Recap: Cassadee Pope, Natalia Taylar and The Foxies at Empire Underground

Recap: Cassadee Pope, Natalia Taylar and The Foxies at Empire Underground 7/23/2024

As you know by now, my recaps are not the norm. This particular recap will be an interesting read, I can assure you of that.

So here’s the deal folks, as our commander in chief would say… I originally wasn’t trying to go to this show to be honest. And that’s me just being the music snob that I am. I remember the name Cassadee Pope from The Voice and I thought she was a pop-country artist. I’m not into pop-country but my wife (Laurie) sure loves that shit and she wanted to go. So I sent my contact at Empire as message that read: “We (RadioRadioX/Xperience) are requesting a photo pass for our photographer Tim Reidy for Cassadee Pope July 23rd at Empire Underground. My wife is a fan of Cassadee Pope, so I could cover that show if I could get a press pass with a plus one for my wife. If it’s possible, it’ll make me look cool and maybe she’ll love me long time lol.” 

My contact responded that Laurie and I were all set but they haven’t heard anything back from Cassadee’s management about our photo pass request for Tim. I replied with a thank you and a bummer for Tim, but what can you do?

Here’s the thing, Laurie gets up very early in the morning for work and although this was all her idea in the first place, she f**king bailed on me. So here I am going to a concert that I didn’t even think that I would enjoy because my wife decided it was going to be too hard for her get up in the morning. Before I left for the show I sprayed some cologne because I didn’t have time to shower after work. When I kissed Laurie goodbye she said “oh, you’re wearing cologne, who are you trying to impress?” Laurie actually felt bad that she couldn’t go and said that she would owe me when I got home, just wake her up! Okay, it’s game on now.

If you aren’t familiar with Empire, there are two venues built into one building. Empire Underground where Cassadee was playing downstairs and Empire Live upstairs where at the same time As I Lay Dying was having their concert. As I approached the venue I saw a number of people walking that I assumed were going to see the upstairs concert, solely based on what they were wearing but to my surprise they were coming to the Cassadee show. Remember we didn’t get a photo pass for Cassadee, so that’s why all you get with this recap are my shitty cellphone shots. For our As I Lay Dying photos click HERE because they did approve our photographer Josh.

I guess I had this whole Cassadee Pope show all wrong. I envisioned a bunch of teeny-boppers that listen to Fly 92 as the audience and that I would be the old guy with no date. I purposely wore my press pass for that reason because I didn’t want to look like a creep. Although, I became friends with Moriah Formica, who also appeared on The Voice, for some reason I thought this show was going to be too pop for my taste. I walked in and was greeted by Mike Valente at the door, if you know, you know! I was happy to see a comrade and I totally expected that Mike would’ve been upstairs because he’s a hardcore dude. The first thing Mike asked me was “Do you have a photographer?” Haha, I wish.

Natalia Taylar opened the show and I’ll be damned, she was rocking. Okay so far I’m really feeling the vibe here. I took a photo of Natalia with my phone and sent it to my wife. She responded with “She’s Hot!” I replied, “yeah except she could probably be my kid, she said she grew up listening to Hannah Montana from stage.” I later met Natalia and I let her know that I thought she did a great job. I asked for her email so I could interview her at a later date and time because that’s kind of what I do. I then joking sent my wife a message saying well I did get her email and Laurie said “see it’s the cologne, lol.”

The Foxies were next to hit the stage and boy did they bring the energy. Front-woman Julia Lauren Bullock really delivered and if I had to describe her style it was like Blondie meets Billie Eilish. Hopefully, Julia takes that as a compliment and doesn’t get offended. I know people don’t like to be compared to others but that was my take. I also really enjoyed their music and I think we should start playing The Foxies on our radio station.