Hot Ticket: Totally 80s Summer Tour @ Tally Ho Theatre, Leesburg, Va., 6/29/13

Martha Davis (Photo courtesy of The Motels)

The Motels, Bow Wow Wow and Gene Loves Jezebel have put together a tour and they are coming to the DC metro area! It’s been a long time since these bands were on the charts in 1983 — but this show 30 years later at the Tally Ho Theatre in Leesburg, Va., should prove to be a rare treat for new wave afficionados like myself.

The incomporable Martha Davis heads up the Motels, best known for their songs “Only the Lonely” and “Suddenly Last Summer.” Davis has been active touring the west coast from her native California in recent years, and it’s good to see her finally get out our way. The Motels are billed as Martha Davis and the Motels these days, and she’s reported to be touring with a new group of musicians to include Nick Johns (bass/keyboard), Eric Gardner (drums), Clint Walsh (guitar) and Brady Wills (bass). I’ve always been an admirer of Davis’ voice on her band’s new wave, often wistful, slightly melancholy reflections on love, loss and the passage of time.

Bow Wow Wow originally consisted of rowdy Brits helmed by vocalist Annabella Lwin. It seems Lwin is no longer in this incarnation of the band, after making a minor splash reincarnating the band during Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Now bassist Leigh Gorman soldiers on with new lead singer Chloe Pappas. It should be interesting to catch the new lineup tackle classics like “I Want Candy” and “C·30 C·60 C·90 Go,” famously known for being the song on the world’s first cassingle.

Gothy Gene Loves Jezebel originally consisted of twin brothers Michael Aston and Jay Aston. The thematically darker Michael know tours in the current version of Gene Loves Jezebel, playing classic songs like “Desire” while also playing newer material such as 2003’s “Exploding Girls.”

This will be my first trip out to Tally Ho, so it’s a great opportunity to take a look at a different venue. Join me there for a voyage back to 1983!

Totally 80s Summer Tour
w/ Martha Davis and the Motels, Bow Wow Wow, Gene Loves Jezebel
Tally Ho Theatre
19 West Market Street
Leesburg, Va. 20176
Saturday, June 29
Doors 7pm
$30
All ages

Music, The Features, We Love Music

By Mickey 1:30 pm24 Jun 2013

We Love Music: Firefly Music Festival @ The Woodlands of Dover International Speedway, Dover, DE — 6/21-6/23/13

Audience at Firefly (Photo by Theo Wargo, Getty Images)

The second annual Firefly Music Festival grew impressively this year, spreading its wings in The Woodlands, located behind the Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. Located roughly 100 miles from Washington, DC, Firefly is poised to become the biggest east coast festival of all next year.

I attended the Coachella Valley Music Festival for the first time this year as well in April, and I can attest the grounds for the three-day Firefly are even larger and more diverse than the grounds for Coachella. Via The Woodlands, Firefly offers four large stages; several wooded entertainment areas for hammocks, films and dancing; and huge tracts of land where businesses like the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery literally can build a barn and run half a dozen beer bars inside.

The festival itself was orderly and well run but at the same time the atmosphere seemed a lot more rock and roll than the manicured polo lawns of Coachella. About 30,000 people attended Firefly in its first year and festival organizers were calling for twice as many this year.