Voodoo Experience 2013

ARTIST PREVIEWS • SCHEDULE CUBES • MAP

$12

INTRODUCING

LUNCH PLATS DU JOUR FOR MONDAY

WEDNESDAY

Red Beans & Rice Cajun Smoked Sausage

FRIDAY

Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie & File Gumbo

TUESDAY

Beef Pot Pie Wild Mushroom Biscuit

Crispy Louisiana Catfish Cabbage & Mirliton Slaw, Fries

THURSDAY

Fried Chicken & Waffles Crystal Sugar Cane Syrup

ALSO: Roll through the week with WEDNESDAY WINE SPECIAL at Criollo

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

20 wines for $20

02

FOR RESERVATIONS CALL 504.681.4444 HOURS OF OPERATION Open 7 Days A Week Breakfast: 6:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

Lunch: 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Dinner: 5:30 p.m. - until.

Located in the Hotel Monteleone 214 Royal Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 H T T P :// C R I O L L O N O L A .C O M /

CONTENTS PAGE 5

PAGE 7

PAG E 1 9

Matt & Kim

7

5

Anamanaguchi

10 Schedule, information

19 Pearl Jam

6

Shovels & Rope

15 Fleur Debris

19 The Cure

Those Darlins and maps

15 Dr. John

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

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03

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ust about everyone’s heard Matt & Kim — even if they EE 7 haven’t heard of Matt PA G E 1 & Kim. Though the duo has been together for 10 years, it was the 2009 album Grand (one of three Matt & Kim LPs in the last four years) that saw the uplifting, shouty-chorus track “Daylight” take off. The song’s initial push came from a hard-to-resist Bacardi ad featuring a man walking through dance halls from different eras as the duo played in the background.

“Daylight” has appeared in many places since, including the games The Sims, FIFA and NBA Live and the TV shows Community, Entourage and Skins.

The track even resurfaced in commercials last year for Comcast’s Xfinity service.

Matt & Kim isn’t a one-hit wonder. It released a remixed version of Lightning in early October, and the band continues 3:30PM · SUNDAY to rise because of its live shows.

R I T U A L S TA G E “A big objective we’ve always had is to make it a show where you don’t need to know a single one of our Johnson spoke with Gambit, he was songs and you can still enjoy it,” says still sore from a weekend show at keyboardist and vocalist Matt Johnson.

Union College in Schnectady, N.Y. “Too “There are certain bands out there much headbanging,” he says. “I was that play complex, far-out music that just fist-pumping too hard on stage to sometimes is hard unless you know the point I threw my f’n shoulder out.” it, but our goal is the exact opposite.

It’s this symbiotic relationship with In the way someone can enjoy a DJ audiences of any size that pushes set that’s been orchestrated to not be Matt & Kim sets into a higher gear. about knowing every individual song, “I watch NBA basketball games we do a lot of that.” and watch players sort of half-ass it The duo employs DJ-like tactics: through the midseason games, then exhorting the crowd and roaming the finally when they get to the finals stage end-to-end, and it also slips in cover snippets of gigantic hits between you can tell they’re really diving out of bounds, giving it everything,” he songs — and sometimes during them.

“We have a song, ‘Cameras,’ and in the says. “Kim (Schifino) and I have no middle we go into Ludacris’ ‘Move Bitch,’” variation like that — we’re always diving out of bounds to catch the Johnson says. “What other indie band balls, whether it’s a small private out there is throwing Ludacris into the show for a couple hundred people or middle of one of their songs?” a festival in front of 40,000. WhenThe Matt & Kim tour has hit a few festivals this year, though it is an ever we get on stage, we’re putting intimate-venue act at heart. When everything into it.”

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SCAN ME

BY NATHAN MATTISE

ANAMANAGUCHI

BY ALEX WOODWARD

SE E

“W

8:15PM · FRIDAY

CARNIVAL STAGE Berkman formed Anamanaguchi after building punk rock tracks with 8-bit Nintendo parts. Guitarist and Los Angeles native Ary Warnaar and New York University music technology program grad James DeVito round out the self-described “boy band,” with Silas, who also performs his solo low-tech raves as Knife City. All members compose via email, creating an online chain of tracking that begins as a goofball video game hook and ends in frantic dance-pop, a sort of Internet 2013 soundtrack.

“We all played games when we were younger. Let’s face it: We’re the same age as a lot of stuff we’re using. The hardware has grown up.

It has matured with the people using it,” Silas says. “A lot of people start with this because of that nostalgia factor, but fewer and fewer people will stay with it because of the nostalgia factor. They find something in it beyond that. Whether it’s the melody they love, or the new sound they found within it that they think is current and relevant to them now.”

Video games are still on rotation (current band jam: Grand Theft Auto V). Anamanaguchi’s live show brings that video game immersion experience to life — nonstop pacing, light cubes, hyper-saturated color projections — and Voodoo is no exception.

“This one I think we need to step our game up somehow,” Silas says.

“It’ll be an Anamanaguchi show — really loud, hectic, fun, sweaty, but louder. That’s not to say it’s more of the same. It’s different, but it’s us.”

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

e will drive our shitty van to your house, hang out, play a show, and then leave the shitty van at your house and literally transfer the title to you.” If you wanted to be the lucky fan who pledged $7,000 to Anamanaguchi’s Kickstarter campaign to release its 2013 album Endless Fantasy, that was the perk. Nobody went for it.

“I don’t want to give the wrong impression, like ‘Oh, it would’ve been sick if we got that money,’” says drummer Luke Silas. “I got that Kickstarter app on my phone for a while, and every time I saw someone made a donation, I’d get push notifications. I’d be like, ‘Please be the van, please be the van, please be the van’ — just for that screenshot of someone buying the van. But no, we still have it, and it still really sucks.”

Despite not receiving that fat chunk of change, the Kickstarter campaign was a success, raking in nearly $300,000 — well over the $50,000 goal stated on the website. The result: a hyperactive, maximal pop opus combining the ultra-clean overdrive of 1980s butt rock with instantly nostalgic 8-bit Nintendo riffs. Anamanaguchi meticulously composes its computer-driven melodies from hacked gaming consoles, a romance between man and machine that makes massive dance-pop from 30-yearold antiques. “You take this tiny box and make it sound huge,” Silas says. “At the same time you are using the most absolutely minimal plain-ass sounds. It’s about as nasty as you can get.”

Silas attended the Academy of Music at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, where electronic music classes were part of his curriculum. By his junior year, he was cracking open game consoles and exploring the 8-bit and chiptune scenes. Guitarist Peter

PA G E 1 7

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SHOVELS

& ROPE

BY ALEX WOODWARD

COME BY AFTER

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06

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St. Phillip

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

4:45PM · FRIDAY RITUAL STAGE

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usband and wife Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst, each accomplished Charleston, S.C. songwriters, released Shovels & Rope’s proper debut (as the wedded couple) O’ Be Joyful in 2012 — and its single “Birmingham” took home song of the year at the 2013 Americana Music Honors & Awards. (The duo also was named emerging artist of the year the same week Dr. John took home a lifetime achievement award.)

The song (and album) introduces the whirlwind Southern traveling band (specifically, how a “Delta Mama and a Nickajack Man raised their Cumberland daughters in a Tennessee band”), one of the album’s rambling storytelling tunes. It’s a sweeping, semi-autobiographical dip into how the two got married, and it’s a fitting opening cut for the perpetually road-bound band. Songs on O’ Be Joyful were recorded in musty motels and in their van, sometimes with their hound dog Townes, whose barks are buried deep in the mix. Hearst’s raspy twang bursts into Loretta Lynn squeaks, harmonizing with Trent through the album’s ballads and barnburners. “Birmingham” winds down with a hat tip to New Orleans as the song’s couple begins its new and a little dangerous adventure: “Made a little money playing in the bars / with two beat up drums and two old guitars. / From the Crescent City to the Great Salt Lake / it ain’t what you got, it’s what you make.”

THOSEDARLINS

BY NATHAN MATTISE

N

2:15PM · FRIDAY · CARNIVAL STAGE but also an introspective period. We just kept working at it though, because it just seemed like the right thing to do.”

Either because of or in spite of the soul searching, Blur The Line is a beautiful album. At first, it may seem out of place when compared with earlier works, but it reflects other changes as well. Zazu says the current lineup is the strongest touring group yet. It’s also the first time since 2010 that Those Darlins has toured for a full year with a consistent lineup. While the band has been heralded at each step in its career, Zazu says Those Darlins have become “much better musicians than we used to be.”

The set at Voodoo should carry some new wrinkles, even for fans who have seen the band live recently.

“Previously, we would switch instruments a lot and, since the recording of this album, we have picked our respective instruments and stuck to them,” Zazu says. “That’s helped us develop a lot more focus and confidence in our playing. We still put as much energy as we can into our performance, but it just seems more centered than it has been in the past. … [We] have a clear idea of what to expect. We have all grown up a lot. We are playing better and getting along better than we ever have. It really feels great.”

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

ashville’s Those Darlins is a hard act to peg.

During a live three-song stretch, the band may go from the countrified twang of its self-titled debut to the lo-fi punk aesthetics of its second album, Screws Get Loose, but neither of those sounds matches what the band put on its third album.

These genre-benders perform at Voodoo Music + Arts Experience fresh off the October release of Blur The Line, the band’s headiest album yet. On the LP, Those Darlins get more personal in lyrical content, reflecting older, wiser, more reflective artists. The new tracks cover everything from the regrets of finding oneself older yet drunk in a hotel shower to forgoing blind optimism after bad experiences. The missives are appropriately scored with a classic rock vibe, and it’s no accident that many reviews borrow from Blur The Line’s press materials to reference Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk.

“We worked for a couple years and it was a slow evolution into the final sound,” says guitarist and vocalist Jessi Zazu. “A lot of factors were at play, but it mostly came out of trying to represent the mood of where we were at during the time of writing the songs.”

The more somber content reflects a few years of major changes for Those Darlins. The group experienced personnel shifts in both 2011 and 2012, initially transforming from an all-female trio (with all three using the stage last name Darlin) to that group plus a touring drummer. Now the band features an even split of male and female musicians, after co-founder and bassist Kelley Anderson departed last year to pursue other projects. Zazu says it was a difficult transition.

“We put together a handful of songs, did some work with a producer, and none of it turned out the way we had hoped. ... We just weren’t there yet,” Zazu says.

“We were going through some intense relationship changes, learning to get along with each other in new ways and just changing a lot. We went to Europe, which was a very intense tour both physically and mentally. And there were a few deaths of people close to us that hit really hard. It was very dark and painful,

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October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

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SCHEDULE SUBJECT TO CHANGE

FRIDAY-SUNDAY NOV. 1 — NOV. 3

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

RITUAL STAGE

LE PLUR STAGE

FLAMBEAU STAGE

CARNIVAL STAGE

RITUAL STAGE

LE PLUR STAGE

FLAMBEAU STAGE

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3 CARNIVAL STAGE

RITUAL STAGE

10:00am

10:00am

10:00am

10:30am

10:30am

10:30am

11:00am

11:00am

11:00am

11:30am 12:00pm

11:45am-12:45pm

12:30pm

Andrew Duhon

1:00pm

1pm-2pm

1:30pm

1:30pm-2:40pm

2:15pm-3:15pm

The Electric Sons

3:00pm

The Purrs

3:30pm

3:30pm-4:30pm

4:00pm The Virginmarys 4:30pm 5:00pm 5:30pm 6:00pm 6:30pm

4:45pm-5:45pm

Shovels & Rope 6:05pm-6:45pm

Preservation Hall Jazz Band

7:00pm 7:30pm

7:15pm-8:30pm

8:00pm

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

8:30pm 9:00pm

9pm-11pm

9:30pm 10:00pm

Hello Negro

Turf War

2:00pm 2:30pm

11:15am-12:15pm

11:20am-1:30pm

Pearl Jam

noon-1pm

12:45pm-1:45pm

1:30pm-2:30pm

A Silent Film

Flow Tribe 3pm-4pm

ZZ Ward

3:50pm-5pm

Keys N Krates 5pm-6:15pm

4:30pm-5:30pm

6:15pm-7:30pm

Boys Noize

2:15pm-3:15pm

Those Darlins 3:45pm-4:45pm

Sun Hotel

6pm-7pm

Youngblood Hawke

7:30pm-8:30pm

Calvin Harris

Royal Teeth 9pm-10pm

Glen David Andrews

2:30pm 3:00pm

4:30pm

8:15pm-9:15pm

Anamanaguchi

The Black Cadillacs 12:45pm-1:30pm

The Weeks 1:45pm-2:30pm

Bad Things 2:45pm-3:45pm

Delta Rae

Poof!

The Pop Show with Carmine P. Filthy & A Boy Named Ruth

Cults

Oh, Jeremiah

Mystery Skulls 3:25pm-4:25pm

4:25pm-5:45pm

Rudimental

6:00pm

5:45pm-6:45pm

The Gaslight Anthem

7:00pm

5:45pm-7:15pm

Dirty South

7:30pm

7:15pm-8:30pm

7:15pm-8:45pm

8:00pm

Paramore

Big Gigantic

8:30pm 9:00pm 9:30pm 10:00pm

10:30pm

10:30pm

11:00pm

11:00pm

8:45pm-10:15pm 9pm-11pm

Nine Inch Nails

Afrojack

Roll The Tanks

1:15pm-2:15pm

He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister

The Scorseses 2:15pm-3:15pm

2:45pm-3:45pm

Leslie Blackshear Smith & Double Black

L.P.

The Breton Sound

Reignwolf

F. Stokes

New Found Glory

Ruby Amanfu

Alkaline Trio

Billy Squier

12:45pm-1:45pm

1:30pm 2:00pm

2pm-3pm

3:00pm

4:00pm

G-Eazy 3:30pm-4:30pm

Matt & Kim

4:30pm

5:30pm 6:00pm

7:00pm 7:30pm 8:00pm

8:15pm-9:15pm 8:45pm-9:45pm

Kinky Machine Dirty Bourbon River Show

2:30pm

The Olms

8:30pm 9:00pm

FLAMBEAU STAGE

11:45am-2:10pm noon-1pm

Church with Unicorn Fukr, Mr. Cool Bad Guy & Guests 2:10pm-3:20pm

Robert Delong 3:20pm-4:30pm

Savoy 4:30pm-6pm

5pm-6:30pm

Kid Rock 7pm-9pm

CARNIVAL STAGE

11:30am-12:30pm

11:30am-12:30pm

6:30pm 6:45pm-7:45pm

7:15pm-8:15pm

1:00pm

5:00pm 5:15pm-6:15pm

5:45pm-6:45pm

12:00pm

3:30pm 3:45pm-4:45pm

4:15pm-5:15pm

11:30am

12:30pm 12:45pm-1:45pm

2:15pm-3:25pm

Hockey 4:15pm-5:15pm

11:45am-12:45pm

5:30pm

6:30pm 6:45pm-7:45pm

11:45am-12:30pm

4:00pm

5:00pm

Desaparecidos 7:30pm-9pm

1:30pm

3:30pm

5:15pm-6:15pm

Allen Stone

1:00pm

2:00pm

Jon Michael Rouchell

Destructo

12:00pm 12:30pm

Coyotes

2:40pm-3:50pm

Jfernell

Panic in Eden

11:15am-12:15pm

11:20am-2:15pm

11:30am

LE PLUR STAGE

Maxim (The Prodigy) DJ Set 6pm-7:30pm

Beats Antique 7:30pm-9pm

The Cure Bassnectar

Paul Varisco and The Milestones 1:30pm-2:30pm

Sports & Leisure

Big History 1pm-2pm

Jingle Punks Hipster Orchestra

2:30pm-3:30pm 3pm-4pm

CC Adcock & The Lafayette Marquis

Quintron and Miss Pussycat 4pm-5pm

4:30pm-5:30pm

Fleur Debris feat.

David Torkanawsky, George Porter Jr., & Nicholas Payton

The Apache Relay 5:30pm-6:30pm

6pm-7pm

The Revivalists

Moon Taxi 7pm-8pm

7:30pm-9pm

The Real Night Tripper: Dr. John

Leopold and His Fiction

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1

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October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

VOODOO INFO:

VOODOO PERMITS:

www.worshipthemusic.com • Single day tickets cost $87, 3-day weekend wristbands are $200, LOA VIP passes are $550 in advance and are available online and through Elevate (877-5697767). Artist credentials for two people are $2,500.

Additional camping options are available. Children 10 and under are allowed in free when accompanied by an adult ticket holder.

Tickets available at www. worshipthemusic.com.

Admission prices subject to change and availability.

• Three-day wristband holders and VIP credential holders may exit and re-enter the grounds. Single day ticket holders may not re-enter.

• Ponchos • Voodoo accepts credit cards and debit cards. ATMs are available on the grounds.

• Bicycle parking is available near the main entrance by the box office.

• Voodoo is accessible for the disabled.

• Voodoo offers camping onsite in either a general camping area or the VIP camping area, which includes a safari tent for two and other amenities. Visit the website for details.

• Lockers are available on the grounds • Charging stations for electronic devices are available

• Small blankets and towels • Lighters • Cigarettes • Strollers • Cellphones

• Small backpacks, fanny packs, purses • Small/personal umbrellas • Factory-sealed water bottles (up to one liter) • Collapsible chairs (in designated areas only).

VOODOO PROHIBITS: • Illegal substances and drug paraphernalia • Framed or large backpacks, purses and bags larger than 11 by 17 inches • Outside food and beverages • Skateboards, motorized scooters • Chains, chain wallets • Bicycles inside the grounds • Weapons, fireworks and explosives • Laser pointers

• Coolers (except for medical purposes) • Umbrellas and tents (except in designated camping areas) • Pets (except service animals) • Professional video or camera equipment • Audio or video recording equipment • Non festival-sanctioned promotional materials • Unauthorized/unlicensed vendors

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

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SE

FLEUR

E PA G E

DR.

JOHN

BY DAVID KUNIAN

T

BY DAVID KUNIAN

TARO N LO CK E TT

7:30PM · SUNDAY FLAMBEAU STAGE sicians. “Uganda goes back to the great Didymus,” Dr. John says, referring to Richard “Didymus” Washington, the conga player in his band during the late 1960s and early ’70s.

Although Dr. John changed his band, which sparked some controversy, it overall has been a very good year for him. He won the Best Blues Album Grammy Award for Locked Down.

(Its producer, Dan Auerbach, won the 2013 Producer of the Year, Non-Classical Grammy Award.) The album updated Dr. John’s New Orleans gris-gris swamp sound for a new generation, while adding some modern touches and Afrobeats.

Dr. John also received an honorary degree from Tulane University. The ceremony featured him performing with fellow honoree Allen Toussaint while the Dalai Lama danced behind them.

The Night Tripper seems to take it in stride and move on to the next thing – such as Voodoo.

“Be there,” he says with his signature rasp. “It will be flaming.”

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2 LEE CIRCLE • NEW ORLEANS

4:30PM · SUNDAY FLAMBEAU STAGE

D

avid Torkanowsky has a reputation as a wild man onstage, but he is a dedicated musician who takes his work seriously. Of all the pianists in New Orleans, he has charted one of the most diverse careers. Torkanowsky is best known as a jazz player, performing with everyone from his own group Astral Project to Dianne Reeves. But Torkanowsky also has had gigs with everyone from The Meters and Earl King to Zachary Richard and Shane Theriot.

His latest project, Fleur Debris, is an all-star band that plays, in Torkanowsky’s words, “music that was born of the earth of this town; that has certain dynamics to it that could be an undeniable backbone to contemporary American improvisatory music. It’s what New Orleans is all about, the conversation between the European and the African.”

Fleur Debris has had several different lineups, and the current one includes drummer Taron Lockett, famed for his work with Erykah Badu, guitarist Will Bernard, DJ Raymond on bass and native New Orleanian and Grammy Award-

winner Nicholas Payton on trumpet and Fender Rhodes piano. How does Torkanowsky choose the musicians he plays with? “I remember David Lastie telling me, ‘If you keep fast company, you get fast,’” he says. “So I try to hire the most telling and intriguing musicians that I can. The music we’re playing requires a certain ease with improvisation.”

Anyone who expects the group to play light jazz will be surprised.

“If jazz implies that it’s ‘tink tink a tink,’ this is not that,” Torkanaowsky says. “It’s African-American improvisational music. We play everything from James Black music to Tony Dagradi music to Nicholas Payton music to David Torkanowsky music.” Much of that type of music maintains its complexity and sophistication without losing the dance element and rhythmic drive, and every member of the band has the chops and soul to pull it off.

“It’s open-form improvisation,” Torkanowsky says. “The sincerity that the musicians bring to the music is what makes it special.”

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

he voice on the other end of the phone has the unmistakable growl and cadence of the good doctor himself.

“It’ll be a surprise for everybody and it will be some off-the-hook stuff. Night Tripper stuff — and a whole lot of it,” Dr. John says in reference to his gig closing the Voodoo Music + Arts Experience.

The show’s all-star lineup includes bassist George Porter Jr., percussionist Alfred “Uganda” Roberts, drummers Herlin Riley and Smokey Johnson, guitarist Shane Theriot, vocalist Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, saxophonist Roderick Paulin, trombonist Sara Marrow and vocalists Topsy Chapman and Solid Harmony.

Many of the performers have a history with Dr. John. Drummer “[Herlin Riley] has been a friend of mine since he was playing trumpet in the church,” Dr. John says. “I came up with his family.” Alfred “Uganda” Roberts gained notoriety while playing with Professor Longhair, one of Dr. John’s main influences, and he has contributed great conga work to the recordings of a long list of local mu-

DAVID TORKANOWSKY

DEBRIS

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THE REAL NIGHT TRIPPER:

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“tutu” the nines

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October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

BY ALEX WOODWARD

EE

S

PEARL JAM

SCAN ME

P

9PM · FRIDAY · RITUAL STAGE

T

o celebrate his 54th birthday this year, Robert Smith enlisted his bandmates in The Cure to put on a staggering four-hour, 50-song marathon at that night’s Mexico City gig. It is not unusual for the band — even in its fifth decade — to undertake extended performances that would make even professional stage hog Bruce Springsteen need a breath.

In August, the band performed at Lollapalooza in Chicago and received the festival’s blessing for a two-and-a-half-hour, 26-song set. The set lists don’t skimp on the band’s hugely influential discography, mostly pulling songs from its decadelong catalog of romantic postpunk — from 1980’s dark, tone-setting Seventeen Seconds to 1987’s chart-topper Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. The Cure’s remarkable seven-album run in the ’80s began with the shabby, emotionally charged punk momentum of the band’s debut single “Boys Don’t Cry” in 1979 and closed with its dreamy 1989 masterpiece Disintegration. Those have bookended The Cure’s recent shows — Disintegration’s heavenly opening “Plainsong” begins the retrospective, and “Boys Don’t Cry” closes.

7PM · SUNDAY · RITUAL STAGE

EE

S

THE CURE

BY ALEX WOODWARD

7 PA G E 1

October 29, 2013 Gambit’s Guide To Voodoo Music & Arts Experience 2013 www.bestofneworleans.com

earl Jam’s 2013 album Lightning Bolt, the band’s 10th studio release, is the group’s first since 2009’s Backspacer (released the year before Pearl Jam’s last appearance in New Orleans at the 2010 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — just shy of the band’s 20th anniversary).

It leaves one wondering what kind of vitamins the now 23-year-old Seattle outfit is taking. The two latest releases show a band maturing into a simultaneously growlier and leaner sound. With its seemingly endless tour schedule (the current one doesn’t wind down until February 2014), the band’s live show still pulls largely from heavy favorites from Ten and Vs. On Lightning Bolt, Pearl Jam hasn’t dialed down that volume. Openers “Getaway” and “Mind Your Manners” charge through the gate with fast-paced punk rock fury, but they’re a red herring for the album’s stripped-down and largely quiet second half. The single “Sirens” reveals a fragile, lovelorn ballad — it’s both a reminder of the band’s acclaimed acoustic-driven triumphs from its earlier efforts and a hint at Pearl Jam’s potential as alt-rock’s elder statesmen when, or if, the group decides to slow down.

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