Full Show Friday: Burna Boy - African Giant Live from London July 15th, 2024

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...Burna Boy!

Today we go back to 2024 for Burna Boy live, celebrating 5 years of African Giant. 

Full Show Friday: Tyreek McDole Quintet - Mexico City, Mexico 5/25/24

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...Tyreek McDole Quintet! 

It's Jazzy January again here at RtBE, so get ready to kick off 2026 with some different styled shows every Friday. For this series we skew into new (or more recent) jazz lands. Keeping it current proves there is amazing live jazz still being performed no matter what Ken Burns says.

We kick off this month of Jazz focused Full Show Fridays with the amazing vocalist Tyreek McDole. Tyreek makes his international debut in 2024 with his quintet as part of the NY Jazz All Stars series. A collaboration between De Quinta Producciones and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

The band is: Tyreek McDole - vocals, Dylan Band - Tenor Saxophone, Tyler Bullock II - Piano, Dan Finn - Bass, and Jerome Gillespie II - Drums.

Pro shot, pro sound, Enjoy!

Full Show Friday: Missy Elliott "OUT OF THIS WORLD" with Ciara, Busta Rhymes, Trina & Timbaland - Tampa, FL 2024

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...Missy Elliott!

A fan shot video from Missy Elliott's tour stop last year in Tampa, FL with a whole host of special guests. 

Check it out below:

Full Show Friday: Kendrick Lamar Live 6/19/24

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...Kendrick Lamar!

This week we focus on Kendrick Lamar and his set from last year.

Pro Shot, Pro Sound, Enjoy:

0:38 euphoria 8:11 DNA 10:42 ELEMENT 14:00 Alright 17:49 swimming pools (drank) 20:14 Money trees 24:42 WIN 27:08 King's dead 29:12 6:16 in LA 31:44 collard greens 35:19 THat part 37:44 King kunta 40:55 M.A.A.D city 44:32 HUMBLE. 47:43 like that 50:44 still dre 52:51 California Love 55:13 not like us

Full Show Friday: Lettuce 7/17/24 The Theater @ Virgin Hotel in Las Vegas, NV.

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...Lettuce!

Today we dip back to almost exactly one year ago for Lettuce's live show from The Theater at the Virgin Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. 

Pro shot, pro sound, enjoy.

Lettuce - Live at The Theater at Virgin Hotels - Las Vegas, NV (7.17.24) [Full Show] 

All Things Lettuce: https://ffm.bio/lettuce 

Setlist: Trapezoid The Lock Bowler/Rock Creek Risin' to the Top Sounds like a Party Squadlive

Full Show Friday: Cyrille Aimée, Birdland, April 25 2024

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...Cyrille Aimée! 

A very recent show from Birdland just last spring for this edition of our Full Show Friday series. This will also wrap up Jazz January, thanks for checking it out.

Pro shot, pro sound, enjoy!

Cyrille Aimée (vocals/ukulele), Michael Valeanu (guitar), Pedro Segundo (percussion), Tamir Shmerling (bass), Wayne Tucker (trumpet), Julian Lee (sax). Birdland, April 25 2024, 9:30pm show.

2024 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 2024 that shouldn't go unnoticed.

What a year! Lots of reviews and live shows attended. Thanks for reading and following along on Instagram and Bluesky or wherever

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 2024 series of posts:

• Our picks for favorite album art from the last calendar year.
• Our picks for our favorite archival releases and live albums released last year. 
• Our picks for favorite live shows of the year. 
• 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 2024 - Favorite Albums of 2024

Here are our all of our favorite albums of 2024. 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 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 2024 - 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 2024'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 2024 - 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 2024'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 also find our list of Honorable Mentions that were just out of our top ten. 

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

Year In Review 2024 - 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 2024.

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 2024 Favorite Live Show. 

Full Show Friday: Sturgill Simpson | Austin City Limits Music Festival 2024

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...Sturgill Simpson!

From earlier this year at Austin City Limits Music Festival comes Sturgill Simpson. 

Pro shot, Pro sound, full set list below:

A Good Look - 0:25 Best Clockmaker on Mars - 7:12 Right Kind of Dream - 12:44 I Don’t Mind - 17:33 All Said and Done - 22:40 Jupiter’s Faerie - 26:38 Welcome to Earth (Pollywog) - 33:47 It Ain’t All Flowers - 37:44 Railroad of Sin - 44:23 The Promise - 47:15 Brace for Impact (Live a Little) - 52:00 Fastest Horse in Town - 59:05 Life of Sin - 1:07:52 Living the Dream - 1:10:30 One for the Road - 1:13:54 Call to Arms - 1:20:40

Year In Review 2024 - 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 2024'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 2024 - 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 2024, click the link in the title for full reviews.

Year In Review 2024 - Favorite Album Art

We kick off our Year in Review section of 2024 with the first feature in the Best of... wrap up: Album Art. 

Just like in years past, we will be choosing our favorite albums of the year, a few that were underwhelming, our favorite live shows, and highlight some fantastic archive releases, all of which will be posted over the next few days. 

Today we are starting out by judging books (records) by their covers (vinyl sleeves, jackets, digital pics, etc) with the Best Album Art Work of 2024.

The biggest gripe RtBE has with digital music is not the quality (that has been massively improved) nor the disposal nature of it (still a problem, but whatever), it is the lack of amazing album covers and art work.

Sure there may be great album art out there but seeing it on a screen, on Spotify or elsewhere is nothing compared to holding an LP or even a CD booklet with pages of lyrics, pictures etc. 

Thankfully the rise of vinyl is helping this dilemma but it is still not enough. The hours we spent staring, actually holding, examining tons of covers while listening to music can't be adequately recorded, it added new dimensions to the sounds. You are connected to album in a more physical way; things were deeper, more evocative...Anyways...

Here comes RtBE's Favorite Album Art of 2024.