warehouse live

We are excited to give away a pair of tickets to see The Smashing Pumpkins at Houston's Warehouse Live on Tuesday, September 21. All you have to do to win is leave a comment with both your full name and either an e-mail address or telephone number in which you receive text messages. We will be choosing the winner randomly on the day of the show, and announcing it through either e-mail or text.

This is a rare opportunity to catch The Smashing Pumpkins in such an intimate (for them at least) venue. The last time I saw the Pumpkins, which was headlining Voodoo a few years back, they performed in front of over ten thousand people. While it's not all of the original members, Billy Corgan does a great job at bringing his songs out with a newly established vigor that wasn't there many years back during their rockier times. I'm extremely excited for this show, and can't thank The Messina Group, AEG Live and Warehouse Live for allowing to let a couple lucky people also check it out. Tickets are still on sale for what will assuredly be a sold out show, so if you don't think you're gonna win, head on over to WHL's Frontgate ticketing site to pick up as many as you need.

After a fun acoustic set from the boys of Delta Spirit at Cactus Music, they headed across town to Warehouse Live to headline a packed room of Houston hipsters and bro's. They aborted their acoustic instruments of earlier in the day, and dawned their electrified cousins as soon as they made their way to the stage. After a sneak peak at the setlist, I saw that they were starting with one of the many songs I was longing to hear, "People, Turn Around," so I decided to leave the rest of the set a secret and stopped reading from there. After an abbreviated version of the sing-a-long, Delta Spirit tore into a run of songs alternating between cuts from the new album, including "Bushwick Blues," "911" and "White Table," as well as a choice of classic songs like "Strange Vine" and "Streetwalker." The energy was in abundance during the first half of the set, but didn't really explode until an off-the-cuff cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" that led into the always fun to hear "Trashcan." Two of my favorites from the new album, "St. Francis" and "Vivian" followed, and the set ended with the one-two Ode To Sunshine punch of "Children" and "People C'mon." After a quick encore break, the group returned for what was supposed to be a run through their scorcher, "Crippler King," but was really a cover of the Isley Brothers "Shout" that found frontman Matt Vasquez joining us in the audience and bringing everyone to their knees – ala the scene from Animal House – before bringing everyone back up for a huge dance party. The show finished with a classic cut, "Gimme Some Motivation" which kept the energy going, and left everyone dripping with sweat after jumping up and down throughout the end.

Even after seeing them six times, they always seem to amaze me with ease. They are a solid young band that has a huge career ahead of them. They write songs that are easy to relate to, yet also fun to dance or sway along to. Vasquez is what you want in a front man, with unbridled energy from start to finish and a personality to match. With his Houston roots, it was a great homecoming for him, and the rest of the band also seemed very comfortable here in the Bayou City. I can't wait until I get another chance to see Delta Spirit again – I'm guessing by the size of their crowd for this show, that they will definitely be making a return trip to Houston on their next go-around.

I took a bunch of photos from the show, which you can find after the jump.

I will never miss an opportunity to see Mates of State whenever they either come to town or perform at a festival I'm attending. Their brand of indie pop is tried and tested, and has been as consistent as any band I've seen perform on numerous occasions. Husband/wife duo Jason Hammell and Kori Gardner brought a couple of additional auxiliary instrumentalists for this performance to fill out their sound, and it made songs like "My Only Offer" and "Rearrange Us" take on many new dimensions. They performed with a certain vigor, and made openers Free Energy look paltry in comparison – and I really enjoyed Free Energy's energetic and youthful performance. Both bands provided quite a nice soundtrack for a packed weekday performance in Warehouse Live's Studio. I happily drank and danced and sweated out what was still left in me from the previous weekends adventure to Atlanta for Phish's Fourth of July run. This show, on top of the Edward Sharpe show we caught in Dallas a few days prior, was the perfect hangover cure for one of the best weekends ever.

I took a whole bunch of pictures of both Free Energy and Mates of State, which you can check out after the jump.

Editors note: I want to welcome a new Houston-based writer to the fold, one I'm quite excited to have working with us here on BOT. Brett "Biscuit" Forsberg will hopefully be attempting several show reviews in the future, so keep your eyes peeled for his fluffy, buttery goodness.

The closer you can get to Octopus Project the better. Last night at Warehouse Live, and on their much smaller side stage, nowhere was too far away. Ryan, Josh, and Toto were clad in their usual white shirts and black ties, and Yvonne, the theremin and glockenspiel girl, looked fantastic as ever performing for her hometown. The ticket booth sold out after I purchased my ticket, but luckily there was no crushing pressure of some mainstream shows I have seen at Warehouse Live’s main stage.

Read all about the show after the jump

We are pleased to give away 2 pairs of tickets to see Octopus Project at Warehouse Live in Houston, TX on Thursday, July 15th. All you have to do to win is leave a comment with your full name and either an e-mail address or phone number in which you can recieve texts. We will be announcing the winner Thursday afternoon via e-mail and/or text message.

This will be my third time seeing the Austin quartet, and I'm as excited as ever as it's been some time. The Studio at Warehouse Live should be quite packed for the ensuing dance party, so I'd recommend signing up to increase your chances of getting down with the rest of us.

As always, thanks to Warehouse Live and AEG Live for allowing us the opportunity to give away so many tickets on such a regular basis. You all kick a bunch of ass!

So last Saturday I went to a ridiculous pool party in the orbital center of the known universe - Anahuac. After an incredible day of meatz, booze, swimming, and music, I stepped on a broken beer bottle and slit the shit out of my heel. Hence the theme for Thursday’s Passion Pit show: dance until your feet bleed. I wasn’t the only one with that mindset; the crowd was one of the best I’ve ever seen at Warehouse and absolutely embraced the band's energy. Passion Pit will move your body and mind to do things that you might not otherwise, and, if that isn’t the best endorsement for a band, I don’t know what is. Last year, they filled the Studio with eager fans, and it was amazing to see that their momentum has built to the point that they could PACK the Ballroom less than a year later. Friends of BoT janteeboys, festmark007, alybeegee, and greeneyeris got some killer videos of the show, check them out along with ours after the jump. Photos are soon to follow.

We are giving away 1 pair of tickets to see Passion Pit at Houston's Warehouse Live on Thursday, June 17th before a 2-night stand in the ATX. All you have to do to win is leave your full name and e-mail address or telephone number where you can receive text messages in the comment field below. It's pretty simple, but you must leave a way for us to get a hold of you in the body of the comment if you want to win. We will be choosing the winners randomly on Thursday at noon, and will announce them at the top of this post, and contact you through the e-mail address or telephone number you provided.

Check out a video of the band destroying Columbus below, get excited, and enter the contest and/or buy tickets. Don't forget your dancing shoes and glowsticks, this one's gonna be unabashedly FUN so lets all look like idiots on the floor. To guarantee admittance, you can pick up as many tickets as you need at Warehouse Live's official Frongate ticketing site. As always, thanks to The Messina Group, AEG Live and Warehouse Live for always giving us the opportunity to do these giveaways. See you on Thursday with a big smile on my face!

Maybe I just had my hopes set too high going into last Friday’s Common/Biz Markie show at Warehouse Live. But… I think my complaints are legitimate, so I’ll bitchily air them and let you decide. Both artists are deserved legends of hip-hop, with careers dating back to the mid 80’s (Biz) and early 90’s (Common) and records that not only hold up but stand out as influential and innovative. Biz’s playful lyricism and oft-unorthodox delivery laid the groundwork for the greatness of Ol’ Dirty Bastard and the Notorious B.I.G. “Nobody beats the Biz.” He is one of the most unique artists from the golden era of hip-hop, and I was beyond pumped to see him behind the mic rather than behind turntables as we did last October at Voodoo Fest. Equally legendary was the headliner. For the majority of his career, Common was one of the loudest and truest voices in socially-conscious hip-hop. In recent years, the lyrically-creative portion of his brain interested in social commentary and spirituality has substantially diminished, but I still enjoy his recent output for what it is (well, other than the shit-bortion of him guesting with the Jonas Brothers). So I, and most in attendance with me, were expecting to be nothing less than blown away by the show. What we got instead was two artists coasting on their reputation. Read on for more, as well as Eggs photos and some videos after the jump.

I go to too many damn shows – to the point where my excitement level seems to taper off for each random one I attend. Now and again, though, a line-up of bands will come to town that make me feel as if I'm about to go to my first show again. Before even entering the venue, butterflies build a tiny little flutter in my belly, and I start to get quite giddy. It hasn't happened many times this year, but the times it has have generally lead to an all around party. The most recent occasion of my 12 year old nervousness and excitement was when one of my current favorites, Dr. Dog, and their road-tested group of openers, Deer Tick, made their way to the jam-packed Studio at Warehouse Live. I made it just in time for the start of Deer Tick's set, and was glued to the stage for the next three-and-a-half hours.

Read all about the show and browse a bunch of my shots after the jump.

DJ's are a dime a dozen these days, and only a handful have ever truly excited me enough to catch in a live setting. With the amount of festivals I go to, I'm exposed to a pretty large amount of electronic music, especially during the witching hours of said events. As you know, Wakarusa is a favorite festival of mine, mainly for the reason that there are so many smaller acts that I'm force fed while there. Standing in one of the main tents late at night, I saw a swelling crowd packing the smaller dance tent, so I meandered over to find Pretty Lights deep into his set. The music was great, much different than that of most of the other late night DJ's I'd heard that weekend, and after hearing a few crazy remixes involving a host of classic rock songs, I was instantly sold and remained until the very end. Flash forward to a few weeks ago when Pretty Lights, aka Derek Vincent Smith, made his way to the Ballroom at Warehouse Live, which was filled to the seems with youngsters aplenty. Didn't matter, because the entire crowd, filled with a bunch of drug addled minds, were all about getting a groove on that night. I was incredibly impressed by the interplay between Smith and drummer Cory Eberhard throughout the set – never hearing either of them miss a change all night. The set was solid from start to finish, and had me sweating out pretty much all of my demons by the end.

I had a lot of fun that night, and will never miss an opportunity to check out Pretty Lights again. I also had a blast shooting the duo, as their name stood true to their lighting rig. Check out my shots after the jump.