JP Review:

They were good and at the end of the show, the cool thing was having 15 young warm-up musicians join them on-stage, including Cyril Neville (74) from the Neville Brothers Band and hearing them play "When the Saints Come Marching In". We sat behind a young couple that had come with their grandmother and she was twerking in front of us, which was not great.

AK Review: When I found out that David Gilmour was coming to Chicago, I booked a ticket immediately. Given that I was born in the early 1980s, I obviously didn't get a chance to see Pink Floyd in their hay-day and I knew this might be my only chance to see something like this.

I have been a fan of Pink Floyd for quite awhile and what drew me to their music was David Gilmour's soaring guitar solos in many of their songs. I have not followed his solo career much, but fortunately, when he has done tours to promote other solo albums in the past, he has ended up playing a lot of Pink Floyd songs which is really what everyone wants to hear.

The concert did not disappoint, even though I had built it up in my mind. He opened with a song called "5 A.M." off his new album and it was a perfect opener. The concert ended up being about 3 hours - he played 7 songs from new album (Rattle That Lock) and 14 old Pink Floyd songs. The Pink Floyd songs included "Wish You Were Here", "Money", "High Hopes", "Astronomy Domine", "Shine on You Crazy Diamond", "Sorrow, "Run Like Hell", "Time" and "Comfortably Numb".

At the end of the show, they broke out into an all-out laser light show that was absolutely stunning to see. Hearing some of those famous Gilmour guitar riffs in person was also amazing. John and I agree that this concert is one of the best we've seen and I feel lucky that I live near one of the three American cities he decided to visit (other two were L.A. and New York).

AK Review: Wow. After a couple of blah opening acts, Coldplay really delivered with a high-energy show. This was sort of a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me, the tickets were very expensive relative to how much I would normally spend to a see a band,…so naturally I had high expectations and I believe my expectations were met.

At the door they handed out wristbands and during the Coldplay portion of the concert, each wristband was activated and glowed in a rainbow of colors, so imagine that times 35,000 people and you can get an idea of the visual effect that it was. In addition to that, they had a very involved lighting and stage set-up and blew out confetti and balloons throughout the concert. My main requirement for any band is that they sound as good in-person as they do on their CD and in this respect Coldplay was excellent.

As far as their song selection, they played most of the songs from their new album (Mylo Xyloto) as well as a good selection of older songs including "Yellow", "Clocks", "Miss You" and even a brief rendition of "Amsterdam". Overall I really enjoyed this concert, I might even go so far as to say "the best I've ever seen". A lot of good energy and good message.

AK Review:
My wife and I have been big fans of Deadmau5 (pronounced 'Deadmouse') for several years - I just never pictured us going to an EDM show...but then her birthday came around and I was looking for something unique to do and saw that Deadmau5 was coming through, so I bought us tickets. It was originally supposed to be at Northerly Island, but got moved to the Aragon. We got there WAY too early. I think we saw 4 opening acts and Deadmau5 didn't even start their show until 11:00pm. This was definitely not a crown of people in the mid-to-late-30s so we were definitely some of the older people there. The music was awesomely loud - like, feel the bass all the from your head to your toes kind of loud. My hat was vibrating at certain points. We stayed for about half of the Deadmau5 show, he played crowd favorites like "Imaginary Friend" and "Animals" and "Avaritia". Nero was one of the openers so we got to see him to "Promises" too. All in all a good experience, not sure we would do that again, but it was a fun time.

AK Review: John and I took our wives out on the town to see one of the greatest entertainers of my generation and Timberlake didn't disappoint.

The show was high energy throughout and Timberlake had a huge supporting cast that included a large band and about six back-up dancers. He himself danced and sung throughout the entirety of the show (2.5 hours) which was impressive in and of itself.

He played a good mix of songs from his new album ("Don't Hold the Wall", "TKO", "Let the Groove Get In", "Suit & Tie", etc) mixed with his popular older songs ("What Goes Around", "Love Stoned", "Sexy Back", etc). In the middle of the concert, he did a couple of tribute songs, playing one of Michael Jackson's most famous songs, "Human Nature" and one of Elvis' most famous songs, "Heartbreak Hotel".

For as expensive of a ticket as it was, I thought Timberlake gave the fans all of their money's worth. The concert was interactive and he kept the energy up the entire time. Everyone stuck around until the last note. I always judge an artist by how they sound live as compared with how they sound on their albums and Timberlake sounds just as good live as he does on his recordings.

AK Review: If you've watched 'The Jimmy Fallon Show' over the past 7 years, you've seen 'The Roots' because they are Jimmy's late-night band. While the kind of music they do on that show certainly highlights their skills and ability, their own show is quite a bit different than what you see on TV.

The opener for this show was Donnie Trumpet and Chance the Rapper, both of whom were great; full of energy and got the crowd going.

The Roots came on a played a high-energy 2-hour set which included selections from many of their albums and nods to several other greats including Prince, Curtis Mayfield and Kool and the Gang.

My favorite part of the show was them featuring members of their band - in particular I enjoyed the solo spotlights that Jeremy Ellis (beatbox), Captain Kirk Douglas (guitar) and Mark Kelley (bass) played.

It was a hot night in Chicago - temps in the mid-80s with dewpoints in the mid-70s - but a perfect night to be outside watching a great band.

JP Review: This is the first concert I have traveled to see in quite awhile - I flew into Los Angeles last Friday and went to the concert with my Nephew. The last time I had seen ELO play was in Chicago in 1977.

The. Show. Was. Awesome. I would rate this as one of the top 3 concerts I've seen all-time. Some of the songs you might recognize are "Medieval Woman" and "Telephone Line". Some of the things that made it great were: a 50-piece orchestra comprised of members of the LA Philharmonic, the sound created in that venue is phenomenal, and the temperature (outdoor show) was 70 degrees with fireworks and other visuals throughout the show. Jeff Lynne is 68 and sounded pitch-perfect.

This show was one of only two shows that Jeff Lynne and ELO are playing and the last time he did any sort of tour was over 30 years ago - so I feel privileged to have gotten a chance to see him. This was my first time to Los Angeles and I got to see Hollywood Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica, and Venice and we made a special trip to the "Graveyard to the Stars".

AK Review:

Going into this concert, I wouldn't have called myself a "fan" of these two groups - I knew some of their songs but definitely not most of them. We were invited by some friends of ours to go and I ended up really impressed. Mat Kearney's voice sounds like Chris Martin from Coldplay and he put on a very energetic show. In the couple of weeks since I saw them I've been listening to a lot more of his music. Needtobreathe was really good - Bear Rinehart has a phenomenal grittiness to his voice when it's live and the band and visuals were excellent. I definitely recommend the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago if you have a chance to see a show there - it is a unique looking venue and it's small enough where you are never very far from the stage.

JP Review:

Before I talk about Elton's part of the concert, I have to mention the warm-up act that played called "2Cellos". It was two young kids from Croatia who play modern hits on their cellos…it was phenomenal.

I saw Elton in 1974 and 1975 and he was great then…and he didn't disappoint this time around either. He opened the concert with "Funeral for a Friend" and then played "All the Girls Love Alice" - then he ended with "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" (on a Saturday night). He played for 2 hours and 45 minutes straight and the two guys from "2Cellos" played with him for the entire concert. It was a full-capacity crowd at All-State and we were treated to a great concert.

JP Review:

My wife and I had a great time at this show with some friends of ours - Chrissie and the Pretenders looked hot and sounded great. She played her old songs like "Don't Get Me Wrong", "Back on the Chain Gang", and "Ohio" - she is the only original member still left with the band and now she has 3 very young musicians playing along with her. She was once married to Ray Davies of The Kinks and was also married to the lead singer of Simple Minds (Jim Kerr).

JP Review: They blew the roof off of the Arcada Theater! I last saw them in 1975 and I swear, they were better this time around. After the concert, I got to meet three of the founding members of the group including Cynthia Robinson and got to tell her how much I loved their music. Sly is no longer with the group and hasn't been for some time. The warm-up was Ty Stone along with a James Brown cover band which sounded really good. The highlight of the Family Stone portion of the concert was them finishing the concert off with "I Wanna Take You Higher". I absolutely loved this concert.

AK Review:
My dad was/is a fan of the Alan Parsons Project and I tried to get him to drive down and come see it with me, but alas. Alan Parsons Project has such an ironic sound and the band that played that night was fantastic. Their lead guitar player was rockin'. Mr. Parsons doesn't have 'it' anymore - which is disappointing because a big part of the APP sound is the vocal, but it was still great. This was the first concert I went to post-COVID and it was so great to be in a crowd of people again, enjoying some music together.

JP Review:

I now believe there are two types of people: those who have seen The Rolling Stones and those who haven't. I don't know why, but my expectations going into this concert were admittedly low. I figured, "these guys have been around for 50 years, how much can they have left?" Wow, was I wrong. Consider me a Rolling Stones convert.

Cheryl Crow made a surprise appearance singing "Honky Tonk Woman" which brought down the house. They also sang with a gospel choir on a few of the songs. It was nice to see Ronnie Wood hittin' on a cigarette during the whole show - that made me laugh.

Overall this was just a great show - they had a lot of energy, they sounded good and it was worth the $250 for a nosebleed seat.

AK Review:

Not everyone knows "Dennis DeYoung" but almost everyone has heard of The Styx and this was basically a Styx concert. John, Harry and I went and we didn't know it ahead of time, but 7/7/2017 was the 40th Anniversary, to the day, that "The Grand Illusion" album was released and so DeYoung and his band played that album, straight through (no talking in between songs), to commemorate it.

DeYoung, at 70, has still got it - that iconic voice still sounds great and he is still a keyboard master. The band he is touring with is very talented as well - in particular, his two lead guitarists, August Zadra and Jimmy Leahey, are absolutely fantastic. They had the place rockin' all night and they played every lick perfectly. Not only that - Zadra often played the role of Tommy Shaw (lead and backing vocals with the original Styx band) and was fantastic.

The band had the look, feel and sound of the original Styx band and it was truly a treat to hear some of the ironic songs like "Come Sail Away", "Mr. Roboto", "Lady", "Renegade" and "Best of Times". The Dennis DeYoung band is touring all over the U.S. over the next few months so if you're into the Styx, go check them out, you won't regret it.

JP Review:

I know I say this every time, but these guys were great. All of the original members were there except for John Sebastian. They kicked off the show with "Do You Believe in Magic", followed by "Nashville Cats", "Younger Girl", and after awhile they finished up with "Summer in the City". The band seemed truly grateful that the audience came out (mostly packed house, smaller theater). My wife made a vow before we left that she wasn't going to stand-up, sing along or dance, but she ended up breaking those vows.

JP Review:

Johnny Rivers, who is age 71, looked and sounded great when I saw him a couple of weeks ago. You might recognize some of his biggest hits including "Secret Agent Man", "Maybelline" and "Mountain of Love". He got his first break in 1964 at the Whisky a Go Go (THE nightclub, back in the day, for those of you kids who don't know what that is). The thing I like about an act like Johnny Rivers is that he's touring because he loves to play. He doesn't need the money (his net worth is over $100MM) so it's fun to see someone just doing what they love to do. His 28-year-old son is his drummer which was cool to see too.

JP Review:

I've seen James Taylor before and this is the best concert of his that I've seen. He had a large band behind him and he sang his favorites including "Sweet Baby James, "How Great it is (To Be Loved by You)", and "Fire and Rain". My favorite part of the concert was when he brought his wife (who used to be a backup singer for him) and 12-year-old son on-stage to sing the last four songs of the show with him. The tear-jerker of the show was the three of them singing "Shower the People You Know With Love" - after that song Taylor's 12-year-old son fist-bumped all the members of the band. It was a great night for an outdoor show - it's always a treat to see a show at Ravinia.

JP Review:

David Byrne has teamed up with a band called St. Vincent which is comprised of Annie Clark (vocals) and six horn players. If you like Bjork or Annie Lennox, you will like this combination. The overall feel of the music is soul-music and New Orleans jazz mixed together. I really enjoyed this concert - even though I didn't know many of the songs, the band had an infectious energy and the combination of David Byrne with Annie Clark was excellent.

JP Review:

Joe Walsh opened up playing 'Rocky Mountain Way', 'Seems to Me' and 'Life in the Fast Lane'. Bob Seger was the crowd-pleaser and brought down the house with 'Roll Me Away', 'Fire Down Below', and 'Turn the Page'. I've been to a lot of a concerts in my lifetime, and I've never seen so many completely hammered people, most of them wearing black leather jackets. I really did enjoy the concert, Seger still has it. Some trivia for you; Joe Walsh was recently wed to Ringo Starr's wife's sister.

JP Review:

This was a double-header of REO Speedwagon and Chicago. It was a perfect night for an outdoor concert and seeing two Chicago-based bands playing separately and together was a treat. Watching REO reminded me of watching the movie "Spinal Tap" but they still sounded great. This was my 4th time seeing Chicago (since 1971) and they played all of their hits. The two bands came together at the end of the show and played some of each other's songs including "Ridin' the Storm Out".