When I heard the Black Keys were playing BB&T Center, I was skeptical. I thought, no rock band formed in the 21st century can fill up an entire arena. That’s a venue for boy bands, hip-hop moguls, and rockers with membership to the AARP. But as the Black Keys took…
Flo Rida once boasted “Club Can’t Handle It,” but the Winterfest Boat Parade certainly can. This Friday at 6 p.m., the Hard Rock Casino will host an invite-only ceremony in which Flo Rida will be named grand marshal of the boat parade while also being given a key to the…
You can find a band that centers its music around the guitar on every block, but to find one that’s primary instrument is the 36-string Celtic harp, you’ll have to travel to a distant land. Never Land to be precise. Never Land is a Palm Beach Gardens five-piece that just…
“This has nothing to do with Bill Cosby,” insists Anthony Ruiz, front desk clerk at Tate’s Comics about the store celebrating its first ever Ugly Sweater Sunday. “The idea for it came up like all our special events do, at a powwow between all the store’s employees.” Although an Ugly…
You likely know Billy Gardell as the Mike to Melissa McCarthy’s Molly on the aptly titled CBS sitcom Mike & Molly. The very successful show is returning for its fifth season on December 8. But before Gardell found fame on the small screen, he paid his dues traveling the country…
In 1996, Amit Duvdevani and Erez Eisen met in Haifa, Israel, where their mutual love for creating psychedelic trance music had them join forces to form Infected Mushroom. Nearly two decades and eight full length albums later — including those with the conversation starting titles Converting Vegetarians and Vicious Delicious…
The best Thanksgiving memories are the ones in which you’re surrounded by family. But what’s glittering for your memory bank can be hell on your IRL stress levels. Way down the line, you can accentuate the positive, but at 6:52 p.m. Thursday, you’ll have to use all your will power…
This was a brutal year for fans of the 1996 box office smash The Birdcage. There will be no Dumb and Dumber, twenty-year-later sequel for the movie that showcased South Beach as a whimsical American Riviera. This August, the film’s star Robin Williams passed away and just yesterday, its director…
1958 wasn’t a year known for cultural sensitivity. While Jim Crow laws were still in effect in much of this country, director Kent MacKenzie filmed a movie called The Exiles. MacKenzie gained the trust of three Native Americans as he documented their struggle over whether they should stay on their…
When one thinks of skills necessary to win American Idol, guitar playing is not one of them. That was until the 2012 season when Georgia native Phillip Phillips took first prize in part with his renditions of Dave Matthews and Bob Seger songs. Phillips’ coronation song, “Home” which you would…
The only thing sweeter than a guava is a Big Guava Music Festival. Though you might not be able to cram the massive Tampa event into a pastelito, you can now pencil in the concert’s 2015 dates. Going down Friday, May 8, and Saturday, May 9, the Big Guava will…
The English Beat Culture Room, Fort Lauderdale Friday, November 7, 2014 “I don’t know why you’re asking us to play that song. We haven’t played it in years.” Dave Wakeling said deadpan in his thick English drawl as the crowd roared for “Mirror in the Bathroom.” What other accent would…
In 1965, Bob Dylan was booed and called a Judas for daring to plug in his guitar and go electric. Sevendust, the Atlanta metal veterans, heard only cheers when it pulled that trick in reverse by unplugging and going acoustic. The band’s ninth studio album, Time Travelers & Bonfires, is…
This Saturday night, Stache will commemorate the arrival of its first birthday. To celebrate this event, the speakeasy did more than buy a cake with one lonely candle, it invited house legends Dubtribe Sound System to play a live set on November 15. Comprised of Sunshine and Moonbeam Jones, Dubtribe…
Halloween might be over, but with Natalie Cole coming to town, we can’t help but think of those singers who have come back from the grave to croon a bit. Cole had a career resurgence back in 1991 when she released an album of duets with her father, Nat King…
After spitting out three albums in three years, the English Beat fans have been waiting since 1982 for a new record. Next year, the waiting ceases as the ska rock legends who popularized the hits “Save It for Later” and “Mirror in the Bathroom” will release a new album after…
You might have trouble recognizing the Matisyahu who will be performing Saturday at Mizner Park Amphitheater. The New Yorker born as Matthew Miller shot to fame with his reggae/rap/rock hybrid “King Without a Crown.” The song cracked the Top 40 in 2005 and transformed Matisyahu into an unlikely celebrity as…
Heart is playing Hard Rock Live on Sunday, days after disembarking from a cruise-ship festival titled, justly, Women Who Rock. Probably no other band has the longtime legitimacy that warrants it most fitting to headline a festival with that name. The Wilson sisters, Nancy and Ann, who front Heart are…
1991 was year zero for people singing with the deceased. Before the living Beatles could reunite with the departed John Lennon in “Free as a Bird” or a Tupac hologram could collaborate with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg at Coachella, Natalie Cole released “Unforgettable.” The duet with her famous father…
It was a day where you couldn’t ask for better weather. Among a medley of food trucks and craft beers, a smorgasbord of indie rock was served up steaming hot at the Coral Skies Music Festival. The descriptor “indie rock” at this point is a catch-all term for any type…
There are only two Beatles left on this planet, and Tuesday night one of them was in Fort Lauderdale. If you’ve ever seen Paul McCartney live, you know what an unforgettable experience that is. Even at seventy-two years of age, Sir Paul still belts out three hour performances, playing all…
If you’d like a trip to the past, Friday night at Culture Room might be the right setting for you. There, Santa Cruz band the Devil Makes Three will take the audience down a musical wormhole to mountain honky-tonks and country juke joints of yesteryear. Like its name implies, the…
