Highly Suspect Rawks Northampton
NORTHAMPTON – Hailing from Cape Cod and lighting up modern rock radio, Highly Suspect made a stop at the Pearl Street Nightclub in Northampton last week. Sponsored by Lazer 99.3 FM, this was another great show with low ticket prices and a mediocre turnout.
Highly Suspect just recently released their debut album titled Mister Asylum after many years playing the club circuit on the Cape. Currently the band is in the middle of a small tour of the United States and just recently announced they will be part of the European leg of the Carnival of Madness Tour featuring Shinedown. This is big!!!
Back to the Pearl Street show. These Lazer-sponsored shows at Pearl Street all seem to give some up these up and coming bands a chance to headline their own shows and usually last about an hour. I suppose that makes sense based on the $10 ticket prices.
Highly Suspect pounded through an 11-song set consisting entirely of the Mister Asylum album with one additional song, Round and Round which was sung by bassist, Rich Meyer (Rich’s brother is drummer Ryan Meyer). The band had a ton of energy and their sound was great for such a small space.
Some of the highlight songs from the night were the opener Bath Salts, Mom, 23 and Blood Feather. Their current top ten hit Lydia came towards the end of the evening and had the crowd singing along with each word.
Highly Suspect are getting some really good press for both their live shows and their music…so keep an eye or ear out for this band from the Cape!
Rob Thomas Shines at the Sun
UNCASVILLE – Ultra-talented singer-songwriter Rob Thomas brought The Great Unknown tour to the Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday night to a mostly packed house. Thomas has a new release coming out on August 21, also titled The Great Unknown, and debuted a few new songs off of it throughout the night.
The Matchbox Twenty singer who already has released two solo albums has written some of the highest charting songs in the pop/rawk genre over the past decade and continues to pump out hit after hit.
Thomas was joined on stage by a full band including two backup singers, two guitarists, a bass player, and a drummer. The stage was wide open which gave Thomas plenty of room to roam from side to side while engaging this very vocal crowd consisting of mostly adult females.
Thomas didn’t stray too far from the set lists of his previous shows on the tour with just a couple of minor changes for the die-hard fans that may have been to one of these previous tour stops. With three full releases and a catalog of his other band’s material, Thomas had plenty of songs to choose from to make up the set.
Pulling songs from each of his three solo releases Thomas wowed the crowd with Lonely No More, Her Diamonds, and Streetcorner Symphony. The show included new songs Trust You, One Shot and Hold on Forever. Trust You, or as Thomas referred to it as “pop candy”, was actually a perfect fit for his live set.
The only glimpse of his career with Matchbox Twenty came during a slowed down solo performance of Thomas and a piano for 3 A.M. He clearly has enough material on his own, but the fans let him know how much they love his other band.
This time around on tour, Thomas added two cover songs in the mix. First was David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, which he has covered before, and by the way…sounds amazing and for an encore he added Cindi Lauper’s Time after Time. This was a solo performance with just him and a guitar.
Overall Thomas is worth the price of admission. His energetic performance mixed with hit songs, cover tunes and some great musicianship from the band. If you like good music live, then next time whether it is Matchbox Twenty or Thomas solo…go check him out!
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