After submitting this article, I discovered it was the 100th post on Ask A Sound Guy! Wooo!

After Deadmau5 and Crookers on Saturday, I was on my way to see Lily Allen and Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head on Sunday at the Riviera Theatre. The bill was only the two acts and the show started at 7:30PM, it was great.

The Venue and Stuff: The Riviera looks like it was an old opera house. It had a huge balcony and a pretty sizable floor area. It was, and I’m not sure why, noticeably more grungy looking than the Congress Theatre. Not that you expect to go to a concert in a pristine enviroment, but I was kind of surprised.

The balcony seating filled up quickly and they had reserved seating at the very front of the balcony. Either way, my fiance and I got a nice place to sit with a little work and everything was fine.

The sound & lighting were great. FOH mixed both bands very well and everything sounded good. Nothing to complain about at all.

The Music: Good.

• Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head: Honestly, I hadn’t heard of these guys before I saw they were touring with Lily Allen. Even so, these guys were great. Short and sharp electro-fused rock from Seattle. This is a band I’d love to see in a smaller club because I’m sure their energy would be even more apparent. Definitely not what I expected for the opening act of this show, but a pleasent surprise nonetheless.
• Lily Allen: I liked her first album and her new/second album (although I like the first one a little more), so I was interested to see what she’d play. The answer soon became that she’d play pretty much every song off her new disc. I wasn’t crazy about the song choice but hey…it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She sounds great on stage, really. She can actually sing which is always a nice surprise in a world of AutoTune. Her band was amazingly tight. Great rhythm section, great keys, and great guitars. It was pretty much the entire package. It was complete with your typical Lily Allen antics (a wardrobe malfunction and Lily calling out a drunk guy in the crowd on being a dick), but they didn’t overshadow the show. They even went into Kid Cudi’s “Day N Night” for a moment. All-in-all, a good performance. I’d go see her again for sure.

Other Stuff: The show was out by 10PM which was a GREAT contrast to the 3AM striketime at Deadmau5 the night before. T-shirts were $35 for Lily and a more affordable $25 for NPSH. Why are these things so expensive?

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