Results tagged “michaelfrantispearhead”

              

We went into the Saturday Night Rebel Rockers show at the Borgata a couple weeks ago—we know, this is long overdue—with a little bit of trepidation. After all, we were really going primarily, if not exclusively, because we're big Counting Crows (MySpace) fans. We were less than familiar with Michael Franti & Spearhead (MySpace), and the one time this Phillyist saw Augustana (MySpace), I was a little...underwhelmed. All told, we thought we'd really rather have just seen a Counting Crows headlining show, but we figured we'd take what we could get—a mishmash of the three bands playing together, swapping members, each individual band (in no particular order) playing its own songs at times. There had been some good buzz on this uniquely-formatted tour, so maybe it was our curiosity getting the best of us, but we weren't really prepared to love the show.

About a year ago—the last time we saw Counting Crows (MySpace)—we lamented the too-short sets Counting Crows play on their frequent co-headlining tours. (Last summer was with Maroon 5, but this Phillyist has also seen them on double-bills with Live and The Goo Goo Dolls.) The band has too much strong material, and they're too excellent of performers, to play only for a little over an hour.

When most rock fans think of Tom Morello, they probably think of Rage Against the Machine. Some might think of Audioslave. Very few will think of Morello's folk-rock alter-ego, The Nightwatchman (MySpace). But when Rage Against the Machine—always voraciously political and activist, both personally and musically—gave way to the apolitical Audioslave, the outspoken and outrageously intelligent Morello sought an outlet to express his politics musically. That outlet first came in the form of playing original folk-inspired protest songs at a Los Angeles coffee house open mic night. And there, The Nightwatchman project came to be.