Tour Poster
Setlist
Tour Dates
03/28/14 Chicago, IL - Bottom Lounge*
03/29/14 CD102.5 Day 03/31/14 Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop* 04/01/14 Newport, KY - Southgate House 04/02/14 Pittsburgh, PA - Altar* 04/03/14 Arlington, VA - Rock & Roll Hotel* 04/04/14 Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle* 04/05/14 Cambridge, MA - Brighton Music Hall* 05/11/14 Baltimore, MD Rams Head Live! 07/19/14 Super Bock Super Rock Festival *with Team Spirit Read More
|
Skaters and Team Spirit are currently touring together. The two bands are friends (and not to mention sort of label mates, being involved with Warner Bros. Records), so naturally they coordinated a tour together after meeting up at SXSW.
The two NYC bands stopped by the 7th Street Entry, in Minneapolis, as part of their "Excellent Adventure" tour.
Opening up for them was Bollywood, who I previously described them as "a band that is more into 80s films than actually Bollywood pictures." This time around, the band upgraded to four monitor (instead of one) displays showing off various distracting videos, including wrestling (Heart Foundation), MTV ('The Year in Rock'), video gaming graphics, etc., but no Bollywood films in sight. The only song I recognized was "Young", from the last time I saw the band.
Team Spirit managed to outdo their "very energetic garage music" performance from last year. I got the feeling that Team Spirit does this at every show, no matter how big or small the crowd is. Singer/guitarist Ayad Al Adhamy is absolutely fun to watch, whether he's singing in the middle of the crowd or pouring beer in a fan's open mouth. The band comes off as fun, and ultimately winning over the audience last night.
Team Spirit basically played their self-titled EP, including "Phenomenon", plus a handful of new songs about love, murder, and Jeff Goldblum.
Skaters already wowed Jonathan and Christopher at SXSW 2014, so they had a lot of good buzz about them. The New York band was out touring in support of their debut album Manhattan (Warner Bros. Records).
As you can see from their setlist, they played almost all of their debut album, plus a few b-sides and new tracks. No encores were given, but this is typical of new bands... and even if they did have extra songs, I wasn't surprised that they didn't come back, because their guitarist, Josh Hubbard, and singer, Michael Ian Cummings, was complaining about sound problems and technical issues. From an audience's perspective, the sound was an issue, because the vocals were hard to hear on tracks like "Miss Teen Massachusetts". Even though I knew the song, it was almost unrecognizable because of the guitars drowned out the vocals... which is a shame because I think Cummings has a great voice.
Outside of the technical difficulties, the band seem comfortable on stage. The way Team Spirit and Skaters spoke, it seems like the two bands are old, old friends. They respected each other and love hanging out.
Skaters were actually pretty funny, it's too bad they had little banter in their set. One story they told was that they were friends with Har Mar Superstar and how they borrowed the key to the city from him. They went all over town, including Macy's where they bought some socks...
Skaters and Team Spirit are both currently on tour together, go check them out. Team Spirit's latest release is a self-titled EP (Vice/Warner Bros), and Skaters just released their debut album Manhattan (Warner Bros).
Bollywood
|
Team Spirit
|
Team Spirit basically played their self-titled EP, including "Phenomenon", plus a handful of new songs about love, murder, and Jeff Goldblum.
Skaters already wowed Jonathan and Christopher at SXSW 2014, so they had a lot of good buzz about them. The New York band was out touring in support of their debut album Manhattan (Warner Bros. Records).
Skaters Setlist
|
Outside of the technical difficulties, the band seem comfortable on stage. The way Team Spirit and Skaters spoke, it seems like the two bands are old, old friends. They respected each other and love hanging out.
Skaters were actually pretty funny, it's too bad they had little banter in their set. One story they told was that they were friends with Har Mar Superstar and how they borrowed the key to the city from him. They went all over town, including Macy's where they bought some socks...
Skaters and Team Spirit are both currently on tour together, go check them out. Team Spirit's latest release is a self-titled EP (Vice/Warner Bros), and Skaters just released their debut album Manhattan (Warner Bros).
Skaters at the 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (03/27/14) |