by the slice will be available for purchase, courtesy of Mama Bosso Pizza. A VIP preview event will take place earlier in the day, from 9-11 a.m. At that time, shoppers can get a first look through thousands of LPs. Tickets for the preview will be available at the door for $20. All donations and proceeds during the sale will benefit the HAVlife Foundation, which works to prevent lost potential in youths by providing grants for participation in music, arts and athletics.
Brighton, UK | Couple overcomes hardship to open Viva Vinyl record shop in Brighton: …Brian has been collecting vinyl records since he was a boy and there are 10,000 records in the shop. The couple have been married for 39 years. They met when they were work colleagues at British Steel in London. They have two sons, Daniel and Brett. Brian and Julie built up the Voucher Shop from zero to a £28 million turnover between 1991 and 2006. After they sold the business to Sodexo they went on to manage and work at another two companies, SVM Global and Flexitconsultancy, which advised customers on voucher schemes. Julie said: “Originally we were going to open Viva Vinyl in a garage but luckily this property became available.”
Label Of Love: Fuzz Club Records Is Building A Global Community: Fuzz Club – in our opinion – is simply one of the greatest record labels in the world. Founded by Casper Dee in rural Norway during the 24-hour darkness of the Arctic winter, quite a lot has happened since then. In 2018 Fuzz Club is hosting a two-day festival in The Netherlands. Taking place at the Effenaar in August, Fuzz Club Eindhoven might just be the labels ambitious project to date, with two full days of live music, DJs, visuals and a record fair. Those playing include: The Black Angels, APTBS, Spectrum, The Limiñanas, Holy Wave, The Underground Youth, Josefin Ohrn, Ron Galo and a bunch more. Looking ahead, meanwhile, this year will also see the label launch the Fuzz Club Magazine and open a physical record store in East London.
Sleigh Bells returned to the Metro last week—and this time without any complications. In January, the band had to cancel their show due to sickness, and last year they had to play without one of their guitarists. So needless to say they were thrilled to return to the Metro stage a full three-piece and ready to rock. And so were we.
Georgia’s Torres opened the night with a hypnotic set. Her songs ranged from quiet to loud, but all had a raw vulnerability to them. The room was silent when she played, laden with emotion. She is impressive.
Sleigh Bells turned the volume up, as they always do. Those familiar with their shows know that they are a head-banging, crowd-surfing good time. Singer Alexis Krauss dazzled as usual, dancing nonstop and interacting with the crowd. Although a short set (only an hour), it was a fun one.
