Cloaca Melodia

Benedum Center, Pittsburgh, PA... The show was originally booked for the Post-Gazette Pavilion but was moved in July to the Benedum Center. It was probably a good plan to have her indoors in a theater rather than doing the shed thing, but because of the move it seemed like they had to accommodate more people than they have seats at the Benedum. They had added folding chairs at the far ends of most aisles in the orchestra section and I ended up in one of these extreme-angled view seats. Norah was very enjoyable to see, and she was still riding extremely high from the ginormity (is that a word?) of her debut album, Come Away With Me . When you look back at her career, her debut was 12x platinum, her sophomore release was 4x platinum, her third album was 2x platinum, her fourth was platinum, her fifth was gold, and all subsequent albums weren't big sellers to the point of RIAA certification. And yet most of her albums were of very high quality, so one can say that her debut was the ex...

Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh, PA..... sorry, I haven't yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!    my ticket stub from the show

Players Club, Boulder, CO..... The Shore, out of Silver Lake, CA, had a pretty good album self-titled debut album (released a few days before this show). Their performance was good.  Carbon Leaf was not very memorable. Players Club (formerly Tulagi) was a bar right next to the Fox Theater, and for these radio convention showcase performances, conference attendees could go back and forth between venue to see the artists performing at each with staggered set times. Here's who was at the Fox this night .    

Fox Theater, Boulder, CO.....   Old 97's had just released their Drag It Up album, and their latest single "The New Kid" was being played on WYEP as well as many stations in attendance at this Boulder radio conference. They did a great set and were very well-received. I have no recollection of Simple Kid or Low Millions, but Antigone Rising was very enjoyable (I had already seen them in 2002 ).      There was a bar right next to the Fox Theater called Players Club (formerly Tulagi), and for these radio convention showcase performances, conference attendees could go back and forth between venue to see the artists performing at each with staggered set times. Here's who was playing at Players Club this night . 

Millennium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, CO..... This was a lunchtime showcase performance for a radio convention. Guitarist Johnny A had his second album Get Inside out, another great set of memorable instrumentals. Always fun to see live. The Damnwells had just played WYEP's Summer Music Festival , so I had hung out with those guys a little bit about five weeks previous. Also a good live band. I was not an Ari Hest fan.  

Players Club, Boulder, CO..... I wasn't a big fan of Johnathan Rice's solo music, although I later liked his 2010 Jenny & Johnny album with Jenny Lewis. He was decent enough live, but not enough to win me over as a fan. Adam Richman was not memorable.  Players Club (formerly Tulagi) was a bar right next to the Fox Theater, and for these radio convention showcase performances, conference attendees could go back and forth between venue to see the artists performing at each with staggered set times. Here's who was at the Fox this night .

Fox Theater, Boulder, CO..... Cullum was a consummate pro, as I discovered a few months earlier at a different radio conference . That early impression was confirmed by seeing this more typical performance. Glen Phillips is a bit of an enigma to me. He had a couple of great years with Toad the Wet Sprocket, but the rest of his career has just been OK in my estimation. He had released his solo album Winter Pays For Summer (great title) back in March, with the first single "Thankful," and it was... adequate. I always feel like her has the tools in the toolbox to be very good but it never seems to come together, in my view. He was good live, but nothing to write home about. Rachael Yamagata was one of the coterie of young female singer-songwriters with albums out in 2004 that had shelves-full of reviews using phrases like "think Tori Amos" or "a la Tori Amos" (including Vienna Teng and Charlotte Martin ). Her music is also just OK. There was a bar right next...

Millennium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, CO..... Martin was a former Miss Teen USA contestant representing Illinois in the mid-1990s, but she was also a talented singer and pianist. Her first album with real distribution, On Your Shore , was released a few days after this performance, but I had already heard a pre-release copy of it. She did a worthwhile cover of the Stones' "Wild Horses" on the album and her album's first single "Every Time It Rains" was decent, but she came across as Tori Amos lite ("Wild Horses" sounded like a Tori soundalike recording). She didn't help her case at this showcase performance for a radio convention.There were some people talking at the back of the hotel courtyard/event space where the performance took place, and it really seemed to throw Martin off her game. She asked the crowd to be quiet at one point, but when that didn't work, she got pouty and started blowing air through pursed lips so that it ruffled ...

Millennium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, CO..... This was a lunchtime showcase performance for a radio convention.  Riabko and Nalick were not very memorable, but Hornsby was terrific. Hornsby played "Circus on the Moon," the new single from his imminent new album  Halcyon Days . It was obvious that he was a savvy vet with his stage patter, speaking to the radio programmers in the audience in between songs. And his performance was flawless and entertaining. I had never seen him live before, and the experience led me to re-evaluate what I thought of Hornsby. I had always liked his singles, but I now fully understood why he was invited to sit in with the Grateful Dead. It set me up for really exploring his talents more when he released his 2006 box set Intersections (1985–2005) . Highly recommend everyone check out the live recording of "Fortunate Son/Comfortably Numb" from the box set.    

Millennium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, CO..... Technically this late-night showcase performance for a radio convention took place on 8/7 as it began after midnight. Mraz was fun, Tolcher was not memorable.

Players Club, Boulder, CO.....   Players Club (formerly Tulagi) was a bar right next to the Fox Theater, and for these radio convention showcase performances, conference attendees could go back and forth between venue to see the artists performing at each with staggered set times. Here's who was at the Fox this night .

Fox Theater, Boulder, CO.....   There was a bar right next to the Fox Theater called Players Club (formerly Tulagi), and for these radio convention showcase performances, conference attendees could go back and forth between venue to see the artists performing at each with staggered set times. Here's who was playing at Players Club this night . 

Millennium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, CO..... This was a showcase performance for a radio convention. Not a memorable performance.

Millennium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, CO..... This was a lunchtime showcase performance for a radio convention. Neither performance was very memorable.     

Players Club, Boulder, CO..... Both artists were good to see. I think this was the first time I saw either. Both artists were about to release their debut albums (technically, Cope had some releases before The Clarence Greenwood Recordings , but with very limited distribution) about six weeks later. A big memory was seeing another radio guy I know standing right in front of Citizen Cope popping his outstretched arm up and down with the beat, a little ridiculously. Players Club (formerly Tulagi) was a bar right next to the Fox Theater, and for these radio convention showcase performances, conference attendees could go back and forth between venue to see the artists performing at each with staggered set times. Here's who was at the Fox this night .  

Fox Theater, Boulder, CO...... Nashville's Blue Merle had one stellar song, "Burning In the Sun," which would be the centerpiece for the band's 2003 debut EP, their first single, and the lead-off track from their debut 2005 album  Burning in the Sun . It didn't hurt that it sounded like Dave Matthews at a time when DMB and Matthews himself were in between albums. Unfortunately, the band wasn't able to capitalize on that terrific song and only lasted one album. (Guitarist Luke Reynolds would join Guster in 2010, a band I had seen in Boulder at the same conference the year previous . Camper Van was good. Jem and Graham Colton weren't very memorable.  There was a bar right next to the Fox Theater called Players Club (formerly Tulagi), and for these radio convention showcase performances, conference attendees could go back and forth between venue to see the artists performing at each with staggered set times. Here's who was playing at Players Club this nig...