Full Show Friday: Steel Pulse - Live At Reggae Lake Festival 2023 Amsterdam

We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Steel Pulse!

This week it is reggae legends Steel Pulse Live At Reggae Lake Festival 2023 Amsterdam.

Pro shot, pro sound, Enjoy!

Full Show Friday: Simply Red - Live at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire (2023)

We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Simply Red!

Simply Red - Live at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire (2023). Pro shot, pro sound, full set list below. Enjoy!

In June 2023, Simply Red took the stage at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, marking their most intimate London performance in nearly two decades. This very special one-off launch show celebrated the release of their latest studio album 'Time'.


00:00 Better With You 03:36 She's Got It Bad 07:09 Thrill Me 12:01 Fake 16:18 Night Nurse 20:08 Shades 22 26:02 You've Got It 30:24 Stars 34:43 Your Mirror 38:58 Come to My Aid 43:21 Ain't That a Lot of Love 47:25 Thinking of You 50:50 Money's Too Tight (To Mention) 56:20 Something Got Me Started 1:00:40 Just Like You 1:08:41 Sunrise 1:12:21 For Your Babies 1:17:08 Nutbush City Limits

Full Show Friday: Circles Around The Sun @ Skull and Roses 4/22/23

We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Circles Around The Sun!

Last month we reviewed Circles Around The Sun newest album and today we feature their jam/disco sounds from 2023's Skull and Rose's (whose 2024 version was unceremoniously canceled at the last minute).


Pro shot, pro sound, full setlist below. Enjoy!

0:00 Scarlotta's Magnolias 16:01 Money's No Option 23:44 Third Sunrise Over Gliese 667 31:15 "We let it loose on Earth Day" 31:38 Landline Memories 40:54 stop 41:16 groove 43:17 Outer Boroughs 53:41 Language introduction, Dan disrespecting Mikaela's instrument, and John's Birthday! 54:52 Language 1:04:49 Away Team 1:14:46 Earth Day Appreciation Part 2 1:15:48 One For Chuck

Full Show Friday: Gina Birch @ The Blue Basement; 2/23/2023

We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Gina Birch!

For this Full Show Friday we head back to almost exactly a year ago and Gina Birch playing Blue Basement at Third Man Records London. We enjoyed Gina's recent record and this show.

Enjoy!

2023 Recap: Favorite Albums, Shows, etc.

With all the hectic happenings at the end of the year, things can be missed. This is a catch up post to point out a few of our favorite things from 2023 that shouldn't go unnoticed.

What a year! Lots of reviews and live shows attended as the world tries to spin again, resembling pre-Covid times. Thanks for reading and following along on Instagram

Also thanks to Shane and the whole Glide team for allowing me to continue to write for them, working on a wide variety of reviews.

Now...in case you missed it here are our Best of 2023 series of posts:

• Our picks for favorite album art of 2023, where we check out some creative album art from the last year.
• Our picks for our favorite archival releases and live albums of 2023. 
• Our picks for favorite live show of 2023. 
• Finally our favorite albums of the year. The honorable mentions and top ten list are all lined up. 

If you are looking for more suggestions, we also have our list of the top fifty albums of the past decade which you can check out and yell at us about. 

Feel free to let us know your choices for all of the above in the comments and thanks as always for reading and exploring...as the patron saint of this site stated:

What are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown? 

Year In Review 2023 - Favorite Albums of 2023

Here are our all of our favorite albums of 2023. This is the year end review, all in one place.

Below are our picks for RtBE's favorite albums of the year. It starts with our honorable mentions then moves into our top ten albums of the year. There is a short blurb about the album and a song from it, click on the title to read our full review of the selected records. The focus here is on full albums, not singles, but long playing releases you can slap on and listen to all the way through.

We worked with the Glide Staff on their list as well, so there may be a few overlaps if you read that already. 

We also took some time to discuss our favorite album artwork, our favorite archive/live album releases and favorite live shows from the year if you are interested.   

Thanks for reading. Until next year....

Year In Review 2023 - Favorite Albums Part 3 (Top 5)

Another year is finishing up and @RockBodElec wouldn't be a proper music site if we didn't end the year with a "Best Of" list, so RtBE presents 2023's Favorite Albums Part 3: Top Five.

In the instance that RtBE has reviewed the album, either on this site or elsewhere, we will link to that review and just give a quick summation; click on the name/title and you can read our full opinion. RtBE worked with the Glide Team to give input on their Top 20 so you can expect some overlap if you already have seen that list.

Again the focus here is on full albums, not singles, but long playing releases you can slap on and listen all the way through. We know these are a dying breed, but it still is the way we consume music, no shuffle, Spotify, or singles for us.

The number ten just works for this, so here is the second part of our top ten, numbers five through one. You can see the back end of our top ten and the honorable mentions albums that just missed our top ten as well. 

Like all of our lists or 'best of', these are meant to start conversations, not end them...

Year In Review 2023 - Favorite Albums Part 2 (#10-6)

Another year is finishing up and @RockBodElec wouldn't be a proper music site if we didn't end the year with a "Best Of" list, so RtBE presents 2023's Favorite Albums Part 2 (Numbers 10-6):

In the instance that RtBE has reviewed the album, either on this site or elsewhere, we will link to that review and just give a quick summation; click on the name/title and you can read our full opinion. RtBE worked with the Glide Team to give input on their Top 20 so you can expect some overlap if you already have seen that list.

Again the focus here is on full albums, not singles, but long playing releases you can slap on and listen all the way through. We know these are a dying breed, but it still is the way we consume music, no shuffle, Spotify or singles for us.

This begins our top ten and we will wrap it up tomorrow. You can find our list of Honorable Mentions and let downs here. 

Like all of our lists or 'best of' roundups, these are meant to start conversations, not end them...

Year In Review 2023 - Favorite Live Shows

The live show is a slippery thing. There are lots of variables at play, most having little to do with the performance itself. Does the venue have enough bathrooms? Is it going to rain? What day of the week is it on? Did I have a shitty day at work before hand? Did tickets cost waaay too much? All of this can alter one's opinion of a live show before the band even tunes up and with reason. However, when the stars align, there is no place RtBE would rather be than in the moment of magic occurring spontaneously from the stage.

Live Music Has No Equal!

Taken By The Fantastic Megan Donohue

While obviously we can't see every show that is out there, we try to get out often to catch live music. Sure there are a few left in the calendar year, but for now, here is a listing of the best concerts we were fortunate enough to have caught in 2023.

There are links to show reviews in the titles, also because who doesn't love arbitrary rankings, one show at the bottom took the top prize as RtBE's 2023 Favorite Live Show. 

Year In Review 2023 - Favorite Albums Part 1 (Honorable Mentions & Let Downs)

Another year is finishing up and @RockBodElec wouldn't be a proper music site if we didn't end the year with a "Best Of" list, so RtBE presents 2023's Favorite Albums Part 1 (Honorable Mentions and Let Downs):

In the instance that RtBE has reviewed the album, either on this site or elsewhere, we will link to that review and just give a quick summation; click on the name/title and you can read our full opinion. RtBE also worked with the Glide Team to give input on their Top 20 so you can expect some overlap if you already have seen that list.

Again the focus here is on full albums, not singles, but long playing releases you can slap on and listen all the way through. We know these are a dying breed, but it still is the way we consume music, no shuffle, Spotify, AI curated playlists, or streaming for us.

These are the albums that just missed out on being included in our top ten favorite for the year (coming soon). After some very excellent albums, we have a few releases from artists we dig, which we were let down by. 

Like all of our lists or 'best of'' these are meant to start conversations, not end them...

Year In Review 2023 - Favorite Archival Releases

Each year the music industry dips into the past to deliver box sets, live albums, re-masters and outtake collections to sell to the music loving masses (present company included). This look back will round up some of RtBE's favorite archival releases from the past year. 

Usually these releases can fall into the money grab category, not really adding much outside of revenue for the label and (hopefully) the artist. Every now and then though some spectacular collections are unearthed and are worth any price. 

RtBE includes live albums in this category, since they were recorded in the recent or distant past and thus fall into archival release status. 

With the increase in vinyl, and enhanced Record Store Days to help smaller sellers, there are more and more archival releases each year. RtBE are sure to miss a lot of them, but the quality and abundance is exciting. Post your favorites, or any we may have missed, in the comments. 

These were our favorite archival releases of 2023, click the link in the title for full length reviews.