Lockn Festival, Fall Line Fest, Steep Canyon Rangers, Airborne Toxic Event, Darius Rucker, Califone, The Last Bison, Houses

I just typed a 1000 blogs and boy, are my fingers tired! That's right, a full 1000 blogs and 1001 will mention what I hope will be one my biggest and best music weekends ever, the Lockn Festival, about 30 miles of Charlottesville, this weekend. I'll be there to see three shows from Furthur featuring Bob Weir and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, John Fogerty, Widespread Panic, Black Crowes, Jimmy Cliff, Trey Anastasio Band, Tedeschi Trucks Band and more. Why, it's a jam band fans wet dream. And there will most likely be lots of mixing and matching among the bands so we should see some unique and interesting combinations. You can still get a four day pass for $285 or single day passes at $99 (Thursday or Sunday) or $119 (Friday or Saturday). Students can get discounted tickets. If you can't make it out, you can watch it on the World Wide Web at nugs.tv. A single day webcast will cost you $14.99. You can look for me on the webcast. I'll be the guy in the Grateful Dead t-shirt.

Darius "Don't call me Hootie" Rucker will be out at Innsbrook on Thursday night, doing his mellow pop-country thing. Tix are $25 for General Admission. The Gold Circle is no longer available. Gates open at 5, show starts at 6:30 with opener Brinn Black (not to be confused with Brent Black, moe. fans). Darius will come on between 7:15 and 7:45. Darius will be a presenter at the American Country Music awards in Nashville on Tuesday, Sept. 10. It's a shame they aren't televising them because they've got some good performers representing a wide range of country music including Rodney Crowell & Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Paul Franklin, Robert Earl Keen, and more. Perhaps some highlights will show up on the World Wide Web. Here's Darius doing his cover of Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel" with some lyrics credited to Bob Dylan.


There is a pretty good festival going on in venues all over Richmond this weekend. The Fall Line Fest features music, food and art around the city on Friday and Saturday. A weekend pass will only cost you $20, a single day pass $15. Bands playing include Helado Negro, Kopecky Family Band, Neon Indian, No BS! Brass Band, Photosynthesizers, Rattlemouth, Southern Belles, Speedy Ortiz, Big Freedia and more. There will be a number of art installations and restaurants are offering special pris fixe menus and cocktails. Click the link up there to check it all out.

It's an Americana night over at Canal Club Saturday night with The Last Bison, The Vacant Stairs and The Blue and the Grey. Doors open at 8 and it's $12 to get in. You'll probably dig Last Bison if you like Fleet Foxes, Mumford & Sons, Jake Bugg, The Decemberists or Jars of Clay. Here's The Last Bison's song, "Switzerland":



More Americana/bluegrass on Sunday at University of Richmond's Modlin Center for the Arts. The Steep Canyon Rangers, who you may have seen backing up Steve Martin and Edie Brickell recently, will perform there. The show starts at 7:30 and Joy Kills Sorrow will open. Tickets range from $10 to $40 depending on how old you are and your affiliation with U of R. Steep Canyon Rangers have a new album coming out Sept. 10 called "Tell the Ones I Love". It was recorded in Levon Helm's studio and produced by Larry Campbell. Here's a one-minute teaser of a song called "Lay Myself Down" from that album:



As an added bonus here is Steep Canyon Rangers, Steve Martin, Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, the McCourys and Jason Carter playing "The Crow" at DelFest in 2012:



Experimental low-fi blues rock band Califone will be at Capital Ale House on Sunday night. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 with opener Richard Buckner. Tix are $10 in advance, $12 day of show. Califone's new album, "Stitches", just came out yesterday. Here's Califone doing "3 Legged Animals":



On Sunday at Strange Matter, indie electronic pop band Houses will perform. Doors will open at 8, show will start around 9 with openers Jamaican Queens and Mirror Kisses. Tix are $10 in advance, $12 day of show. The band is looking for some tunes to listen to in their tour van, so if you bring a mix CD or, if you are a musician, you bring a CD of your own music, you'll get $3 off of any of Houses' merchandise. Here's Houses' "Beginnings":



Indie rockers Airborne Toxic Event will be at The National on Monday night. Doors open at 6:30, show starts at 7:30 with opener American Authors. Ticket price is $10.21 since XL 102.1 is sponsoring the show. You might like ATE if you like My Morning Jacket, Vampire Weekend, Bloc Party, The National, David Bowie, Modest Mouse, The Cure, The Smiths, Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen, Radiohead, The Clash, The Decemberists or U2. Here they are doing "True Love" live:



That'll be it. Have a great weekend. I know I will at the Lockn Fest!

Tony Jordan

Darius Rucker, Jack's Mannequin, O.A.R.

Haven't had any "Late Night" picks this week because I've been slammed at work.  It's the end of the fiscal year (yes, boring state money stuff) and, as usual, I put off until the end of the year some things I should have kept up with during the year.  So it's completely my fault and once again I find myself wondering why I did this to myself and vowing that this year will be different. We shall see.

Darius Rucker, former lead singer of Hootie & The Blowfish, comes to Innsbrook on Thursday night.  Tix are $17 in advance, $20 at the gate for general admission.  Show starts at 6 PM with opener TBA and Darius will hit the stage around 8.  Darius is hitting it pretty big on the country charts these days.  If you liked Hootie and the Blowfish but always thought "These songs really need a twangy-er guitar" than this show is for you.

Jack's Mannequin will be at The National on Friday night.  Tix are $20 in advance, $25 day of show.  Doors open at 6, show starts at 7 with openers River James, Lady Danville & Steel Train.  Jack's Mannequin play piano-based indie pop kind of stuff.  I was going to include videos but I seem to be having a problem with YouTube tonight.  They won't let me embed this one anyway so here is a link to Jack's Mannequin's "The Resolution".

O.A.R. (Of A Revoluntion) will be at Innsbrook on Wednesday night.  Tix are $17 in advance, $20 at the gate for general admission, $35 for Gold Circle and $75 for Skybox.  Gate open at 6 PM and the show starts with Kelley James, then SOJA.  O.A.R. comes on around 8.  O.A.R. has always struck me as kind of a poor man's Dave Matthews Band, the kind of band I might listen to if I was drunk in college and I was trying to hook up with the sorority girl who was really into them, but she was paying more attention the band than me. 

That's pretty much it this week.  I'm going to call it a night because I'm going to try to figure out if YouTube isn't working for me or if  something else is wrong.

Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan