PitbullSunFest, West Palm Beach May 6, 2012Better than: Not hearing Pitbull say dale. Mr. 305 brought his notorious Miami flavor and fast-paced rhymes Sunday to the Bank of America stage at SunFest in West Palm Beach. Pitbull, who has been a staple in the South Florida hip-hop scene since 2004,…
Back in 2008, Built to Spill performed their 1997 release, Perfect From Now On, in its entirety at the My Bloody Valentine-curated ATP concert in Monticello, New York. It happened to fall on the same weekend of my very best friend’s wedding on Block Island, Rhode Island. After flying in…
Passion PitSunFest, West Palm BeachMay 4, 2012Better than: Fostering the people to a Creed performance. A gentle breeze and balmy upper-70-degree weather provided idyllic conditions for enjoying SunFest, West Palm Beach’s multigenerational music and arts festival by the Intracoastal on Friday night. Upon entering, we maneuvered our way passed the horde…
Cinco de Mayo Black Seal, The Muggles, Nervous Attachments, Radioboxer, EverymenSpeakeasy Lounge, Lake Worth May 5, 2012Better than: Building a raft from discarded fliers and navigating a river of vomit back to your car.The thought of Cinco de Mayo, the second of three yearly amateur boozing nights, falling on the same Saturday…
Better than: Vans Warped TourAs the sun set and the full moon rose above the West Palm Beach waterfront festival, the All-American Rejects took the stage. Returning for a second year — they performed back in 2007 — the band delivered a sexually charged, power pop goes rock n’ roll…
Def Leppard and Poison are bringing their big hair, big riffs, and big hooks to BankAtlantic Center on August 9. The “Rock of Ages Tour” — named after the movie based on the musical based on the music of these two bands and their contemporaries — will begin just a…
With swampy song titles like “Vizcaya” and “I Fought a Crocodile,” there’s no doubt the Jacuzzi Boys love sticky, sweaty South Florida. They braved their collective fear of flying to bring Miami-flavored, coconut-croquetta-tasting rock ‘n’ roll to Europe on a recent 26-city tour. Though we knew the continent would send…
Better than: Lita Ford ever was.Just before Joan Jett bounced on to the Tire Kingdom stage in a skintight outfit and black high-tops with red laces, nature had provided an epic warm-up set: Temps dipped from searingly hot to pleasantly balmy, palm trees swayed along the waterfront, and a giant…
Brian Fair is the dread-headed lead singer for metal band Shadows Fall. Though the group has referenced Rastafarian ideas in their lyrics, including on the song “Wasteland” off their upcoming release Fire From the Sky, Fair says based on his hair, “everyone assumes we’re a rasta band anyway.”That’s not the only religious perspective…
Beach Boys 50th Anniversary Tour Hard Rock Live, Hollywood May 4, 2012 Better Than: Brian, Mike, or Al on their own Okay, let’s all take a collective breath here… Friday night’s Beach Boys concert was not only a lot of fun, fun, fun, but a humbling experience as well. Seeped in nostalgia, it proved…
Snoop DoggAlso Herbie Hancock and Wiz Khalifa SunFest in West Palm BeachMay 3, 2012Better than: A cold egg cream on a warm day. Check out the full slideshow here. SunFest was ablaze with burning indo last night. If there were a musical evening set aside for potheads, Thursday night’s lineup of the…
Like it or not, for most people, Cinco de Mayo is celebrated as culturally correctly (or as historically educated) as St. Patrick’s Day. Pretty much, it’s just another excuse to drink theme-appropriate booze and maybe take part in some vaguely Mexican-themed festivities. Well… Crack out the tequila, right? If you…
Since releasing his cut-and-paste masterpiece Night Ripper in 2006, Gregg Gillis, better known by the stage name Girl Talk, has become the belle of indie blogs. Taking jumbled, sample-based dance music and pushing it to extremes, Gillis upped the ante for laptop performers, bringing the genre a new found credibility…
This weekend, among a sea of approximately 275,000 eager West Palm Beachers, a roster of nostalgic, budding and local talent will hit SunFest. Marking the festival’s first full day of tunes since opening the gates on Wednesday, May 2, Saturday’s lineup contains one South Florida collective worth your early afternoon…
The Musical BoxHard Rock LiveMay 2, 2012I have seen the future of classic rock, and it is the tribute band. More so than most popular music genres, a key component to so-called classic rock is live performance on analog instruments. As bands that began in the sixties suffer the loss…
It’s possible to uncover aspects of a person’s disposition just by watching him perform, chat with fans, and engaging with him in a minichat. Last night, when Lil Eazy E paid tribute to his father at Green Room’s Brown Bag Wednesdays in Fort Lauderdale, it was pretty clear from his…
Last night, the Counting Crows kicked off the opening night of West Palm Beach’s 30th-annual SunFest. And while I’m not a die-hard Counting Crows fan, the ’90s teen inside of me was excited to hear some personal favorites. Perhaps it’s my expectations — or my adoration for nostalgia — that…
County Grind readers, SunFest has certainly brought you a smorgasbord of options this year. Virtually every style of music to tickle every type of fancy. Hip hop your thing? Slick and smooth L.A. rapper Snopp Dogg is bringing you a glass of “Gin and Juice.” Like your rhymes with more…
A little scandal, a few crossbows, and palettes of unsold flamethrower-flavored beef jerky have mucked our memories. There was a time when Ted Nugent was known for spewing attitude and amplitude out of his hollow-body guitar, not for making threatening comments against the Obama administration or backing Mitt Romney. He’s…
Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” is a classic. We’d go so far to say there probably aren’t that many people who (a) don’t know the song and (b) don’t know all the lyrics. It’s also probably one of the top ten songs you’re guaranteed to hear at a karaoke night. So…
Attending a music festival is an experience. No doubt about it. But showing up to a music festival for the first time is even more of one. Going into it, you’re a little nervous, unsure of what to expect, but you’ve convinced yourself it’s going to be a lot of…
Editor’s note: I teach a class on new media/journalism to high school students at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, and one of my students is a big fan of the Fray. He helped me formulate the questions I later asked Isaac Slade. So, big shoutout to Volkens!A popular…
