The Place for Jersey City News
Log In / Register
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
Jersey City Times
  • News
  • Food and Fun
    • Food And Drink
    • Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    • Other Fun Stuff
  • Education
  • Business
  • Neighborhoods
    • Downtown
      • News
      • Guide
    • Heights
      • News
      • Guide
    • Journal Square
      • News
      • Guide
    • Bergen Lafayette
      • News
      • Guide
    • Greenville
      • News
      • Guide
    • Westside
      • News
      • Guide
  • Opinion
  • Columns
    • Eye Level
    • Mamarama
  • Obituaries
  • Event Calendar
  • Support our Mission
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
Rogue Waves July: Six Concert Picks in Jersey City

Rogue Waves July: Six Concert Picks in Jersey City

Tris McCall
July 2, 2022/in header, Narrate, News, Performing Arts
by Tris McCall

Masters of salsa, merengue and emo take stages in Jersey City this month. Two of our most reliable local innovators return to Fox & Crow, and the group that starred at Art House Productions’s Snow Ball fundraiser will hunt down the perfect sound in a grand outdoor setting. Yet the show I’m most excited about is a modest one: an intriguing young Garden State songwriter brings her combo north from Asbury Park for a gig at the corner bar at the Western end of the Downtown pedestrian plaza.

Well Wisher, Tula Vera, and Janitor at Pet Shop (July 7)

Well Wisher was supposed to have played at Pet Shop in March 2020. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. Instead, we had to wait through a pandemic to get our visit from Natalie Newbold, whose simple but effective folk-punk songs and casually but sharply sketched romantic scenarios are deeply communicative and instantly memorable. Newbold sings like an earth angel, too. Her grace and unflappability, her evident intelligence, and her knack for getting her tunes to curl open like a flower all mark her as a Jersey answer to Meredith Godreau of Gregory & The Hawk. Should you need something a little more raucous, Tula Vera of Montclair will be on hand, too, delivering their bracing, elbow-throwing, forcefully sung punk rock stompers. (Pet Shop, 193 Newark Ave., 8 p.m., free; visit www.petshopjc.com.)

Forget The Whale at Lincoln Park (July 20)

Some independent rock bands are too cool to behave like they’re in show business. That’s not Forget the Whale. Everything about the group is designed to catch the attention of passersby. The stage show is kinetic, the costumes are often delightful, the musicians are never shy about volume, and frontwoman Alishia Taiping carries herself, and projects, like an world-famous pop star. For the time being, she and her bandmates have to settle for Jersey fame, which is not too shabby: Forget the Whale’s theatricality (and their nautical trappings) made them a natural fit for an aquatic-themed Snow Ball. This July, they’ll be bringing their distinctive amalgam of literary indie, show tunes and sea shanties, anime scores, heavy metal, and pure Jersey attitude to Music at the Fountain, the summer outdoor concert series in Lincoln Park. They’ll have plenty of room to make a racket and shoot the works. I’d expect something spectacular. (Lincoln Park Fountain, West Side Ave. between Gifford and Kensington, 7 p.m., free; visit www.jcparks.org.)

Rubby Perez (July 9) and Viti Ruiz (July 10) at The Factory

Few forms of music in the world generate as much velocity or excitement as merengue. Genuine Dominican merengue throws the listener into a spin cycle of strings and percussion, half-sung, half-shouted backing vocals, and express-delivered tunes. Most of America doesn’t know much about it, but we’re lucky: there’s always been a merengue subculture in New Jersey (Hudson County in particular) and The Factory in Bergen-Lafayette has become the place to experience it. Rubby Perez, who played with merengue popularizer Wilfrido Vargas in the 1980s, will be in town from the Antilles to heat up Communipaw. Latin Music Legends Weekend at The Factory continues the next afternoon with an appearance by an artist with deep Jersey roots. Paterson-born Viti Ruiz made salsa with his brother, the late salsa hero Frankie Ruiz. We lost the impossibly talented Frankie in the ’90s, but Viti keeps carrying the flag for salsa, and he’s in town to get you dancing during brunch. (The Factory, 451 Communipaw Ave., 9 p.m. start time for Rubby Perez, $40; visit www.facebook.com/factory451.)

Thursday at White Eagle Hall (July 9 and 16)

Depending on how you count things, there’ve been at least two waves of emo since the New Brunswick band Thursday released their second album in 2001. The remarkable thing about Full Collapse is that it’s one of the few emo albums from its time that sounds as if it could have been released yesterday. It isn’t just the timelessness of “Understanding in a Car Crash,” the ferocious lead single. It’s also the intensity of frontman Geoff Rickly, whose vocal performances manage to be, simultaneously, brutally confessional bloodlettings, and also quite pretty. Thursday is celebrating the twenty-first anniversary of Full Collapse with a pair of shows at White Eagle Hall; the first one is sold out, but as of this writing, you can still get tickets to the second. That second show features an opening set from a man who had a massive influence on all the emo waves of this millennium: Jeremy Enigk from Sunny Day Real Estate. These days, Enigk tends to keep things meditative. Thursday, on the other hand, always reminds the audience that “emo” was once short for “emotional hardcore.” (White Eagle Hall, 337 Newark Ave., doors at 5:30 p.m., show at 7 p.m., $35; visit www.whiteeaglehalljc.com.)

Sean Kiely at Fox & Crow (July 21)

Sean Kiely’s folk-rock songs grow like beautiful brambles. He takes compositional risks and chases beauty into the sonic thickets, and he loves to astonish and surprise. Some of his songs are as winsome and delicate as snowflakes, others are barbed, and more than a few are quite funny – in a dry, knowing sort of way. Kiely sings this all in a bell-clear voice with inerrant pitch, and when he’s got some buddies along to harmonize with him, they approach the spectral quality of Fleet Foxes, and maybe even some of David Crosby’s solo projects. Kiely has been doing a monthly series at Fox & Crow (this’ll be the third installment), a room that suits him as snugly as Fenway fits the Boston Red Sox. Seriously, they should just hand him the keys. He’s been calling his series, which includes guest performances by comedians and poets as well as musicians, “A NICE Night,” which fits the genial nature of his project, and also his wry sense of humor and literary irony. He’s one of the best we’ve got.

(Fox & Crow, 594 Palisade Ave., 8 p.m., $10; visit www.foxandcrowjc.com.)

Got a show tip? Something to say?  A plate of cookies for me?  Write to trismccall@gmail.com.

 

Tags: Jersey City Entertainment
Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
You might also like
Felipe Rose Jersey City’s Felipe Rose of Village People Performs This Weekend
Newark Avenue Jersey City Workmen on Pedestrian Mall Upgrade Rush for This Weekend’s Street Fair
Dreamscape Metaverse “Experiences” for the Whole Family Come to Paramus
Statue of Liberty No Liberty or Ellis Ferry Service from Jersey City This Winter
Jersey City Salsa Fever A Salsa Dance Studio in the Heights Open to All
Weeding Out Stoned Comedians Take the Stage in Gameshow This Weekend
Riverview Jazz Riverview Jazz Announces March 22 Fundraiser at Corgi Distillery
Raucous Caucus Tango Dance Review: “Raucus Caucus Tango” at Nimbus Arts Center
Jersey City, US
7:47 am, August 11, 2022
72°F
moderate rain
Wind: 5 mph
Pressure: 1014 mb

Latest Articles

ShopRite Jersey City
August 10, 2022 /

ShopRite Makes Dairy Cheaper for SNAP Customers

Museum of Jersey City History board members in front of Apple Tree House
August 09, 2022 /

Museum of Jersey City History is One Step Closer to Reality

August 08, 2022 /

Senate Committee Unanimously Approves Caven Point Protection Act

Jersey City Medical Center
August 08, 2022 /

Medical Center to Receive Gun Violence Intervention Funding

Jersey City Police Car
August 07, 2022 /

One Man Dead and Another Critical After This Morning’s Shooting

CONTACT US

    ADS/INFO

    For information on advertising opportunities, please contact - ads@jcitytimes.com

    For information on writing opportunities, please contact - info@jcitytimes.com

    Download our media kit here

    ABOUT US

    About Jersey City Times

    Contact Jersey City Times

    Social

    Archives

    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    Copyright © 2020 JCityTimes.com. All Rights Reserved - powered by Enfold WordPress Theme
    Muralist Raisa Nosova Raises a Distress call for Ukraine Raisa Nosova "Uprooted" 327 Ege Ave Jersey City Report: Fireworks Suspected in West Side House Fire
    Scroll to top