On Sunday June 26th, 15,000 people gathered in the afternoon at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park for Alice@97.3‘s annual Summerthing. An entirely free concert along with a beautiful day in the city is sure to bring about a good crowd and the lineup of Andrew Allen, Parachute, Michelle Branch, Matt Nathanson, and OneRepublic didn’t hurt either. There were so many people by the time I got there that I could hardly see the stage let alone the performers. But even that didn’t ruin the music.
Due to parking troubles brought on by the massive crowds, I missed the first act, but up and coming artist Andrew Allen seemed to be a crowd pleaser and a great way to kick off the concert. Rising to popularity in his native Canada, pop singer-songwriter Allen is now touring in the United States and has recently released a new single called “Loving You Tonight”. I’m sure we will see more of Andrew Allen and his music.
Parachute, hailing from Virginia, rose to popularity about a year ago with their hits “She Is Love” and “Under Control”. The rock band played songs from their 2009 album titled Losing Sleep as well as songs from their newly released album, The Way It Was. After first hearing about them through a free iTunes Single of the Week, I was excited to hear them live and it made me like their new CD even more.
The next act, Michelle Branch, kept the crowd entertained with her well known songs. The veteran singer-songwriter has been releasing music since 2001. She experimented with country music for a few years with the band The Wreckers, but stuck mostly to her pop/rock roots with this performance. She performed her single “Everywhere” and other popular songs from her 2001 album The Spirit Room. Branch also gave a preview of her album to be released this September called West Coast Time with a performance of the single “Loud Music”.
Folk/pop singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson was back in his hometown of San Francisco and provided some good music and laughs. This show was timed perfectly considering Nathanson released his new album Modern Love just days before. He played songs from the new album as well as his platinum-selling song “Come On Get Higher”. He kept it interesting, throwing his version of “Forget You” by Cee Lo Green into a song and encouraging the crowd to sing along to the explicit lyrics. He got the crowd pumped up for OneRepublic, ending with “Don’t Stop Believing” which is always a crowd favorite.
OneRepublic then came out for the final performance of the afternoon. Frontman Ryan Tedder, celebrating his birthday in a fitting way, claimed that San Francisco was one of only a few cities he would choose to celebrate his birthday in. They performed their first single “Apologize” along with favorites “All the Right Moves”, “Secrets”, and Good Life” from their 2009 album Waking Up. They also performed some of their popular covers like “SexyBack” and my personal favorite “Stand By Me.” The band got a big response when they changed the lyrics in “Good Life” to include San Francisco. OneRepublic put on an awesome performance and ended Summerthing with a bang.
RELATED LINKS
Michelle Branch Official Twitter
Matt Nathanson Official Facebook
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