Well, we're closing the book on the dumpster fire that was 2017, but music — and the stories that surround it — seems to remain mostly immune to the politics, drama and gross abuse of power that marred headlines this year.
We lost more musical heroes this year, and the Bay area saw so many great local releases, but those stories (plus a visit from Paul McCartney and our many stories about Yes) didn't make Creative Loafing Tampa's top 10 music posts of the year.
See what the internet clicked on in 2017 below, and tell us what you wanna hear about in 2018 via the comments or our Facebook and Twitter pages.
10. CL Premiere: Jimmy Buffett explains and shares “Close The World at Five” from new album of unearthed songs — listen Jimmy Buffett found some Buried Treasure this year, and he decided to let CL get a sneak peek at a slice of his release of lost-then-found songs from his earliest days. Fans of the 71-year-old Key West rocker flocked to cltampa.com/music to hear this 1969 tune that probably had something to with the fact that he worked a 9-to-5 before his night gigs at the Admiral’s Corner in Mobile, Alabama.
09. Review: Metallica is forever young, stages a metal spectacle at Orlando's Camping World Stadium Central Florida shook off its Fourth of July hangover long enough to headbang with Metallica at Orlando's Camping World Stadium where more than 50,000 rode the lighting with James Hetfield, Lars, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo.
08. Review: Rod Stewart shows his age in Tampa, but leaves more than 12,000 fans in bliss at Amalie Arena Rod Stewart delivered an absolutely flawless, heartfelt rendition of the rarely-performed tune, "I'd Rather Go Blind," at this show where his age finally started to show. The 72-year-old still managed to thrill a crowd of 12,000, however, and a set list full of hits, hits and more hits left no doubt that every fan of every era of the Rod Stewart catalog walked away satisfied.
07. New Video: Kenny G plays sax on flight from Tampa to Los Angeles — watch An April concert in Clearwater wasn't enough for Kenny G who broke out his sax during a flight from Tampa to Los Angeles after passengers raised $2,000 for cancer research. "I was lucky enough to sit next to Jane Mitchel. She is an in-flight service person for Delta and was flying to Hawaii with her husband Bill for vacation. We had a nice chat and she told me her tragic story of losing her daughter to brain cancer at 30 years old," the 61-year-old smooth jazz icon told CL. "Jane then informed me about their Relay for Life program and said that it would be cool if I helped her raise money on this flight. So, Jane suggested that I would perform for any passenger who donated to the cause. I said, 'sax is not that cheap!' So we decided that if we could raise $1000, I would play for the entire plane. We collected $2,000 and so I then proceeded to serenade the entire plane with my song entitled ‘Forever in Love.'"
06. Here are the 15 most naked people at Atlanta's Imagine Music Festival LJ went to another EDM festival, but once again, our readers were more interested in the people with no clothes on.
05. Iconic Tampa concert venue New World Brewery secures new location, announces final Ybor show Nearly 23 years of Tampa music history will go the way of the bulldozer this year when Ybor Marti LLC — a company owned by BluePearl Veterinary Partners CEO Darryl Shaw — eventually builds a new four-story, mixed use development that will feature three floors of apartments stacked on top of what could be office, retail or restaurant space. After a year of reflection, we know that all this change is inevitable, but the destroying the original site of one of Ybor's most important concert venues, community gathering spaces and restaurants seems like a big fuck you to a scene that flocked to New World in search of concerts and a like-minded group of friends. Owner Steve Bird is building a new one six miles away, and we can't wait for it to open.
04. Hulaween is more magical than ever in 2017 — here are 75 pictures to prove it It's about 200 miles from CL's Ybor City headquarters to Live Oak's Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, but that didn't stop contributing photographer Jess Phillips, who turned in dozens of great photos from what's become every Floridian festival lover's home away from home.
03. The 10 most naked people at Sunset Music Festival 2017 Some guy put a Crown Royal back over his dick at Tampa's Sunset Music Festival, and we wrote a post about it. We also wrote a review about it, but who gives a damn about that, right?
02. Cancelled XXXTentaction concert, Tampa Police send disappointed fans marching down 7th Avenue in Ybor City Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy is a 19-year-old Plantation, Florida-based rapper better known as XXXtentacion. He's caught the attention of contemporaries like Kendrick Lamar ("Listen to this album if you feel anything. raw thoughts," Lamar wrote on Twitter, adding that he was already on a fifth listen of the new album) and millions of young hip-hop fans drawn to a confessional, albeit lurid, style that reflects a newsmaking non-musical existence that includes charges of aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, domestic battery by strangulation, false imprisonment, and witness-tampering (P4K has a detailed account of the testimonies here). His album, 17, entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2 after its August 25 release, however, and in September a last-minute, no-cover Ybor City show led to crowds coalescing around the Orpheum only to be left disappointed as promoters, the venue and Tampa fire officials deemed the show too risky to try and pull off.
01. In Tampa, musicality still trumps politics during Roger Waters' sold-out visit to Amalie Arena Tens of millions of classic rock fans seemed to forget that Pink Floyd spent a nice chunk of its career critiquing the gross behavior of crooked politicians when bassist Roger Waters embarked on a world tour behind a new album Is This The Life We Really Want? More than 14,000 packed into a sold-out Amalie Arena in Tampa as the 74-year composer worked through a stereo-sound musical trip that also happened to include images of the 45th President of the United States accented by captions like "Joke," Pig," "Charade" and "Money." An inflatable, flying pig with Trump's face on it also made its way around the stadium, and words such as "racist" and "sexist" were emblazoned alongside his giant, orange face. Apparently not even the inclusion of "Wish You Were Here" and "Another Brick In The Wall" were enough to get the Trumpers of the internet to calm down as CL's social posts where peppered with comments wondering why Waters "couldn't just stick to the music."
This article appears in Dec 28, 2017 – Jan 4, 2018.
