Patti Smith - Photos & Setlist from Castle Clinton, NYC 7-14-11 (River to River Festival)

Patti Smith and her band played to a standing-room only crowd on Thursday night for the last show of the season at Castle Clinton. In addition to the capacity crowd inside the venue, there seemed to be a large crowd outside listening to the show as you could clearly hear their enthusiastic roar from inside the venue when Patti gave them a shout-out from the stage.

From Patti Smith - Castle Clinton, NYC July 14, 2011

From Patti Smith - Castle Clinton, NYC July 14, 2011

From Patti Smith - Castle Clinton, NYC July 14, 2011

Patti and her band played a full set which was somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety minutes and the setlist for the evening was one of the more eclectic mixes of song that I've heard the band play.

Patti Smith - Setlist @ Castle Clinton, NYC 7-14-11
01 - "Because the Night"
02 - "Ghost Dance"
03 - "Birdland"
04 - "Helpless" (Neil Young cover)
05 - "Beneath the Southern Cross"
06 - "My Blakean Year"
07 - "Rolling in the Deed" (Adele cover)
08 - "People Who Died" (Jim Carroll cover)
09 - "Pissing in the River"
10 - "Ain't It Strange"
11 - "Peaceable Kingdom"
12 - "People Have the Power"
13 - "Land/Horses/Gloria"
14 - "Perfect Day" (Lou Reed cover)
15 - "Rock n' Roll Nigger"

From Patti Smith - Castle Clinton, NYC July 14, 2011

From Patti Smith - Castle Clinton, NYC July 14, 2011

From Patti Smith - Castle Clinton, NYC July 14, 2011

From Patti Smith - Castle Clinton, NYC July 14, 2011

Patti and her band have announced upcoming shows at the Escape to New York Festival (August 5th) and the Virgin Mobile FreeFest (Sept. 10th) but the most interesting looking show is a one-off performance at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Dec. 2nd. Patti Smith, Jesse Smith, and friends will salute Alfred Stieglitz and his circle, focusing on his collaborative relationship with Georgia O'Keeffe. The roles of artist and muse are interchangeable, resulting in work elevated above any conventional concept of love and gender. Only Upper Mezzanine tickets are still available for this show and tickets are $40.

Links:
Patti Smith

My Brightest Diamond & yMusic: Photos from Castle Clinton Show on July 7th

DOWNLOAD: My Brightest Diamond - "All Things Will Unwind" (from the forthcoming disc Reaching Through to the Other Side)

My Brightest Diamond (aka Shara Worden and Brian Wolfe) premiered their forthcoming disc All Things Will Unwind (Asthmatic Kitty) backed by six-piece chamber-pop ensemble yMusic at the second-to-last River to River Festival show for 2011 at Castle Clinton.

From My Brightest Diamond - Castle Clinton

yMusic (who have just launched a KickStarter campaign to raise funds for their new album) started the evening with an instrumental piece prior to Shara and Brian taking the stage.

From My Brightest Diamond - Castle Clinton

From My Brightest Diamond - Castle Clinton

From My Brightest Diamond - Castle Clinton

From My Brightest Diamond - Castle Clinton

My Brightest Diamond played the entirety of their forthcoming album (out October 18th) along with three instrumental pieces that Shara composed for yMusic and dancer Jessica Dessner. These instrumentals were slotted in between tracks from the new album and Shara donned a "Residents-like" mask while Jessica danced.

From My Brightest Diamond - Castle Clinton

From My Brightest Diamond - Castle Clinton

From My Brightest Diamond - Castle Clinton

To echo a comment from The Indie Handbook's review of a recent My Brightest Diamond concert - I was transfixed throughout the show. The tight interplay between yMusic and Shara was incredible and Shara's "stream-of-conscious" stage banter made this seem like a concert in your living room as opposed to a decent-sized outdoor public space. There was a warmth and a sense of unity and purpose between all the members of the band that added to the charm of the evening.

My Brightest Diamond's next local show is opening for Sufjan Stevens at Prospect Park Bandshell on August 2nd. Tickets are still available and are $35.

Links:
My Brightest Diamond

Laurie Anderson and Bill Laswell: Live Photos and Review from River to River Festival, Castle Clinton, June 30th

Multimedia performance artist Laurie Anderson and downtown producer/bassist Bill Laswell took the stage to a standing room only crowd just 7PM at the River to River Festival show at Castle Clinton last Thursday.

From Laurie Anderson & Bill Laswell - Castle Clinton, NYC June 30, 2011

From Laurie Anderson & Bill Laswell - Castle Clinton, NYC June 30, 2011

The duo played an almost exclusively instrumental set that was closer to the ambience of Brian Eno than the avant-noise of recent collaborations with John Zorn. Anderson started off the evening with introductions using her "Voice of Authority / Fenway Bergamot" voice filter and switched off during the set between her electric violin and keyboards. There were no breaks during the duo's hour long performance so there wasn't any clear delineation where songs started and stopped but there sounded to be three - four distinct pieces. Almost coming full circle to where they started, Anderson added a brief snippet of spoken word vocals from "My Right Eye" (from 2010's Homeland) to the duo's final number.

From Laurie Anderson & Bill Laswell - Castle Clinton, NYC June 30, 2011

From Laurie Anderson & Bill Laswell - Castle Clinton, NYC June 30, 2011

From Laurie Anderson & Bill Laswell - Castle Clinton, NYC June 30, 2011

From Laurie Anderson & Bill Laswell - Castle Clinton, NYC June 30, 2011

Laurie Anderson is playing another free show on August 10th as part of Lincoln Center's "Out of Doors".

Laurie Anderson, the reigning performance artist of our time, has performed at Lincoln Center on numerous occasions, most recently at Lincoln Center Festival 2008, with the evening-length work Homeland. In roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist, Anderson has toured the United States and internationally with shows ranging from simple spoken word performances to elaborate multimedia events. On August 10 at Damrosch Park she performs on a double-bill that features a younger generation of experimenters and innovators led by composer/arranger/violinist Todd Reynolds. Reynolds is joined by singer/multi-instrumentalist provocateur Sxip Shirey (The Luminescent Orchestrii), human beat-box vocal performer Adam Matta (Carolina Chocolate Drops) and a “Who’s Who” violin section: Caleb Burhans, Conrad Harris, Pauline Kim Harris, Yuki Numata, Courtney Orlando, and Ben Russell.

Links:
Laurie Anderson
Bill Laswell

My Brightest Diamond with yMusic Plays Free River to River Festival Show at Castle Clinton on July 7th

"I witnessed something I have never seen before: an entire audience transfixed – jaws scraping the floor and people pulling at their hair in rapt amazement – hundreds awash in power and intimacy, under a blanket of music and dance, punctuated by squeals of a baby in the back at the sound of his mother onstage." - The Indie Handbook review of My Brightest Diamond & yMusic at the MusicNOW Festival

My Brightest Diamond will be playing a FREE show for the River to River festival at Castle Clinton in Battery Park in NYC on July 7th at 7pm. The most amazing chamber ensemble, yMusic , will be joining Shara & drummer Brian Wolfe, to perform the new MBD album from top to bottom, as well as playing three instrumental pieces that Shara composed for yMusic & dancer Jessica Dessner.

Free tickets are available online starting Monday, July 4th at Noon and at the gate on a first-come, first-served basis starting at 5PM on the the day of the show.



My Brightest Diamond is the project of singer/songwriter Shara Worden, who is the granddaughter of an Epiphone-strumming traveling evangelist, her father is an accomplished accordionist and her mother a classical organist. As a young person, Worden sang in church with her family and competed internationally with her high school chamber choir. She received a BA in Opera from the University of North Texas and studied composition with Padma Newsome. Her band, My Brightest Diamond, has released Bring Me The Workhorse (2006) and A Thousand Shark’s Teeth (2008) on Asthmatic Kitty Records. In addition to her own songwriting endeavors (a new album is imminent), she has recently collaborated with myriad artists, including The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens, David Byrne, Matthew Barney and Sarah Kirkland Snider. On this night she will join forces with a young but sophisticatedly scrappy group of players called yMusic who have backed the likes of Antony and The Johnsons, Arcade Fire, Beth Orton and Spoon to name a few. A night of incredible versatility in a place called home, Shara and her musical wanderers will leave you in a beautiful daze.

Links:
My Brightest Diamond

Laurie Anderson and Bill Laswell Play Free Show at Castle Clinton on June 30th (River to River Festival)

As part of the 10th Annual River to River Festival, Laurie Anderson and Bill Laswell will collaborate in an evening of improvised beats and melodies with a free show at Castle Clinton.

Since the 80's when they first worked together in the studio, Anderson and Laswell have pursued radically different musical paths. Recently they played together as part of a trio with John Zorn, and their much-anticipated performance at Castle Clinton show will build on those new ideas and forms.



The show takes place on June 30, 2011 at Castle Clinton in Battery Park at 7PM. Tickets are available at the gate on a first-come, first-served basis starting at 5PM.

Links:
Laurie Anderson
Bill Laswell