Concert Photos: The Fray at the Dodge Theatre

The Fray perfromed at the Dodge Theatre in Phoenix Arizona on July 14, 2009.
Photo Credit Stephanie Baldwin

VH1 And LiveNation.com Present Live & Loud Fridays

VH1 Gets ‘Live & Loud’ With Some of the Summer’s Biggest Rock Tours Including Def Leppard and Poison, The Fray, Nickelback and Creed Beginning Friday, July 17

VH1 And LiveNation.com Present Exclusive Weekly Front-Row and Backstage Views of Tours

NEW YORK, July 13 — Beginning Friday, July 17 at 9 PM**, VH1 will debut “VH1 And LiveNation.com Present Live & Loud Fridays,” a weekly exclusive look at some of the biggest concert tours currently rocking across the nation including Def Leppard and Poison, The Fray, Nickelback and Creed.

In partnership with Live Nation, VH1 will present a rare, music lover’s perspective on these shows, delivering full, live performances of three songs from the tour featured in each episode. Each half-hour installment will also provide behind-the-scenes coverage of all of the activity that goes into a high-end show, from when the roadies first arrive at the venue to when the band steps on stage.

The series will also include interviews with the featured band at the venue, conducted by VH1′s host Michele Merkin (host of ABC’s “The Next Best Thing” and NBC’s “Star of Tomorrow.”)

  --  Friday, July 17  Def Leppard/Poison
  --  Friday, July 24  Nickelback
  --  Friday, July 31  The Fray
  --  Friday, August 7 Creed

“VH1 And LiveNation.com Present Live & Loud Fridays” will also present info on-screen about the tour and how viewers can get tickets to upcoming dates on that specific tour as well as other Live Nation tours by going to http://livenation.com/vh1.

“VH1 And LiveNation.com Present Live & Loud Fridays” will be produced by Michael Dempsey for Dempsey Productions and Lee Rolontz and Rick Krim for VH1.

Pick of the Week The Fray 07.14.09

The Fray with Jack’s Mannequin
All Ages
Tuesday 07/14/09 at 7:00 PM
Dodge Theatre Phoenix, AZ

Ear Candy joins Live Nation and The Fray to support music education in the valley

Photo Credit: Stephanie Baldwin

Phoenix, AZ July 6, 2009- Arizona’s music charity, Ear Candy, continues its efforts to save music education by teaming up with Live Nation and The Fray.

Prior to the concert at Dodge Theatre on July 14th The Fray will treat students from Ear Candy’s music programs to an exclusive sound check and meet & greet opportunity. The kids will be invited to meet and ask questions then watch and listen as The Fray plays to their small audience and gears up for the night’s performance (7:00 PM – Tickets available at LiveNation.com).

Multi-platinum artist, The Fray are touring this summer to support their chart topping self-titled sophomore album. They are passionate about saving music education and are familiar and active within advocacy programs that do just that.

“With all the different types of entertainment available to young people today,” states Live Nation Chairman Danny Zelisko, “we are pleased to work with Ear Candy to keep the live music experience the most important, to those who want to play music.”

Nate Anderson, founder and president of Ear Candy, is ecstatic the organization is making another successful collaboration; its first of hopefully many with Live Nation.

“People need to know how truly important these opportunities are,” Anderson said. “These events with supportive artists like The Fray are essential to keeping kids amped about their passion for music despite program cuts. These experiences can have a truly life-long positive impact.”

Ear Candy is a progressive non-profit organization saving music education in the Phoenix area. The organization creates after-school music programs for kids while supporting in-school music programs by donating instruments. They have worked with artists like Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, and Carlos Santana to help fulfill their mission.

For more information and to find ways to become involved visit: www.earcandycharity.org

The Fray Dodge Theatre 07.16.2007 Review II

From the Crowd will have two staff reviews of this show. One, from a long time Fray concert follower and another from someone who saw The Fray for the first time with last nights show.   If you’d like to contribute a fan review of the show, please visit our contribute page.

By K. Mac, FromTheCrowd.com Contributor

 

The lights go out and the crowd starts making noise in anticipation of the headlining act. A green line jets across the stage’s digital backdrop. One by one, the silhouettes of the band members can be seen walking onto the stage. The traveling green line transforms into a heart monitor, showing a pulse right at center stage and the crowd erupts.  The Fray begin to play their set with the only the lighting from the digital screen illuminating their silhouettes.  As they continue to play “She Is”, the stage begins to be lit.

After their stellar entrance, their light show proved to be a slightly overwhelming.  The strobe lights being used were a bit blinding and the fan on my left, Carrie, commented that, “You almost needed sunglasses just to watch.” The early light show was a little excessive, and took attention away from the true talent of the band. However, the colors on the digital backdrop did work very well as the show progressed.  The production utilized colors that created excitement, such as red, yellow, a barcode pattern that moved horizontally compressing and decompressing in such a fashion that it was interesting to glance at but did not steal notice away from the performers.

The light show did become softer for the gentler songs. Lanterns lowered from the ceiling and hung at various levels, the white lights inside blinking intermittently. The lightshow switched to the cooler colors of purple and blue, fitting of the sound being generated on the stage. With the song, “Vienna” the lanterns turned into 3-D screens, and reverted back to the red and yellow color scheme with a varying pattern this time.

The Fray introduced one of their new songs, called “Dixie” with a light-hearted warning that it was “country.” Not being a fan of country music, I was apprehensive. However, “Dixie” is just The Fray with a bit of a country influence. As the song played, a semi-blurred view of blue skies, puffy white clouds and greenery displayed on the digital backdrop, emulating a car as it travels down the highway, adding to the charm of this track and getting smiles out of the audience.

Isaac Slade, the lead singer, then treated the crowd to an anecdote of his childhood, and then threw a bunch of Polaroid pictures into the pit, accidentally hitting a girl in the face with one of the pictures.  Apologizing, he dedicated the next song to her and the band began playing the mega hit, “How to Save a Life.” Old family videos played on the digital backdrop once again adding to the performance as the lanterns were lowered adding even more ambiance to the performance.

On a side note, I’ve always been saddened by the way; the drummer of band is tucked away, hard to see behind the percussion instruments of his choice.  It was a treat when Fray drummer Ben Wysocki came to the front of the stage with conga drums. Isaac rallied all of the audience members to their feet, stating he had to introduce a special guest to the crowd.  He then announced that Ben was going to treat them with some vocals.   The crowd applauded and the band began to play a cover song, as they traditionally do in concert, however, rather than the typical Beetle song; it was Shakira “Hips Don’t Lie”. The crowd ate up the spoofed cover, singing, smiling and laughing hysterically.

Having never seen The Fray in concert before today, I cannot say how it compares to the other shows they have put on here in the Valley. However, I can say that these guys know how to perform and please a crowd. As was heard backstage, they have “flawlessly balanced sound.” They have stage presence and charisma. These four guys put on a show that should not be missed for anything

The Fray ‘How to Save a Life” Tour 07.16.2007

From the Crowd will have two staff reviews of this show. One, from a long time Fray concert follower and another from someone who saw The Fray for the first time with last nights show.   If you’d like to contribute a fan review of the show, please visit our contribute page.

By Stephanie Baldwin

As an obvious ode to their association with medical shows… ha just kidding.  The Fray show, at the Dodge Theater on July 16, demonstrated that The Fray do not take themselves too seriously, poking fun at their own success of their insanely popular “How to Save a Life”, in relation to medical shows, but more importantly showed their fans that they have completely matured into their role as a headlining act.  Ladies and gentleman, The Fray have learned to entertain.

Armed with fabulous lighting, improved set list and stage production such as film clips to accompany their songs, The Fray, skyrocketed their entertainment value and performed one of the best shows Phoenix has seen, not only from them, but all artists in some time.    If you have been a long time Fray fan and been to any number of their shows, you have known in the past that, you would always hear great live music, however, the stage presence and performance factor might be on… or off and this often had to do with the crowd themselves. 

Last night, while the pit and selected areas, stood for the entire show and really seemed to be “in” to the performance, a great deal of people remained seated for a good deal of the performance.  I know that this can be interpreted as the crowd, not being “into it” (which was not the case), and this is when, from prior experience, the performance aspect of The Fray would retreat, however, this was not the case last night.  The Fray entertained the entire 90 minutes of their set, often yelling out to the crowd to encourage them to stand up… in some cases, it was effective; however, it didn’t deter The Fray, it only enhanced their performance.  Isaac Slade, the lead singer of The Fray, who is usually seated at his piano for an entire performance, was up and active, walking around the stage, playing to the crowd.  Trust me, the crowd was soaking it up, but they I am certain they appeared a bit lifeless to the stage. 

One of the highlights of the night came from a lighthearted cover performance.  The Fray typically features a cover song every performance, and for this show, they performed “Shakira Shakira”, which had Ben Wysocki, their drummer performing many of the vocals.  It was perhaps one of the most entertaining moments that the Dodge Theater has seen.  Everyone was standing as Isaac had requested, calling our sections that had not stood.  Walla, the crowd became active participants, laughing, singing along and enjoying the moment, that countless fans ensured would be on YouTube by midnight as they filmed the performance.  After it was over, well, the crowd all sat down again… what is with Arizona crowds?

The show was concluded with a three song encore, in which Isaac paid tribute to their humble beginnings with shows here in Phoenix, six in total, and thanked the fans that been there from the start. He let the crowd know that The Fray would be taking a year off, and hopefully recording a new CD in that time frame, which of course, the audience roared with delight.  At the conclusion of the show, the fans were abuzz with the entertaining performance, many proclaiming it was the best show they’d seen in a long time in the Valley.