Today's chat with three talent bookers got us thinking: Given the opportunity, what artists would we bring to town? We immediately blurted out, “Radiohead with a reunited Blur (Graham Coxon included) as opening act!”—too excited to notice how our loudness had drawn the attention of some of our colleagues. Afraid they’d think of us as “crazies,” we explained our reaction and opened up the question to them. After some discussion, tweaking, and plenty of judging, this is the list we arrived at.
1. Radiohead and Blur at the Black Cat. Like we were gonna let anyone talk us out of this stroke of genius. One of us After Hours editors was lucky enough to see Radiohead at Nissan Pavilion, but for all who missed out or were turned away because of the rain, we can’t think of a better reward than to see Thom Yorke and Damon Albarn play live at a small, cozy (and dry!) venue within actual DC city limits.
2. Scarlett Johansson at Jammin’ Java. And let the hating begin. We actually like ScarJo’s album and don’t necessarily mind that her voice is not, well, the greatest. So she’s no Cat Power—we’re still impressed by her musical smarts: Tom Waits covers produced by TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek. Double whammy! ScarJo’s caught a lot of flack from critics, and we’d like to see her prove them wrong by performing at a small venue. Also, there’s always the chance she’d bring fiancé Ryan Reynolds along.
3. White Rabbits and Band of Horses at the 9:30 Club for a two-night stand. We fell in love with these bands after seeing them when they were in town. The White Rabbits just keep getting better (and will, in fact, be back in town at the Black Cat on June 5), and the Band of Horses concert at 9:30 this past November was one of our favorite shows of 2007. We picture NPR’s Bob Boilen broadcasting the concert and our heart starts racing.
4. Spice Girls at the 9:30 Club. You thought we were joking about the T-shirt, didn’t you? Girl Power, glittery outfits, Geri Halliwell, “Wannabe.” How could we not include the girls on our list? Plus, at the 9:30 Club we’d be able to get close enough to confirm once and for all whether Posh is actually a cyborg.
What would your dream line-up look like? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to submit a question for today’s chat.
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