STG Announces Upcoming Events: Alberta Cross and More

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

Alberta Cross

Special Guests: Everest &

Aaron Lee Tasjan 

Date: Saturday, July 28, 2012 @ 9:30pm  

Venue: The Crocodile (All Ages)
Price: $13.00 in advance, $15.00 day of show, not including applicable fees    
Seating: General Admission
On Sale: Friday, May 18, 2012 @ 10 am     

The title of Alberta Cross' new album, Songs of Patience is, in many ways, literal. "It's been three years since we last released a full-length album," says singer/ songwriter/ guitarist Petter Ericson Stakee, a Swedish-born musician who has spent a big part of his life abroad in London and now Brooklyn, NY. "It was a crazy ride that ended on a positive note. Three band members and five producers later, the record is now ready."  The highs and lows of the band's journey raised a grander set of ideas, infusing the disc's title with additional universal meaning.  After touring extensively on their debut, Broken Side Of Time, with bands like Them Crooked Vultures, Oasis, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and stopping at festivals like Bonnaroo and Sasquatch, Alberta Cross headed to an old, abandoned house in the middle of nowhere near Woodstock, NY. There, they braved the freezing winter and embraced a sense of the building's haunted past to envision ideas for a new record. Initially, the motivation was to get back to the songwriting quality of the band's 2007 self-produced EP The Thief & the Heartbreaker-a blurry forethought that would later become clearer. "Bringing other guys into the band on the last record changed things," says London-born bassist Terry Wolfers. "I think we became aware that we wanted to bring back some of our original sound. That was the basis of our intentions."  In the end, the record is the sum of three years' worth of parts - a struggle that concluded in victory. It opens new possibilities for the band's visceral live show, a notable facet of the group defined by their raucous, gritty onstage performances that swell the tracks into bigger, more expansive versions of themselves. Songs of Patience has also, in many ways, become a decided source of inspiration for the band members - one they hope magnifies the personal battles and upsides of their fans.

An Evening with

Eric Johnson

Date: Friday, August 17, 2012 @ 8:00pm

Venue: The Neptune (All Ages)  
Price: $25.00 in advance, $30.00 day of show, not including applicable fees    
Seating: General Admission
On Sale: Friday, May 18, 2012 @ 10am    
Ticketing Information: Available online at Tickets.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 at STGPresents.org.  

Basic fact: Eric Johnson is one of popular music's most respected and renowned guitarists. Further fact sometimes overshadowed by the brilliance of Johnson's playing: The reason why he stands both out and above the rest in a world peopled with many "guitar gods" is that, for Johnson, it's as much about the music and the song as it playing his guitar. A Grammy-winning musical artist who is a member of Guitar Player's Gallery of Greats and was named one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century by Musician magazine, Johnson "plays guitar the way Michelangelo painted ceilings: with a colorful vibrancy that's more real than life," raves The New Age Music Guide. Similarly, as his friend and fellow guitarist Steve Vai observes, "Eric has more colorful tone in his fingers than Van Gogh had on his palette."  Johnson's gift for composing and playing songs that evoke vivid imagery and tell palpable stories even without words can be witnessed on his Anaheim performances of the aptly-named "Trademark" and his signature song "Cliffs of Dover," which won Johnson a Grammy in 1991 for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. The effervescent 2006 live performance at The Grove in Anaheim includes "S.R.V.," Johnson's stirring salute to the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, who rose to fame alongside Johnson from the Austin, Texas music scene, and his only recorded performance of "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix, a seminal inspiration to whom Johnson has often been compared.

More Articles by This Author...