Black is the New AP Style: livereviews

Six years after announcing their indefinite hiatus, The Summer Set is back on the road promoting their 5th studio album, Blossom. The last leg of the tour focuses on the Midwest, including a night at House of Blues Chicago.

As the band entered from the side of the stage, the sound of a door closing made its way through the crowd. It immediately felt like they were playing a more intimate space, as if they were starting a basement show instead of playing to a large crowd as the headliner at the House of Blues.

Jess Bowen at House of Blues Chicago, April 28.

That intimate vibe was felt tenfold by the band’s use of the stage. While drummer Jess Bowen’s riser was covered in pink flowers nearly as bright as her smile, her bandmates spent the majority of their time hovering near the front of the stage. Singing directly to the crowd is exactly how they have made their audience feel as though they are right on stage with them.

The show started with “Street Lightning”, the lead single from Blossom. While it received an immediate reaction from the audience, it was their second song, “The Boys You Do (Get Back At You)” that had the floor fully vibrating as they bounced along to each chorus.

John Gomez at House of Blues Chicago, April 28.

In the audience were longtime fans, a few newcomers and lead vocalist Brian Dales’ father, who was celebrating his birthday. It wasn’t a Chicago show unless the fans wearing cowboy hats were present, which Dales noticed before starting “All My Friends” and asked to wear one of their hats.

The setlist, which Dales said is the longest one they’ve ever done, included songs that hadn’t been performed in more than a decade. “Passenger Seat”, from their debut album Love Like This, had the audience happily singing along as well as a cover of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me”, which was on the extended version of Love Like This. Dales admitted that he spent the last decade trying to pretend that Love Like Swift didn’t exist, but after a recent playback he realized that it was time to embrace it.

Stephen Gomez at House of Blues Chicago, April 28.

There were a few moments of their set that stood out, including when guitarist John Gomez made his way to the balcony to perform an epic guitar solo during “Girls Freak Me Out”. The entire band - Dales, Bowen, Gomez and bassist Stephen Gomez - performed “Back Together” off the stage as they had an audience member, Emily, create an open circle in the middle of the crowd. Everyone took a moment to chant Emily’s name, with Dales joking that they would gladly play past curfew if it meant giving Emily her well-deserved praise. It became yet another moment where the show felt less like a concert hall and more like an intimate gathering.

Throughout the night, Dales mentioned a few times that he couldn’t have imagined headlining at the House of Blues, and that it looked better than he could have imagined.

“Never taking it for granted,” he said. “This is the most perfect night.”

Brian Dales at House of Blues Chicago, April 28.

May 02, 2023 No comments

View the full gallery here

At the height of the 2000s, MTV was at the forefront of pop culture. The network expanded from music videos and live performances to pimping rides, tours of celebrity homes and choosing a date based on the items in their bedroom. While the music aspect of MTV slowly disappeared, the artists did not.

The Pop 2000 Tour has been traveling the country since 2018 with artists that best represent the early aughts. The most recent lineup includes O-Town, LFO, Ryan Cabrera, David Cook and *NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick as the host.

Not only do fans get the opportunity to see these musicians perform the best songs of that era, but they can also purchase meet and greet packages that allows them to watch soundcheck, get photos and autographs, and even sit on stage during the show.

With Kirkpatrick as the host - “taking you way back to the second time slap bracelets were popular” - it is a guaranteed comedy show on top of musical performances. During the tour’s stop in the Chicagoland area, Kirkpatrick not only hyped up the crowd in between sets but came out to perform alongside his tourmates. He performed Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” with David Cook and sang a few classic *NSYNC songs with O-Town (“Bye Bye Bye” dance moves included).

Starting off the show was Cook, who rose to fame after winning the 7th season of American Idol in 2008. His stage presence is haunting, from the gravelly vocals to the richly textured guitar. At one point he requested the house lights be turned off, and illuminated just by the audience’s phones, sang fan favorite “Light On” in a beautifully intimate setting.

Ryan Cabrera took the stage next, sharing a story about how he was one of the first people to sing outside with the crowd surrounding the TRL studios. He shared several stories throughout his set, giving the audience the feeling of catching up with an old friend.

When O-Town took the stage, the audience immediately time traveled to their former teenage selves. They knew every dance move, sang every lyric and were decked out in their finest O-Town merch.

Halfway through their performance, they brought out Brad Fischetti of LFO. Fischetti is the only remaining member of the hip hop band, losing Rich Cronin and Devin Lima to cancer in 2010 and 2018, respectively. He honored his friends in many ways, wearing their names on his shirt and bringing out a mic stand that held a pair of red sneakers and white sneakers to honor them. Alongside O-Town, he sang the band’s hit songs and spoke about how he will continue to keep the LFO legacy alive.

Something each performance had was cover songs and mashups. In addition to “The Middle”, Cook also sang Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way”, Cabrera covered The Goo Goo Dolls and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song, and O-Town spun Nelly, Maroon 5, Missy Elliott and more into their songs.

The night was a perfect mix of everything that was loved about the 2000s, minus the frosted tips and popped collars. Unless someone in the audience wasn’t a fan of the performances, in which case, per Chris Kirkpatrick: “If you didn’t like the show, they’re 98 Degrees and I’m Joey Fatone!”

View upcoming tour dates for the Pop 2000 Tour here.

August 16, 2022 No comments

April 05, 2022 No comments

Photo courtesy of Chicago Humanities Festival/DT Kindler

The Chicago Humanities Festival started as a single day celebration of the humanities and quickly became a year-round festival of arts and ideas. They present more than 100 annual events in venues across the Chicagoland area, including a recent event to support the release of actor, comedian, writer, director and producer Bob Odenkirk’s memoir, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama.

“CHF is first and foremost a Chicago institution,” Chicago Humanities Festival Executive Director Phillip Bahar said. “Our programming often brings leading artists, authors and thinkers to Chicago. But, we’re also very much committed to highlighting the incredible voices that come from Chicago and celebrating our city’s home-grown talent and creativity. Bob Odenkirk began here in Chicago, from the stages of Second City to so many other comedy clubs. Bringing him home to celebrate his career and the city’s legacy in comedy felt like a great way to start the year. Plus, we knew it would be great fun.”

Odenkirk started his Illinois portion of his book tour at the historic Music Box Theatre with fellow Saturday Night Live alum Tim Meadows. With Meadows as the moderator, the two discussed their time working together both in New York City and Chicago, as well as some of the stories mentioned in Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama.

When Meadows asked what made Odenkirk decide to write a memoir - “What made you think that anybody cared?” - he named several show business-related memoirs that he enjoyed. He also mentioned his interactions with legendary actor, writer and teacher Del Close.

Odenkirk ran into Close in Chicago during his college years and asked to interview him. A two-hour conversation transpired from that question, where Odenkirk heard him “ramble about his career and it inspired me so much, that interaction, [that] maybe I could do the same thing for some young people.”

“He made it seem possible,” Odenkirk said. “I never met an older person who was excited about what they were going to do next. I remember looking at him as he was telling me this and thinking [that] I’ve never seen anybody his age tell me what they were going to do in a way that sounded like it might be cool or great and that they were excited about it. There was something about his excitement and I just thought maybe I could borrow that labored action and build on it to write a book.”

Another interaction Odenkirk wrote about in his memoir is with actor and comedian Chris Farley. He said there were two things that he attributed to having cared so much about Farley during the time they worked together: growing up with an alcoholic father, which he said made him empathize with those struggling with alcohol abuse, and the fact that Farley shared so much of his soul with everyone he encountered.

“Chris had an effect on everybody that worked with him,” Meadows said.

Photo courtesy of Chicago Humanities Festival/DT Kindler

One of Farley’s characters on Saturday Night Live, Matt Foley, an eccentric motivational speaker who frequently reminded other characters that he lived in a van down by the river, was written by Odenkirk and inspired by the town he grew up in, Naperville, Ill. He told the story at the Music Box Theatre, as well as the next night at an event in Naperville hosted by Anderson’s Bookshop, that Matt Foley was partially inspired by a childhood memory of visiting the Burger King right outside Naperville’s downtown area and crossing the bridge above the DuPage River.

“I just pictured that place and that’s where I put him; in a van down by the river,” Odenkirk told the Naperville audience. “It was that bridge that I had in my head that he parked his van and said, ‘I’m living here now.’”

He also told the Naperville crowd that the first time he saw one of his jokes performed on Saturday Night Live was while he was working at Chicago-based, retro-themed diner Ed Debevic’s.

“I’m not even a waiter yet; I’m running food to the table,” he joked. “The first time Dennis Miller read one of my jokes on [Saturday Night Live sketch ‘Weekend Update’] I was bringing hamburgers to a table and I looked up at the TV screen and I could tell he was doing my joke because of the picture over his shoulder, otherwise you couldn’t hear him.”

He wanted Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama to not only be about all the success that he has seen but the failure as well. He wanted to write about the projects that almost made it, the ones that weren’t a total failure but never saw the light of day.

“We don’t hear about all the in-between that really make up a career and oftentimes pay the bills,” he said. “I tried to write about that as much as I could without exhausting the reader.”

Whether he was speaking to an audience in his hometown or in the city that kick started his career, Bob Odenkirk displayed that Midwestern charm and comedic wit that makes his memoir feel like it is having a conversation with a friend. He gives the reader a chance to meet the artists that inspired him, and in turn hopes his journey can inspire others.

March 08, 2022 No comments

January 28, 2020 No comments

View the full photo gallery here.

When half·alive first garnered attention with their “still.feel” music video, they essentially changed the game of how low budget videos turned into algorithm-changing content. They’ve been able to turn the messages of their songs into narratives through choreographed dance moves and subtle stage props, which they’ve also been able to bring to life during live performances.

The stage of their current world tour involves a high rise platform, a backdrop of circular LED lights and not a single set list in sight. It doesn’t take long to wonder how much of their choreography will come to life on stage because once the lights go down, the first person to make their way to the stage is not Josh Taylor, Brett Kramer or J Tyler Johnson. They walk out once of their two dancers make it to the corner of stage left and meet him there as the beginning of “ok ok?” starts. The stage remains dark except for the light held by their dancer, and while lights are usually distracting from the quality of music, this isn’t the case here.

Their two dancers make multiple appearances throughout the night, even to teach the audience some of their moves. They aren’t entirely in sync during their performances, but that’s the point. Part of their narrative is to feel the music individually and bring the lyrics to life through their own interpretation. Each dancer and band member has their own take on the song, and depending on who the audience is watching, those different interpretations speak to different people.

In addition to their dancers, lighting plays a major component of their storytelling performance. The backdrop of lights move both by the hands of the dancers and to encourage audience interaction during various sing-along opportunities. The night ends with glowing beach-style balls, the last one illuminated being held in the air by Taylor before making the stage dark once more.

As mentioned before, despite the busy stage, it merely amplifies the talent that radiates from the three band members. Their performance style does speak to their audience in a way that almost can’t be described, but the same is to be said of their physical performance. They are each talented in their own right and have found a style of songwriting that causes anyone to stop what they’re doing and pay attention.

half·alive has helped take the idea of a traditional performance and turn it into something that speaks louder and to a larger audience. As they continue the rest of their world tour, it’s no mistake that their catchy lyrics and out-of-the-box narratives speak to a diverse group of music lovers.

October 15, 2019 No comments

Follow Us

Featured Video

Featured Gallery

Featured Playlist