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Live Recap: ELIO with Abby Holliday at Schubas

May 02, 2022  /  Alice Guan

Nashville based singer-songwriter Abby Holliday opened Sunday evening sporting a pair of tri-colored high-top Converse. Holliday was accompanied by her boyfriend, Seth. She introduced him right before they performed “Better By Now,” making a disclaimer that her “sad songs” are not about him, and that she now writes happy songs, resulting in cheers from the audience. The warmth of the venue can be felt as they tuned their guitars in between every gentle melodic ballad. As they strummed their guitars in harmony, it felt as if they were taking us through a foggy mountain range on an early summer morning.

As the night went on and the venue got fuller, the crowd was hyped up by ELIO’s drummer and guitarist. ELIO, whose real name is Charlotte Grace Victoria, jumped on to the stage after being welcomed by cheers and applause. She began her set with a relatively new song, “Typecast,” followed by the first ever ELIO song that was released just two years ago, “My Friends Online.”

While taking a break to sip some water, ELIO commented on the energy in the audience, noting that it was “almost as good” as her hometown show in Toronto. She asked the audience if she could take a couple photos with them, and after snapping some selfies, she noticed her phone was on low battery, leading her to ask: “does anyone have a charger?” This prompted the audience to cheer, as they knew they were about to hear “Charger” live for the first time.

The high energies continued until she kicked her band members off the stage, and picked up her electric guitar for a stripped version of “Waste of Emotion,” before welcoming her band members back on stage and closing the night with “@elio.irl.”

The show in its entirety took the audience from Abby Holliday’s mournful sounds to ELIO’s electric and whimsical tones. Despite the musical differences, both acts were able to engage and charge the audience with enthusiasm and playful conversations.

Check out the photo recap of the evening below, and see where you can catch ELIO next here.

categories / Gigs, Music, Photos, Reviews
tags / ELIO, Abby Holliday, Live Recap, Photo Set, Live Show, Schubas

Live Recap: Big Thief with Kara-Lis Coverdale at The Riviera

April 28, 2022  /  Alice Guan

This past Monday night, Big Thief kicked off the week with a concert at The Riviera Theatre in honor of their new record Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You.

Canadian composer Kara-Lis Coverdale kicked off Monday evening with her classical yet electric sounds. Surrounded by the headliner’s instruments, she kept her set up simple with only her electronic music boards. With neon pink lighting filling throughout the entire venue, Coverdale’s set was meant to hypnotize you. She played forty five minutes of her spellbinding chimes, before the lights went back to normal, and the stage was set for Big Thief.

Charging the venue with warm yellow lighting, members of Big Thief stepped onto the stage one by one, with lead singer Adrianne Lenker stepping up last. About six songs in, Lenker, sitting off to the right side of the stage in a chair, acoustic guitar leaning on her lap, made a slightly shaky confession that, as a result of sleeping on the move during a packed touring schedule, her back was injured. For that reason, she decided to play a more restrained, acoustic show and try out some new songs. The show was still on track but showed signs of falling apart. There were some false starts to songs, the bass was barely audible on some songs, and the band showed signs of very justifiable fatigue.

Later, Lenker launched into a new, folksy song, a John Prine-esque waltz with humorous lyrics about fine dining demons and “multi-grain” tastes. She started audibly playing with vocal deliveries, and the band, heeding her cue, loosened up. Every time she finished the song’s refrain, the crowd erupted into cheers. Within one song, Big Thief appeared to regain their confidence and take advantage of this slightly different type of show. 

The show ended up being a welcome mix of loose and stripped down renditions of songs off their new album, lesser played favorites from previous projects, and trial versions of new songs. By the time the band reemerged for a two song encore of their most back to back rip-roaring bluegrass songs, they more than proved that they could turn a slight setback into an unexpected but incredible night.

Check out photos of the evening below, and see where you can catch the tour next here.

All photos by Alice Guan, words by Nat Scholl and Alice Guan

categories / Photos, Gigs, Music, Reviews
tags / Big Thief, Kara-Lis Coverdale, The Riviera Theatre, Live Recap, Live Music, Photo recap, Photo Set

Live Recap: Spoon with Margaret Glaspy at The Riviera Theatre

April 22, 2022  /  Rachel Zyzda

This past Tuesday night, Spoon and Margaret Glaspy gave their audience at The Riviera a fantastic start to their week.

The evening began with a set from Margaret Glaspy and her two bandmates, which kicked off with some new material. After the first few songs, Glaspy said they’d played all new songs so far, but they’d be throwing it back to 2020’s Devotion with “Stay With Me.” During her performance, Glaspy mentioned how grateful she was to have live music back in action, especially now that her band was touring with Spoon, and the crowd reciprocated that appreciation back to the band with zealous applause. Before her set concluded, Glaspy played her 2016 hit “Emotions and Math” and closed out with another new song called “My Body My Choice”—which received a standing ovation from the audience sat in the balcony.

As it came time for Spoon to hit the stage, the Riviera had become visibly packed to the brim—with the entire balcony seats full and crowd members spilling out to the walls on the main floor. This tour was Spoon’s first time back in Chicago since the release of their tenth album Lucifer On The Sofa earlier this year, so naturally they opened up the show with some tunes off the record— including their cover of “Held” by Smog and “The Devil & Mister Jones.” Since Spoon has been making music since the early 90’s they obviously have an extensive catalog of fan favorites to play along with the new music, and they delivered that by playing songs like “Don't You Evah,” “My Mathematical Mind” and “The Underdog” in the first part of the set.

No matter what era of their discography each song came from, there was a great sense of chemistry between the band members—especially between the band founders Britt Daniel and Jim Eno because they’ve been playing music together for so many years. The Riviera was also filled with a profuse sense of joy the entire evening thanks to the feel-good and lighthearted nature of so much of Spoon’s music, and the crowd continued to dance and sing along all night.

Before they got too far into the show, Daniel told the audience that he could tell the night was going to be rough on his voice, but that didn’t stop them from rocking through even more music. After closing out the main portion of the setlist with older favorites “I Turn My Camera On” and “Got Nuffin,” Spoon returned to the Riviera stage for not one, but two encores! The audience enthusiastically called for the band’s return before each encore, and final few songs included the new album’s title track as well as the mischievous anthem “The Way We Get By.”

If you missed out on the incredible show, relive the fun with the photo recap below, and see where you can catch Spoon next here.

categories / Gigs, Photos, Reviews
tags / The Riviera Theatre, Spoon, Margaret Glaspy, Live Recap, Photo recap, Photo Set, Live Show

Live Recap: Snail Mail with Joy Again at The Riviera

April 18, 2022  /  Rachel Zyzda

This past Thursday night, Lindsey Jordan, AKA Snail Mail, made a highly anticipated return to Chicago in honor of the sophomore album Valentine.

The night kicked off with a set from Philadelphia’s Joy Again, who got the crowd warmed up with their mix of indie pop and surf rock sound. A highlight of their set was when they performed their single “Looking Out for You,” which has been popularized on Tik Tok and garnered millions of streams. If you haven’t checked out Joy Again yet, I’d recommend if you like The Frights, Vundabar, and Surf Curse.

Next up, it was time for Snail Mail to hit the stage here for the first time since their Pitchfork Festival performance and Pitchfork after show in 2019. It’s always a special moment to take in the energy and excitement of fans being reunited with their favorite artists for the first time post-Covid, and the reunion between Jordan and the eager fans in the front row surged the venue with contagious joy. As Jordan and her bandmates took their places on a stage decked out with flowers and Cupid statues to coordinate with the second album’s title, a huge grin lit up her face while she began to sing the album’s title track “Valentine.” The show continued on with a few new songs from the 2021 album, marking the live debut in Chicago for “Ben Franklin” and “Glory” before Jordan and her band began to weave in fan favorites from her 2019 debut Lush as well. During some songs, the crowd was singing along so loudly that I could hear their singing over Jordan’s own vocals.

The setlist also contained some deeper cuts, like “Thinning” from the 2016 “Habits” EP, but no matter what they were playing, Jordan exuded a sense of comfort being back on stage and she radiated happiness to be playing music with her bandmates. During the performance of “Light Blue,” the bandmates left the stage and Jordan performed the track solo on acoustic guitar, bringing a gentle sense of calm to the room. The show was jam-packed with a lot of music, so Jordan didn’t spend too much time bantering between sets, but she did take a moment to soak in the aesthetics of The Riviera Theatre. “This is a beautiful venue. Even soundchecking in here was a great honor,” she said. The energy continued to amp back up as the band performed a cover of The Smashing Pumpkins “Tonight, Tonight,” which felt especially fitting for this show since we were in The Pumpkins’ hometown.

If you missed out on the concert, check out our photo recap of the evening below, and see where you can catch Snail Mail next here.

categories / Photos, Reviews, Gigs, Music
tags / Snail Mail, Joy Again, Valentine, Photo recap, Photo Gallery, Live Review, Live Recap, The Riviera Theatre, Matador Records

PHOTOS: Nation of Language with Ducks Ltd at Thalia Hall

April 04, 2022  /  Rachel Zyzda

This past Friday night, Nation of Language returned to Chicago, on tour to celebrate their sophomore album A Way Forward. The evening began with support from Ducks Ltd.

Check out photos from the evening below and keep an eye out for an interview with Nation of Language coming soon. You can also check out Nation of Language’s upcoming shows here.

categories / Photos, Gigs
tags / Nation of Language, Photo recap, Ducks Ltd, Thaila Hall, Photo Gallery, Photo Set, A Way Forward

Live Recap: Wolf Alice with Charlie Hickey at The Club at Stage AE

April 02, 2022  /  Sarah Wilson

How do you spend a great Friday night? The Wolf Alice show with opener Charlie Hickey, that’s how. 

First up singer/songwriter Charlie Hickey. A fantastic voice and great vibe this is another example of why you don’t want to skip the opener.  Fresh off his appearances in SXSW this year, Hickey has booked a few dates on the Wolf Alice tour. He’s got a debut album called Nervous At Night due out in May too, which you can pre-order here.

Headliners Wolf Alice were up next. Why this band was playing the Club stage last night and not the big room is beyond me! This band is so hard to categorize with their complex mix of sound and energy.  Slipping from manic to mystic and back again, the band carries their show. The set list was heavy on tracks from the new album Blue Weekend, but the crowd responded just as well to the new work as the tried and true. The evening closed with “The Last Man on Earth” as one of two encores. 

Overall, it was fantastic night of music from the heartfelt songs of Charlie Hickey to Wolf Alice with their kinetic sound– The only thing left to say is: get this band a bigger stage…immediately! 

Check out the photo gallery of the night below, and see where you can catch Wolf Alice next here.

categories / Reviews, Music, Photos, Gigs
tags / Wolf Alice, Charlie Hickey, Stage AE, Live Review, Live Recap, Photo recap, Photo Set, Blue Weekend

Live Recap: Bright Eyes and Christian Lee Hutson at The Chicago Theatre

March 29, 2022  /  Rachel Zyzda

This past Saturday night, the iconic Chicago Theatre hosted a rare performance from Bright Eyes and special guest Christian Lee Hutson.

The evening kicked off with Christian Lee Hutson and his two bandmates for a set that combined indie folk songs and witty banter. Hutson’s set began with “Atheist” from his debut album, aptly called Beginners. As he began to play an unreleased song, Hutson started to give the backstory but paused and told the crowd it’d be better if he explained it afterwards. In the lyrics, he described an Instagram page that I’ve come across in real life, called “Siblings or Dating?” After wrapping up the song, Hutson informed the audience that the real Instagram page in fact inspired the song, and described the page as being one that posts random pictures of people and the premise (as you’ve probably predicted) is to guess if the pair is dating or related. Hutson also told the audience about his upcoming sophomore album called Quitters, which he joked would be his last because he’s quitting. The rest of the set contained some familiar favorites like “Get The Old Band Back Together,” which Hutson prefaced as being about “these guys I went to high school with who started a band, like sixteen years ago. But they’ve never played a gig before.” Overall, Hutson’s sound meshed really well with the forthcoming Bright Eyes set and the beautiful acoustics of the Chicago Theatre.

Between sets, excited chatter bounced around the room as fans anticipated Bright Eyes returning to the stage in Chicago. While I’ve gotten to see Conor Oberst perform with different projects in more recent years, it had been more than ten years since a Bright Eyes performance in the city. The scene was set with a massive backdrop in the form of an eye-chart that read the band’s name, and more than 15 musicians entered the stage, including Bright Eyes members alongside a strings and horns section. The show began with 2020’s “Dance and Sing,” in which Oberst fittingly performed sans instrument, and instead twirled around the stage with just his microphone. Next up, Oberst stationed himself at the piano to throw it back to the early 2000’s with their fan-favorite “Lover I Don’t Have to Love.” Throughout the set, Oberst and the band circulated around the stage, with the strings section and horns section sometimes leaving the stage entirely—but no matter what song was being performed, the live arrangements remained layered and expansive in order to provide the best live translation of the studio versions. For example, the strings section added an encompassing warmth to “Four Winds” that had the crowd listening with awe and appreciation.

Throughout most of the show itself, fans mostly remained in their seats, attentively listening or singing along to their favorite lyrics, but between songs, deafening cheers and raucous applause filled the room. During certain fan favorite songs and towards the end of the show, the audience couldn’t resist standing up out of their seats in order to further revel in the moment. The full band returned onstage for the final song before the encore, “Comet Song,” and as the tune came to a close, the band received a standing ovation from the audience.

When fans hollered for an encore, Bright Eyes obliged and returned to play “First Day of My Life” from 2005’s I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. The song is my personal favorite from Bright Eye’s catalog, as I’m sure it is to many other fans, but it hasn’t been a staple in the setlist this tour, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear it on Saturday night. One of the backing musicians also played the flute during the song, which made the moment even more special to witness. The encore wrapped up with “I Believe in Symmetry” and “One for You, One for Me.”

If you missed out on the special performance, check out the photo gallery below and see where you can catch the tour next here. Lastly, make sure you pre-order the reissues of Bright Eyes’ iconic releases here, and you can pre-order Quitters by Christian Lee Hutson here.

categories / Reviews, Photos, Gigs
tags / Bright Eyes, Christian Lee Hutson, Chicago Theatre, Live Review, Live Recap, Photo Set, Photo Gallery

PHOTOS: The Band CAMINO with Flor and Hastings at The Riviera Theatre

March 29, 2022  /  Rachel LeBeau

This past Friday night, The Band CAMINO took the stage at The Riviera Theatre in celebration of their self-titled debut album. If you missed out on the show, check out the photo gallery featuring flor and Hastings, and see where you can catch upcoming tour dates here.

categories / Gigs, Music, Photos
tags / The Band CAMINO, flor, Hastings, Riviera Theatre, Photo recap, Photo Set, Concert Photography

Live Recap: Perfume Genius with Hand Habits at Mr. Smalls Theatre

March 28, 2022  /  Sarah Wilson

Perfume Genius, aka Mike Hadreas, performed a mesmerizing show at Pittsburgh’s Mr. Smalls Theatre, in honor of his critically acclaimed album Set My Heart on Fire Immediately.

Starting with an understated but powerful opening set from singer-songwriter Hand Habits, aka Meg Duffy (also a member of Perfume Genius’ band). They kept it simple, a guitar and two simple lights to hide them which allowed focus to fall on their voice and music. It worked. In a setting that often is noisy, chatty ‘opener’ space, the crowd was silent and rapt. It was a really powerful and a wonderful start to the show.

Perfume Genius followed up with a fantastic set. Sometimes playful, sometimes moody, the raw and honest performance was an enchanting reminder of the power of his music. From the electronic beats of opening song “Your Body Changes Everything” through the stunning “Fool” and more. Surprisingly few from his anticipated June release, “Ugly Season” with only “Photograph” finding its way into the set list the rest was full of some of Hadreas best known work. Including ending with “Queen” and a great rendition of “Grid”. 

It’s been a long time since the last time I caught a Perfume Genius show but it is as I remembered, in turns bold, shy, intimate, playful, serious and seductive. Just fantastic. Check out photos of the evening below, and see where you can catch the tour next here.

categories / Gigs, Photos, Reviews
tags / Perfume Genius, Hand Habits, Mr.Smalls Theater, Photo recap, Photo Gallery, Live Review, Live Recap

Live Recap: Girl in Red with Holly Humberstone at Metro

March 27, 2022  /  Rachel Zyzda

ANCHR kicked off the weekend by catching Girl in Red’s second sold out show at Metro with Holly Humberstone.

Walking into the Metro on Friday night, the air was palpable with excitement as devoted fans packed into the venue to see the indie pop songwriter and musician Marie Ulven Ringheim, better known by the moniker Girl in Red. Ringheim hails from Norway, but is currently in the midst of a sold out North American tour because she has no shortage of fans on this side of the world. I’ve been to many concerts where fans are eager to see their favorite performer, but the excited energy of this crowd was something even more intense than an average show, and it left me with an extra pep in my step throughout the evening.

The show kicked off right at 7PM with British singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone, who took the stage for a solo performance. Although Humberstone didn’t have a backing band with her, she managed to breathe depth into her songs by setting up beat loops along with playing the keyboard and guitar throughout the set. Her songs like “Scarlett” and “London is Lonely” showed off her warm and silky vocal tones, and I could hear similarities in Humberstone’s sound to Wet, Vérité, and even a little bit of Ellie Goulding’s more mellower tracks. Other than her unreleased song in the set, called “Sleep Tight,” fans in the front of the crowd joined Humberstone in singing along. Make sure to give Humberstone a follow to see what she’s up to next.

Between sets, the high energy continued to radiate amongst the audience, as everyone sang along to Doja Cat songs until Girl in Red took the stage. Ringheim and her bandmates burst onto the stage and began “You Stupid Bitch,” as flashing strobes accompanied the song’s explosive chorus while fans loudly echoed the lyrics. At the moment, the wild ride was only just beginning— while Ringheim’s style of music can be described as bedroom pop, her stage presence is anything but sleepy. A Girl in Red show combines hooky pop music with rock n’ roll stage antics, and Ringheim remained in motion, constantly bolting around the Metro stage as she performed songs from 2021’s if i could make it go quiet amongst her earlier material. Between songs, Ringheim either riled the audience up by telling them they had to go harder than the first night’s crowd, or she filled them in on behind the scenes bits about the music. After playing “i'll die anyway.,” she mentioned she had actually finished the song in Chicago years ago while on tour with Conan Gray.

I thought the show had been pretty much full speed since the kick off, but after crowd surfing at the end of “Serotonin,” Ringheim told the audience that the “slow part” of the show was officially over and jumped into her popular single “bad idea!” The momentum continued to climb further for the rest of the show. Just before the final song of the evening, a fan in the front row threw a bouquet of flowers to Ringheim, with a note that told her she’d changed the fan’s life. Ringheim joked she thought it said “changed my vibe” at first, which was fitting because the show had filled the venue with nothing but positive vibes. The night closed out with the massively popular “i wanna be your girlfriend,” which ended with Ringheim stage diving into her sea of adoring audience members.

If you missed the sold out spectacle, check out the photo recap below, and see where you can catch Girl in Red next here.

categories / Music, Gigs, Photos, Reviews
tags / Holly Humberstone, Metro Chicago, Live Recap, Girl In Red, Photo recap, Photo Set, Live Review, Live Show