Thursday, November 27, 2008

The Sounds @ Hollywood Palladium

I was excited to see the Palladium after renovation. The last time I had been there was to see No Motiv, Reggie and the Full Effect, and Alkaline Trio. The only thing I could remember about the Palladium was that the sound system was horrific and it pretty much ruined those bands for me. I haven't been able to listen to those bands since. I was praying the sound would be better. I don't understand how they don't notice how bad the sound system is there. It was apparent that they hadn't changed the sound too much. It wasn't as bad as I remembered (even though that was years ago), but that might have also been due to the fact that there had been a few drinks involved and I was too excited about seeing The Sounds. K said that they sounded rusty from not having toured in awhile. The venue looked nicer than it did before. They played a few new songs that were alright. I liked one out of the 3 or 4 new songs they played. Makes me a bit worried about what their new album is going to sound like. They played their most popular songs, which was great. The show was shorter than expected and I was disappointed that they didn't play an encore.

New songs:



Monday, November 24, 2008

Val Emmich, Alyssa Suede, Keaton Simons @ Hotel Cafe

I've been wanting to go back to Hotel Cafe again ever since the last time I was there to witness Grandaddy's last performance in LA.

Val Emmich

I arrived a bit late and missed his first song. I guess 7:30pm isn't a peak hour for the Metro. :\ The rest of his set was good though. He has a really good range and his voice was loud and clear even when he wasn't that close to the mic. He was very entertaining on stage and shared stories and he was appreciative of his fans who showed up to talk to him and take pictures. Here's his myspace.

Alyssa Suede
was pretty bad. She was a blond who took off her wig to reveal hair that wasn't any better than the bad wig. I had to admire the large amount of people they were able to fit onto the stage, but no matter how many instruments they had, it didn't improve their sound. The sound system was also a bit off, but so was her voice and some of the lyrics were really corny.

Keaton Simons
was too country for me. I wasn't really into it. A kind of liked it though. Not sure why she did.