Goo Goo Dolls
The Goo Goo Dolls have been a background name on my Classic Rock stations since the late ’90s, so I thought worth checking out their show at the Santa Barbara Bowl last night (9/6/25). The first 40 minutes of their set left me untouched: it was five slightly middle-aged grungy guys making a lot of […]
Crosby Collective
The newly formed Crosby Collective vindicated, nay glorified, my devotion to Classic Rock with their highly musical performance of “mashups” last night at the Lobero, which they chose for their only (so far) Southern California appearance. Each mashup seamlessly combined two rock standards in leader Jason Crosby’s own arrangement, all played in a lushly harmonic […]
Ronstadt Revival
A funny thing happened when Ronstadt Revival featuring Shannon Rae performed at the Lobero last night (9/14/24). After her second number, Ms. Rae confidentially told the audience they could ignore management’s request not to photograph or take videos of the artists. “Go ahead and take your pictures and share them on your social media account. […]
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Most bands you see “come from” somewhere, generally some place I’ve never been so I can fantasize about the music scene there. The original members of Toad the Wet Sprocket, however, grew up in Santa Barbara, which is mainly why I went to see them at the Lobero last week. A local band somehow seems […]
Donavon Frankenreiter
I’ve never been to a Phish concert, but I got the sense that the experience could be similar to the ALO concert at the Lobero last night. Described as a San Francisco jam band, the four nondescript members of ALO spun out 10-15-minute instrumentals with incidental lyrics, all with a lilting rhythm that had the […]