Star Time! Sharon Jones & Dap Kings live

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings rolled towards the end of a west coast swing, stopping by Soho in Santa Barbara, before heading home to do a series of NYC shows celebrating the 10th anniversary of Daptone Records.
The club was completely sold out, and the show rolled out in revue mode, spotlighting the band and the backup singers before the grand entrance of Ms. Jones quickly transformed the place into a thrashing sweatbox.

Sound issues plagued the band throughout the show, including system spikes and a dead in ear monitor that gave her that disconnected feeling of lip synching, but she toughed it out, and once again proved the value of a hard day's work.  Where any of her contemporaries would have pulled out or mailed it in, Miss Sharon Jones kept the faith.



Their latest release, "Soul Time, Volume One", was released on Black Friday, and is a great place to start for anyone new to the band.  And if you really can't get enough of that funk, set the wayback machine to June of 2010, for a look at the SJDK show at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles.

Portishead live

Portishead
Shrine Expo Center
Los Angeles, CA
18 October, 2011

Portishead, fresh off a triumphant performance at ATP's I'll Be Your Mirror festival in Asbury Park, NJ earlier in the month, brought their show to the Shrine Exposition Center in Los Angeles for the first of a two night stand.  The core trio of Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons, & Adrian Utley were expanded by a few members for an impressive touring version, that was tough and concise, with a sound mix that left room for shocking noise, but sold out none of the tender nuances.

From the opener "Silence" from 2008's Third, they were firmly in control of the proceedings, unveiling a set that was pretty equally divided between old and new, and the older material didn't seem in performance as far away from the more discordant newer tunes as it may seem with the recorded versions.

The emotional heart of the evening was the trifecta of "Magic Doors" into a breathtaking "Wandering Star", brought back to earth with the grinding "Machine Gun"  All in all, a stellar evening in the company of a band that's come firmly into it's own.

Setlist: (courtesy of Setlist.FM)

Silence/Nylon Smile/Mysterons/The Rip/Sour Times/Magic Doors/Wandering Star/Machine Gun Over/Glory Box/Chase The Tear/Cowboys/Threads  (encore) Roads/We Carry On