You know how fireworks always end with a ‘grand finale’ where they rapidly blast everything they’ve got left?

If you’ve been following along, you know we’ve seen a lot of concerts this summer. Well, we’ve closed out our summer concert series with quite the explosion!

August 30: Virgin Mobile FreeFest
at Merriweather Post Pavilion

St. Vincent

Public Enemy

Rivers Cuomo, of Weezer

Mark Hoppus, of Blink-182

Confetti explosion, at the end of the Blink-182 show

Also seen but not pictured: Mates of State, The Bravery, Taking Back Sunday, The Hold Steady

August 31: The Killers
at Merriweather Post Pavilion

Opening band: Wolfmother

Their hair was mesmerizing.

The Killers

We had a few days concert-free, and then drove down to Virginia Beach for my half marathon (race report coming soon!) and the American Music Festival.

Sept 4: Cowboy Mouth
(and Sister Hazel, but no photos, and we left after a couple of songs.)

Sept 5: Marcy Playground and Tonic
(we left Tonic pretty early; I had to get to bed before my race!)

Marcy Playground

Tonic

Sept 6: The Black Crowes
Since this was the headlining show, it was on a much bigger stage. We were really far away!

That’s a lot of music for one week!

I’m a bit belated putting this up. It seems a (voluntary) web project and triathlon training have eaten up most of my free time lately!

Anyway … we had another rush of concerts at the end of June.

June 22: Melody Gardot

At the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis

June 25: Sam Roberts

On board the Harbor Queen for a WRNR Rock N River cruise — same venue where saw the Old 97’s last year.

Speaking of …

June 27: Murry Hammond (solo), Rhett Miller (solo), Old 97’s (full band)

At the Recher Theatre in Towson, Maryland
Also see some video over here. Obviously they played a lot of my favorites!

June 30: The Church

At the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis

It’s been crazy.

We’ve got a little bit of a break now, but our summer of music is far from over!

This week and last have been jam-packed with live music!

The madness began Sunday with a matinee performance by Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3. This show was in town, so we walked down to our favorite local venue and grabbed some lunch before the show.

We were seated in the front row, directly in front of Peter Buck. That was pretty amazing — I’ve been an R.E.M. fan forever so it was great hearing a little extra guitar through his monitor.

Loved the show, and got to briefly meet Robyn and Peter after the show. Too bad Robyn wouldn’t pose with us — he said Peter was the photo guy — but we got albums signed to add to our collection.

Monday night we headed up to Merriweather Post Pavilion to see The Decemberists. They were playing their latest album, The Hazards of Love, in its entirety.

But first up, we had a few openers. Andrew Bird was always on the bill. But a late addition was none other than Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3!

Robyn asked his “young nephew Colin” to join him on stage …

How great to see them again!

Next up was Andrew Bird. I’m not really a fan, I just know a few songs from the radio. But he was pretty good.

Finally, The Decemberists took the stage. And well, at least for the first three quarters of the show, we knew exactly what to expect. And it was fantastic!

They took a quick break and played a few more songs after finishing Hazards, right up until the venue’s 11 p.m. curfew. What a great show!

But there’s always room for more, right?

Tuesday night we returned to Merriweather to see Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction.

Our seats were pretty far back … and due to the nature of the show, we pretty much had to stand for both performances. But it was a great show, and a lot of fun!

I haven’t really followed any NIN albums released since the late 90s … but they always put on a good show. And they played all my old favorites!

Admittedly, I was never a huge Jane’s Addiction fan. The husband was, I just never got past the hits. But I liked them, and they played them all!

Phew! We’re done with shows for a few days, but it won’t be for too long. At least I think the rest of our summer shows are a bit more spaced out!

The husband and I are big fans of live music.

We’ve got the Rams Head Tavern right down the street, and Merriweather Post Pavilion about a half hour away … and occasionally we’ll journey into DC, Baltimore or Northern Virginia to hit up local shows.

And usually we get a bit of a pileup around this time of year. The past two nights we’ve been entertained at the Rams Head.

Last night was Katie Melua. I’ve only just discovered Katie, and was really blown away. Sure, I’d listened to her music prior to the show, and knew she had a beautiful voice. But her delivery was amazing. It was a fantastic show!

I should also mention Katie’s opener, David Berkeley. The opening acts are usually pretty good, but sometimes it’s hard to get into someone you don’t know. David has a nice voice and great stage presence. He brought along trumpet/banjo player Jordan Katz, which added something different. Too bad he just missed me in his Trumpetview photo!

Back for more tonight, to see Cracker. We’ve seen them here before, and it’s always a great time. We were front and center tonight. I didn’t even need to use the zoom for this shot!

We’ve got a few quiet days coming up … but next week is going to be a little crazy. Stay tuned!