Category Archives: TVD Washington, DC

Avatar brought their Swedish metal circus to the Fillmore Silver Spring last week, one of the last stops on the Dance Devil Dance tour. Joining Avatar was fellow Swedish death metal band Orbit Culture and Veil of Maya, from Chicago. It was a marathon night—the festivities started at 7:30 sharp and it was after 11:30 when the Fillmore emptied out. The crowd was left exhilarated and joyful after an incredible show. I expected nothing less.

Swedish melodic death metal outfit Orbit Culture (Niklas Karlsson, Frederik Lennartsson, Richard Hansson, and Christopher Wallerstedt) kicked the night off with an enjoyable set. The 30-minute set featured songs from the band’s newest album Nija such as “Open Eye,” “North Star of Nija,” and “The Shadowing.” The buzz among us photographers and our security pal, Keith, was that the band had a distinct Metallica sound to their music. Orbit Culture’s latest track is “Vultures of North,” released in August 2022, a brutal, thudding bit of violence I just added to my music library.

Chicago metalcore band Veil of Maya (Marc Okubo, Sam Applebaum, Danny Hauser, and Lukas Magyar) took the stage and promptly had us photographers dodging crowd surfers in the photo pit. Launching into the 2021 single “Viscera,” the band’s 12-song set showcased songs from across the band’s career. In particular, “Godhead,” “Red Fur,” and “Synthwave Vegan” are from Veil of Maya’s latest album, [m]other, released this year. That album is praised for Veil of Maya’s ability to evolve. It was an excellent set that prepped the crowd for the dark carnival to follow.

I first caught Avatar in 2019, when I covered them at the Anthem in Washington, DC; they were on tour as support for Babymetal. I had never heard of the band and had no idea what I was getting into when they took the stage. There have only been a few instances in my life where I felt like I’d been hit by lightning seeing a band for the first time; that night a bolt hit me square in the head. From that moment, I was hooked on the thundering metal made by the five men from Gothenburg, Sweden (Jonas Jarlsby, John Alfredsson, Johannes Eckerström, Tim Öhrström, and Henrik Sandelin).

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Industrial giants Ministry stopped off at the Fillmore in Silver Spring on May 3, supported by New Wave god Gary Numan and Front Line Assembly. This celebrated lineup wowed the DC-area crowd.

Starting promptly at 7pm, Canadian band Front Line Assembly, or FLA, kicked off Wednesday night’s gig with heavy dose of electro-industrial music. Specifically, Front Line Assembly is known for combining electro-industrial elements with electronic body music, or EBM. For the uninitiated, EBM has its roots in the European punk and industrial music worlds; it combines industrial music and synth-punk with some elements of dance music.

Led by Bill Leeb, Front Line Assembly started with 2010’s “I.E.D.” from the album Improvised.Electronic.Device. While FLA has 17 albums in its discography, from 1987 to 2021, the set list drew from albums released from the 1990s to 2013. I was surprised to hear my 1985 jam “Rock Me Amadeus” in the set, which made for a bit of fun nostalgia. The crowd-pleasing, 30-minute set was dark and atmospheric; as a photographer it was great fun to shoot.

It had been over a year since I’d last seen and covered electronic music pioneer Gary Numan; I reviewed his gig at Washington DC’s Lincoln Theatre in March 2022. At that time, I was super stoked to photograph one of my bucket list artists—at the Fillmore on May 3, I was so happy and excited to be able to do it again. Before the show started, I spent a lot of time telling the security staff and other photographers around me how good his set was going be. I was right.

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As we noted last October, the DC Record Fair often reflects “a snapshot of the vinyl resurgence in action, veteran collectors bumping elbows—literally—with teens and twentysomething neophytes on the hunt for the freshest pressing of their favorite artist.”

“Classic acts and albums are finding a new audience, too. A young couple on my left is delighted to find one of the two dozen copies of Bridge Over Troubled Water floating around, while a redhead with a nose ring on my right wants the Replacements and only the Replacements.”

And so it was once again on Sunday (3/19) as close to 1,500 vinyl fans descended upon Eaton DC for comb through the crates. On hand to capture, in pixels, the analog admirers was our own Richie Downs.

Watch this space for news on forthcoming events as we head into the 15th year for the DC Record Fair. —Ed.

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Now in its 14th year, DC’s twice yearly record dig, The DC Record Fair returns to Washington’s vinyl and community-centric Eaton DC on Sunday, March 19, 2023.

As with each event, we’ll have 35+ vinyl vendors from up and down the East Coast, thousands of records, hi-fi options, the special DJ line up—and hey, keep your wallet in your pocket for this one as the event is free of charge for the entire day.

Our thanks to YouTube user Abigail Bender for a recap of last October’s DC Record Fair above!

Mark your calendars! 
THE DC RECORD FAIR
Sunday, March 19, 2023 at the Eaton DC, 1201 K Street, NW DC
11:00AM–5:00PM—and free all day!

RSVP and follow via Facebook.

It was a very cold Saturday in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC but the Fillmore Silver Spring was cozy with the heat of a completely sold-out house for Alter Bridge’s date on the Pawns & Kings tour. Mammoth WVH continues along for the party, and for the first half of the US tour, Nashville’s Red has the opening slot.

As a known Alter Bridge fan, I was grateful and excited to cover them again, and looking forward to finally seeing a DC area show—they hadn’t played the Fillmore since February 2017. The last time I covered the band was in Oslo, Norway last November. Saturday, instead of a trans-Atlantic flight, I just took the S9 Metrobus up 16th Street to get to the show.

Frigid temperatures notwithstanding, the conditions were perfect for a great show—the devoted Alter Bridge fanbase filled the venue to the literal rafters and familiar and friendly photographers greeted me when I arrived at the entrance to the photo pit. My favorite Fillmore security guy was working that night too—we were looked after well.

At 7:30 sharp, the lights dimmed, and Red took the stage. On the Christian rock scene since 2002, Grammy-nominated Red (Michael Barnes, brothers Anthony Armstrong and Randy Armstrong, and Brian Medeiros) was unfamiliar to me prior to Saturday night. The high-kicking front man Barnes must have sensed that they were new to many people in the audience and asked the crowd who was seeing Red for the first time. Many hands, including my own, shot up. Nonetheless, the compact, just-under-25-minute set was an impressive introduction to the band’s body of hard rock (Red’s next album, Rated R, is set for release this spring), getting the energies of even wary agnostics like me amped for the rest of the show.

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PHOTOS: RACHEL LANGE | DC’s Union Stage is an unassuming venue hidden in the maze of walkways that weave between buildings on the Wharf. Compared with the flashier Anthem, with its blazing marquee and baroque chandeliers, the vibe at Union is refreshingly chill. There’s no line at the door, security is a nice man in a beanie who casually checks IDs and handbags, and the lobby is sparsely occupied by people in Big Sar T-shirts pre-gaming with pints and pizza at tiny high-top tables. It has the homey, familiar feeling of a neighborhood bar where everyone’s a regular, even if they’re not.

Downstairs there’s more beer, more pizza, an unobtrusive merch table, and a few dozen people juggling cups and plates and comparing notes on what brought them here. Folks who don’t know each other slap backs and crack jokes like they do. For the most part they seem to fall into two categories: people old enough to be Big Star’s contemporaries (the majority) and people young enough to be partly responsible for the popular rediscovery of the band over the last three decades (a significant minority).

As the room fills it also shrinks, the crowd pushing up against a stage that seems to too small for the sheer number of instruments there. Besides a small army of guitars waiting in the nonexistent wings, there are at least six microphones, a keyboard, and, of course, the drum kit. It’s pleasantly cramped, and conspicuously Brechtian. Nothing is out of sight or out of mind, including the stage crew and guest performers who blithely come and go through the rear doors and curtain, or linger on the edges of the light to watch the action onstage or on the floor. It feels like a culty underground club show, which feels exactly right.

Despite the charmingly modest digs, Big Star’s #1 Record 50th anniversary tour is a star-studded affair. This iteration of the lineup includes—besides last surviving founding member Jody Stephens—Jon Auer of the Posies, Wilco’s Pat Sansone, Chris Stamey (whose musical endeavors and collaborators are too many to list), and R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, with Low Cut Connie’s Adam Weiner guesting on keys and vocals. The band plays through the entire album in their first set, before returning after a brief intermission for a more eclectic second set, which leans heavily on the late Chris Bell’s catalog. It’s one part tribute act, one part supergroup.

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PHOTOS: RACHEL LANGE | It’s a frigid November evening and the line outside the Fillmore Silver Spring stretches down the block and around the corner. Ticketholders squeeze through the doors one at a time, torn between anger and amusement at the exhaustive absurdity of the security checkpoint. It takes less time to get into the Vatican. Bags are dumped out, bodies patted down, each individual key on every keyring inspected with meticulous attention. “I’ve been waiting in this line longer than I’ve been waiting to see Suede!” someone jokes, loudly. A few people laugh, but others are beginning to grumble. They can hear the music from inside already, and they’re justifiably pissed to be missing it.

Some of them have waited decades for this. While the Manics have made their way Stateside a couple of times in recent memory, Suede hasn’t made landfall (except a one-off appearance at Coachella in 2011) in a quarter-century. The fans are out in full force, and while some are local to the DMV, others have traveled from much further afield. They have plenty of time to swap stories while they wait to have their keys and their tickets and probably their fillings examined. A couple on my left tells me they drove four hours to be here. They, at least, don’t seem to mind waiting a little longer.

When I finally make my way through the doors, the vibe inside is, well, manic. Nobody’s here just for the hell of it. Most of the crowd is about the same age as Suede and the Manics themselves, but they all seem to be seventeen again for the evening. They’re double-fisting 40s, sucking on vape pens somehow smuggled past the gestapo, hollering along to every song, and underscoring every riff with roars of adulation. Welsh flags wave from the balcony. A man wears an empty cup on his head like a party hat. People snap selfies like downtown tourists in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The guy beside me, already too drunk to stand up without leaning on his girlfriend or the bar, is criminally tone deaf but he’s having so much fun it’s hard to fault him for it. “This is the best night of my life,” he announces, to no one in particular.

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In the early ’80s, a new form of heavy metal music emerged with the first wave of black metal bands. Characterized by a thrash or speed metal sound, the lyrics of black metal songs were defined by the use of anti-Christian and Satanic themes. The term “black metal” was coined by the English band Venom, with their 1982 album Black Metal, and the first wave of black metal bands came from Europe. Mercyful Fate, hailing from Denmark, was part of this first wave.

After a career spent influencing bands like Metallica and Slayer, Mercyful Fate went on hiatus in 1999 and, after regrouping a for a few performances, returned to performing on a more permanent basis in 2019. In October, Mercyful Fate kicked off their first official North American tour since 1999 and brought the black metal party to the Fillmore Silver Spring on Tuesday night.

The Fillmore was packed to the point of making me feel claustrophobic and was filled with fans who ranged from the (very) old school to kids with corpse paint. With beer flowing from the bars, it was carefully controlled chaos. At 9:20, the curtain dropped from the stage revealing an elaborate stage set, complete with an upside down cross. The band (comprised of founding guitarist Hank Shermann, drummer Bjarne T. Holm, guitarist Mike Wead, and bassist Becky Baldwin) took their positions on stage first.

King Diamond, in full makeup and a horned mask (he’s thought to be the first in metal to don corpse paint), then floated down a staircase and the crowd went wild. The performance lasted just over an hour with a set list of only eleven songs, with a large chunk coming from their 1983 album Melissa. It was a memorable and historic show, a fantastic performance by one of heavy metal’s greatest bands.

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Iron Maiden, the heavy metal titans from East London made Capital One Arena in Washington, DC their home last Sunday evening for their Legacy of the Beast World Tour 2022. Playing to a sold out crowd of 20,000+, Steve Harris and the boys filled every seat clear up to the nosebleed sessions.

Fortunately, no matter where you were in the arena on Sunday night, there’s two things that were undeniable. First, the energy (and volume) of Iron Maiden’s performance was a spectacle in itself. Secondly, the electricity that the crowd gave back to the band was uncanny. It’s a rare gift when these elements come together—and Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson owns it, feeding the crowd exactly what they wanted with seemingly endless stamina.

In distinctly good form, Iron Maiden blazed through the evening’s setlist which spanned material both old and new(er). One song after another, the audience hung right with the band, singing along with every word of every song. The magic didn’t stop there. An Iron Maiden show wouldn’t be complete without tons of props, background changes, large scale pyrotechnics, fog machines, bone chilling theatrics, and enough raw pageantry to make even John Cena jealous.

Iron Maiden wasted no time bringing their beloved mascot, Eddie to the stage to join his bandmates. During the very first song of the set, “Sanjutsu,” Eddie appeared in full Samurai armor wielding a blood covered sword. He took turns battling band members one by one before he retreated backstage. Not to worry though, Eddie would appear throughout the night in some form or another.

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PHOTOS: RACHEL LANGE | The DC Record Fair returned to Eaton DC on October 16th, 2022. The usual attractions—drinks, DJs, and the best of the waxmongers from all around the DMV—took over the second-floor exhibition space, with a special preview of what’s to come at next month’s Capital Audiofest, which runs from November 11–13th at the Twinbrook Hilton in Rockville.

The District always brings out a strong showing of hip-hop, blues, soul, funk, and punk, and a few hours’ crate-digging doubles as a crash course in the sonic history of the city. However, the 2022 turnout skewed younger and more diverse than ever before, and sellers came prepared with a healthy inventory of alternative, indie, pop, and new releases.

It’s a snapshot of the vinyl resurgence in action, veteran collectors bumping elbows—literally—with teens and twentysomething neophytes on the hunt for the freshest pressing of their favorite artist. But classic acts and albums are finding a new audience, too. A young couple on my left is delighted to find one of the two dozen copies of Bridge Over Troubled Water floating around, while a redhead with a nose ring on my right wants the Replacements and only the Replacements.

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Back in its 13th year is DC’s twice yearly record dig, The DC Record Fair which comes to Washington’s vinyl and community-centric Eaton Hotel on Sunday, October 16, 2022. As with each event, we’ll have 35+ vinyl vendors from up and down the East Coast, the special DJ line up—and hey, keep your wallet in your pocket for this one as the event is free of charge for the entire day.

In addition, we’re pleased to welcome an advance on-site preview of November’s Capital Audiofest, Washington DC’s premier high-end audio festival. As such, expect thousands of records and hi-fi options for your enjoyment of them.

Our friends at the Fillmore Silver Spring put together the above feature a little while back that provides a handy overview of the event for the uninitiated.

THE DC RECORD FAIR FALL 2022 DJ LINEUP:
RWeOnTheAir: 11:00-12:00
John Murph: 12:00-1:00
Cinema Hearts: 1:00-2:00
Pharoah Haqq: 2:00-3:00
DJ Test Patterns: 3:00-4:00
Brandon Grover / We Fought the Big One: 4:00-5:00

Mark your calendars! 
THE DC RECORD FAIR
Sunday, October 16, 2022 at the Eaton DC, 1201 K Street, NW DC
11:00AM–5:00PM—and free all day!

RSVP and follow via the Facebook invite!

Rock ’n’ roll is a sound and it is a style, and Tav Falco’s been straddling both since the late 1970s.

The latest version of Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, on a cross country tour, stopped at The Runaway in DC for a midweek show that was strangely mesmerizing and altogether rocking thanks largely to his straight-outta-Rome backing trio led by Mario Monterosso. At 77, Falco doesn’t look all that different than he did when Alex Chilton joined forces with him to form Panther Burns back in Memphis. Minus his pencil mustache, he’s maintained his black pompadour, and certainly his style.

With only a subtle croon, he does a lot with his moves, taking the stage with maracas—that forgotten engine of old Bo Diddley songs—before slowly putting on his Hofner guitar to add rhythm to the stinging lead that Monterosso had already nailed down (the length of time it took him to get the guitar over his head and adjusted was the only giveaway to his advancing age).

There’s a lot to be said about the guy’s taste. Panther Burns got its name after a legendary cat set afire on a Southern plantation, and the band has similarly mined the swampy and mysterious sounds of the American South for its inspiration.

There was so much ground to cover, Falco played exactly nothing from his latest release, the 2021 EP “Club Car Zodiac” on ORG Music. Instead he dived into his story about a New Orleans voodoo queen and his version of the classic bolero “Sway” before the somewhat surprising, straight ahead version of the Honeycombs’ 1964 chart topper “Have I the Right?” with a 1-2-3-4 countdown right from the Ramones. Then, as if another inspired turn of a jukebox, over to the 1950s country standard “He’ll Have to Go,” before his own throbbing tune of existential anguish, as he described it, “Born Too Late.”

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Back in its 13th year is DC’s twice yearly record dig, The DC Record Fair which comes to Washington’s vinyl and community-centric Eaton Hotel on Sunday, October 16, 2022. As with each event, we’ll have 35+ vinyl vendors from up and down the East Coast, the special DJ line up—and hey, keep your wallet in your pocket for this one as the event is free of charge for the entire day.

In addition, we’re pleased to welcome an advance on-site preview of November’s Capital Audiofest, Washington DC’s premier high-end audio festival. As such, expect thousands of records and hi-fi options for your enjoyment of them.

Our friends at the Fillmore Silver Spring put together the above feature a little while back that provides a handy overview of the event for the uninitiated.

Mark your calendars! 
THE DC RECORD FAIR
Sunday, October 16, 2022 at the Eaton DC, 1201 K Street, NW DC
11:00AM–5:00PM—and free all day!

RSVP and follow via the Facebook invite!

Swedish metal legends Meshuggah, after having to postpone original tour dates, finally landed at the Fillmore Silver Spring Tuesday night, assaulting the stoked audience with their brand of extreme metal. Joining them on their US tour are Converge and Torche.

Three bands on the bill means the night got started early. Torche (Steve Brooks, Rick Smith, Jonathan Nuñez, and Eric Hernandez) set the tone for the crowd with their heavy, grinding sound—everyone in the still-assembling crowd was banging their heads in unison. Torche sounded great; sadly, this is to be their last tour. Earlier this year, singer-guitarist Brooks announced he’d be leaving after touring as support for Meshuggah this year. Later, it was confirmed that the band would be calling it quits entirely. Torche’s last album was 2019’s Admission.

Sandwiched in between acts was Converge (Jacob Bannon, Kurt Ballou, Nate Newton, and Ben Koller). Formed in Massachusetts in 1990, Converge’s roots are in both hardcore punk and heavy metal, and they are considered one of the earliest and most influential metalcore bands. Vocalist Bannon paced the stage like an animal, barely pausing so we could get our shots, and swung the microphone cord around like a whip (I got knocked in the head a few times). The crowd responded with gusto and expressed thanks in the form of headbanging and crowd surfing.

Finally, Meshuggah. The anticipation in the crowd was palpable and rightfully so. Formed in 1987, Meshuggah is known for their innovative style and the band has been identified as among the most important bands in metal. They’ve even inspired a metal sub genre—djent—characterized by its complex rhythm patterns.

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Lake Street Dive sold out yet another venue when the band stopped by Washington, DC’s Anthem last Friday night, offering up a night of jazz and soul-inspired music to the happy and enthusiastic crowd.

Supporting Lake Street Dive on this tour is Washington state native Allen Stone. It’s not the first time Stone has treated Washington, DC to his old school funk and soul sounds; he’s headlined in town before, having most recently played the Lincoln Theatre last December and the 9:30 Club just before the pandemic shut everything down.

So the crowd was already happy to see him and eager to hear his gorgeous voice, often compared to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. This was my first time seeing Stone; the voice stopped me dead in my tracks. Stone’s latest album, released in November 2021, is APART, featuring acoustic versions of fan favorites spanning his catalog. Friday night, Stone filled The Anthem with his sweet melodies and even sang his thanks to everyone present, from the crowd, to the bartenders, and even the venue’s custodians.

The Brooklyn-based, multi-genre band (Rachael Price, Bridget Kearney, Mike Calbrese, Akie Bermiss, and James Cornelison) packed much into their set—plenty of the setlist came from their 2021 release Obviously (“Hypotheticals,” “Hush Money,” and “Same Old News,” among others). In addition, the set was sprinkled with cover tunes—the Jackson 5’s “Want You Back” made an appearance, as did Carole King’s “So Far Away,” and Bonnie Raitt’s “Nick of Time.”

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