For those not summoned to the command performance by the illustrious Gordon Sumner (and band) at Citizens Bank Park, it's a good night to go running around Philadelphia (and Camden) seeking out less familiar sounds.
Across the river in Wiggins Park, the Xponential Music Festival, which will be running all weekend (with a particularly strong lineup of local acts The A-Sides, Beretta 76, Bitter Bitter Weeks, plus the Fountains of Wayne, on Friday) gets underway, with Tower of Power, James Hunter and Slo-Mo featuring Mic Wrecka.
Back on the Philly side, at the Sanctuary at the First Unitarian, it's Battles, the New York math-rock, neo-prog, post-rock or whatever-you-want-to-call-it indie supergroup of sorts pictured above. Yeah, I know: all those intricate time signatures and experimental blending of organic musicianship and computer beats sounds hopelessly nerdy. But on Mirrored, these geeks make robotic music that's fanciful and almost childlike in its gleefulness. Check it out here.
Meanwhile, at the Troc, there's Gogol Bordello, the maniacally energetic gypsy punk band led by mustachoied Ukrainan born frontman Eugene Hutz. The band's latest frenetic Eastern bloc party, Super Taranta, came out last week. And Hutz has been making high profile friends lately, starring with Elijah Wood in Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated and working with Madonna on her excellently tilted forthcoming short film, Filth & Wisdom, whose plot keywords, according to IMDB.com, include "dominatrix," "cultural revolution" and "poetry." And oh yeah, Hutz and GB violinist Sergey Ryabtsev joined Madge for a recent high profile gig, giving "La Isla Bonita" an extreme makeover. Take a look.
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