Vallejo Drummer Bob Belanski of Bob Belanski’s SpecDrum will welcome trumpeter Warren Gale, Jr., trombonist Steve Turre and others to the Empress Theatre in Vallejo Saturday, Jan. 28 for a 19-piece Big Band concert in honor of the late tenor sax legend Joe Henderson. The Joe Henderson Legacy Big Band will perform jazz standards […]
2017 BottleRock Napa Valley music festival lineup announced
Although the year just started, music lovers will have plenty to look forward to this summer when it comes to music festivals. However, if you live in the Bay Area, you will have to spend a lot of travel time just to go to them. There is Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, but they require plane tickets […]
Sons of Champlin to close out 2016 with New Year’s Eve concert at the Empress Theatre
This year, as in past years, the Empress Theatre in Vallejo has offered the opportunity for people to have a rockin’ New Year’s party outside of their home. What better band to provide a soundtrack to this party than a band that made waves in the ‘60s San Francisco music scene: Marin County’s very […]
Nick Sestanovich: Five unconventionally classic holiday tunes
I can’t help it. As much as I like to think I’m one of those people who’s nauseated by the very thought of Christmas music, I actually like a fair amount of it, enough to make my own Spotify playlist out of it. Songs that I tend to shun the other 11 months of the […]
Local band makes it official: Bodhi Shrugs to play at Lucca’s on Saturday
Bodhi Shrugs, a local band that has been performing in the Bay Area since 1995, made it official this week by running a fictitious business name statement with the Benicia Herald on Tuesday. The band released its first album in 2004, “Wherever We Roam,” composed of songs written and produced by guitarist Elan Laporte and […]
It’s gonna be ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ at the Empress; VOENA will be among featured performers
Jazz pianist David Benoit will be bringing a holiday favorite back to the Bay Area next month with “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” stopping in at the Empress Theatre in Vallejo, Dec. 10 and 11 – and this time, he’s bringing along some very special friends. Top-Ten Billboard jazz vocalist Sara Gazarek will be joining Benoit […]
The gift of a golden voice: Paying tribute to Leonard Cohen
As 2016 winds down and the history is written, one aspect of the year people will inevitably bring up is the sad amount of musical talent that has been lost. On Thursday, the music world lost another incredible figure: Leonard Cohen, the Canadian-born folk singer died at 82. Much has already been written about Cohen’s […]
Review: Vallejo Symphony opener dazzles, entices with a taste of things to come
Vallejo Symphony guest soloist Sara Davis Buechner wowed her audience last Sunday in a stellar performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, the second of three pieces comprising the symphony’s season-opening performance and the debut of its new music director, Marc Taddei, at the Hogan Auditorium in Vallejo. Taddei led the orchestra in a […]
’70s, ’80s tribute bands to steal shows at the Empress in coming days
For the next few nights, the Empress Theatre will be flooded with tribute bands— all of whom have names that imply theft. Nonetheless, all of them pay tribute to your favorite classic rock acts so well that you won’t even mind. It all begins tonight at 8 when Benicia’s very own Cars tribute band, The […]
Notes from 30,000 feet: Coachella’s Desert Trip brings six legends to one venue
Last spring my wife and I took a ‘desert trip’ to Palm Springs for a long weekend. The talk poolside was of the upcoming Desert Trip concert; three nights with six rock and roll icons: Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones on night one, followed by Neil Young and Paul McCartney on the following night, […]