The Black Eyed Snakes Blog » minneapolis

RGC at The Triple Rock Social Club, Feb. 20 2010

Greg — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:29:55 +0000

Alan Sparhawk, Retribution Gospel Choir (photo by Jon Behm)

In the City Pages, Erik Thompson provides an appropriately concise but complete review of Retribution Gospel Choir’s recent show in Minneapolis.

The three-piece were locked in all evening long, hardly giving themselves (or the crowd) time to catch their breath before it was on to the next song, which only served to add to the intensity and frenzy of the songs themselves. The spotlight was clearly on Sparhawk’s guitar work during the entire set, tearing it up on “Your Bird” and an extended, fierce version of — appropriately enough — “Electric Guitar.” Sparhawk joked recently about how he’s done things in reverse and gotten louder as he’s grown older, and this was by far the loudest show I’ve ever seen him play.

Retribution Gospel Choir get intense at the Triple Rock

To kick off the show, Alan Sparhawk stood on the stage and yelled, “We bring you greetings from Lake Superior.” Somewhere in the middle of one of the greatest jams in rock and roll history on “Poor Man’s Daughter,” I almost had a euphoric coronary.

Meanwhile, over at the website Reviler, photographer Jon Behm has posted several images from the concert that pretty well captured the energy.

Retribution Gospel Choir – 501 Club, Minneapolis

samh — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:03:36 +0000

On December 19th, 2009 Retribution Gospel Choir played a live show at the 501 Club in Minneapolis, MN. Sam Haraldson was present and wrote the following review on Last.fm.

The show at the 501 was full of people who were definitely fans as I could see the emotion in their eyes and the mouthing of song lyrics around the room. Alan Sparhawk, Steve Garrington, and Eric Pollard played a set that was (in my opinion) far too short, leaving out a couple of tracks from the new album 2 which is to be released January 20th, 2010.

The set was similar to the live shows of the past six months that have bootleg recordings available, focusing on the same tracks. It was obvious the band had been in the studio as the numbers were very tight. RGC’s typical poppy, melodic verse-chorus-verse was dead on. But the real proof the band is tight came during their famous dubby, noisy, freeform interludes. There was emotion on their faces that poured out through their instruments and right into the minds and bodies of the audience.

A short encore closed the set and when asked to play more, Sparkhawk declined stating a long drive back to Duluth that evening as reason. The show was well worth listening to as will their upcoming sets and soon-to-be-released album.

View photos at Retribution Gospel Choir – 501 Club, Minneapolis Flickr page.

Alan Sparhawk – Whole Music Club

Greg — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:43:32 +0000

Alan Sparhawk played a few songs and talked about Low, music, song-writing, gear and lots more October 10, 2007 at the Whole Music Club’s “Making Music” series.

Click here for a list of video and audio recordings from the event.