Jim Louvau

UFIESTA (view the full slideshow here.)
Quail Run Park, Mesa
May 4, 2013

When I arrived at KUPD's UFIESTA on Saturday afternoon, a 50-something blonde with blue-tipped hair was stumbling out of the Powerman 5000 mosh pit, wide-eyed and yelling about her head getting stomped in, but still refusing medical attention.

This year's UFEST -- named UFIESTA for its proximity to Cinco de Mayo -- featured a lineup including Howitzer, Flotsam and Jetsam, Trapt, Frequis, Heaven's Basement, Newsted, Powerman 5000, Adelitas Way, Skillet, Chevelle, and Stone Sour.

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Prince (at an earlier stop, where photos were allowed.)

Prince
Marquee Theatre
April 30, 2013

His Royal Purpleness reigned supreme at Marquee Theatre last night, and like most of the people who saw him there, I'm still taking it all in. We just saw a legend perform at a mid-sized venue and we were close enough to actually see his face (when he wasn't hiding in the shadows.) The ticket prices were a steep $277, but how often are you going to have an opportunity to see Prince perform outside an arena or a music festival?

Money was the question on everyone's minds at the show. I heard a few people grumbling about the cost on the way back to the car, but if you're a huge Prince fan -- like the lady behind me, showing off her tattoo -- the intimate setting and large selection of non-hit songs was absolutely worth it.

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Jim LouvauSee the full slideshow here.

Paramore
Comerica Theatre
April 29, 2013

After losing two founding members, Paramore made a show of their new self-confidence Monday night at Comerica Theatre, standing in front of a giant backdrop displaying nothing but three marks. It's been almost three years since Paramore last hit up the Valley, but at their show Monday it seemed as though no time at all had passed.

A full house seemed just as into the band as ever, taking over singing duties for frontwoman Hayley Williams as the trio (with backing musicians) played songs from all four of the band's albums.

See Also:
Paramore @ Comerica Theatre, 4/29/13 (Slideshow)

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Melissa Fossum

Alkaline Trio
Marquee Theatre, Tempe
Sunday, April 28, 2013

I've got a big, fat fucking bone to pick with you, Alkaline Trio. In case you haven't heard, I'm sick and tired of waiting to hear "Radio." I wish you would have swapped some new songs for "Nose Over Tail," "Clavicle," and all of Goddamnit. Wait, that tour already happened -- but Maybe I'll Catch Fire and/or From Here to Infirmary would have done nicely.

There's no way a band that has released eight albums can please everyone. Consensus seems to be that the band's first few albums were the best, with the two records preceding My Shame Is True being the worst. Fortunately, the goth pop-punkers stuck to some of its best material, even if the band flubbed the lyrics.

Yeah, that was awkward. That's my main bone to pick with you, Matt Skiba.

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Mike Bogumill

Playboy Manbaby CD release party
Cartel Coffee Lab, Tempe
April 27, 2013

I get weirded out when large crowds share unbridled enthusiasm. I chalk it up to either "rugged individualism" or "special snowflake syndrome," depending on how positively or negatively I want to look at myself. This makes me a wallflower in situations like the Occupy protests, where I fundamentally agreed with the sentiment but couldn't bring myself to shout corny slogans with hundreds of other people. I usually feel the same way when I see high-energy, "fun" bands that evoke a strong crowd reaction.

I should have felt suitably alienated at the Playboy Manbaby album release show Saturday night. The event was a show of collective Lisztomania for a band I usually try to explain to people as being "kind of ska."

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Mike Bogumill

Paperhaus with Playboy Manbaby and St. Ranger
The Trunk Space
April 26, 2013

Post-punk is a minefield for modern musicians. There's always going to be a group of people who dig through a cool older relative's record collection or read Simon Reynolds' Rip it Up and Start Again and discover bands like Talking Heads, Wire, Gang of Four, and Mission of Burma. They realize that that music is clever and use it as inspiration to make clever music themselves. However, an upbringing within the proximity of FM radio means that a lot of these attempts can either consciously or unconsciously end up sounding more like the Killers or Franz Ferdinand, representatives of the mid-2000's "post-punk revival," than anything else.

With D.C.'s Paperhaus's performance last night at the Trunk Space, I witnessed a young band playing pop-influenced post-punk (or post-punk-influenced pop) that, while doing without the evident arena rock ambitions I mentioned, still manages to be engaging and accessible.

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Melissa Fossum

Nerf Herder
Pub Rock, Scottsdale
April 26, 2013

What the heck have geek rockers Nerf Herder been up to since their last trip to Phoenix in 2002? It's been a full 11 years since the band co-headlined a show with Guttermouth at Club Rio. At the time, the band's third full-length album, American Cheese, had just come out. They went on a two-year hiatus and released another full-length album in 2008, but that was about it.

Last night felt like a flashback to 2002, complete with fans sporting old NOFX and No Use For a Name t-shirts. The crowd still knew all the words, and some fans feebly tried moshing to "Sorry," while others just leaned against the barricade to shout "Sorry I had sex with your sister" along with the band.

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Melissa Fossum

A common complaint about the Phoenix live music scene is fan apathy. A show may be sold out, but many fans will keep their arms crossed and not move around much.

That was not the case at Marquee Theatre Tuesday night. The Gaslight Anthem's fanbase showed what live music should be about. No matter how old or new a song was, they sang along enthusiastically all night.

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Maria Vassett

Your mom wants to go see Bon Jovi in Glendale. Other people do, too -- don't get me wrong. Former hair-metal aficionados, air-guitar soloists, a surprising number of people in what appear to be Bon Jovi football jerseys. But mostly your mom.

Having successfully finished raising you and come into a little extra empty-nester income, she wants nothing more than to head out to Jobing.com Arena, maybe do a little upscale outlet shopping, and then watch Jon Bon Jovi sing and dance for three hours. And based on how things turned out on Tuesday, I can't blame her.

Read More: Bon Jovi @ Jobing.com Arena slideshow

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Given the build-up over the Oscar Award-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man -- the reason Sixto Rodriguez is only now getting his due, and the reason for a surprisingly large Mesa Amphitheatre audience -- it seemed only fitting that the street poet and alternative folk-icon would open the show with three songs that didn't even make the documentary's soundtrack.

Those three rocking, gritty, fuzzy, and edgily psychedelic songs introduced many in attendance to an even more unknown side of Rodriguez and only highlighted the untapped potential of a musician given up by many as dead when commercial failure ended his musical career and relegated him to a "normal" life as a Detroit laborer.

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