This past Saturday (October 20th, 2012), I had the pleasure of going to a concert at the Middle East in Cambridge. The band line-up ending with the headliner was: The Saddest Landscape, Hostage Calm, Make Do and Mend, and Into it. Over it. Having never been to the Middle East before I have to admit I was quite surprised with the venue because it was not what I had imagined. It is very small and dark and it situated in the back of a restaurant through a door. I will admit the sound quality was good though! The night started off with The Saddest Landscape, a band from Boston who is known as having “an authentic emo style” combined with scream. Personally, this band was not for me at all. I’ve never heard of them and it is easy to tell they’re super into their music. The next band was Hostage Calm, a punk/rock/hardcore band from Connecticut. This band was absolutely amazing. Their energy and stage presence were incomparable to the first band. I’ve never really listened to Hostage Calm, but after their set that night I have listened to the music and can definitely call myself a fan. Make Do and Mend were up next, a post-hardcore band also from Connecticut. They recently signed to Rise Records and performed wonderfully. The energy from Hostage Calm seemed to be continuous and Make Do and Mend used this energy to get the crowd going. James, the vocalist, sounded as good as he does on their albums, which is great to see! The last band to play was Into It. Over it. This band has waited five years to finally venture on its first full band headlining tour. Having seen Evan play the songs acoustically last year, it was great to hear
read more…

Last Thursday October 18th, I had the pleasure to see one of the Dubstep pioneers live at the Paradise Rock Club: Gary McCann. It’s hard to talk about how dubstep came to be without mentioning his name at all. Many do not know this but London is the birthplace of the genre. The London-based artist and producer played an extensive set. To my surprise the venue was not packed, as I thought he deserved or expected. Nevertheless, there was a very good vibe among the crowd and it seemed to be all people who genuinely were there to hear the set. The lighting of the show was very moderate, allowing people to focus on the music entirely. In addition to his own music, he played a variety of material from other main dubstep artists as Flux Pavilion, Major Lazer, Flosstradamous, Skrillex, Rusko, Noisia, among others. He started out slow with a classic vocal sample, creating that traditional suspense only to drop the track with fury right from the beginning, from that point on he kept that dynamic of drop after drop with with little rest for a while, keeping the crowd alert and moving, all this time with his game face and the occasional message on the mic. Some of his prominent songs were the critically acclaimed and praised “Where’s my Money?”, a song that completely embodies his early career-launching material, in which you can also hear some of his classic vocal sample and dirty drop. My personal favorite was a slightly sped up “Original Don (Flosstrodamous remix)” by Major Lazer. This one took me completely out of surprise as it was completely unexpected and not even dubstep. “Original Don” is a mind-boggling, swing dirty trap track (Trap is a Hip-Hop and Dubstep-influenced electronic genre). It was nice to see
read more…