Hear alongside on Spotify as you learn.
1. Alvvays: “Straightforward on Your Personal?”
Let’s begin with the newest one: Final Wednesday, I caught a superb double invoice in Prospect Park, as part of BRIC Arts Media’s annual Have fun Brooklyn! Competition. The Canadian dream-pop band Alvvays performed first; its final album, “Blue Rev,” was one in every of my favorites of 2022, and I particularly love this fuzzed out, gently melancholic second monitor. (Hear on YouTube)
2. Alex G: “Gretel”
And right here’s the opposite half of that double invoice, the Philadelphia indie musician Alex G, who additionally launched one in every of my favourite albums of final yr, the unusual and poignant “God Save the Animals.” Alex’s dwell reveals are all the time a bit louder and extra raucous than his data would lead you to imagine; I’ve really seen mosh pits escape when he performs this seemingly subdued standout from his nice 2019 album, “Home of Sugar.” (Hear on YouTube)
3. Taylor Swift: “The Archer”
I’ve been recognized to confer with this one as “The Sagittarius Nationwide Anthem.” The extra I take into consideration Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour — and there are many alternatives to take action; it’s nonetheless all anyone desires to speak about — the extra I believe my favourite stretch of the live performance was the primary one, when she lastly bought to play some songs from her 2019 album “Lover.” Right here she is at her most minimalist, and her most antiheroic, as she punctures her personal good-girl picture on “The Archer”: “I see proper by me, I see proper by me.” (Hear on YouTube)
4. Tanya Tucker: “Delta Daybreak”
Once I traveled to the Gorge in Washington earlier this summer time to catch Brandi Carlile’s Echoes By means of the Canyon pageant — and, you recognize, a sure very, very particular headliner — I used to be fortunate sufficient to catch an early night set by the nation icon Tanya Tucker. My second favourite a part of the present was when she performed “Delta Daybreak,” which she recorded at age 13, and each single particular person there sang alongside on the high of their lungs. My first favourite half was when Tucker uncorked a bottle of her signature tequila and handed it across the entrance row. (Hear on YouTube)
5. Amanda Shires & Bobbie Nelson: “At all times on My Thoughts”
The headliners that ultimate night time of Echoes By means of the Canyon had been the Highwomen, a rustic supergroup that options Carlile, Maren Morris, Natalie Hemby and the fiery fiddle participant and singer-songwriter Amanda Shires. Every Highwoman performed a solo cowl throughout the set, and Shires wowed me with a poignant rendition of “At all times on My Thoughts,” which she devoted to Bobbie Nelson. Fortunately, you didn’t simply need to be there: The studio recording of the track, on which Nelson performed piano shortly earlier than she died final yr, is attractive, and fairly near the model Shires performed dwell. (Hear on YouTube)
