Rachael Yamagata at the World Cafe

Rachael Yamagata at the World Cafe, taped "Sidedish friend":

And "What if I leave":

She was the best. This set was really emotional, her songs are no walk in the park, hence her hilarious banter in between songs that deflates it a bit.

Her voice live is just incredible, she had been playing NY the night before and was tired but you couldn't really tell.

Held a meet and greet after the show and she took her time with every single person, no hurry, was really warm and affectionate with everyone. Seems incredible that someone like her has had such bad experiences but I guess that doesn't really have anything to do with it most of the times.

Asked her about sheet music, she said other people had asked as well and she would love to release it but she needs someone to actually write it properly from her stuff and that she tends to stretch notes to the max (I know everybody knows this but just in case... music is Mathematics, and there's all this pile of rules and regulations under the name Harmony that all musicians must abide to if they want the sound to be acceptable, the chords to start and end a song, the transitions -not that musicians bear them in mind when composing but if it sounds good, 99.9% of the times it turns out they are following them... except that then along comes someone like one of the first music "anarchists", Debussy, and sends all these rules directly to the dustbin!. Most people follow them though, geniuses are not common. But Rachael shouldn't worry), she said she might tone it down a bit - really, don't.

Then chatted a bit about the Sidedish thing ( hrgg-ed together, unfairness - I have said it before, I hate unfairness, bad thing since there's tons of it around...and as she said "how can there be people like that?" /and as I say, how can one still miss them), got hugged, took a pic and "the end".

She moved to Philly some time ago so hopefully we will be able to see her onstage often. In fact there are 2 shows scheduled for October at the World Cafe, one with the Hotel Tour, the other one supporting the release of her new album, check them out at the World Cafe website, and don't miss them!. Her concert a few nights before at Johnny Brenda's was sold out, so hurry.

Listen to the show here.

The musicians with her:

Jason Kanakis ( guitar) / Kevin Devine ( guitar) / Jonny Flower (upright & electric bass) / Justin Saunders (cello) & Chris Giraldi (drums).

All of them were so great, Devine and Giraldi, all of them, really.

The Electric Factory info

The Electric Factory is another quite popular concert venue in Philly. Here are some pics (taken April'08):

View of the stage from balcony, you can see there are bars on ground level and on the upper levels (there's like 3 different levels, those at the very top are like more private, covered with a white canopy, with benches, etc to sit). You can usually access the upper levels if you are over 21 (they'll put a stamp on your hand) and there's some pretty good seating there if you can grab it:

Another one:

And a view from the stage:

There's a food booth and a merch booth at the entrance.

The place has a parking lot just in front of the building (see pic), it's about $10. But you can also park in the street (there are parking meters in the ones closest to the venue, but not a little further up, though it's sort of a dangerous neighbourhood so if you park far don't go back to your car alone).

If the info here is useful to you, consider checking out the ads in this blog, you will be supporting it and they may be really helpful on Tower related stuff!! - thanks!.
PS Sept´12: about this, I've had 13.463 page views this year, guess how many clicks in the adds?: 1, no kidding. Not here for the money, but this ... 

Bell x1 + Duh

Some pics from this Friday's Bell x1 show at the World Cafe. Really nice lads. Beautiful voice, a show really worth listening to (at XPN's archives).

Oh, and I've come across this really lovely song, "Angel tangled in the telephone lines", by Amy Kuney. Check it out (am playing it all the time) - only link I can find is in her myspace redirecting to Rhapsody. There's this vid for this other song of hers though, which I also love: "Love is trippy" - third party in the mess? not me, ever, not good at sharing - its trippy part ...totally; hate to use smilers but... ;-)

....So after debating for quite a bit whether to head South to Alanis's concert or North to Stars' (or vice versa, not strong on cardinal orientation, in fact can you even say that? -guess not, whatever, I'm loosing focus here-) ended up spending the evening in home sweet home's couch. Duh-
Just finished up the totally unproductive first half of the weekend by doing something so stupid I can't think of it or else I'll wince so hard my lashes will curl - yeah, that bad...or worse (was an accident, but not that being so clumsy makes me feel better about it!).
This is one of those posts where I've practiced severe self-editing, it didn't look anything like this half hour ago. Will talk about self -editing and analytics in blogs, feel like it. Getting tired of concert posts, I've gone to a few shows lately I haven't even mentioned. There's something next week I definitely will though!

More Tower pics - view of stage from different seats + Row E

Ok, so "Cheech tix person" went to the Tower last weekend and sent me a few pics to post, different views of the stage from different seats, here they go (they're a little zoomed but taken with a phone):
1. Standing In ISLE in orchestra row FF:

2.LOGE CTR LGROW CC, seats 105 and 7:

3. LOWER BALCONY last row:

He asked me to "make sure you put you can see the stage amazingly anywhere and clearly!!!!!!!"
Thanks to "chech tix" once again, it's people like that one I made this blog for.

...And I went back to the Tower in October 08 and took this pic of Row E (right side), which is peculiar because of what it has in front of it, just so you know...