Posted by Joel Weiss on Jul. 31, 2009, at 11:39 am
Shitty concert etiquette can destroy what could otherwise be an out-of-this-world concert experience. I’ve attended hundreds of metal, rock, and punk shows and witnessed all manner of drunken douchebaggery. The more intense the show, the more idiocy you’ll have to put up with.
I’m not a people person. I don’t go to shows to get shitfaced. I don’t go to shows to intentionally collide with people galloping in a sloppy circle while shadowboxing. There’s nothing wrong with either of those things, and I have no problem putting up with people who engage in them — I just want to enjoy an awesome live show.
Gogol Bordello played the Ritz Ybor last Monday. They were just as amazing as their last Bay Area appearance at the State Theatre, and I had an awesome time. Early on, however, I feared my evening would be ruined by the most egregious concert etiquette faux pas. An error so heinous it transcends rock shows and infringes upon normal everyday life: exceptionally awful body odor. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Leilani Polk on Jul. 27, 2009, at 2:11 pm
Lots of new concert announcements arrived in my email box over the past three days. I’ve paired the new with a few that slipped through the cracks for your concert planning convenience. For a complete breakdown of area shows, visit our Upcoming Concerts page.
Posted by Eric Snider on Jun. 23, 2009, at 12:53 pm
The crowd cheers as a tattooed man with shaggy hair and a British accent belts out Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath tunes. An hour later, a blonde singer tears through a set of Motley Crue classics while his bandmates pound their instruments into submission. An hour after that, a grown man in a schoolboy outfit duck-walks across the stage and his cohort growls from under his cap while AC/DC riffs blast through the speakers.
Is this a dream team concert lineup of rock ‘n’ roll legends? Not quite, but the crowd is enthusiastic and it sounds pretty close to the real thing. In fact, the only part that’s completely unrealistic is the price, since admission to see all the bands ($10) cost less than parking at major rock concerts.
On June 30, three tribute acts performed at Jannus Landing at the Monsters of Mock show while fans sang along to the familiar sights and sounds. It’s not the real thing, but according to Martyn Jenkins, frontman for AC/DC tribute act Highway to Hell (and the evening’s headliners), the next best thing is pretty satisfying in its own right.
Yesterday afternoon, I put up a post that discussed the fate of Jannus Landing, seeing as the man who runs it, Jack Bodziak, was arrested last week on charges that he failed to pay to the state more than $200,000 in sales tax he collected from customers. Additionally, three concerts were pulled from the venue by outside promoters.
I interviewed several insiders on the local concert scene, who all agreed: It’s highly unlikely that Jannus Landing will close in the near or short term. And concert activity should remain active. Initially, Bodziak did not respond to requests for comment. He has been steadfastly silent with all Bay area media. He did call me a little while ago, and offered a prepared statement. His lawyer had advised him not to talk freely about the tax case or business at Jannus Landing.
A cloud hangs over Jannus Landing. The man who runs the concert courtyard,Jack Bodziak, was arrested last week on charges that he failed to pay to the state more than $200,000 in sales tax he collected from customers.
Since that bombshell dropped, three concerts have been pulled from the Jannus Landing docket: The Hold Steady, Gogol Bordello and Taking Back Sunday.
The question on everyone’s mind: What will become of downtown St. Petersburg’s beloved concert venue? Very few people want to talk about the situation on the record — Bodziak didn’t return phone calls or an e-mail — but I interviewed a few insiders and pieced together an overview of the venue’s plight and possible scenarios for its future.
Posted by Leilani Polk on Jun. 2, 2009, at 11:05 am
The Jim Beam-hosted concert featuring The Hold Steady this Thursday, June 4, at Jannus Landing has been postponed until further notice. Tickets that’ve been reserved/printed out/whatever the damn promo included will be honored once the date is re-scheduled. No word on whether or not this has anything to do with Jannus owner Jack Bodziak’s recent arrest.
UPDATE: The Hold Steady date has been re-scheduled and is now set to occur Thursday, July 2, at The Ritz Ybor in Ybor City.
Posted by Leilani Polk on May. 28, 2009, at 10:59 am
Bass playing maverick Les Claypool — whose co-headlining tour with Matisyahu stops at Jannus Landingthis upcoming Monday, June 1 — is currently celebrating the release of his second and most recent solo release, Of Fungi and Foe. This high quality slice of avant rock bizarrity is inspired by two soundtrack projects Claypool worked on last year, one for the Wii video game, Mushroom Men, about an ongoing civil war between Earth’s small population of formerly regular fungi who, along with various other native flora and fauna, gained sentience from a comet that crashed to Earth); and the other for the forthcoming horror flick, Pig Hunt, described as “a guy’s weekend of hunting gone wrong in the backwoods of Northern California, set amidst the chaos of marijuana, meth, rednecks, and a killer cult that worships a legendary 3,000 pound wild boar called ‘The Ripper.’”
The first single to get video treatment, “Red State Girl,” has the sort of weirdo feel you’d expect, with its players in freaky masks (are they presidents, or no-name cartoonish politicos?). Anyway, because I can’t embed the video, all I can do is show you a screen shot (see below) and offer you a link to the actual YouTube vid — click here to check it out.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 27, 2009, at 5:35 pm
The owner of one of St. Petersburg’s favorite concert venues, Jannus Landing, is in the Pinellas County Jail after state agents busted him on charges he didn’t pay sales taxes he collected at the concert site, which has hosted shows for the likes of Katy Perry and Conor Oberst in the past year. The venue is supposed to host a free show for The Hold Steady on Thursday.
John C. Bodziak, the owner and president of Jannus Landing Courtyard, was arrested by state agents today on charges that he failed to pay $208,418 in sales tax from one of Tampa Bay’s most popular concert venues.
According to the Florida Department of Revenue, Bodziak collected sales tax from patrons of Jannus Landing at 220 First Avenue N, but didn’t send the state its share over various periods from June 2004 to July 2007. Investigators say Bodziak kept more than $200,000 meant for Florida’s coffers.
Posted by Leilani Polk on May. 7, 2009, at 11:12 am
CL’s choice picks for this weekend in music.
Friday, May 08 What was it that Deiter said on Sprockets? Oh yeah … “Your story has grown tiresome.” I can see this gimmicky show — Unwigged & Unplugged: An evening with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, which features the three now-silver-haired comedians who made up Spinal Tap performing acoustic — as getting real old real fast. Let’s hope the trio doesn’t think that just the songs can carry the day; they’d better have some funny shtick in there, or I could see this thing being a waste of time. Then again, I could be wrong. Still, one wonders: What happens when you run an acoustic guitar through an amp and turn the amp up to 11? Fri., May 8, 8 p.m., Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg, $36.50-$49.50. —ES
Post rock meets experimental electronica by instrumental Los Angeles duo El Ten Eleven (pictured). Made up of Kristian Dunn (fretless bass, guitar/bass doubleneck) and Tim Fogarty (electric drums, acoustic drums, synthesizers), El Ten Eleven employs heavy looping and much effects pedal-pushing to create its fuzzified, lively brand of dance music. Also performing: Surly, The Tape Delay and Ghost of Gloria. Fri., May 8, 8 p.m., Orpheum, Ybor City, $8 in advance/$10 DOS. —LP
It’s only fitting that Nashville’s Kings of Leon have graduated to playing arenas — although the Sun Dome is pretty small in that regard — because their sound has morphed from a garage-y immediacy to, yup, more of an arena-style bombast. “Sex on Fire,” the first single from KoL’s current album, Only by the Night, casts a U2-ish hue. The shift must be working: Only by the Night ascended to No. 5 on the Billboard 200, besting 2007’s Because of the Times by 20 slots. For more, read CL’s interview with guitarist Matthew Followill here. Fri., May 8, 8 p.m., USF Sun Dome, Tampa, $35.50 and $43. —ESRead the rest of this entry »
Posted by Leilani Polk on May. 1, 2009, at 11:40 am
We previously published that UB40would be playing Jannus Landing on Monday, May 4. They will actually land at the St. Pete venue on Sunday, May 3.
Here’s Snider’s write up:
Formed in 1978 in Birmingham, England, UB40 is one of the most successful and durable of the British reggae bands. The group is a two-tone ensemble that scored dozens of hits in the U.K. and a few major smashes in the States, including two — “Red Red Wine” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love” — that reached No. 1. The name UB40 is a reference to the unemployment form in England, which I’ve always thought was pretty catchy and clever. Sun., May 3, Jannus Landing, St. Petersburg, $35. —ES
For the last few months I’ve been thinking about ways I could utilize my twitter account to capture my immediate feelings about things before they have the ability to be filtered and clouded by time and/or sobriety. Then along came the Katy Perry show and I decided I wanted to go, not because I am a fan of her music (though I know her two hits), but because I thought it would be a fun show. More on that later. Somewhere along the timeline from finding out I had a press pass for the show to actually getting to the show, I decided it would be the perfect candidate for testing the “live blogging via twitter” idea out at the show. Here are those tweets:
Once upon a time, I thought …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead was an amazing metal band name wasted on some Austin indie rockers. Then I heard Worlds Apart, the band’s ambitious, anthemic, self-indulgent yet criminally underrated 2005 album, and I realized these guys rule. I finally caught them live in November of 2006. To say they left me wanting more would be too kind.
A Reason to Rock 2
A benefit concert for Parkinson’s reasearch
Jannus Landing, St. Petersburg, FL
Saturday January 10, 2009
Bands: Chris McCarty Band, Radio Reset, Soulfound, The Prospect
All Ages | $20 at Door | Meet and greet at 6:00p | Doors at 7:00p
Why do the same flannel-era rock acts play the ’Burg every six months? Because they draw. Much more than I ever expected. A few weeks ago, I dropped into the State Theatre to meet some friends who were seeing the Toadies (the band had that ’90s hit about some shit that went down “behind the boathouse”).
I anticipated a couple hundred in attendance — but the place was packed. And there were even young hipsters there. Guess they enjoy it under the cover of irony. Anyway, fellow post-grungers Seven Mary Three, of Orlando, had even more Clinton-era hits — “Cumbersome,” “Water’s Edge,” “Over Your Shoulder” — than the Toadies so expect a huge turnout at everyone’s favorite downtown courtyard on Thursday when Seven Mary Three plays Jannus Landing — just don’t expect to see me there.
New World Brewery on a Saturday night boasts a healthy built in-crowd of conversationalists and music lovers. Even with the threatening cold snap on the horizon and very little local media coverage, quite a few people made it out to support the local post-punk rock bandDumbwaiters and show promoter New Granada Presents.
With the audience drinking cold beer while huddling, humping or gyrating near conveniently located space heaters on the New World patio, I wondered how many people got drawn away from this local show to see the moldy blues rock of Johnny “I played at Woodstock” Winter at Jannus Landing or Guns N’ Roses’ heroes Nazareth crust rocking at the Largo Cultural Center. Probably none, but our continued cultural emphasis on these old bohemoths roaming the lands and garnering top dollar for performances of contrived, dated music marketed for the sake of nostalgia gets under my skin…
Posted by Eric Snider on Nov. 20, 2008, at 5:50 pm
Editor’s note: This just in from our live music hound by B.Treotch.
Despite a nip in the air and, well, it being a Wednesday night and all, fans filled Jannus Landing to catch the Bright Eyes frontman’s latest musical offering: Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band.
The six piece ensemble, three guitars strong, produced an eclectic set despite sound issues that left the vocal mixes a bit muddy. Somewhat surprising was the band’s use of each member’s vocals — sharing lead duties on every fourth song or so.
The guys are unquestionably solid players who held their own with vocals, but the problem was that Conor Oberst is a tour de force and without his vulnerable growl it felt as if someone jut changed the channel.
Texas rock band Los Lonely Boys played a spirited set for an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd last night at Jannus Landing. Brothers Henry, Jojo and Ringo took the stage wearing Tampa Bay Rays jerseys (adorned with World Series patches) and proceeded to burn through about 90 minutes of their trademark Texican rock ‘n’ roll, spiked with extended, jaw-dropping jams.
Los Lonely Beatles?
The interplay among the siblings was mesmerizing, from Jojo’s effortless runs on his five-string bass to Ringo’s spot-on, energizing rhythms to the trio’s sweet, otherworldly harmonies that one can only guess are so perfect because they’re genetically encoded.
But it was guitarist Henry who shone brightest, coaxing an array of gorgeous sounds out of what looked like a series of Fender Stratocasters. He could be soothing and soulful, as on the bluesy, pop-tinged “I Am the Man to Beat” or shred with abandon, as on the chugging, Cream-influenced cover of “Crossroads.” Henry’s fiery fretwork often bore the imprint of his influences, recalling the warm tone and lead/rhythm majesty of Stevie Ray Vaughan, as well as the crystal raindrop precision of Carlos Santana.
From the moment they hit the stage to their post-encore (the sublime “Heaven,” by the way) valedictions of “God bless you” to the crowd, the Boys radiated good vibes, particularly Jojo, who smiled almost nonstop as he mugged and played to the crowd (and even gave his Rays jersey to a fan late in the show). Henry gave shout-outs to “Tampa Bay,” “St. Petersburg” and “Florida” throughout the evening, but the best hometown reference came when Jojo (if memory serves) let the crowd know that the Rays were up 4-0 over the Phillies at nearby Tropicana Field. The crowd roared its approval and the Boys went back to work, eager to please their fans. They were more than up to the task.
Shitty concert etiquette can destroy what could otherwise be an out-of-this-world concert experience. I’ve attended hundreds of metal, rock, and punk shows and witnessed all manner of drunken douchebaggery. The more intense the show, the more idiocy you’ll have to put up with.
Once upon a time, I thought 
