Tony Lucca - World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA - March 5, 2011

Our first Tony Lucca experience was in February 2009, also at World Cafe. We'd seen Sara Bareilles three times during the previous summer when she was the opening act for a Counting Crows / Maroon 5 double-headlining tour. We really liked her, and wanted to see her headline. A friend who works for WXPN arranged for us to see her play World Cafe. Tony Lucca was the opener. We hadn't heard of him before that night, but we only made it about halfway into his set before Carter was out at the merch table buying a copy of each one of his CDs. We've listened to him a lot since then, and consider ourselves pretty big fans, but we hadn't had the opportunity to see him live again until now.

Carter: We went to Philly earlier in the day to go to the Academy of Natural Sciences. I had free tickets to it, courtesy of WXPN from when I called in to Kids' Corner one time and won them as a prize. It was very fun. We saw the live butterfly exhibit and I got to do a simulation of an archeological dig and look for fossils.

Mama: I like going to shows in Philadelphia. Since we can get there in under two hours by car or about an hour from the Lancaster train station, it's easy to plan around the shows and do other things while we're there.

Carter: Then we had dinner at Barbuzzo on South 13th Street, the neighborhood where my aunt and uncle used to live. We had a lot of tapenade. I loved it so much I wanted to bathe in it. It would be cool if I had a shower that sprayed tapenade and I had a towel made of bread...

Mama: That's kinda gross.

Carter: Not if you love tapenade as much as I do.

Mama: We really did have an amazing meal.

Carter: Maybe we should just make this blog post the "Tony Lucca and Tapenade" post. Because that was really a highlight of the trip for me, too.

Mama: Maybe not. After we ate, we still had some time to spend in the city before the show since it didn't start until 10 p.m. So we visited some of our favorite shops, walked down Walnut Street so Carter could try to find a copy of a book about Banksy that I thought I'd seen at Urban Outfitters, and even though we were saving room for hummus at World Cafe during the show, no trip to Philly would feel complete to us without a visit to Capogiro for gelato (convenient that it's right across the street from Barbuzzo).

Carter: Then we went to World Cafe Live. It's set up like a restaurant with a bar on one side. So you sit at tables like a restaurant while you watch the show. That's the upstairs venue. The downstairs venue is bigger, and can be set up with or without tables.

Mama: I think that Sara Bareilles show might have been the first time we ever went to World Cafe Live, but I've seen tons and tons of shows there over the last few years.

Carter: They have really good hummus (Mama, can you please make "hummus" in all capital letters and underlined and lots of exclamation points?). I love hummus.

Mama: Yeah, so I suppose it goes without saying that we ate hummus while we watched Tony Lucca. When I called to get tickets and make a seating reservation, I requested a table in the front half of the room. Because they also offer dining, I find that people tend to talk more than they might if it were a venue without seating, and I think it's easier to hear if you're not in the back of the room.

Carter: When they took us to our seats, our table ended up being pretty much on the stage. We couldn't have been any closer...while we ate our huummmuusss!

Mama: He played pretty much all the songs we wanted to hear -

Carter: Except for "True Story."

Mama: Yeah, that's a great song. He makes reference to his time on the Mickey Mouse Club in that song.

Carter: What's the Mickey Mouse Club?

Mama: Nevermind. Anyway, he played most of the songs I wanted to hear, including some newer ones I've only ever gotten to hear via YouTube, like "Take Me Home" and "Fight Song."

Carter: "Take me home, country roads, to the place I beloooooong..."

Mama: That is NOT a Tony Lucca song. The song I'm talking about is one that I've also heard referred to as "The Bus Driver Song." As the story goes, it was inspired by an early-morning comment from a tour bus driver.

Carter: I was really tired that whole night from walking around Philly all day. So I ended up almost falling asleep during the show. I felt bad.

Mama: What is it with you falling asleep at concerts? One of these days, we should do a blog post about all times you've fallen asleep in the middle of shows. I have photos from quite a few of them.

Carter: Even though I was really tired, I loved the show.

Mama: I liked seeing him play with other musicians, since we saw him solo the last time. It gave him a chance to play more of his rock & roll stuff, and I really enjoyed watching him wail on an electric guitar. But I was still glad when he played a few songs solo acoustic. It shows off his style of songwriting so well.

Carter: I liked seeing him play the piano. It sounded beautiful.

Mama: Me too. One of the songs he played was a cover - "Vienna," by Billy Joel. After that, he picked up a guitar again and talked about how there are always those songs out there that are so perfect that you wish you'd written them. He said the next song was one that felt that way for him, and that he'd discovered it on YouTube last year. Do you remember what it was?

Carter: The "Bed Intruder Song." [giggles] "...we gon' fiiiiiiind you, we gon' fiiiiiiind you..." I would even think it was funny if my cat meowed and I turned it into an auto-tuned remix. That song makes me laugh really hard. When a real musician plays one of the viral video songs, it's either a total backfire or a total success. In Tony Lucca's case, it was a success and it was funny.

Mama: I guess it's a song he's played pretty often this year, but I didn't know about it, so it caught me off guard and really cracked me up.

Carter: After the show I got to meet Tony Lucca and then we went to bed because I was tired from eating so much hummus. (Exclamation points.)

Carter meeting Tony Lucca (and wearing his Hoots & Hellmouth shirt!)

Highlights from the XPoNential Music Festival - Wiggins Park - Camden, NJ - July 16-18, 2010

This was Carter’s first time at XPN Fest. It’s held each year at Wiggins Park on the Camden Waterfront. The atmosphere is very laid-back. There are two stages – one along the river, with the Philadelphia skyline in the background, and one along the marina – and the schedule alternates between them. Since WXPN broadcasts the performances, nothing overlaps and you get to hear all the bands (more than 30 over the course of the three-day festival). Carter has picked his favorites from each day to tell you about.

FRIDAY

Marina Stage: Toy Soldiers, Dutch, Ben Arnold, Free Energy

River Stage: Alejandro Escovedo, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Big Head Todd & The Monsters

Carter: I loved Toy Soldiers. I already knew some of their music, so I was all set.

Mama: They were the first act of the whole festival, and we were already familiar with them because I’ve booked them before and reviewed their CD for Folktowne.com. It was cool to see how much the crowd got into them.

Toy Soldiers

Carter: I got a Toy Soldiers T-shirt. I needed an adult medium. WHY AM I SO TALL?!?!?

Mama: It’s just the way you are, Carter.

Carter: On the next day, I wore the Toy Soldiers shirt and saw some of the guys from the band while The Felice Brothers were playing and they noticed my shirt.

Mama: Your other favorite band on Friday was Free Energy, right?

Carter: Correct. I liked them because they sounded like a band that I would have liked if I knew them before we saw them.

Mama: I only knew two of their songs because XPN plays them. I really enjoyed them, too. We danced a lot during their set.

Carter: I love that song that goes, “Bang bang pop pop…”

Mama: Me too. The whole crowd was singing along. Bruce Warren [XPN program director] told us that the two bands he was most excited to book for the festival were Free Energy and Dawes.

Carter: They were two of my favorites. Especially Dawes.

SATURDAY

Marina Stage: Birdie Busch, Bobby Long, Joshua James, Diane Birch, Robert Francis, Ben Vaughn

River Stage: Harper Blynn, Nicole Atkins, The Walkmen, Yo La Tengo, Roseanne Cash, The Felice Brothers

Carter: One of my favorite artists on Saturday was someone we already saw before – Nicole Atkins and the Black Sea. So I was looking forward to seeing them.

Mama: Me too. I really enjoyed them when we saw them earlier this year at the Capitol in York.

Carter: I think the best song she has is “Brooklyn’s on Fire.” The crowd sings along and the lyrics are, “Fourth of Ju-ly! Brook-lyn’s on fire!” This was only a few weeks after the Fourth of July. It would have been funny if we saw her sing it on the Fourth of July in New York.

Mama: She’s such a rockstar. She has a great voice, and the band sounds great, and she’s also really fun to watch.

Nicole Atkins

Carter: That night, one of my other favorite bands came out, The Felice Brothers. We were right up front for them, and I got to hit like three beach balls that were bouncing around the crowd.

Carter and His Mama watching The Felice Brothers

Mama: It was a completely different experience to see The Felice Brothers from so close like that than it was to see them the week before from way in the back of the park. You were really into it.

Carter: I loved it. They’re one of my new favorite bands. One of my favorite songs is “Whiskey in my Whiskey.”

Mama: I like that one, too, because the keyboard player comes out front with an accordion and sings it. I think everyone in the band sang a song during their set, except maybe the drummer.

Carter: I like when the fiddle player plays the washboard and stands by the drummer and hits the washboard on the cymbals.

Mama: Yeah, those guys are crazy. They’re coming back to the Capitol for another CapLive show in October, so we’ll get to see them again soon.

SUNDAY

Marina Stage: The Great Unknown, Fool’s Gold, The Holmes Brothers, These United States, Amy Correia, Earl Greyhound

River Stage: Blood Feathers, Dawes, Cowboy Junkies, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Dr. Dog, Robert Randolph & The Family Band

Mama: The line-up on Sunday was awesome. I loved every performance we saw.

Carter: Dawes was awesome. The whole crowd sang along to “When My Time Comes.”

Dawes

Mama: They were really good. We were up front for their set, too. Our friend Dave Simchock, one of the festival photographers, told us he was really excited for them, and it was really fun to see him and everyone else in the pit enjoying the show so much, especially during that song. The whole place went nuts.

Carter: They weren’t even taking pictures during that song!

Mama: I know. Can you imagine what it must feel like to be up onstage playing one of your songs and having everyone sing along like that?

Carter: It would mean you were a superstar!

Mama: One really great thing about XPN Fest is that if you’re a member, they give you a special wristband that gets you access to a members-only area. You get free drinks all weekend, so you can keep going back and filling up your reusable water bottles with cold drinks, and there’s also a meet & greet area. If you opt in, they’ll send you text messages to remind you when a meet & greet line opens.

Carter: The only band we waited in the meet & greet line for was Dawes. When we met Dawes, we gave them an I Love York City Sticker, because they were going to be playing the Capitol Theatre in a few weeks. When I met Dawes I almost flipped out because I was so excited. I got pictures taken with them.

Mama: They were very gracious, and we told them how much we were looking forward to seeing them at home.

Mama: I went back up front for Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, but Carter went to watch from a blanket on the lawn with some of our friends.

Carter: Michaela Mijoun [XPN Morning Show host] came out to introduce them and said that this was the most musicians onstage at a time during the whole festival. I was really excited.

Mama: They were SO MUCH FUN! I thought it was really cool how during Dawes, Edward Sharpe, and Dr. Dog, a lot of the people from the bands that weren’t playing would sit in the wings and watch the one that was.

Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. If he were a cult leader, we'd be drinking his Kool-Aid.

Carter: I kind of didn’t want to stand in the front for Dr. Dog, just because I didn’t know them very well. I like their music, but it’s not really my favorite.

Mama: But did you enjoy it once you were up there and they were playing?

Carter: A little bit. My favorite part about standing up there was the cold necklaces we had.

Mama: We bought those there from one of the festival vendors. They were cotton necklaces filled with expanding icepack gel stuff. We put them in a bag of ice and they got cold and stayed cool for a pretty long time. It was so hot all weekend and we saw lots of other people who had bought them, too.

What was cool about Dr. Dog was the fact that they’re from Philly and the crowd was so supportive. I really enjoyed their set. I had seen them the month before at World Café Live (during the 2010 Non-COMM), and this was completely different, with such a big, enthusiastic crowd. I thought it was an awesome show.

Dr. Dog (with two of the guys from Edward Sharpe watching from the best seats in the house)

Carter: The last band that played at the festival was, I think, the best one. It was Robert Randolph & The Family Band.

Mama: What I didn’t know until he said so onstage is that all the members of the band really are his relatives.

Carter: We sat far away at first, on the bleachers. But we left kind of near the end. When we were in the parking lot, we could still hear perfectly and they were playing Poker Face.

Mama: That was crazy! You were so excited!

Carter: I sang it in the parking lot and people started staring at me.

Mama: That was a great way to end our festival experience.

Check back soon for our reviews of these live shows: Dawes at the Capitol Theatre, The Traveling Circus & Medicine Show at Musikfest in Bethlehem, and Deer Tick at the Capitol Theatre, The Traveling Circus & Medicine Show at the Wellmont Theater, Hot August Blues in Cockeysville, MD, featuring Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears, Keb Mo, and Lyle Lovett & His Large Band, and Lee Harvey Osmond at Ourhouse in York, PA.

Kate Miller-Heidke - WXPN Free at Noon Concert - World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA - July 9, 2010

While trolling WXPN’s website on a Tuesday for XPoNential Music Festival schedule updates, Mama noticed that their upcoming Free at Noon concert would feature Kate Miller-Heidke. Mama called to Carter in the next room to tell him that the opening act from when we saw Ben Folds and a Piano back in April would be playing the Free at Noon on Friday at World Café Live. Carter instantly appeared in the doorway and asked, “well, can we go?” Mama couldn’t think of any reason why we couldn’t, so we reserved our spots, booked some train tickets, and got psyched.

Mama: Philadelphia is a really easy day trip for us, especially by train. World Café Live is less than two blocks from 30^th Street Station, so we planned to go out there, catch the show, grab a bite to eat, and hop the train back home by late afternoon.

Carter: The train is a good place to read because it’s usually silent and if you’re sitting next to a stranger sometimes they don’t talk at all.

Mama: But on that train ride, we got to sit together and have breakfast and talk and read our books. And when we got there, we had some time to kill before the show, so we got to run over to Capogiro at 13^th & Sansom and have gelato.

Carter: Capogiro is the most delicious, heavenly gelato place in the world.

Mama: It's definitely one of my Happy Places. I try to always stop there at least once on every trip Philly. After our mid-morning gelato, we walked up to the Avenue of the Arts and got a cab back up to World Café Live.

Carter: When we got to World Café, the doors to the downstairs venue weren’t open yet, but we got to line up and they checked our names off the list and gave us door prize tickets for tickets to some other show (we didn't win). Then they opened the doors and we went in and I got us seats right in front of the stage.

Mama: Kate Miller-Heidke is already a pop star in Australia, but her recent stateside appearances are her first U.S. headlining shows. She sings and plays the keyboard. She’s accompanied by her husband, Keir Nuttall, who is a fantastic guitarist.

When she came out to start playing, she opened with “Space They Cannot Touch,” which is one of my favorites. She’s a trained soprano – an opera singer – which gives her pop songs a distinct flavor. She’s also incredibly charming.

Carter: When she hits the high notes it startles me because I’m used to pop music more than opera.

Mama: I saw you jump a few times when she sang high notes. It sounds pretty though, doesn’t it?

Carter: Yes it does!

Mama: Carter asked me before the show started if I thought she’d play his favorite song. I told him it wasn’t suitable for radio, and since they broadcast Free at Noon concerts live on WXPN, there was no way she’d play it.

Carter: But they finished the broadcast, and she came out for an encore, and said, “here’s a song that’s not suitable for the radio.” When she said that, I laughed really hard because I knew it was my song.

Mama: You really like songs that use curse words. I thought it was fun to see the people around us react, because most of them were probably hearing it for the first time. They were cracking up. It was fun to watch them have the same response to it that we had when we heard her play it back in April. We already knew the punchline.

Carter: Afterwards they had meet & greet and I got her autograph.

Mama: We brought our CD from home. It was lucky for us that we got an opportunity to meet her, because when we saw her at the Hershey Theatre, the meet & greet area was too crowded to get near her. This was a much better set-up. She was very gracious. She seems like such a lovely person.

Carter: Then we went upstairs for lunch and I had the best burger ever. The bun tasted like garlic bread. Then I looked over and saw Kate Miller-Heidke and her husband having lunch a few tables over.

Mama: World Café Live is such a great, intimate venue. We’ve seen a lot of really great shows there, both in the upstairs area and the larger downstairs venue. It’s become one of my favorite places. Do you remember the first show we saw there?

Carter: Sara Bareilles!

Mama: Another lovely, funny, and talented singer/songwriter. Tony Lucca was the opener at that show. And now I have Tony Lucca lyrics tattooed on me! That was the first time I'd ever heard him.

Carter: Anyway, then we walked back to the train station and went home.

Mama: See? I told you. Easy trip.

Check back soon for our reviews of these live shows: The Felice Brothers, highlights from the XPoNential Music Festival, and Dawes at the Capitol Theatre!