What a short but eclectic trip it’s been. At age 30, John Mayer may seem too young for a career retrospective. But his three-hour-plus show Saturday at the Nokia Theatre was just that. The night explored his musical evolution in the six years since his multi-platinum debut, “Room for Squares,” with three equally compelling segments: […]
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Toronto-BASED indie-rock collective Do Make Say Think is enchanting the audience at its November show at the Echoplex. Cheers erupt between songs. But the crowd is otherwise quiet. Fans sway gently, eyes closed, listening. But no one sings along. There aren’t any lyrics to sing. Trumpets blare, drums pound, a violin wails. It’s a rock […]
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John Fogerty has made peace with his past and his present, and his live show is all the better for it. He finally settled his notoriously acrimonious dispute with Fantasy Records, which kept him from playing Creedence Clearwater Revival songs in concert for decades. His bitterness gone, he’s written some of his most powerful material […]
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Diana Ross has done her best to halt time. Impeccably coiffed and made up Tuesday for her 90-minute set at the Gibson Amphitheatre, the regal entertainer still manages to look much like she did at the height of her career, rather than her age of 63. Her stage show was pure old-school glitz, from the […]
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Colbie Caillat just may be the people’s pop princess. With her sweet, unassuming stage presence, the 22-year-old Malibu native looked like any of the 500 attendees packed into the rustic Malibu Inn for her sold-out show on Friday night. In fact, Caillat was more casual than her stylishly clad female fans. Wearing a vivid halter […]
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It’s been 11 years since the Trashcan Sinatras last did a proper U.S. tour, but nothing has changed since then, according to singer Frank Reader. Well, okay, a few things have changed. “I think my bladder is a bit weaker than it was the last time,” he says with a laugh over the phone from […]
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Women with guitars are nearly as common as men with guitars these days; not to mention women with harps, pianos and samplers. Finding a niche is no easy task. Up-and-coming L.A. singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop is doing so with a distinctive talent for darkly seductive, genre-bending songs that dabble in everything from folk and pop to […]
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Chuck Klosterman has been here before. Not here literally, in Looney Tunes Records on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, where he killed time one recent afternoon between readings at Boston University and the Brattle Theatre. But he’s been here fi guratively, in the netherworld between staged events and actual experiences that journalism often straddles. Journalists and […]
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“They’re talking in Japanese — that won’t work,” Barbara Wallraff said as she sidled up to a conversation taking place in Harvard Square on a sunny afternoon. The contributing editor and columnist for The Atlantic Monthly was trying to overhear bits of people’s back and forths, a habit she picked up to enhance her writing. […]
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