Photo Credit: Bryce Fraser/ARCurrent.com
311 lead singer Nick Hexum reaches out to a sold-out crowd on March 7 but fails to connect.

Mark Lewis, Arcurrent
March 15, 2012

 markblewis@markblewis.net

The alternative funk rock band, 311 (pronounced three-eleven), played Sacramento’s Ace of Spades on March 7 to a sold-out crowd spending a mere 90 minutes performing a 23-song set that was an “ugly disaster,” to put it in terms that 311’s aging fan base can easily identify with.

The five-member band formed in 1988 in the heart of the mid-west; Omaha, Neb. After releasing demos and hammering out a sound that infused hard punk rock with reggae and funk, 311 released their self-titled album in 1995 that produced three hugely successful singles compelling 3 million people to purchase the record that put 311 in the coveted amber spotlight cast by instantaneous fame.

The band’s second song of the evening, “Prisoner,” summed up the evening for me as I navigated the smoke-filled club anxiously waiting to hear at least one of my favorite songs.
Is that too much to ask from a band that has a combined 23 albums and DVDs (the sum of which have sold over 8.5 million units in the United States)?

Past performances from 311, comprised of vocalist Nick Hexum, rapper/disc jockey S.A. Martinez, bassist P-Nut, guitarist Tim Mahoney and drummer Chad Sexton, have all been head-bangingly energetic and engaging.
This particular evening, Hexum and company choked out a concert that was uninspired and just “Plain” (a cut off of 1993’s album “Music”).

All right, now that’s enough of using their song titles as adjectives for the purpose of this critique, I promise.

Do realize though that with the exception of a couple of crowd-pleasers, every other song performed this evening was recorded pre-1995 when 311 was just a band earning college credits by winning over young adults who really enjoyed their “Grassroots” (Damn, there I go again. Or wait – they didn’t play “Grassroots” so I get a pass).
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Photo Credit: Bryce Fraser/American River Current
Wilco lead singer Jeff Tweedy performs on Feb. 1.

Mark Lewis, Arcurrent
February 9, 2012

 markblewis@markblewis.net

For close to two hours, Wilco sonically mesmerized the extremely diverse crowd of fans whose ages ranged from their late teens to 20s, 30s, and 40-somethings (I was seated next to that man who hawks hot dogs at Yankee Stadium for a living).

Wilco, whose named is derived from a combination of the saying “willing to comply,” formed in 1994 after the break up of alt-country group Uncle Tupelo. Wilco is a band of six with only two original members, lead singer Jeff Tweedy and bassist Jeff Stirratt, who have remained since the group’s inception. The band’s 25-song set drew largely from their latest release, 2011’s “The Whole Love.” The album is nominated for a 2012 Grammy for best rock album alongside Jeff Beck, Kings of Leon, Red Hot Chili Peppers and music’s most straightforward teeth-gnashing rock band Foo Fighters. A win (to be determined at the Feb. 12 ceremony at the Staples Center) would be the band’s third Grammy – impressive for a 17-year-old indie band with a nine-album catalogue.

Wilco played the Mondavi Center at U.C. Davis on Feb. 1 exhaling a strong hit of live music onto a capacity audience of 1,800 people. Wilco’s powerhouse live performance was perhaps as fascinating as it was hard to define. Opening with “One Sunday Morning” made me instantly think I had the band’s musical mystique figured out – Tweedy is a heterogeneous mix of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. Wrong! Wilco’s music is stylistically as diverse as any band out there with its strong, enlightened lyrics set to countless musical genres including country, ‘60s-era rock, jazz and even pop.

The bell intro to “I’m Trying To Break Your Heart” from their most commercially popular album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” is a perfect example of Wilco’s rock experimentalism. Performed live, it was awe-inspiring. The pedigree of Wilco’s musicianship really puts them into a category of their own. Performing “Side With The Seeds” and “Dawned On Me” as rear projectors blasted the stage with a multi-colored, hypnotic light show lent a visual credence to the abnormally stationary band.
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Photo Credit: Bryce Fraser/American River Current
Trapt’s Chris Brown entertains a sold-out crowd

Mark Lewis, Arcurrent
January 30, 2012

 markblewis@markblewis.net

Trapt, the veteran hard-rock band from Los Gatos, returned to The Boardwalk (Orangevale’s sole intimate venue for live music enthusiasts) to deliver a pulse pounding 80-minute set to a capacity crowd of just more than 450 people on Jan. 26.

The group, consisting of lead singer Chris Brown, guitarist Robb Torres, bassist Peter Charell and drummer Aaron “Monty” Montgomery, performed the first of three consecutive Northern California shows after an inexplicably long hiatus that made me question whether R. Kelly wasn’t the only performer to be “trapped in a closet.”

Trapt first gave the Bay Area music scene a shot of adrenaline in 2003 when they released their self-titled debut album through Warner Bros. The album went multi-platinum and spawned four singles including the smash hit “Headstrong.”

The success of their debut album catapulted Trapt into the modern rock hemisphere. They headlined tours alongside Papa Roach and Mötley Crüe only to then release a series of albums over the past seven years that were trashed by music critics, absent from rock radio and basically ignored by all but their most hardcore fans.

After failing to regenerate their fan base with the release of 2010’s “No Apologies,” Trapt parted ways with both their record label and long-time management group. Last year’s unconventionally released single “Bring It” was a botched attempt by the band to assert their musical independence through releasing another sub-par single that was futile in its attempt to crack the Billboard charts.
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Mark Lewis and Philip Frields, News Editor and Staff Writer

Photo Credit: Bryce Fraser
Lead singer of Sevendust Lajon Witherspoon

December 4, 2011
Arcurrent

There couldn’t be a more properly named multi-band nine-hour-long concert tour than “The Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival” which invaded Wheatland’s Sleep Train Amphitheatre on Oct. 13, 2011, bringing with it the caffeine-induced fury of a rock and heavy metal cocktail.

Ten thousand ear plug-defying enthusiasts and I experienced a couple rock star-caliber performances, many niche (my nice way of saying “who the hell are these guys?”) bands and a trio of mainstream-rock radio favorites that included Seether, Three Days Grace and the headliners Avenged Sevenfold.

The festival featured three different stages, all of which were co-opted by corporate sponsors including lighter manufacturer Zippo and Lifestyle Condoms. For me, the day was ultimately a test of endurance. Could I listen to unimpressive music from bands like Black Tide and Hell or High Water for countless hours before I even heard a song that was familiar to me? Not a chance! My saving grace ended up being the Rockstars themselves and no, I’m not referring to any particular musician – I’m referring to the centrally-placed booth that was giving away unlimited cans of the energy drink Rockstar throughout the afternoon. For a mega-concert the size of “UPROAR,” I was lucky enough to have fellow “Current” staff writer and columnist Phillip Friends accompany me in order to provide you with his take on some of the acts that took the side stages throughout the afternoon.

A stand-out performance came between sets on the second stage when a two-piece trash metal band, The Athiarchists, would open the side of their small tour bus and begin smashing symbols and spewing their aggressive lyrics for anyone who wanted to hear it. Their style, though sometimes incoherent and jumbled, was filled with the type of rhetoric that you would expect from two middle-aged overweight men with enough angst to fill a middle school cafeteria.
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Photo Credit: Bryce Fraser/American River Current
Brandon Boyd’s vocal work exemplary at Raley Field show

Mark Lewis, Arcurrent
October 11, 2011

 markblewis@markblewis.net

Once thought to be a musical genre dead and buried, progressive alternative rock lives on!  Case in point – Incubus’ Oct. 11, 2011 performance at Sacramento’s Raley Field was an inspired two hours of pure heart-pounding rock and roll.

Twelve years after Incubus helped helm the creation of a new progressive alt-rock genre with their debut album “Make Yourself,” the band returned to Sacramento in support of their recently released album “If Not Now, When?”  A 71-degree evening welcomed those in attendance who were treated to a set-list peppered with hits from their catalogue of seven studio albums.

Incubus opened the show with the first single off of 2004’s “A Crow Left of the Murder,” a song which features lyrics that proclaim “hey megalomaniac, you’re no Jesus, yeah you’re no f***ing Elvis.”  The huge LCD monitor backing the band flashed the words “Jesus Saves” – perhaps an attempt by the band to let the crowd interpret the lyrics in a couple different ways?  I’ve personally never worn blue suede shoes nor have I turned water into wine.  For all you megalomaniacs – it comes down to whether or what Jesus saves.

By the time many bands reach a certain point in their careers, even a smash hit like 2001’s “Wish You Were Here” can have the potential to sound old and rehearsed.  Incubus’ rendition of the song sounded as fresh as it did 11 years ago when lead singer Brandon Boyd performed it live to audiences who were still spending their afternoons glued to the television watching MTV’s “Total Request Live.”

The audience chanting “I-I-I-I-I wish you were here” in unison made it perfectly clear that they were more than happy to be packed shoulder-to-shoulder standing on the baseball diamond where the Sacramento River Cats play their home games.
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