#World Cafe Live

[recordsplayer]

Patrick Stump at World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, August 10 2011 📸: Scarlet Estelle / @sugarweregoinin

[mercsandmonsters]

I met Ramin Karimloo in Philadelphia 11 years ago this month.

It was at the World Cafe Live, in Philadelphia, PA. He was there in September for his birthday, but I was unable to go for some reason. I was a freshman in high school and got my last baby tooth extracted that day. I was also second in line. When he and his band came out to the area to sign autographs and whatnot, we all screamed bloody murder.

He signed my t-shirt and poster. He called me "darlin'," and said my legal first name was cool. I told him his music got me through a lot. The girl in front of me was cool, but I never saw her again. She had the Australian version of Love Never Dies on DVD for him to sign. He hesitated, but he signed it.

This was around the time I was getting into Supernatural, too. This was my first "grown-up" concert. I had been to Philadelphia to see Barney's Colorful World: Live in 2003 and The Wiggles: Live in 2006 but to a concert designed for mostly young girls and musical theater lovers, that was my first. I still have the shirt, poster, and tickets to his show. I was lucky that night. The intermediate unit I went to had an in-service day the next day. I went on a Monday night, it was Tuesday that I had off.

[monkeymeghan]

Omg my sister and I had a great day in Philly. @kingselliot was absolutely incredible. I’m so glad I was able to see her perform live again. I took a few videos and photos, but mostly just enjoyed the show. Just a little while ago I made an Instagram post and story and tagged her in them, and not only did she share it to her story, but she thanked me. I’m totally trying not to fangirl over here!!!!!

[cassie1022]

Nothing like live music to soothe the soul. Missed these guys.

[profools]

If you weren't aware, Bright Eyes is playing a small "secret" show in Philly tomorrow.

There are still tickets available here:

https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/50101072/henry-doorly-zoo-explosion-philadelphia-music-hall-at-world-cafe-live

[popentertainmentconcertreviews]

ZZ Ward & Jaime Wyatt – World Café Live – Philadelphia, PA – September 6, 2023

Despite the semi-contradiction of the term “Dirty Shine,” it sort of makes sense to the music of ZZ Ward. Dirty Shine is the name of Ward’s latest record, which is being released today, as well as the name of her new record label. The mix of grit and glamour implied in the term sort of sums up Ward’s musical style, a sweet and savory gumbo of blues, rock, hip-hop, country, funk and folk.

This show was the first stop on Ward’s “One Hell of a Night” tour promoting the new album, her first tour in a few years. Early on in the show she acknowledged that of course she had to start the trek in Philadelphia – quite possibly because she was born in the Philly suburb of Abington, PA, although her family did move when she was six and she grew up mostly on a farm in Oregon, when she wasn’t out playing gigs in her dad’s blues group. This homecoming – of sorts – led to a long and ecstatic celebration of her decades in music and her recent coming out as an indie artist after years on a major label.

The opening act at the gig was Jaime Wyatt, who similarly mixes styles like blues, rock, country and funk to get a propulsive and intriguing sound. With cat’s eye makeup and long flowing brown hair, she resembles a 1960s country music queen (specifically Bobbie Gentry) and her 2020 album Neon Cross featured guest shots by country royalty like Jesse Colter and Shooter Jennings (the widow and son of late, great outlaw country singer Waylon Jennings).

However, country is just one of the colors in Wyatt’s palate, as songs from her upcoming new disk Feel Good show her to be trying on different hats, musically. Wyatt was still hardcore enough to do a ragged cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On” in her set, as well as such hard hitting new album tracks as the excellent title track and the pop-country “Love is a Place” and the title track to Neon Cross. She closed out with her terrific soulful new single “World Worth Keeping.”

Ward and her band took the stage to the sultry tones of the new song “Forget About Us,” following it up with another propulsive new tune called “Baby Don’t.” Then she dipped into her songbook with some older tunes like the blues-rock rambler “Put the Gun Down” and the surprisingly jazzy musical kaleidoscope “Til the Casket Drops.”

Old favorites like the vindictive “Break Her Heart” and the sultry “Sex and Stardust” got the pulses raised in the club, before Ward tore the place down with an acoustic version of her atmospheric new torcher “Tin Cups.”

About halfway through her almost two-hour long set, Ward explained that she grew up singing the blues and asking the audience if they wanted to hear some blues. The audience roared their approval. She then broke into a three-song set of classic covers, starting with Son House’s “Grinning in Your Face” (which Ward called a very empowering song), Elmore James’ “Dust My Broom” and an early Tina Turner torch song (from the Ike and Tina days) called “3 O'Clock in the Morning Blues.”

Then Ward plunged back into originals like the surprisingly catchy breakup song “365 Days” and the plaintive and vulnerable folk lament “If I Could Be Her.” Then she pulled out some new songs to close the night out, including the hip-hop tinged current single “On One” and the first-ever live performance of Dirty Shine’s song “OverdoZZe.”

And before the crowd could overdose on the sultry vibes, Ward and crew saw the night out with a sassy version of her early tune “Blue Eyes Blind” before dancing on out into the sultry Philly night.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2023 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: September 8, 2023.

Photos by Jay S. Jacobs © 2023. All rights reserved.

[popentertainment-concertphotos]

ZZ Ward – World Café Live – Philadelphia, PA – September 6, 2023

Photos by Jay S. Jacobs © 2023

[natethreepoint0]

Yo! That's My Jawn: The Podcast - Ep. 4.5 - Kevin Allison

An unexpected new episode! Join Nate for a conversation with Kevin Allison (RISK!, The State). They discuss the State, the Dreamboy sketch, the music used on the show, the season two promo “More Miserable Crap,” the origins of Barry and Levon, the child-like energy of the State, Paramount’s interest in the possibility of a State reunion/revival, how the brevity of their sketches lends itself to a…

[theshysoul]

[transingthoseformers]

Idea but

I imagined an Aligned adjacent au where at one point or another where all three are on a rebuilding Cybertron with their own apartments and haven't reunited until now

Starscream and Soundwave have their rid15 designs because those are beautiful as fuck in my opinion

Megs in my opinion has either a frame that's a mockup of his pre-war Megatronus frame or something similar to what we see in "Coming Home" because I fucking loved that fic

On a side note I've been running this plotline where Megs shows up somewhere and Optimus meets him while he's in jail of sorts, and Megs makes a remark about "This feels familiar, does it not?" A bittersweet moment with a helping of this exasperated fondness to it in my mind. I say this because I know in rid Starscream and Soundwave were individually hauled in for a trial, and I adore the idea of there being a rehabilitation program because yes.

I'll be honest I don't really know who Starscream should be with as in this situation I'm imagining wavewave and megop, yes. I know I did imagine Starscream having minibots / smaller sparklings, because I've been thinking about that (the frame ratios are more in favor of carrying for his rid15 frame, which is how this scenario was born.)

[recordsplayer]

Patrick Stump at World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, August 10 2011 📸: Scarlet Estelle / @sugarweregoinin

[kandicon]

Actually I really wanna write a role reversal gerrymichael au and let me be so, so transparent when I say it is literally just bc I wanna fantasize about the tall, gangly blond man beating monsters to death

Everyone else has the same roles. Mary Keay is still Mary Keay in all her abusive and obsessive glory; Gertrude is still the Archivist.

Vaguely spiral aligned Michael who Does Not Like It. Pretends his connection is a hell of a lot looser than it is.

The only benefit (that Michael thinks of the Spiral) is how he can move around the Institute with relatively little interference and watch, after all, it is hard to behold something that is both nothing and everything and never was all at the same time.

Gerry ran away from home really young and actually succeeded. Spent a few years fucking around and learning what kind of benches are best to sleep on before applying to the Magnus Institute because that's what his dad did. He lied to hell and back on the application, but was hired quickly because of how thoroughly touched by the entities he was (thanks Mary) and Gertrude was running low on assistants. Gerry also felt completely justified in faking stuff and that he was perfectly qualified bc he grew up in a bookshop and how much different could it be (very different, as it turns out).

They first meet each other when Michael is prowling through artefact storage like it was a shopping mall, and pocketing everything he saw that didn't immediately mesmerize him. He was nervous and jumpy as all hell, even though this was not the first time he's done something similar and he's fairly certain Gertrude doesn't care, so when Gerry first spotted him from behind, he was immediately suspicious even before he saw Michael try to shove a lamp into his jacket pocket. This led to an altercation that eventually led to the lamp being accidentally turned on, Michael smashing it to pieces with a hammer Gerry had not realized Michael had, and Gerry suddenly being a lot more consciously aware of the supernatural than he was.

Gerry's mother was still obsessive over Lighteners, and she didn't make an effort to hide what she did, but she didn't actively try to educate Gerry on anything to do with the Fears. So he is fairly knowledgeable on the supernatural, but he doesn't know anything concrete about the Fears themselves and their categorization. The role of a stand by sacrifice instead of an errand boy and heir.

Michael still trusts Gertrude, but this time he knows he shouldn't and hates himself for it. Gerry wants to trust Gertrude, and she does hide him from anything Fears related and behaves around him like she did Michael in cannon, but he just feels something off about her and doesn't like it. She's just a bit too much like his mother for him to let his guard down.

Michael gets referred to by "it/its" pronouns once by Gerry as a teasing joke before Gerry fully knows what he is and is absolutely terrified by how happy the pronouns make his feel. (He thinks, maybe, that the Michael of his childhood liked something similar, too, but everything too far back is all twisted and he doesn't know what has been touched by the Spiral and what hasn't, so he doesn't trust any of it). He/it Michael ftw

At one point Michael just started putting black lipstick on himself because some of Gerry's always stuck to him when they kissed anyways n this gave them plausible deniability. Michael will never admit to the little spiral thrill it gives him when people do a double take upon seeing his face, the black lipstick contrasting literally everything else about his style.

Gabriel attempted to track Michael down exactly once, a few years before he joined the institute. He had heard about Michael's unsavory... Hobby... (<- reckless destruction of artefacts and throwing himself at all monsters and avatars he sees with a murderous rage regardless of their affiliation) but spiral avatars capable of holding a conversation are so few and far between and the Great Twisting was almost prepared, so he thought a meeting would be worth it. He showed up at a cafe Michael frequented one day expecting lovely, but tense, conversation, only to promptly lit on fire (mostly) in the back alley behind the cafe after he introduced himself. Gabriel survived, but some of his clay body still hardens unexpectedly or shows signs of firing from time to time.

Occasionally Michael's eyes will change colors and shapes, so he likes to put contacts in (he used to just use tinted glasses, but after one time of Gerry getting lost in his eyes in the far too literal, not at all romantic, sense, he decided to invest in smth a bit harder to take off and forget about). Unfortunately, this sometimes means other, very much not his original eyes will pop up around his body and in his hair as protest when he puts them in. It's not very fun to have to chase off eyes at 6am, but he does it regardless and complains the whole time about how he shouldn't have to deal with eyes when he very clearly isn't of The Eye.

Gerry: Oh hey you were running pretty late. I was starting to get worried.

Michael, not about to admit he spent an extra thirty minutes to get ready yelling and brandishing a lighter at a door that was following him around like a lost puppy: Ummmmmm I forgot my wallet. :((

[popentertainmentconcertreviews]

American Authors & Billy Raffoul – World Café Live – Philadelphia, PA – February 17, 2023

On Friday, World Cafe Live welcomed American Authors for a wonderful and intimate show, joined by Billy Raffoul. This was the fourth stop on their tour for their brand-new album Best Night of My Life, released on February 10th. This is their fourth studio album, and fans gathered eagerly in the venue, clearly excited for the night ahead.

Up first was Billy Raffoul, who started the show wonderfully. His set was made up of his songs including “You Be Love,” “Better,” “Jim Carrey,” “We Could Get High,” and my personal favorite, “I’m Not a Saint.” Raffoul was incredibly interactive with the crowd, and stated how excited he was to be back in Philadelphia. He had played World Cafe Live before and shared his love for the venue with the crowd. He kept the audience engaged through his complete set with his intricate vocals and lively instrumentals.

Not long after Raffoul’s set, American Authors took the stage. They were met with large cheers from the crowd, as they walked out with smiles from ear to ear. They started their set off strong with songs “Believer,” “Go Big or Go Home,” a cover of “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers, and “We Happy.” American Authors was extremely interactive with the crowd, sharing how grateful and excited they were to be there and to be back in Philadelphia.

They continued their set with songs “I’m Born to Run,” “Pocket Full of Gold,” “Deep Water,” “Best Day of My Life,” and the title track of their newest album, Best Night of My Life. Towards the end of the set, American Authors got up close and personal with the crowd, getting down off the stage and singing with the audience. The room was full of happiness throughout the entire night, and American Authors kept the energy lively through their whole set.

Be sure to get out and see a night of the Best Night of My Life tour with American Authors and Billy Raffoul as it continues over the next month, and don’t forget to stream American Authors newest album, Best Night of My Life on all streaming platforms!

Emma Fox

Copyright ©2023 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: February 15, 2023.

Photos by Emma Fox © 2023. All rights reserved.

[popentertainment-concertphotos]

Jaime Wyatt – World Café Live – Philadelphia, PA – September 6, 2023

Photos by Jay S. Jacobs © 2023

[cosmogyros]

Literally can't pay my rent until I get paid for September, which hasn't happened yet. Today is Friday, and Monday is the last day of the month. I'm so tired of being poor.