Upcoming pop concerts: Yo La Tengo, Q102's Jingle Ball, and Jhené Aiko and the Internet
Yo La Tengo Last seen providing live accompaniment to filmmaker Sam Green's The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller at FringeArts in April, much-loved Hoboken indie-rock trio Yo La Tengo are back in town with a show at the Trocadero on Saturday. It's a dou
Yo La Tengo
Last seen providing live accompaniment to filmmaker Sam Green's The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller at FringeArts in April, much-loved Hoboken indie-rock trio Yo La Tengo are back in town with a show at the Trocadero on Saturday. It's a double special occasion. It's the 30th anniversary of the band, featuring guitarist Ira Kaplan, drummer Georgia Hubley, and bass player James McNew (who has been on board only since 1992). And a deluxe edition of their superb, sweetly trance-y 1993 album Painful, packaged with 12 bonus tracks and thus retitled Extra Painful, has just been released.
- Dan DeLuca
Q102's Jingle Ball 2014
Here's where you catch up with all of the toppermost of the poppermost in one teen scream of an evening. This year's various-artists party, thrown by Top 40 radio station Q102, includes a number of the biggest breakout acts of the year, such as much maligned and hugely popular "Fancy" Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, British crooner Sam Smith, former Nickelodeon star and mini-Mariah Ariana Grande, "Bang Bang" hitmaker Jessie J, and Meghan Trainor, who is not about the treble, but the bass. Nick Jonas is host.
- Dan DeLuca
Jhené Aiko and the Internet
Los Angeles-based singer Jhené Aiko, who plays the Electric Factory on Friday, is among a number of young chanteuses content to pay their dues, doing backgrounds and luscious leads for famous rappers (Common, Drake, Big Sean, T.I.), until their solo careers gain headway. Aiko's signature seductive sound dominates her recent album Souled Out. It lifts her above that background-singing fray, with solid, self-penned songs, brisk and teasing rhythms, dramatic lyrics ("Many, many, many, many men/Wish death upon me"), and her sultry voice. On Friday, her opening act will be the Internet, two guys associated with the hip-hop crew Odd Future. On their most recent, and very soulful, album Feel Good, they aren't much more energized than the sleepy Aiko. But for the most part, vocalist Syd the Kyd and producer Matt Martians are edgier, and sillier, than their headliner.
- A.D. Amorosi