Right now, I feel like we are in the spring of music.
Music had a pretty long winter, from about March of 2020 to probably last month. Album releases were halted, touring was banned for a long time, still feeling taboo after live shows were allowed again. That's not to say there weren't any good releases, because there were. That's not to say there were no good live shows, because there were. It's just that nothing was quite the same.
Until now. When I look at the album releases coming up, the tours...I'm blown away. I know artists missed playing live, but I was close to forgetting how much I missed hearing live shows. I am completely overjoyed by the amount of things coming up in music. I may not be able to cover everything on here, so I'm just doing a quick overview of some exciting stuff coming up.
Album Releases:
-May 6th, Belle and Sebastian A Bit of Previous
-May 13th, Florence + the Machine Dance Fever
-June 3rd, Andrew Bird Inside Problems
-June 10th, Of Monsters and Men Tíu
-June 21st, Weezer SZNS: Summer
-June 24th, Regina Spektor Home, Before and After
Singles already released:
-Belle and Sebastian have released "Unnecessary Drama." Belle and Sebastian have long been compared to The Smiths, between the album covers and poetry of their lyrics. This song sounds the most like The Smiths to me.
-Florence + the Machine have been releasing videos for a great many songs off of the upcoming album, all of them directed by Autumn de Wilde. They're all stunning and of course the songs are great too. While I think "King" is among the strongest, there's something about "Free" that really draws you in (and I don't mean Bill Nighy).
Concerts in Central Ohio (and just ones I'm excited about):
-I've been to a few shows this year, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that my concert season kicks off on May 12th, when The Regrettes come to Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio. They're also playing a Big Room show for cd92.9 earlier in the day.
-Tame Impala is playing at KEMBA Live! on May 26th. It's going to be on the outdoor "parking lot" stage as I like to refer to it. Honestly, though I'm ribbing it, it's a very fun setting. I saw The 1975 that way most recently, but also fun., with Tegan and Sara as their opener a few years back.
-The Nude Party is the opener for Orville Peck on his spring tour. If you're not familiar with either of those acts, you should check them out. Orville Peck just dropped a new album last month and it's great. So if they have a stop on the tour near you...I'm jealous.
-Eric Hutchinson has a group of dates coming up in early June that are all solo, acoustic shows in Ohio/Michigan/Indiana. I've always seen him with a band but I know he's great at this type of show so I can't wait.
-Cut Worms is a retro-sounding artist I really got into the last couple of years and he's playing the A&R Music Bar on June 13th.
-Motion City Soundtrack are finally playing their 2020 dates that were in celebration of the 15th (now 17th) anniversary of their album Commit This to Memory.
-Switchfoot and Collective Soul are playing a show together at KEMBA Live! on July 20th. After I got tickets because of Switchfoot, I thought I would see what songs I know by Collective Soul. Holy moly, it's a lot. Collective Soul are apparently one of those bands that have had a lot of hits but you just don't realize it's them. Or at least I didn't.
-Florence + the Machine are on tour in September.
-Crowded House are on tour this fall.
-There are a lot of festivals coming up, but I really like the looks of the Bourbon and Beyond Festival September 15th-18th in Louisville, Kentucky.
I'm not going to list shows past September (but I do have some tickets for October already).
I'm really looking forward to this summer because of all of these things to look forward to. And I imagine more announcements are on the way!
Eric Hutchinson didn't have a band when we saw him.
ReplyDeleteDouble checked my old concert photos and he definitely did. Drummer and guitarist.
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