Eli Young Band tour coming to Cedar Rapids March 24
Members of the Eli Young Band are (from left) James Young, Jon Jones, Mike Eli and Chris Thompson. The country hitmakers will be performing March 24 at the Alliant Energy PowerHouse arena in downtown Cedar Rapids. Physical distancing, face coverings and other pandemic protocols will be enforced. (Cal Quinn) By Alan Sculley, Last Word Features
The Eli Young Band had big plans for 2020, only to see almost everything torpedoed by the pandemic.
“We had a busy year planned,” said Mike Eli, the group’s singer/guitarist in a mid-February phone interview. “We were doing our first European tour. We also had our first full Canadian tour where we were going to go all the way across Canada. We had played a lot of shows there and we had played a lot of shows in Europe, but we had never gone to either place and done a full-fledged tour, a shore to shore kind of thing. So we had both of things planned in 2020, and obviously, those
This year’s Best Overlooked Albums list shows just how much great music is being made in the margins of the music scene. Trying to narrow this list to 30 albums overall – not to mention deciding on the 10 best – was a major challenge. But here are my picks for the best overlooked albums of 2020. Your music year won’t be complete without hearing at least some of these titles.
1.) Mothboxer, “Accelerator”: Essentially Dave Ody’s solo project, Mothboxer has been turning out albums since 2007, and “Accelerator” is filled with creative, pop-rock songs that strike a nice balance between heft (with a little grit) and striking melodies – and quite often, some musical element that makes one stand up and take notice. Ody has been consistently good, and “Accelerator” is my power pop album of the year.
Alan Sculley
Special to Go Triad
For all the things that went horribly wrong in 2020, it was a good year for deluxe box sets and album reissues â all good options for Christmas gifts. Of the dozens of such sets that arrived this year, here are some recommendations.
Anthology sets
Elton John: âElton: Jewel Box.â The meat to this 8-CD set is three CDs of demos, the vast majority being unreleased songs recorded between 1965 and 1971. They illustrate the early growth of Elton and Bernie Taupin as a songwriting team.
Quite a few solo demos sound like they would have blossomed in the studio, while some full-band demos, including the trippy and catchy âRegimental Sgt. Zippo,â the horn-filled âWhen The First Tear Showsâ and the rollicking âThank You For All Your Lovingâ are well worth hearing.