Wet Electric 2014 in 30 Animated GIFs

Considering that the operative word in EDM is “dance,” it shouldn’t come as any surprise that a helluva lot of movement tends to happen whenever tracks from the genre get played. It doesn’t matter if it’s happening at a club, in your car, or even in the shower, when the…

Top Five Concerts to See in Metro Phoenix This Week

Man, what a weekend, right? After a week of scarily summer-like temperatures in the mid-90s, the Valley gods blessed us with two days of gorgeous sunshine in which the mercury hardly threatened to break 80. Not ideal if you were, say, at an electronic music festival at a water park,…

10 Ways Wet Electric Attendees Endured the Cold

Cloudy skies, gushing winds and 60-degree temperatures greeted day one of the East Valley’s annual water-park not-a-rave at Big Surf Water Park in Tempe on Saturday. Although the sun pushed away the clouds in the afternoon, conditions were slightly less than ideal. This is unfortunate for the festival goers, given…

The Dandy Warhols: Twenty Years of Urban Bohemia

Dandys rule, okay? They have never not ruled, they still rule, and I suspect they always will. Turning 20 years old, Portland’s premier rock band, the Dandy Warhols, can claim one of its generation’s most eccentric careers, making the quartet one of the last great rock ‘n’ roll acts in…

Top 5 Concerts in Phoenix This Weekend

Coachella? What Coachella? Coachella 2014 is dead and gone, and most of the marquee national acts that have graced Phoenix these fast couple weeks are sadly no longer with us. That said, there is still great music happening in Phoenix this weekend. Here are five shows that are sure to…

Off! – Crescent Ballroom – 4/22/2014

Holy punk rock, Batman! So, like many of you — some who have earned it, some who have not — I am not easily impressed these days. Whether you call it “jaded” or “been there, done that,” it really doesn’t matter, as long as you call it like you see…

Best of Coachella, Weekend Two

Timothy NorrisBillie Joe Armstrong Joins The Replacements Early in The Replacement’s Friday night set, Paul Westerberg welcomed Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong as their honorary member. Armstrong, matching the rest of the band in plaid suits, seemed beyond giddy to be onstage with his idols, joking “Dreams really do come…

Tinariwen – Musical Instrument Museum – 4/21/2014

I have never been to Mali, my toes have only touched the edge of the mighty Sahara sands, and yet the connection to these Tuareg desert nomads was instantaneous and moving. The entire audience was transported to another world, where Tamashek is spoken and the pace of live is slower…

Top 5 Concerts in Metro Phoenix This Week

If you happen to be suffering from a bad case of “Post-Coachella Depression” after spending one, or even two, weekends out in Indio, we’ve got a few suggestions on how to recover. First, give yourself a day or two to get your bearings back and decompress from the experience. Secondly,…

Drones at Coachella

LA Weekly made an April Fool’s post, about drones at Coachella. Well, it turns out they might have been prophetic. Those hovering propeller-powered crafts have indeed arrived at Coachella. They could be spotted this year floating surreptitiously above the crowds, during performances by MGMT, Outkast and others. So what’s the…

15 Things I Learned at Coachella

2014 was a year of Coachella firsts for me — it was my first time camping and not going as a member of the press. It was a series of highs and lows all bundled up into one fun, yet exhausting weekend. I’m still coughing up dust, but I can…

Kids + Drugs = The Coachella Experience

Oakland resident Kimchi Truong was 24. She passed out on the Coachella grounds last weekend, likely due to an overdose. Her death, Thursday, was shocking. But what’s really shocking is that this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often.  This story is about very young people doing a shit-ton of drugs, but…

10 Signs You’re Too Old For Coachella

Chris Victorio/OC WeeklyYou tell ’em, Grandpa!Age, of course, is a state of mind. But it’s easy to feel like you’ve aged 30 years after three busy days at Coachella. Whether you’ve gone to the festival since the first year in 1999 or just started going a few years ago, the…

Lorde – Comerica Theatre – 4/17/2014

“I’m terrified of being an adult,” Lorde told a packed house toward the end of her concert Thursday night at Comerica Theatre. Given the way the 17-year-old songstress’ debut album, Pure Heroine, dominated the latter half of 2013, and given her lyrics — coolly defiant celebrations of suburbia, rejections of…

Top 5 Concerts in Phoenix This Weekend

Music-loving Phoneicans have been basking in Coachella’s sunshine all week, and this weekend is no different. High-profile acts from the California festival will continue swooping into the Valley of the Sun. It’s a great time to be a fan with disposable income. Local music festivals abound too, from the Under…

Lana Del Rey – Comerica Theatre – 4/15/2014

Thousands of fans packed a sold-out Comerica Theatre in downtown Phoenix Tuesday night to catch a rare performance from singer Elizabeth Grant, a.k.a. Lana Del Rey, in between her Coachella stops. With no opening act, Del Rey hit the stage around 8:30, with opener “Cola.” Sporting jean shorts, U.S. Postal…

Foster the People – Marquee Theatre – 4/15/14

Foster the People Marquee Theatre 4/15/14 It’s official: Foster the People is now, well, for the people. Gone are the days of the band’s crowds being elitist and hip, and now we enter the age when 40-somethings know more words to Foster the People songs than you do. This is…