Nickel Creek reviewed.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
In his review for the Grand Rapids Press, John Sinkevics had this to say of Nickel’s Creek’s energetic show at Calvin earlier this week:
Nickel Creek mandolin whiz Chris Thile has a theory about performing live, about making the trio’s time on stage something extraordinary to set it apart from the rest of the day.
“You try to elevate two hours out of the 24, make them totally different ... a more transcendent experience,” he told some Calvin College students Tuesday in a preconcert chat.
Mission accomplished.
You can hear aforementioned preconcert chat at our website. The mp3 is 29.8MB and 50 minutes long.
Calvin writers on…
Monday, February 27, 2006
Relevant magazine online featured two articles by Calvin folks (one current student and one alum) this week. Check ‘em out!
Sigur Ros concert review by Cara Daining
The Dark Side of the iPod Age by Phil Mollenkof
Speaking in tongues.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Paste magazine senior writer Andy Whitman went to see Icelandic band Sigur Ros in Columbus, Ohio, this week. His review is a foretaste of what’s in store for us at Calvin this coming Saturday:
Lead singer/cherub Jonsi played his electric guitar with a bow, like a mutant cello, and made unearthly sounds with his voice. “Eeeeeuuuuu Syyyyyy Ohhhhhh” he sang on at least six songs, his falsetto soaring impossibly upward. It’s Hopelandic, a made-up language based on nonsense syllables and his native Icelandic, but I’d prefer to think of it as the angelic dialect of the heart. That mysterious phrase, repeated many times, sounded at various times like longing, yearning, grief, sorrow, joy, the unanswerable questions you hurl at God when your best friend dies of cancer, the wordless cry of joy when you witness the birth of your child, a thousand other moments of spiritual combustibility and incandescence that cannot be contained by cognitive knowledge and understanding. If it sounds trippy, it is. The gauze curtain that the band sometimes played behind, accenting shimmering shadows and spectral shapes, and the late ‘60s Pink Floyd freakout lightshow, only added to that impression. But that’s the territory explored by this band. It has nothing to do with objective communication, and everything to do with hotwiring the soul to the ineffable and the sublime.
File under “should-a could-a would-a.”
Thursday, September 29, 2005
One of our favorite popular culture critics (and soon-to-be-published novelist) Jeffrey Overstreet raves about Arcade Fire’s live show:
This is like seeing U2 during the October or War tour, folks. DO NOT MISS THEM. This is like seeing REM during the Life’s Rich Pageant tour, or Radiohead after The Bends. This is a band that’s just catching fire (no pun intended), and they have the potential to be one of the all-time greats. ... [We] had that distinct feverish feeling that we were experiencing one of the great breakthrough tours in rock history. I half expected to see David Bowie, or Bono, or even Kurt Cobain’s ghost peering around the corner.
Meanwhile, we in the Student Activities kick ourselves repeatedly for failing to book the band when we had the chance. Keep your fingers crossed for a spring tour…