Counting Crows: See the 90s Stalwarts Near Lamar Union, July 30

July 25, 2014 by greystar

If you're, say, between 30 and 40, Counting Crows need no introduction.

They were the coffeehouse darlings in the mid-90s alternative boom, the jangly, sensitive bunch among the flannelled hordes. If Kurt was punk-meets-Pixies, Counting Crows' Adam Duritz was Dylan and Van Morrison, hungover and spiritually hungry on a sunny California afternoon.

'Mr. Jones' still sounds great when it comes on in a bar, and perhaps you canoodled — or cried — to their album track 'Colorblind,' featured on the Cruel Intentions soundtrack.

They're playing with fellow 90s rockers Toad the Wet Sprocket at ACL on July 30. Don't think of it as re-living your youth, Lamar Union — it's a great musical moment that hasn't ended.

CC-BY-SA-2.0/Flickr/3V Photo

Filed Under: Things To Do Tagged With: ACL, Apartments in Austin, Counting Crows, Lamar Union, Things to Do in Austin

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: The (New) Man in Black Near Lamar Union, July 19

July 17, 2014 by greystar

Johnny Cash is dead and Tom Waits doesn't record much anymore. Luckily we still have Nick Cave.

Yes: the Anglo-Australian Man in Black — if we're allowed to use the term — is still going strong, gaunt, whiskey-voiced, sexy, vaguely threatening, the poet of four o'clock in the morning. Would we have it any other way?

He's a novelist too, you know. (Reportedly pretty good, too.) To anyone who knows the records this is no surprise: Cave is as much storyteller as musician, your guide through the filthy and the forgotten parts of yourself, an adventure and nightmare, a dark barroom of the mind moments from Lamar Union.

He's at ACL in Austin on July 19.

CC-BY-2.0/Flickr/blu_pineappl3

Filed Under: Things To Do Tagged With: ACL, Apartments in Austin, Lamar Union, Nick Cave, Things to Do in Austin

Everclear, Soul Asylum & More: The Nineties Are Back Near Lamar Union, July 9

July 7, 2014 by greystar

Call it back to the future.

Everclear — 90s purveyors of jangly, disaffected, and infectious California pop-punk — are still with us. As are Soul Asylum, whose 'Runaway Train' single lit up MTV in 1992 with its stark images of missing children. And Spacehog, who ripped off the best bits of Bowie and Bolan and repackaged them for the millennium.

They're on tour with fellow 90s stalwarts Eve 6, and we're not sure what to call it — an alternative revival? Nostalgia? The best live bar jukebox you'll ever see?

It's all that, really. Don't think of it as getting older — think of it as the persistence of youth, the inevitability of summer guitar music, all the reasons why you loved 'em in the first place.

The Summerland Tour is at ACL near Lamar Union on July 9.

Public Domain/Public Domain

Filed Under: Things To Do Tagged With: ACL, Apartments in Austin, Lamar Union, Summerland Tour, Things to Do in Austin