Notes from a Genius

I went to a couple of shows over the past two weeks. The first one, Meg Myers at Port City Music Hall, in Portland, blew me away. I discovered her solely because the show was advertised as only being $12, so I said, what the hell. I checked out a couple of her videos on www.youtube.com and really liked her sound- which was even better live, in concert. This small girl has an incredible and powerful voice that can command a room, for sure. This was an amazing, surprise show- those are the kinds of shows I really end up thoroughly enjoying. The setlist for her Portland show has not been posted, but the next night's seems very similar. Curbstomp   Adelaide   Motel   A Bolt From the Blue   Go   Say Nothing   Desire   Make a Shadow   Feather   Sorry   Heart Heart Head   Encore: The Morning After   This week I went to see a band I've liked for about 15 years, sin...

Past Due:  Last weekend, I went to see the progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me at Port City Music Hall, here in Portland. I saw them a few years ago, when they had an opening slot for Circa Survive. As an opener, they only had about 30-40 minutes to showcase their musical catalogue and talents. As a headliner, though, they were able to stretch their songs and play an amazing setlist, which included old favorites and new songs from their forthcoming album (due out in July). These guys are absolutely incredible and they played off and with each other as a great cohesive musical unit. Sure, they only played 8 songs, over the span of a solid hour and a half, but that's because their songs stretch between 10-25 minutes long, with several shifts and signature changes that make you think the song is over. An interesting fact to the story of this metal band, which I discovered on my own through research: the band's name came from a Counting Crows song titled "Ghost T...