Highly Suspect packs House of Blues in Orlando

Highly Suspect delighted a jam-packed House of Blues at Disney Springs in Orlando, Florida on February 4, 2023. The place was overflowing from the pit all the way back to the bars in the back and either side. Even the upstairs and balcony seating were full of fans ready to rock out.  Johnny Stevens, Rich […]

Sam Grisman Project readies for second leg of tour

The landscape of music is ever-evolving. Every decade stakes a claim to a particular genre of music. The 1940s get swing, jazz, and blues music. The 1960s saw the British Invasion of rock and roll cross the Atlantic Ocean. The 1970s was the era of disco. Glam rock and pop infiltrated the 1980s. Grunge and […]

Collective Soul has Anaheim ‘Vibrating’

Atlanta-based rock band, Collective Soul, has been steadily making music since 1992. That’s 30 years, 11 albums,1,304 shows, – and, man, they still got it! On January 26th, Collective Soul rocked the Anaheim music scene. Playing to a packed house at the City National Grove of Anaheim, frontman Ed Roland shared his high energy with […]

Magic City Hippies bring Miami vibes to snowy Chicago

Magic City Hippies rocked the Metro in Chicago on a snowy Saturday night in January.   Loyal fans trekked through the biggest blizzard of the winter season to see the Magic City Hippies perform in what seems to be their yearly Windy City visit in the early months of winter.  Magic City Hippies are a Miami […]

New Found Glory kicks off acoustic tour in St. Louis

The first show of punk legend New Found Glory’s “Make the Most of It” Acoustic Tour kicked off at Delmar Hall in St. Louis, Missouri on January 28th. The show sold out fast, with a crowd ranging in ages from pre-teens to teenagers to people in their late thirties and early forties. St. Louis has […]

Steel Panther warms up for upcoming world tour in San Luis Obispo

Steel Panther, a comedic glam metal band from Los Angeles has been bringing us their hilarious take on profane stereotypical rocker lifestyle since the early 2000s under a variety of band names including “Metal Shop,” “Metal Skool” and then finally “Steel Panther.” The band’s Sunset Strip days consisted of a slightly different line up than […]

mmeadows gains new fans at Casbah in San Diego

Kristin Slipp and Cole Kamen-Green are not new to the music industry, but they’ve come together in an entirely different journey: mmeadows. Kristin (vocals, keys/key-tar) comes from big time indie legends Dirty Projectors, while Cole (instrumentalist including but not limited to: trumpet, electronic valve Instruments, and overall music engineering/production) has a history of collaborating with […]

Greensky Bluegrass rolls into New York for an unforgettable night

Bluegrass heavyweights Greensky Bluegrass rolled into the Stanley Theater in Utica, NY on Sunday January 15th for the fourth stop on their winter tour.  I was able to catch the show and starting with opener Mikaela Davis it was truly an impressive night of music.   Mikaela Davis started the night off taking the stage […]

G. Love and Donavon Frankenreiter sell out The Pageant in St. Louis

Woah…now THAT was a show!  When Philly-born funk rocker G. Love decided to mash up his signature special sauce with surf-rock maestro Donavon Frankenreiter, I’m sure even the two of them didn’t quite know what to expect. That being said, the musicians hit the road anyway and made their first stop of the Flying Embers […]

Pitbull unleashes fire on Sac Town

What a fun night at the Hard Rock Casino, located 30 minutes north of Sacramento!  At the casino, there were so many excited fans to see Pitbull. Some wore ray-ban or aviator sunglasses and others wore a cap on their head that made it look like they’re were bald, like Pitbull. The makeup and outfits […]

Old-school punk rock band X brought moshpits to Santa Ana

Few bands have withstood the test of time for more than 45 years. Fewer bands have done it with the original members the entire time. Even fewer have done this in the punk and alternative world. And arguably, of those in that diminutive list, no one has done it better than John Doe, Billy Zoom, […]

Best mainstream live performance of 2022!

2022 ushered in what many considered the first full year of music without restriction since the pandemic began. This year, the photojournalists and writers of Top Shelf Music have had the privilege of covering some pretty amazing shows! In true end of year fashion we have compiled a list of some of our favorite live […]

Thank you, Everclear, for 30 years of glorious music

The line wrapped around the building despite the cold winter weather creeping onto Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip. Eager fans chatted while huddled together, reminiscing over the last time they saw Everclear perform and holding up the toy they brought with them as Everclear partnered with Border Kindness, a 501c3 nonprofit humanitarian-aid organization, for a toy […]

Wonderfront Fest 2022: Day 3

It was day three at Wonderfront Festival and the grounds were busier early in the day, full of festival goers shopping around at any of the incredible vendor booths that were filled with one-of-a-kind art, clothing, jewelry and all the other festival accessories of your dreams. Over on the grounds on Embarcardo North, a stationary […]