On October 24th, I had the opportunity to visit the Motorco Music Hall in Durham, North Carolina, to see artists Rozey and Quadeca. Before this show, I was only really familiar with Quadeca (although I wouldn’t call myself a fan at that stage yet). The whole reason I went was because a friend had asked me to go.
As we got to the show, there was a line forming an hour early at the doors, not just VItickets, but regular general admission ticket holders as well. We got in line by a large tour bus out front of the venue and began our hour-long wait.
A Rat Queen, a Count, a Druid and a Plague Doctor walk into a chapel. There’s no joke here, because the audience is screaming their catchphrase: “In this realm, now and forever.”
On Oct. 3, Castle Rat shattered a Molotov of doom metal, retro ambiance and fantasy storytelling on North Carolina, setting fire to Chapel of Bones.
After recently releasing his self-titled debut studio album and deluxe, Malcolm Todd goes back on the road for Part 2 of the “Wholesome Rockstar Tour.” The long-awaited and highly anticipated stop at The Fillmore Charlotte took place on Sept. 16. The sold-out crowd lined up for hours, wrapping around the block, eager to hear their favorite songs live.
A playful and spooky lantern prop put on the stage for The Crane Wives. (Photo by Emily Heiges)
On May 13th, 2025, The Crane Wives played at The Ritz, Raleigh, as part of their “Beyond, Beyond, Beyond” tour. The tour is named for the band’s latest album, which was released in September of last year. “Beyond, Beyond, Beyond” is the band’s fifth studio album. The Crane Wives have been releasing music since 2011, during the heyday of indie folk.
Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech with round stage and Jumbotrons indicating special Metallica at VT poster 2025. Image by Sophia Dutton-Rodkin
A while ago, I found out I would have the chance to see Metallica live. I know I’m not the only one who feels that seeing Metallica live is on the bucket list. One of my closest friends’ mom works for the ticket office at Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech. She was able to score some tickets for me and some friends.Obviously, first impressions were along the lines of “OMG I’m actually going to see them.”
When I found out Machine Girl was coming to Raleigh, I jumped on tickets so early the openers hadn’t even been announced yet. I sat on those tickets for months, biding my time until the moment of actualization: November 8 at Raleigh’s Lincoln Theatre.
To put it plainly, I wasn’t disappointed — Machine Girl’s performance was riveting, and I haven’t stopped thinking of it since.
Everything about the event was infused with the characteristic uncanniness I’ve come to associate with Machine Girl: spooky fog, strong ambient lighting and buckets upon buckets of sweat.
Stephenson’s stage presence — irreverent, eccentric and interactive — and a melange of chaotic beats and dizzying strobes churned the audience into a frenzy.
I like to say I was fighting for my life in that crowd, the crush of bodies sending those of us in the first two rows sprawling over the barricade. Everyone was desperate to get closer to the music, to reach out and touch Stephenson as he did his rounds about the stage.
I was positively delighted. After catching Machine Girl as the opening act for 100 Gecs back in 2023 and finding myself sufficiently enraged by the audience’s chilly reception to their set, it was a welcome change of pace to see some actual excitement.
The setlist was a perfect compilation of the best of “MG Ultra” and older classics, opening with “…Because I’m Young Arrogant and Hate Everything You Stand For” from the 2017 album of the same name.
“MG Ultra” is a truly inspired release, a pesudo-time capsule for the rollercoaster that is 2024.
The setlist even featured “Dance in the Fire” from the May 2024 EP “SUPER FREQ”
Like the music, Stephenson was ever-moving: dangling off the edge of the stage; dripping sweat into the audience; a languid wrist anointing fans with a cascade of Great Value bottled water.
We loved it. And we absolutely pummeled the living daylights out of each other.
A fellow showgoer’s cell phone video captures Stephenson emerging from the foggy aether of the stage to recieve a sacred gift — a Magic: The Gathering card — which he tosses onto the stage with a sardonic (and long-suffering) flair. An outright mystical exchange, heightened only by the gloomy synths rumbling in the background.
At one point, he darted into the audience for a rendition of “Motherfather,” climbing the stairs to the upper-level seating and balancing precariously on the railing, all while screaming into the mic.
The set ended with “Psychic Attack,” one of the top tracks from “MG Ultra.”
Later returning for an encore, Stephenson pulled out another “MG Ultra” track, “Cicadas,” and — one of my all-time favorites — “Scroll of Sorrow,” from the 2020 album “U-Void Synthesizer.”
By the end of the show, we were all run ragged. I’d lost a bracelet, several of my friends had been cut up (presumably by studs and spikes) in the pit and we all dreamed desperately of cool air and bottled water.
Composed of cigarette smoke sighs and technicolor lights flashing across the lenses of sunglasses, the music of French Police is jaunty and moody — disaffected and brimming with emotion, slow-moving and riveting — a wine-smooth melange of perfectly married contradictions.
I’ve loved them since “Clock Man” and “Club De Vampiros” first crossed my path, and jumped at the opportunity to see them live — finally, I might add, after watching them tour the west coast for years — in Carrboro.
Cover for “Pedaleo Nocturno” by French Police
The Show
The venue was awash in showgoers clad in the stylistics of 2014 Tumblr: leather jackets over tight black pants or stockings, feet clad in shiny black boots and dark hair scalded with a flat iron.
A tang of cigarettes and clove cologne was thick on the air. Part of me wondered if I’d accidentally wandered into an Arctic Monkeys gig. Then I spotted it: a merch table decked out with a pair of women’s underwear, the words “FRENCH POLICE” emblazoned across the backside. That’s when I knew I was in the right place.
Cover for “BULLY” by French Police
I attempted to take a photo of the crowd for posterity’s sake, but their clothing rendered them something of a shapeless mass. Maybe it was better that way. When French Police took the stage — dressed all in black, eyes concealed by moody shades — the audience became a dusky, rolling sea.
Exuberant beats, thrumming basslines and the breathy vocals of Brian Flores transformed the backroom into a vivid musical space.
The audience swayed in unison, excitement and jubilation spilling over into cheers as the band flowed through all of our favorite songs, devil-may-care, strutting languid across the stage. It was dreamlike, soaking in the sonorous beats of one of my favorite bands, watching them live and breathe just feet away.
It was a sweet show. Nothing crazy, just pure adoration. And sometimes that’s all you need.
For nearly three years, he’s been a veritable ghost within the music scene, spending his time on an “eat-pray-love” adjacent journey stretching from Europe to Thailand following a nearly career-ending injury while touring with Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Festival.
Sturgill Simpson may have taken his bow, but Johnny Blue Skies follows strongly in his wake.
Hopscotch started early at the Rialto with a little help from power-pop darlings The dB’s and singer-songwriter, Kate Rhudy on Wednesday Sept. 4, 2024
What’s a better way to kick off our beloved festival days than with a meeting of old and new NC music at a tried-and-true old venue turned new?
For the uninitiated, The dB’s are an NYC power-pop quartet by way of Winston-Salem.
Guitarist and vocalist Chris Stamey was the first member to fly the Southern coop to NYU, making a name for himself as a member of Alex Chilton’s backing band “The Kossacks,” later persuading bassist Gene Holder and drummer Will Rigby to join him.
It wasn’t until Chapel Hill based band H-Bomb fizzled out in 1978 that the soon-to-be dB’s lineup would be complete with the addition of guitarist and vocalist Peter Holsapple.
A prime example of “your favorite band’s favorite band,” The dB’s saw rave critical reviews but never quite broke the mainstream in the same way their Southern college rock pioneering contemporaries did.
They easily could have and should have been apart of that massive boom, marching across college campuses arm in arm with R.E.M.
With the imminent reissue of their 1981 debut album “Stands for Decibels” on the horizon, their warm-up set was a celebration of the band’s multifaceted sound an more importantly their
Encompassing both Stamey’s nebulous and amorphous Beach-Boys-by-way-of-Big-Star baroque style pop and Holsapple’s straightforward, youthfully sneering guitar rock, their set was an effective love letter to not only their beginning but to the fans who have stuck with them through the years, and those who have joined along the way.
Kate Rhudy at The Rialto, September 4th 2024 – Photo by Emma Bookhardt
Supported by Kate Rhudy, the Raleigh-based singer-songwriter warmed the theater with an intimate and tender 45-or so minute set.
Tried and true coffeeshop acoustic, Rhudy cut an incredibly charming if not a little green figure on stage in her rhinestone go-go boots.
Standing alone with her guitar, she carried an air of vulnerability as she crooned and flipped her way through breakup songs and love letters to missing cats.
With each quasi-yodel and delicate vocal flips, she garnered easy comparisons to 10,000 Maniacs’ Natalie Merchant and Taylor Swift.
Perhaps a more direct line of comparison would be if a young Merchant managed Swift’s songbook.
Melding with what seems to be the over all ethos of the festival, Rhudy felt comfortably familiar to old favorites we know and love, while still keeping a unique image all her own.
Alternatively, The dB’s felt as fresh as they day they emerged from NYC’s basement clubs, now serving as a musical “Guess Who?” between their influences and the later influenced.
In contemporary terms, you wouldn’t have groups like The Lemon Twigs without The dB’s, nor would I hazard to guess one of Jack White’s many projects, The Raconteurs.
But that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?
Remembering why we love our favorite bands and finding something new to fawn over at the same time; a celebration of music’s circularity.
Together, The dB’s and Rhudy brought a show together for a an intimate welcome to the festival weekend and it certainly left me wanting more of the Hopscotch soup du jour.
