Show Detective – Weekend Shows – Friday, August 11th – Sunday, August 13th.
Written by Staff on August 10, 2023
Friday, August 11th
Kyshona, The Linda, Albany, 8pm-10pm
Kyshona is an artist ignited by untold stories and the capacity of those stories to thread connection in every community. With the background of a licensed music therapist, the curiosity of a writer, the resolve of an activist, and the voice of a singer – Kyshona is unrelenting in her pursuit for the healing power of song.
Kyshona blends roots, rock, R&B, and folk with lyrical prowess. She is both a sought after collaborative vocalist working with artists like Margo Price whom she accompanied on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Adia Victoria who features Kyshona, Price and Jason Isbell in her single “You Was Born to Die”, and a burgeoning performer in her own right whose 2020 release Listen, was voted BEST PROTEST ALBUM of 2020 by Nashville Scene.
Kyshona’s non-profit organization “Your Song” offers songwriting programs for youth empowerment programs, detention, re-entry, recovery, mental health, and veterans centers and organizations.
“…wherever she plants her feet, she does so with righteous conviction and a strong sense of her own voice.” – NPR Music
“Listen highlights Kyshona’s descriptive songwriting and soulful vocals alongside a versatile blend of folk, rock and R&B influences.” – Billboard
“One of the most compassionate and uplifting young voices in Nashville today.” – Ann Powers/ NPR Music’s World Cafe
“Everyone is making political records. Everyone is making albums that speak to ‘this moment.’ Too few of them are making music that speaks to the people who inhabit this moment. Kyshona does.” – The Bluegrass Situation
Rachmaninoff at 150, SPAC, Saratoga Spriongs, 7:30pm
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Join Philadelphia Orchestra and music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, for a Rachmaninoff 150th birthday celebration! Featuring the towering Symphony No. 3 and beloved second Piano Concerto, this all-Rachmaninoff evening includes the SPAC debut of pianist Bruce Liu, winner of the 2021 Chopin International Piano Competition.
K.Flay, Empire Live, Albany, 8pm
Hello Mary
Moody’s Emo Night, Fuze Box, Albany, 12am-2am
Request and Dance to your favorite emo songs
White Ford Bronco, Cohoes Music Hall, Cohoes, 8pm-10:30pm
After their sold out show last summer, Cohoes native Gretchen Gustafson and her incredible All-90’s band WHITE FORD BRONCO returns to Cohoes Music Hall on August 11!
Long a mere dream kicking around in the overactive imaginations of its founders, White Ford Bronco officially came into being in the Spring of 2008. Since then their five member ensemble has been sparking bouts of flannel-laden, slap-bracelet-snapping, pog-playing, big-butt-loving nostalgia across the Washington, D.C. area that they call home. If you’re longing for the days when Danny Tanner could solve everything with a hug and presidential scandals only involved ruining a marriage, allow them to take you on a musical journey to that magical last decade of the 20th century. Whatever flavor — be it Alternative, Rock, Pop, R&B, Hip Hop, or Country — if it’s 90s, White Ford Bronco will play it.
Sunny Side: Jazz from New Orleans with special guest Sweet Megg, Lark Hall, Albany, 8pm
Lark Hall presents New Orleans Jazz Band, Sunny Side on Friday, 8/11. We will start with a 45 minute swing dance lesson before Sweet Megg
Swing Dance lesson with Albany Swing Dancing followed by Sweet Megg at 9pm and Sunny Side at 10pm.
Sunny Side is a jazz band based out of New Orleans, Louisiana. They are heavily influenced by the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Fats Waller, and many other early jazz legends. The band name ‘Sunny Side’ was influenced by the 1930 Fats Waller/Jimmy McHugh jazz standard ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’. The band was created in 2019, and is composed of musicians that have played together in various jazz projects around New Orleans since 2017.
Sunny Side provides a full New Orleans style jazz band experience with 3 part harmonies, a solid rhythm section, and an energetic vocalist and dancer. Expect to become a part of the experience as Sunny Side engages with the energy and sound of what makes New Orleans such a special city. Be prepared to dance and sing.
During the 2020/2021 quarantine, Sunny Side provided a ‘Jazz in Coliseum Square Park’ series in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans hosting a variety of live music including themselves. Many locals expressed much gratitude for the music during the challenging time.
In 2023 Sunny Side is planning their third national tour stopping in cities and towns between New Orleans, New York, and Michigan while debuting their brand new album “The Felicity Sessions”.
Sunny Side has also been playing regularly for private events and weddings since January of 2020. In 2021 and 2023 Sunny Side won a “Best of Weddings” award going to the top 5% of wedding bands on Theknot.com
Tom’s House, Nickopotamus, TV Doctors & More, Putnam Place, 7pm-11:45pm
Tom’s House is a group of 7 friends with very different musical backgrounds and styles from Upstate New York. Named as a homage to the space in which they grew together musically, they try to tap into the nostalgic feeling of “feel good” contemporary progressive rock, jazz and blues often associated with growing up as a kid in a musical household. Megan Goodwin (lead vocals), Tim Daley (guitar / vocals), Tommy Socolof (percussion / vocals), Ben Rowley (keys), Nick Willmart (drums), Aaron Cook (bass) and Matt Smith (horns) are your new family members.
Website: Tom’s House Facebook Page
An eclectic juggernaut, Nickopotamus combines elements of rock, jam, funk, punk, groove, and zydeco to provide the listener with a visceral experience that will leave them singing along. Nickopotamus is a good-time/high energy live band that has been known to have just as much fun on stage as their fans do. Hailing from Albany, NY this 4 piece band is led by song writer/ guitarist Nick Souder.
Band Website: www.facebook.com/nickopotamuslive
Funk/Jam band, TV Doctors operates as a trio of experienced professional musicians from Upstate NY who have come together with a shared desire to cure musical boredom wherever it exists with surgical precision.
Website: www.facebook.com/TVDoctorsBand
Shadow Estate is an Albany-based band playing music across the rock spectrum. The band consists of Steve Werthner (guitar), Chris Appel (bass), Chris Sousie (drums) and Agatha Lovelace (vocals).
Website: www.shadowestatemusic.com
Get ready to be transported to another dimension with Curveball, the mind-bending psychedelic rock band that will blow your socks off! Led by the mesmerizing beats of William on drums, fueled by the electrifying riffs of James on guitar, and anchored by Liam’s groovy basslines, our music is a wild journey through cosmic soundscapes. Join us as we push boundaries, ignite souls, and leave audiences craving more. Strap in and let Curveball take you on a sonic adventure that will leave you begging for an encore!
Website: https://curveballofficialb.wixsite.com/mysite
Emily DiPace is an American pop singer songwriter from Upstate New York. Emily is best known for her three albums and show titled the 11:11 Experience. Popular songs include Feels like Home, North Star, Sunset of my Dreams, 11:11, and Freedom. Born and raised in Albany, New York, Emily always loved music and had a deep connection to it. Each song she has written is infused with love and positivity and her intentions are in bringing people together through the music.
Old Blind Dogs, Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs, 8pm-10pm
Old Blind Dogs play traditional Celtic and Scottish folk, with influences from rock, reggae, jazz, blues, and Middle Eastern rhythms
The musical evolution of Old Blind Dogs began in Aberdeen in 1992 with roots that grew from the eclectic music scene that flourished in the Granite City during the early 90s. Four musicians from very different musical backgrounds came together to create a full-time professional touring band with the aim of showcasing the rich tradition of songs and tunes of the North-East of Scotland. After nearly a dozen albums, last year’s project, Knucklehead Circus, is the group’s answer to the pandemic – looking to get people up and dancing again after the long-enforced absence of live music. The players engage in a cinematic and alluring seductive trance-like opening at the start of the title track, which then turns into what seems a full blown courtship, lilting with lofty musical adventure.
As recent inductees to the BBC ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards and past winner of Folk Band of the Year (2004), the current line up of the Dugs (as they are affectionately called) consists of four of Scotland’s finest traditional musicians at the top of their game. Original member Jonny Hardie (fiddle/vocals) – with a “fiddle style that sneaks blues and jazz licks into the more orthodox East Coast folk styles” (UK’s At The Border), Aaron Jones (cittern/guitar/vocals), Ali Hutton (pipes/whistles) and Donald Hay (percussion/vocals). Collectively they comprise one of the most highly touted traditional folk bands on the Scottish music scene today. The Old Blind Dogs play with a compelling energy and intoxicating rhythm, as players and audience seem to share a wild ecstasy of emotion.
Glen David Andrews Band, Lost and Found, Albany, 9pm
Medicine Singers Featuring Yonatan Gat & Thor Harris / Sun Dogs, No Fun, Troy, 7pm-11pm
Medicine Singers Featuring Yonatan Gat & Thor Harris – https://medicinesingers.bandcamp.com
The Medicine Singers groundbreaking debut LP on Stone Tapes, produced by Yonatan Gat, embodies decades of musical genres influenced by Native American music, offering what Pitchfork called a “vivid new context for the sound of the powwow drum, highlighting the debt that rock music owes to Native American music.”
This monumental album connects experimental and traditional music in previously unheard ways, acting as a guided tour de force. Taking listeners through the many different musical styles with roots (unknown until recently) in Native American music. From psychedelic punk to spiritual jazz, from minimalism to electronic music.
Their live show is the stuff of legend – the Medicine Singers set up, often in-the-round with the audience encircling the band, and go into a trance-inducing set where the borders between performer and audience, as well as between psychedelic punk rock and shamanic chants, are blurred. Or in the words of Canada’s Exclaim Magazine “the border between audience and performer had all but been dissolved by the sheer power of music. By letting the audience in on the action, [Medicine Singers] evoked a type of bodily experience that transcended mere observation.”
Half a decade after the spur-of-the-moment story of how the musicians first met and unraveled their sound on an unsuspecting audience during SXSW 2017 when Gat saw Eastern Medicine Singers play on the street and invited the band to spontaneously join his show – the collaboration between the musicians reaches a climax with this breathtaking debut album as Medicine Singers, helping pave the way to this year’s rising wave of Native contributions to experimental music – shining a spotlight on guest vocalists representing indigenous nations from outside of the Northeastern Woodland tribal area. “Where else can you get all these different native people singing together on an album?” Jamieson asked. “On this album you have east, west, north and south all coming together. That’s why we say it’s medicine.”
For Jamieson, this album is more than a collection of songs, it’s a vessel of culture, history and language; a symbol of the strength and creativity of the Eastern Algonquin people in contemporary American society. “I want to show people not only that our Indian culture is just as good as the mainstream white culture that’s out there, but also that the two can exist together, side by side.”
Society High – Kings Of Nothing – Uncle Frank Says No, Pauly’s Hotel, Albany, 7pm-11pm
Saturday, August 12th
Triskele, Troy Music Hall, Troy, 6pm
Join us for this Summer Square Concert Series!
event at 6 PM Saturday nights July and August in the Music Hall Courtyard
The Capital Region’s Premier All~Female Irish Band! Stunning harmonies that touch your soul.
Rite of Spring & Blessed Earth, SPAC, Saratoga Springs, 7:30pm
The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Rite of Spring, Igor Stravinsky’s vivid reflection on ancient pagan rituals, still astounds more than a century after its riotous Parisian premiere. John Luther Adams’s Vespers of the Blessed Earth references humanity’s impact on the Earth. He told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “The music I’m writing now is an expression of grief and faith in the possibility of human redemption.” Philadelphia-based choral group the Crossing joins Yannick and the Orchestra, making their SPAC debut with this transformative performance.
Upstate Youth Choreographers’ Showcase, Proctors Theatre, Schenectady, 7pm
A showcase of original dances choreographed and performed by local youth choreographers.
The Sixties Show, Cohoes Music Hall, Cohoes, 8pm-10pm
The Sixties Show returns with a freshly updated show, featuring new multimedia, new songs, updated narration and a brand new stage set! go back in time with this fantastic theatre and concert event!
DJ TGIF, Putnam Place, Saratoga Springs, 9pm-2am
It’s always a party with DJ TGIF at Putnam Place. Come get down on the biggest dance floor in Saratoga, or hang out on our relaxing patio. Bottle service available, dress to impress!
Planetarium Party (Leo SZN) / 100 Psychic Dreams, No Fun, Troy, 8pm-2am
Planetarium Party – A monthly mystic disco hosted by First House Rising Astrology & Syd Silvair
100 Psychic Dreams – https://100psychicdreams.bandcamp.com
Joe Chaos’s Birthday Bash (L.o.c.c.h. Down 61), Pauly’s Hotel, Albany, 6pm
Sunday, August 13th
Will Kempe’s Players – The Taming of the Shrew, The Linda, Albany, 3pm-6pm
Founded in 2017, Will Kempe’s Players is a worker-owned cooperative and has been producing Shakespearean works through the Original Practices technique for 5 summers now. In addition to their standard fare, WKP has also staged original works and devised adaptations of classics. Their mission is to bring the practices and conditions of the Shakespearean stage into the 21st Century, through the works of Shakespeare himself and beyond. For more information on the history of the company, their productions, their current tour schedule, and their vision for the theatre, visit www.willkempesplayers.com or follow @WillKempesPlayers on social media.
“The Taming of the Shrew” is a play within a play: as a part of an elaborate prank, players perform before a beggar who is tricked into believing he’s a lord reviving out of a coma. The players’ weave a double romance— Katherine and Petruchio spar for control of their hastily arranged marriage and Bianca and Lucentio scheme to elope, eluding her father and a host of other suitors. And, of course, Will Kempe’s Players “suit the action to the word” in slapstick stagings of lovers’ antics and servant silliness.
Spanish Journey, SPAC, Saratoga Springs, 3pm
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Spa Little Theater
Spend a musical evening in Spain, a country of enchanting colors, rhythms, and textures. The intoxicating sounds of the guitar and the seductive tones of the Spanish language combine with piano and violin for a program of unbridled flair.
Pretty Much the Best Comedy Show – Kate Willett, Proctors Theatre, 8pm
Kate Willett is a smart, feminist New York-based comedian who has appeared on THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT and has a stand-up special on Netflix’s THE COMEDY LINEUP. She co-hosts the leftist political podcast REPLY GUYS. Some of her other TV credits include Comedy Central’s CC STAND-UP FEATURING (her second appearance premiered in December 2021), Comedy Central’s JIM JEFFERIES SHOW as a guest correspondent,and Viceland’s FLOPHOUSE. Her appearance on Comedy Central’s THIS IS NOT HAPPENING which was on Splitsider’s list of “2016’s Best Late Night Standup Sets.” She has appeared at Bumbershoot, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Just for Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival, Limestone Comedy Festival, High Plains, Big Sky Festival, Bridgetown, SF Sketchfest, Laughing Skull and many other festivals. In addition to headlining around the nation, she has performed in England, Scotland, Australia, and Canada.
Kate’s audio memoir DIRTBAG ANTHROPOLOGYabout modern masculinity which she penned and voiced, was released by Audible Plus in 2021 and has been a successful title for the platform. Her writing has also been featured in ELLE magazine and Cosmo UK.
Sanguisugabogg,Empire Underground, Albany, 7pm
Kruelty, Deadbody, Vomit Forth, Gates To Hell
Jinjer, Empire Live, Albany, 7pm
Until I Wake
Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, Hangar on the Hudson, Troy, 7pm-10pm
Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys
Since forming in 1988 in Southern California, Big Sandy and His Fly- Rite Boys have become one of the world’s most beloved Americana/ Roots acts, drawing from the deep musical waters that flow just beneath the surface of Rock & Roll’s fertile soil. A childhood passion for Country, Doo-Wop, and Rhythm & Blues 45s led Sandy (born Robert Williams) to pursue a singing career as a teenager, beginning a life in music that continues decades later. And as his personal record collection continues to grow (75,000 and counting), so does the depth of the musical influences that stream through his songwriting and singing style. A critically acclaimed tribute to Tex- Mex hero Freddy Fender, released at the beginning of the 2020 lockdown, points the way forward for Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys as they continue on a path of musical growth. After nearly 35 years on the road, and more than two dozen releases to their credit, they remain key figures on the ever-changing Americana circuit, both on record and in live appearances.
Laraaji & Mamady Kouyate / Thor & Friends / Yonatan Gat / Ben Seretan, No Fun, Troy, 4pm-10pm
Laraaji & Mamady Kouyate
Special collaborative performance.
The role of Laraaji’s music is to bring each person to a state where they feel prepared to be merged with this unified field, in which they take part in what they are always already a part of. The idea of sound that is transcendent is without a doubt that launching off point of “New Age” music, a genre which Laraaji challenges and seeks to expand.
Laraaji, born Edward Larry Gordon, is a prolific musician who specializes in live performance of music for piano, zither, and mbira. Born in Philadelphia and growing up in part in New Jersey, Laraaji studied composition and piano at Howard University, an HBCU in Washington D.C. then moved to New York City, where he began to play zither as a busker. During his time playing at Washington Square Park in the 70s, Laraaji was becoming deeply interested in the spiritual traditions of South and Southeast Asia and the Himalayas and at the same time developing an improvisatory and meditative technique for performing. After his recognition in part through Brian Eno, Laraaji began to release his music and performance on cassettes for meditation and redoubled his spiritual practice with the help of teachers such as Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati.
Mamady Kouyate is a guitar virtuoso who hails from Guinea, West Africa. Influencing Guinean music for over 40 years, he now resides outside of New York City where he continues to direct, compose and lead in his band, The Mandingo Ambassadors, as well as other Mandingo bands in the region. He not only plays music, but educates people about politics, history and music of his country in museums and schools across the United States.
Yonatan Gat – https://yonatangat.bandcamp.com
Throughout his unpredictable career, guitarist Yonatan Gat has blazed a fiery trail in contemporary music. From his legendary performances with the Israeli punk band Monotonix in the ‘00s, to his explosive 2018 David Berman produced LP Universalists, Gat has created work that explores new frontiers of sound, while pushing against the restrictive boundaries of genre.
Gat’s latest project is his most ambitious yet: Stone Tapes, a genre-smashing label and collective created in partnership with Joyful Noise. To Gat, “Stone Tapes is a space where radical experimental musicians and radical traditional musicians collaborate”.
Thor & Friends – https://thorharris.bandcamp.com
Polymath percussionist Thor Harris inaugurated “Thor & Friends” in the autumn of 2015 after five years of touring as the percussionist of iconic avant-rock ensemble Swans. The project is intended as a vehicle for experimentation with the conceptual vocabulary of American Minimalism collaborating with a rotating cast of Austin-based musicians.
A crafter of musical instruments and stylistic polyglot Harris is returning home with Thor & Friends and the resultant music is an elongated greeting and ode to his community, woodworking shop and the instruments his hands shape and bring to life.
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