Dredg @ the Great American Music Hall (4/7/07)

The Easter Bunny came early this year with two great shows this Easter weekend. The first (Mew) I wrote about yesterday (see below or click here for the brief review.) The second show was at the Great American Music Hall in downtown San Francisco last night and featured a band that I've written about numerous times in the past -- like here and here and here... Dredg.

Dredg was playing the second of a two night set. The previous night the band played at San Francisco's Slim's, which is a great venue but unfortunately it was the same night as the Mew concert. Otherwise I would have most likely have tried to see both shows... Yeah, Dredg is that good!

Here's the first of three videos I captured last night -- the song is "Push Away":


The Great American was jammed with people -- as I expected for this sold out show -- and the band didn't disappoint, as usual! Mainly keeping focused on previously released material throughout the night, the band did play a few new tracks -- like Push Away (above).

Here's a classic, "Tanbark":


And another goodie, "Ode to the Sun":


The band was joined by two horn players for about 4 songs during their set along with a cool rendition of Happy Birthday for a girl in the crowd. Gavin (the lead singer) mentioned that he had just met the horn players in North Beach only a week earlier... Here's the best video clip of the night. Dredg's "Symbol Song":



I can't stress enough that you should give these guys a listen. They're more than deserving and have gotta break out one of these days!

Mew @ The Fillmore (4/6/07)

Wow! What a fun show last night at the Fillmore! The evening kicked off with the opener, Oh No! Oh My!, coming on stage at 9pm to a half-empty Fillmore. As far as opening bands go, these guys weren't bad at all. In fact, they reminded me of the bands "Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah!", "Arcade Fire" or "Wolf Parade" -- all of which I would recommend over Oh No! Oh My!, but as I said at the start of this, they weren't bad as far as opening bands go!

After about a 40 minute set, it was time to prepare for Mew!

So Mew's been around since the late '90's and originated in Denmark which is where they're most popular. They've started to get a little more critical acclaim here in the states, and I can only think that these guys will break out at some point over the next several years.

To give you some idea of what they sound like, think of a combination between Pink Floyd and Radiohead... Here's video of their song "156" taken from the show last night. As you see, the video starts out a little dark, but give it a minute or two and you'll get an idea of what the show was like last night... as a hint, I'll mention COOL VISUALS!



As the video shows, the visuals added quite a bit to the performance last night. Some very trippy clips seemed to add quite a bit to the near 75 minute show. I strongly recommend checking out their album and if they come to your town, get tickets early! It was only a fluke that the show didn't sell out last night although it did start to fill up by the time Mew went on -- around 10.20pm.

Stay tuned, another review will be posted soon from tonight's Dredg concert at the Great American Music Hall. Hope you can make it!