SFBG photographer Charles Russo caught Feist at the Warfield on Monday. 

Once while talking music with friends on a long road trip I was posed with the task of describing Portishead’s sound. Struggling to articulate the sum of their collective parts, I did a hasty mental cut-and-paste and said, “They’re sorta like…if Pink Floyd was a hip-hop band…and Billie Holiday was their singer.” It’s a clunky description, not so much for the references, but because Portishead’s greatest attribute is their ability to bend genres so seamlessly that it all morphs into their own sort of singular sonic universe. Even the prevailingly appropriate moniker of trip-hop (of the Bristol variety) really seems more of a launching point than a description. Read more »

After capping off a monstrous 20-plus song set yesterday, on Thursday, July 21, with the tortured grind of “Slaves & Bulldozers,” Soundgarden put an exclamation point on their performance with a six minute shake-the-building-foundations, horses-of-the-apocalypse audio assault.

Amid waves of controlled feedback and blaring Seattle Sonic resonance, I thought my dental fillings were shaking loose. I was worried the Civic Auditorium balcony would soon collapse. I suspected that teenagers might start exploding throughout the audience. Read more »

Call it soul music for soulless times: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings dazzled a devoted crowd on Thursday July 7 with a beautiful bluegrass showcase carried out with hefty Nashville flair. With songs of love and loss, murder and redemption, the duo created evocative atmosphere in the Warfield Theater despite their minimalist setup at center stage. Read more »

Ace Guardian shutterbug Charles Russo reveled in the otherworldly Miss Florence Welch at Berkeley's al fresco amphitheatre last night. Sheathed in a drape-y chartreuse toga, the lead singer of Florence and the Machine filled the classic venue with her goddess light. For proof, check this slideshow.  

Ace Guardian photographer Charlie Russo caught Bono & co. in all their arena glory last night as part of the massive 360 Tour. Click here to see larger versions of the pics.

Playing small quarters for their immeasurably large sound, TV on the Radio enthralled a sold out Independent audience for the second of two nights on Tuesday, May 10. Hard to define and even harder to resist, the band dipped heavily into the material from their latest release Nine Types of Light, while also letting loose with stirring versions of old favorites such as "Satellite," "The Wrong Way," and "Staring at the Sun."

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PJ Harvey has taken the Warfield stage at numerous points and in many forms during her career over the past two decades – never predictable, always engaging. Her performance on Thursday night, a pre-Coachella warm-up gig, was the sort of wonderfully unexpected showing you’d come to expect from Polly Jean. Read more »

Racing up and down the pavement on Telegraph Avenue, the scalpers were grinding hard outside the Fox Theater on Monday night, perhaps with an inkling that the venue might not be standing by the time the Queens of the Stone Age left the stage in a few hours. True to form, Josh Homme and crew all but blew the Fox to pieces with a monstrous rendering of their debut album, as well as two hefty encores that showcased the stoner age rock royalty in all of their primal glory.

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