The Railroad Revival Tour 2011 in Tempe, Arizona

The Railroad Revival Tour came to Tempe, Arizona on April 23rd.  The bands that performed included: The Old Crow Medicine Show, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Mumford & Sons.  The last I heard, 5,000 tickets were sold and that it was a sold out show.  The best word to describe the entire show is: hoedown.

It was a hoedown

This is the first “hoedown” that I’ve been to, but it was so much fun and the music was really good!  Thousands of people filled the dirt lot that was turned into an outdoor stage with food and drink vendors.  Indian tacos were being sold as well as sausage.

The people who attended the concert wore the modern plaid shirt and skinny jeans.  Others took the more traditional route and wore ragged pants and shirts, which fit in well with Edwarde Sharpe frontman Alex Ebert who wore nothing but long johns.

Ebert made several jokes between songs and spent some time with the audience and even got inbetween the crowd.  One of his jokes was: A termite walks into a bar and asks where’s the bar-tender?  This one took me a while to understand, as well as the rest of the audience, because no on laughed after he finished the joke.  Ebert had also gone as far as jokingly calling Arizona the occupied Mexico.  All of his jokes were clearly not meant to invoke any hard feelings and were purely for entertainment.

The highlight of the entire concert was Mumford & Sons.  As usual, they played popular songs with a few lesser known ones.  “Little lion man” and “The cave” were among the more popular ones.  Marcus Mumford, the lead singer of the band, joked about the people who were “too cheap to buy tickets.”  There were apartment complexes right next to the dirt lot mentioned earlier.  Groups of people were on the roofs of the apartments watching from the “cheap seats.”  Mumford said that the people were in the same boat as the band because the band didn’t pay for tickets either.

Arcade Fire play in Santa Fe

Arcade Fire performed at Santa Fe Community Convention Center Monday, April 18.  The tickets were sold out at least a week before the date of the event.  Ticket prices averaged around $50 and $1 from the price of the ticket went to help the victims in Haiti.

Eleven microphones and eight band members

The first thing I noticed while they were setting up the stage for Arcade Fire, were the numerous microphones.  There were also an array of instruments that needed to be tuned including the unusual hurdy gurdy.  Which is like a guitar that has a crank which rotates and strums the strings continuously.

Follow the jump to read more about the concert.

Cage the Elephant rocked Albuquerque’s Sunshine Theater

Cage the Elephant performed with Biffy Clyro and Sleeper Agent at Albuquerque’s Sunshine Theater April 12th.

The crowd waiting outside the theater was small compared to the lines when other larger bands play there. It didn’t look very promising until the doors opened and people started pouring in… it was a full house!

Cage the Elephant, Social Distortion, New Politics come to Albuquerque’s Sunshine Theater

Alternative Rock music coming to Albuquerque that you need to look for: 311 (Feb 23 @ Sunshine Theater), Cage the Elephant (April 12 @ Sunshine Theater), The New Pornographers (April 14^th @ Sunshine Theater), Interpol (April 18^th @ Sunshine Theater), Social Distortion (April 26^th @Sunshine Theater), and New Politics (May 3^rd @ Sunshine Theater).

It looks like it’s going to be a slow couple months in February and March for the alternative scene.  311 are coming to town this month, but what new music have they put out?  That’s what I thought.  They are now on their Spring tour for 2011 and are scheduled to do a Caribbean cruise in March.  As of January 8, 2011, the band is working on a new album and plan to release it before Summer 2011.  Take a look at 311’s website to see what new things they have cooking up there.  Contribute a post of two… they only have three on their latest news update and they are spam.

On a more exciting note, Cage the Elephant will be coming to Albuquerque on April 12^th at the Sunshine Theater.  Chances are, you’ve heard their latest single “Shake Me Down” on the radio or satellite radio.  They’ve come a long way since their last big hit “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked,” back in 2009.  “Thank You, Happy Birthday,” is their newest album, which was released on January 11, 2011.  According to Billboard 200 it debuted at number 2, in its first week of release.  If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard this band you should give them a listen.  And If you like Crash Kings, Cold War Kids, Band of Skulls, New Politics, Neon Trees, or Flobots, you’ll like Cage the Elephant.

Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, Kanye West, and the Strokes Headline Coachella

This year Coachella starts the weekend off on April 15 and runs through the 17^th in Indo, CA, with headliners Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, Kanye West, and the Strokes.

As an alternative music listener, you may be wondering about Kanye West as a headliner.  Yes, he’s hip hop, but every year a prominent hip hop artist is featured in the line up.  This is very similar to Lollapalooza, who is featuring Eminem in their line up this year.  In addition to Kanye there are currently 180 bands scheduled to play at Coachella.  You will definitely find one of your favorite alternative and indie bands within the list on their website, coachella.com/event/lineup.  Their site also has links to every band’s facebook, youtube and twitter so that you can find out what they sound like.