Chris Isaak @ the Casino

[music | The Stooges - T.V. Eye]

Chris Isaak and Nicole Atkins

We've seen Chris Isaak before, and the show was pretty much the same, but it was a lot of fun. I'm not a Chris Isaak fanatic, I almost never listen to him, but the shows have been really energetic, and Natalie loves it. The Hampton Beach Casino has a better feel for his type of show than a lot of places he could have gone too, it's a big 100 year old dance hall, so just really simple massive floor, stage, 30 foot ceiling. They need to do something about their seating situation though, my feeling is they should just make every show GA and do away with the whole chairs + tables thing, but I'm sure I'm in the minority. Plus it would be harder for him to run around through the crowd at that kind of show.

Nicole Atkins & the Sea reminded me a lot of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's or Sleater-Kinney type sound. They only played like 20 minutes, but we liked it enough to buy her EP at the merch table. Listening to the disc it struck me that she's a lot closer to the darker singer/songwriters. Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen maybe. The sound on the CD seemed a little toned down from the energy of the live show, but I liked it, listened to it. WIll buy more of it.