SAYREVILLE, NJ—There was a monster on stage, conducting the crowd below in a venue that was sold out for the day, and even hotter inside than the summer heat outdoors. I walked in on the All Stars Tour at its stop at Starland Ballroom with Motionless In White still…

BROOKLYN, NY—Hailed as the only punk rock tour of the summer by the night’s self-proclaimed MC, was the summer tour with Off With Their Heads and fellow punk rockers Dead To Me. So out came punks of all walks of life to the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn and took…

HOBOKEN, NJ—I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a rainy Sunday than by catching a show at Maxwell’s. The first band to play was Boyhood Is A Summer Sun, a quartet with an experimental post-rock sound. The band’s set was fairly short but what it lacked in…

BETHLEHEM, PA—MusikFest is a unique spectacle, a grand 10-day annual celebration of 300 acts on 14 stages (11 of which are free). Add the international cuisine, cafés, restaurants and tens of thousands of people walking around with their favorite alcoholic beverages like it’s the French Quarter in New Orleans…

BETHLEHEM, PA—The Taj Mahal Trio cakewalked into town on a hot July night and got the locals all revved up with pure blues fervor. Hey, we may not have Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howling Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Mississippi John Hurt, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Rev. Gary Davis, Son House…

MONTCLAIR, NJ—Irish pride was as pungent as the smell of beer when The Turbo A.C.’s, The Tossers and Dropkick Murphys unleashed their rebellious fury on the people inside the Wellmont Theatre on July 28. The venue was packed with an all-ages audience that traveled from around the Tri-State area—even…

BRIDGEPORT, CT—The 16th annual Gathering Of The Vibes at Seaside Park was hot both literally and figuratively. Psychedelics weren’t the only thing that melted minds this year. The staggering heat resulted in a lower than expected number of campers but in the midst of the dangerous and brutal heat…

BROOKLYN, NY—Metal bands tend to go for names that embody the dark aesthetic that coincides with the genre; Autopsy and Morbid Angel are perfect examples of this. Some even go as far as to create a new word to represent their Miltonic attempts at recreating how hostile metal can…

NEW YORK, NY—I don’t know how else to start this other than, holy shit, it was hot! But seriously, what could be better than one of the best rock bands around performing on a 3-hour cruise (insert Gilligan’s Island joke here) around Lady Liberty and the NYC Harbor. This…

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ—U2 blasted through its set at the New Meadowlands Stadium preaching the gospel of political righteousness to a soundtrack of churning sanctified rock that boomed to the heavens. Theirs was a spiritual knockout with Father Bono at the pulpit whipping his bandmates (and vice versa) onto higher…