Last month we worked with The Stationary Set at the NEXT Charity Concert Series at our favorite new venue Captain Lawrence Brewery. After a well worked sound check these guys performed one set that was like waiting and finally seeing the space shuttle launch. An incredible show that built up and took off with orchestrated and melodic rock. Check out a few pics below from Focus In Digital our photography partner.
Don’t forget Thursday December 13th at the Captain Lawrence Brewery NEXT returns with Deadbeat Darling!!! Show starts at 8pm…you could be home by 10:30 and had an awesome evening!!!
In fortunate and unfortunate ways, we have been too preoccupied with our work and storms that it took us a little bit of time to get a post up for you. But today we bring you the pics from the NEXT Charity Concert Series at Captain Lawrence Brewery Featuring a band that is quickly becoming one of our most favorite bands, The Modern Electric from Cleveland, OH.
What an excellent 2 sets of solid written music from their originals to a couple covers that they do in amazing ways. Including an incredible version of Smashing Pumpkins 1979. If you listened to the Modern Electric Live EP on allthingsnext.com then you should be familiar with their 1970’s pop cinematic style (The highest number of plays out all the Live EPs from the concert series), but missing the show you also missed a bunch of new songs. Look out for these guys on a major label soon!
Photo’s are again by way of Focus In Digital our photography partner.
Well. Our partner in Focus in Digital had been booked to a prior engagement leaving BNK Pro on their own for photography last weekend at the NEXT Charity Concert Series. Such a shame too! We had My Pet Dragon at the Captain Lawrence Brewery! My Pet Dragon are another of the great Brooklyn bands. They’re strong performers with simple but anthemic songs. This night was an incredible night from them in such a cool setting. It’s always good to hear them live. Especially as their song Moonshine is an excellent live song! Simple but full of energy!
On the production side, when we arrived to set up for the show, the staff at Captain Lawrence Brewery had already set up the stage. They had some great ideas and jumped on them. They took stacks of pallets and placed them in 3 rows to form a nice sized stage that looked like it belonged in a brewery! Sound was very good up front, but noticeably echoing as you moved back from the stage as is expected. There are brewing silos and lots of bottles in this building. There is also plenty of room to dance and move around so, its fine being up front!
But as mentioned, no photographs from our pro! We had to take our own with our phones! Fortunately today’s phones take better pics than they used to, but these are not going to be the usual quality you are used to on this site.
Overall, this show was another successful event as we fine tune how to party in a brewery! NEXT Music has continuously brought fantastic music with a fun party atmosphere to the Westchester area and this was a perfect example. Please check out the links below and peak at the people involved.
As we discussed in the previous post, the NEXT Charity Concert Series had moved this past Thursday, August 23rd. Now some environments can be particularly harsh to music. A warehouse certainly fits the title of “Hostile Environment” for putting on a concert. When it’s Black Taxi with all their dynamics, well, now we’re really being challenged. We met with the people of Captain Lawrence early in the month to get a view of the place and what we were facing. Concrete floors, metal roof panels, cardboard, beer bottles, beer kegs, huge beer brewing equipment. Really, a very reflective venue. Night of show we came in thinking we were prepared for it, but there were some changes. Bottles. A lot more of them. Right next to the staging area. Ever blow into a bottle to make it whistle? If you’ve done this you have an idea of how they resonate sound. How would it react to 8,400 watts and 102 db of Black Taxi? We were about to find out.
Ok. Enough of the build up. It really wasn’t that tough. It was tough, but we caught it. The place was very peaky, so equalization adjustments in the mid to mid-high range were very touchy. The place, as expected had a lot of natural reverb. One adjustment we will be making at the next NEXT show is to bring in another se of our top end speakers. This will give us a better field of sound to overcome some of the reflections. Anyone in attendance for the next show shouldn’t notice much difference. It’s more for us than the concert goers.
Now, about the show. Holy crap! A sold out show! This crowd was treated to two sets by the Black Taxi crew. The energy level was like building fire. By the middle of the first set it felt like it could explode. The highlight of the evening was to see Ezra climb up a ladder at the side of the stage that lead to a storage area, and then finding a step ladder there, he climbed to the rafter to play his tambourine against the steel frame of the roofing. And no we did not have a mic there. I say this every time when discussing Black Taxi, If you haven’t heard them then you need too. Get on ITunes or Amazon and pick up their albums. Catch a show. Get on their website at blacktaxi.com and find out when they’re playing in your area. Then get over to allthingsnext.com because you really need to learn more about new music, and Chris Bro of NEXT is the professor of new music. Listen to the podcast.
September brings another great show in the long running NEXT Charity Concert Series with another amazing band. My Pet Dragon. Stamford people may be familiar with them from their performance at the Alive At Five opening for Hot Chel Rae. We will discuss this show more in an upcoming post.
Pics of the Black Taxi show will be posted shortly.
For more about the Black Taxi show go to NEXT’s review here.
