New Music from Bonnaroo

When Jesse and I went to the Bonnaroo Music Festival, I joked that I might be the only person over 50 without a ponytail and a tie-dyed t-shirt. I wasn't...there was broad demographic represented there.

With over 120 different performers, there was also music for all tastes. Here are some of my favorites from that weekend.

The Gaslight Anthem--I had listened to their last album, The '59 Sound, quite a bit and liked their music. They have just released a new CD, American Slang, that I have been playing in my car for the past three weeks. This is truly a great record, where one great song leads into another. One music critic described the band as sounding like Bruce Springsteen if he had never listened to a producer. A pretty fair description--they have the New Jersey rock sound with great lyrics.



We also got to hear Brian Fallon (lead singer) and Alex Rosamilia (lead guitarist) by Spin magazine. Brian, in particular, displayed an infectious sense of humor and a refreshing honesty. He described how the band has borrowed from so many other musicians that they are just now figuring out how they themselves want to sound.



If you like what you hear, you can see The Gaslight Anthem in both St. Louis and Kansas City this month.

I mentioned the variety of music at Bonnaroo--here are some other bands of note:

The Dave Rawlings Machine--Dave Rawlings has been best known as Gillian Welch's guitar player. For the first time, he now heads up the band (with Gillian in the supporting role). His band played a great set of traditional country and folk, and they even managed to work Neil Young's Cortez the Killer into a medley. Brilliant guitar work, with great backing from upright bass, fiddle and harmonica. No matter your taste in music, it's easy to recognize talent when you hear it.

Although the clip below is not from Bonnaroo, it gives a good taste of Dave Rawlings:



The Gossip--How do I describe this group? I won't, except to say they are a trio of musicians with a punk Aretha Franklin as the lead singer. They performed original material, plus a Tina Turner cover and part of The Talking Head's Psycho Killer. The available online videos don't do them justice...