It's one of the only things that makes summer in New York bearable. Summerstage, River To River, Celebrate Brooklyn!, even Good Morning America. Full schedules will start to trickle out over the next couple of weeks, but a sample of what's to come: Belle & Sebastian + Martha Wainwright, July 4th @ Battery Park Siren Music Festival, July 15th @ Coney Island: She Wants Revenge, Art Brut, Stars, The Stills, Tapes N' Tapes, Spinto Band, Dirty On Purpose, The Cribs, others Summerstage: Amadou & Miriam, Jose Gonzales + Seu Jorge, Olabelle + Rhett Miller, Feist, Refugee All-Stars of Sierra Leone Celebrate Brooklyn!: Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Bill Frisell, King Sunny Ade, The Hidden Cameras River To River: Dave Alvin, Ted Leo/Pharmacists, Eels + Smoosh, Son Volt, The Books, The Hold Steady, Mates of State, Dave Holland, Josh Rouse, Ricky Skaggs, Dianne Reeves Also, can someone explain what / where McCarran Pool in Brooklyn is, and why Bloc Party + Secret Machines are playing there together on July 29th? Might this be the free show of the summer?
McCarren Park is located in an area where Greenpoint and Williamsburg overlap, and there is an unused, deteriorating public pool that sometimes hosts interpretive dance performances. The hipster quotient is, as you can imagine, off the charts. Why Bloc Party and Secret Machine are performing there, I have no idea. And yes, I'm going to try my damnedest to be there.
Ah, that explains it -- I had the spelling wrong. http://www.poolproject.org/ http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET SCENES/mccarrenpool/mccarren.html That's awesome, really. I'd take the ride to Greenpoint for that show just to see how they set it up.
If it were free, it would be the show of the summer...for me anyway. Sadly, it's not free. BP fanclub sale is 5/15, General sale is 5/20 for that show.
Obie-- I hope you keep your free list for NYC here again...that's been one of my most referred to documents the last couple summers.
There's a website that does this a hell of a lot better than I do, including the classical and jazz shows that slip under my radar. http://gonyc.about.com/cs/music/a/summermusic.htm Besides, I need to go camp out for lawn space at Battery Park for the B&S show starting sometime around Memorial Day.
Early Summer Highlight: SFA at South Street on Friday, June 2nd. I'm in Paris that week for work but returning midday on Friday, so that might be a nice afternoon city stroll downtown...
Thanks for the info. Keep it coming . A friend told me Prince is playing a free concert in Bryant Park. Im not sure when though. Did anyone manage to get tickets to Radiohead June 13th or 14th?. It soldout online in about a minute. Sonic Youth are also playing the 13th in CBGB.
there's also aswell. has a great post on the free shows around the city this summer. unfortunately, his search isn't working at the moment or I would have linked that post. I'm stoked for SFA as well...Seu Jorge/Jose Gonzalez...sweet.
He's doing GMA at Bryant Park with protégé Tamar, Friday June 16th. Expect them to do maybe 3-4 songs after 8 am. Last year I was in midtown on a Friday when GMA had Ringo Starr. The sound bounces a bit off the Verizon building but the space is so big that it's not a problem to see. I wouldn't try to go to a Today Show performance ever. No, but patience is a virtue on that. Start looking again about two days before.
A couple of weird-ass promo events up this week. Sarah McLachlan and Mary J. Blige play tomorrow (Friday 5/19) 5 pm at the Apple Store grand opening on 57th and 5th. Brazilian Girls, Citizen Cope, Ollabelle, Pharaoh's Daughter, Lou Reed, Ronan Tynan, and Suzanne Vega play the grand opening of 7 World Trade Center, noon, Tuesday May 23rd. Yes that's right, Lou Reed is playing the opening of a financial building. And by the way, BP / Secret Machines at McCarran July 29th goes on sale noon on Saturday. $34 each plus TicketMobster fees. Not free, but a nice show nonetheless.
Lou Reed played a few months ago in some club in Chelsea. They barely gave any promo for it. I found out way later.
If Footix can do me a solid and get tickets while I'm in Germany, I'll be at the B&S show on the 4th. If not...I'll just stand outside looking forlorn and I'll listen for free or try to sneak in or something. Surely you can't have indie hipster violence at a free concert, right? (well, it is nyc...). Really looking forward to that one. I've seen Bloc Party live, they are worth the trek if you can get out there. I also (not intentionally) just saw She Wants Revenge live...they are not worth the trip to the corner pizza parlor.
I always make an effort to go see the Philharmonic in Central Park...think its mid July? Can't remember exactly. Nice fireworks afterwards as well.
? I thought summer was the best time in New York and not just because of the steep drop in quantity of fabric worn by certain parties. At risk of ridicule, what's a B&S and is it good? Edit: looks like emusic has a bunch of thier music so I can check it out. (This post is mainly meant for subscription purposes.)
Get ready for the absolute kick-ass must-go show of the summer. http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/B0006A9GF4.09.LZZZZZZZ.jpg July 11th, 7pm, World Financial Center Plaza.
NY Philharmonic, July 10-18. Central Park shows are July 12th and 18th. http://nyphil.org/attend/summer/index.cfm?page=home Met Opera shows are late August this year, instead of the traditional mid-June. It looks like Aug 22nd is Rigoletto, and Sept 1st is La Traviata.
Not sure if you are joking, but Puffy TOTALLY kick-ass live. If you've ever seen and loved a Ramones concert and have a thing for super cute Japanese girls, your head will explode. They are really, really good live, and their band is top notch.
I'm definitely in for the Furries and Siren (as long as it's not as ungodly hot as last years) and am now thinking of giving Puffy a go. [double entendre alert]
The free show of the summer for me is Seu Jorge, Jose Gonzalez and Cut Chemist at Summerstage on July 2. It could be the best show, like, ever, or the worst experience of my lifetime considering it's 4th of July-ish weekend, with three indie favorites and a free show at one of the poorer venues in the city. That astroturf is unkind when it's humid out. Also, I am $91 poorer after getting 2 ticks for the McCarren Park Pool Bloc Party/Secret Machines show.
I'm a big Voxtrot fan. Glad to see they're in Brooklyn on June 30 with TV on the Radio and Matt Pond. Gratis!
So did anyone trudge out in the pouring rain on Friday night to try to see SFA? I got off a plane in Newark from Paris in the early afternoon, and within five minutes of retrieving my car it was just torrential outside. Looks like I made the right choice.
I went with some friends. We were inside having a meal when they attemped a couple of songs and then had binned it by the time we got out on the terrace. Had no idea about the acoustic bit. We did, however, get into the organisers do thanks to a friend that knew one of them. Free booze meant we were all plastered when we moved onto the next bar where we discovered Gruff and Bunf (who looked disconcertingly like the homeless guy from that blog photo). After several more drinks, I convinced my mate Mark, who's Welsh, to say hello to Bunf (who was trying, and mostly succeeding, to prop up the bar. To say he was off his face would be understatement of the decade). Bunf grabbed Mark in a bearhug when he found out that they grew up near each other and wouldn't let him leave. I seem to remember drunkenly telling Gruff (we were about to leave and I was full of Dutch courage) I thought his band was ace or somesuch, which he seemed to take in good humour. So, at least partial, result.