STG Announces Upcoming Events

Seattle Theatre Group (STG) announces the following concerts going on sale this week.

Concrete Blonde

Date: January 25, 2012 @ 8:00pm

Venue: The Neptune (1303 NE 45th St) 

Price: $25.00 advance, $30.00 day of show, not including applicable fees

Seating: General Admission (All Ages / Bar w/ ID)

On Sale: Friday, December 2nd @ 10am  

Ticketing Information: Available online atTickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box office (M-F 10am-6pm), 24-hour kiosks located outside the Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at (877) 784-4849, or online atSTGPresents.org.  

"The thing right now for me," says Johnette Napolitano, "is to figure out how everything in my life fits together." The Concrete Blonde singer-songwriter-bassist goes on to say she just graduated tattoo school and a "sewing thing." It sounds just like what a retired musician might do with herself after decades spent on a record-tour-record cycle. Except Concrete Blonde's future has never been so cemented. While the critically-lauded trio took two six-year breaks since forming in 1982, they always came back around. In the last few years, says Napolitano, the phone would ring with invitations to perform in Brazil, China and Peru. The prospect of "going places we've never been" appealed to her, guitarist James Mankey and drummer Gabriel Ramirez Quezada. And there was always the call of the road and the band's rabid fans. Even during a "hiatus," the band would sneak off for little one-week jaunts.  For a band that, after so long together, still thrills at the chance to play together - just not for grueling night-after-night stretches, it's a gift. "We rehearse every Sunday," says Napolitano, "and we have a really good time." This is what Concrete Blonde wants to present to their fans; the band, in an even more intimate setting than a club, where they'll deliver the goods in a more casual, communal atmosphere. "We haven't ever really been that calculating at what we do, and there's no reason to really be that way now." It's this ethos - along with Napolitano's powerfully literate songs and the band's playful but visceral live performances - that established Concrete Blonde as a fan's band since their inception in 1982. The band thus ensured their devotees would stand by them through peaks like when Bloodletting's "Joey" ruled radio, valleys like those six-year Mojave dry spells, and those welcome, thirst-quenching recommencements - like this new era of Concrete Blonde. Now there's almost no limit to the interactions between the band and their fans. While other bands wear down their tires and their bodies on the road, Concrete Blonde can keep this up a lot longer. 




Flogging Molly

Date: March 13, 2012 @ 7:30pm
Venue: Paramount Theatre (All Ages)

Price: $29.25 not including applicable fees

Seating: General Admission Flat Floor 

On Sale: Friday, December 2nd @ 10am 

Ticketing Information: Available online atTickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box office (M-F 10am-6pm), 24-hour kiosks located outside the Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at (877) 784-4849, or online atSTGPresents.org.

 
Founded in Los Angeles in 1997, Flogging Molly has always defied categorization. The infectious originality of their songs is a badge of honor and key to the band's creativity, their urgency. They infuse punk rock with Celtic instruments-violin, mandolin and the accordion-and they merge blues progressions with grinding guitars and traditional Irish music, the music of King's youth. "We're not a traditional band," explains Dublin-born King. "We are influenced by traditional music and inspired by it, but without question we put our own twist on it." Theirs is music of exile and rebellion, of struggle and history and protest. It's music of a country torn down the middle, a deeply beautiful and wounded country that knows no quit, and Flogging Molly pays homage to that resolve in every note. Whether it's a driving anthem like "Black Friday Rule" or the upbeat duet with Lucinda Williams, "Factory Girls", the band's only criteria for its music is simple and bone-deep: that it matter.  Flogging Molly's fans have always appreciated the social and political awareness driving the music. Swagger, the band's first album, transcended everyone's expectations in 2000, and the track "The Worst Day Since Yesterday" was included in the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Drunken Lullabies was released in 2002 and certified Gold. In 2004, the band released Within a Mile of Home, and in 2008, Flogging Molly put out Float, a deeply stirring and personal album recorded in King's native Ireland. No surprise that Float found the band's widest audience yet. Through all of this, Flogging Molly-first, last, and always a live band-was touring, playing raucous and adrenaline-fueled shows in bars, pubs, and nearly every major rock festival in North America, Europe, and Japan. "In Ireland," King says, "you go to the pub to have a conversation. That's what we do every night on stage, go to the pub and trade stories." In 2010, to showcase their unparalleled and limitless energy on stage, the band released Flogging Molly: Live at the Greek Theatre, a three disc set chronicling their legendary sold out shows at one of LA's most famous music venues.  Speed Of Darkness is music to play after you've lost your job or your love, and music to listen to as you dream of better things for your family and country. It's the music you hear as you fight a bigger man, and it's the music you hear as you help him from the floor and buy him a pint at the bar. The album, like Flogging Molly itself, is a testament to youth and resilience, to growing old and the wisdom of scars, and yet for all of the record's darkness and the speed with which it descends, the ultimate theme is one of light: We can persevere. We must and we will persevere.

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