Filtering by Tag: Salt Shed
Live Recap: MisterWives and Bishop Briggs at Salt Shed
MisterWives and Bishop Briggs kicked off this past weekend with a bang, bringing their co-headlining show “The Don't Look Down Tour” to Salt Shed.
After a support set from Raffaella, the stage was set for Bishop Briggs. Three risers with built-in screens sat across the stage, and Briggs appeared on top of the center block amid an introduction of strobing lights and videos projected on the screens. “I have goosebumps everywhere,” the singer told the packed house after opening the show with her single “Art of Survival.” The set continued with fan favorite “Wild Horses,” which Briggs ran around the stage while performing and “Cherry On Top,” which was just released this summer on the “When Everything Went Dark” EP.
Before playing the fourth song of the evening, Briggs took a break to chat with the audience and share the backstory for “My Shine,” which includes a crush she had once upon a time in Chicago. “I was playing a show in Chicago, and I was singing ‘River.’ I got so into the song that I chipped my tooth and there was blood everywhere. Anyway, I had this night out planned with him after, and I have my front tooth completely halved. I was like ‘let’s do this! I love a challenge’ and we actually did make out that night. That was fun, but something that ended up happening with him was that on show day, he was so lovely and pulled out all the stops and then when we sort of entered into my not-shiny part of my life, he was really cold to me and would be really different. My point in telling you guys this story is that I think it’s so important to be with someone that loves all sides of you, the shiny, the not shiny, and really accepts you fully. Don’t worry, I replaced my Chicago crush. Never let anyone tell you that all facets of you are not good enough, cause that’s not true.”
Throughout the rest of her set, Bishop Briggs continued to connect with the room full of music fans both via her music and the chats she’d have between songs. Other highlights of her show included a cover of Hozier’s “Take Me To Church” and the aforementioned hit “River” that she talked about in her introduction to “My Shine.”
MisterWives closed out the entire evening, continuing to ramp up the positive vibes with their joyful and energetic performance. The band’s stage set up remained similar to Bishop Briggs’, and lead vocalist Mandy Lee began the show in same spot that Briggs had before quickly dancing her way across the front part of the stage. After opening with the introductory song of their new album Nosebleeds, “Out Of Your Mind,” Lee told the crowd they were in a safe space to dance it out, cry it out, and feel it out. “We want you to leave here feeling better than when you came here,” she said. In just a matter of moments, the energy shift in the room was palpable thanks to Lee’s infectious effervescence that radiated from the stage. With every twirl, kick, and dance move Lee made, it felt like she was emitting sprinkles of fairy dust and pure happiness throughout the room. One of my fellow photographers even said “I feel like I just had five shots of espresso” after we finished photographing the first few songs of the evening— that’s just how contagious the band’s spirit was.
Now, I’ve mentioned that Lee continued to dance, jump, kick, and twirl throughout the show, but even more impressive is that her vocal quality never faltered despite the physicality of her performance. Not only did Lee never run out of breath while she essentially did a high-impact workout onstage, she nailed every note and showcased an extensive vocal range.
A large part of the setlist that night featured songs from the Nosebleeds album, and Lee took some time to tell the audience about the experiences that led to some of the newer songs. “Rather than racing to the finish line and trying to find the answers and the silver lining, we leaned into the messy middle, and from that got comfortable in the uncomfortable. I’ve never felt more free in my life, so thank you so much for carrying this record close. In the spirit of that sentiment, this one is ‘Trip Around The Sun.’” During the performance of this song, the visuals onstage resembled a sunrise, continuing to complement the stories behind each song.
As the latter half of the show approached, Lee told the audience “I somehow have chills but I’m sweating,” which is something I think a lot of us could relate to in that moment thanks to her goosebump-inducing vocals. The chills continued when the crowd swayed their arms back and forth in unison during the performance of “Superbloom,” which is the title track of MisterWives’ 2020 album. The hits kept coming when the band performed their mega-popular song “Our Own House” next. For the live performance of the 2015 song, the band played a refreshed arrangement that featured an extended introduction. The night eventually wrapped up with the title song from their new album, “Nosebleeds.”
If you missed out on the fun evening, check out photos below and see where you can catch the tour next here.
Live Recap: Les Claypool with The Budos Band at Salt Shed
Someone threw up in a trashcan near the stage four songs into the opener for Colonel Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, but that didn’t put a damper on what was definitely a memorable reunion tour stop at the Salt Shed.
The crowd was more or less what I expected–an assortment of middle-aged people, some younger, about two thirds men. “White trash,” my friend assessed, although I saw some more sophisticated weirdos as well as people donning dreads.
Budos Band made for a killer first set. The band’s uncategorizable sound melded Afro-funk with hard rock and a number of other influences. Perhaps the most memorable of the group’s small army of members was Robert “Bobby” Lombardo. The drummer put his entire body–and curtain of long hair–into his congas, pausing only to run across the stage and hype up the audience. Lombardo was joined by an army of other instruments, including two trumpets and a saxophonist. The music they churned out was delightfully dissonant, yet upbeat.
Between Budos Band and the Frog Brigade, I headed to the bar for a drink, where I received a free sticker from the man ahead of me in line. I ran into him the next day and learned that he’d traveled all the way from Vegas to see Budos Band open for Les’s band. The sticker he gave me depicted a frog with strawberry-textured skin and a little leaf-and-stem hat. Frogs were, for obvious reasons, a motif throughout the evening; the venue wasn’t selling Frog Brigade’s signature amphibian hats, but several fans showed up in handmade ones—My favorite was a mother-daughter pair with foam visors, and cute little cartoonish eyes drawn on.
The Frog Brigade came out full-force with its cover of “Thela Hun Ginjeet,” a bass-heavy rendition that showcased Les Claypool’s fittingly frog-like dancey playing style. Les’s hammered out more than two hours of originals and covers, most of them a part of its regular, live arsenal. The group dedicated the middle chunk of its set to Pink Floyd’s “Animals.” The more exciting parts of the set, though, for me at least, were the Primus-adjacent tracks Les had penned himself. He donned his signature pig mask for “Precipitation,” conjuring delightfully freakish melodies from an upright, electric bass as the band played along. It was the kind of song I imagine someone would write if asked to put Animal Farm to music.
Joining Les in the Frog Brigade were a xylophonist, drummer and keyboardist in their uniform of army fatigues. Sean Lennon took his usual place as Les’s right-hand-man guitarist. Skerik was out of commission for the first leg of reunion tour due to a shoulder injury, so saxophonist Frank Catalano, whom Les stage named “Ballpark Frank” for reasons I cannot recall, filled in.
The Frog Brigade wrapped up after 11 with bouncy, funky “One Better,” a Les Original, followed by a two-song encore. After a bottleneck out of the venue across a floor crunchy with abandoned beer cups, audience members had the chance to smoke and chat outside over a venue-curated queue of hardcore 90s music. I opted to head out, passing burger and whippit vendors on my way to my car–ah, Primus fans.
Check out photos from the show below, and see where you can catch Les Claypool on tour next here.
Live Recap: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Bring Their Residency Tour to Salt Shed
This past Sunday night, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard returned to Chicago for the first of their three-night sold-out residency here at the Salt Shed.
Despite it being nearly mid-June, the weather was unseasonably cold and windy, but that didn’t stop King Gizz’s dedicated fan base from coming out in droves. Amongst the jackets and beanies I saw walking into the Shed, I saw some folks wearing wizard hats and even someone rocking a lizard costume in homage to the band.
It’s been a few years since I last saw King Gizz here, and in that time they’ve released more albums than I can count on two hands, so I wasn’t sure which songs to expect on their set list. Many of the fans in attendance on Sunday night were planning on attending multiple nights of the tour (either in Chicago or elsewhere), but even they wouldn’t really know what to expect as KGWL has the tendency to change up their set from show to show.
On Sunday, the music kicked off with “Pleura” and “O.N.E.” from the 2021 album L.W. Just before launching into the third song of the evening, the band invited an audience member, whose name we learned was Seb, onto the stage to introduce the next song. Standing next to band members Joey Walker and Stu Mackenzie and their dual microphone stand, Seb commenced the performance of “Nuclear Fusion” by growling the song title in a similar fashion to what you can hear on the studio version. Seb’s short-but-sweet guest appearance got a raucous round of applause from the crowd.
From the jump, audience members began moshing and crowd surfing, but their energy only amplified when Mackenzie took a moment to thank everyone for coming out and braving the gnarly weather, adding “the best way to stay warm is to move your body.” Later on in their set, I stood on the Salt Shed’s balcony and got to take in the aerial view of the giant mosh pit, at one point even getting to witness a circle pit.
Throughout King Gizz’s two-hour set, they mixed in a lot of diverse musical styling and genres, but for the most part it swayed jam band-esque, which is fitting because the band jokingly dedicated one of their songs to John Mayer. Mayer was in town the same weekend for shows with Dead and Company, but if you ask me, I’d much prefer to watch “The Grateful Gizz” in concert! KGWL added texture to their live performance by peppering in flute (played by Mackenzie) and saxophone (played by Ambrose Kenny-Smith) on some of the songs. The evening closed out with a performance of “Boogieman Sam” from the 2019 album Fishing for Fishies.
Check out photos of the evening below, and see where you can catch the tour next here.
PHOTOS: Future Islands and Deeper at Salt Shed
This past Sunday, Future Islands hit the Salt Shed stage for an incredible show, accompanied by Deeper. If you missed out on the show, check out photos from the evening below and see where you can catch the tour next here.
Live Recap: MUNA with Nova Twins at Salt Shed
This past Tuesday night, fans gathered to catch a sold out show from MUNA, with support from Nova Twins at the Salt Shed.
I entered the shed very familiar with MUNA, having been a (number one) fan for years now, but I went into the Nova Twins’ set completely cold. It didn’t take long at all for the duo of Amy Love and Georgia South to warm me up and win me over—it was somewhere between their wildly energetic entrance to the stage, their encouragement of the audience to declare “I’m a boss bitch!” (as they sing in the chorus of their song “Cleopatra”) and Love’s request for the crowd to “open up the twerk pit” (rather than mosh pit) that I decided Nova Twins is one of my new favorites. The cheers from the audience and the smiles I saw on everyone’s faces confirmed I was not alone in my newfound admiration for the duo. Their 40-minute set contained plenty of songs from their 2022 album entitled Supernova and was chock-full of ear-splitting guitar riffs and booming bass lines.
With the crowd primed and ready now, MUNA took the stage right around 9PM. As the band launched into their hit “What I Want,” vocalist Katie Gavin abruptly stopped the song only about 30 seconds in, to call out that someone in the audience appeared to need medical assistance. Once the fallen fan received help, Gavin and her bandmates Josette Maskin and Naomi McPherson, decided to leave the stage, restarting the set completely from the top so that everyone got to experience their full introduction. The sold out crowd remained rowdy throughout the show, but thanks to an overwhelming sense of camaraderie and a reminder from Gavin to look out for each other, the show carried on with only good vibes and no more incidents.
Following a whirlwind of bangers like “Number One Fan” and “Stayaway,” MUNA mellowed out the tempo slightly for songs like “Loose Garment” and “Winterbreak,” the latter of which Gavin picked up an acoustic guitar to add some richness to the arrangement. For the majority of the show, Gavin sang and danced freely across the stage, only staying stationary for the few songs she played acoustic guitar on. The energy remained high throughout the show, though, with plenty of banter and movement from Maskin and McPherson as well. Things got even rowdier during MUNA’s performance of “Anything But Me” when the band threw out horse figurines for the crowd to toss around.
In the blink of an eye it seemed, the show began to wind down and MUNA left the stage to immediate requests for an encore. The trio kept the magic going with their song “I Know a Place,” in which Gavin sings about a place where you can go, let down your walls and truly be yourself— AKA, every MUNA concert ever. For one last hoorah of the night, Nova Twins graced the stage again to join in on singing “Silk Chiffon.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, MUNA fans are some of the most accepting and joyous people you’ll ever meet, so if you get the chance to attend one of their shows, don’t miss out on the wonderful experience.
If you missed the show, check out the full gallery below, and see where you can catch the tour next here.
