music

Summer Concert Series

September 29, 2009

This summer was full of fun concerts. Here’s a summary of the ones I went to.

No Doubt
Blog Reader Kristen and I started the summer concert season out with a little No Doubt and Paramore action. Nothing like a couple groups of rocker chick lead singers to feel all empowered.

Bedouin Soundclash kicked off the show. I remember enjoying them, so I’ll have to go check out some of their albums.

Paramore was great to watch. Hayley Williams has such a powerhouse voice and she’s so cute and punk rockerish. One of the guitarists was doing flips while playing the guitar on stage.

No Doubt was amazing on stage. They were so quirky and didn’t lose the essense of who they were 10 years ago. They had a wacky wardrobe and were crazy on stage. Gwen Stefani looks awesome too.

One of the best parts of the concert was during the encore. Paramore and Bedouin Soundclash came on stage and sang the song with No Doubt, and there was a drum that everyone banged on. It was fun to hear them all singing at once.

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures. We were too far away from the stage to get anything good during Paramore, and during No Doubt the girl next to me (who was actually in front of me from the angle we were at) was quite tall and large and dancing the entire time, so I couldn’t really see the stage ever. And my camera at the time really sucked. There were lots of creatively dressed people in the audience, very interesting hair too, but none of those pics turned out in the dim lighting.

The Fray
On July 21st Renee and I went to The Fray concert. Jack’s Mannequin opened for them. The only song I had heard of theirs was before the concert “The Mix Tape” and it’s one of my favorite songs. They were good, but mosty the lead singer kept me entertained. When he played the piano he would sit facing the side toward the audience and he would just rock out. I was surprised he could play at all while doing that, it was crazy. Toward the end of their set he also jumped up on top of the piano. I don’t know about you, but the last thing I would think about doing if I had a grand piano in front of me is leap on top of it.

The Fray were fantastic. The lead singer Isaac Slade sings with so much emotion and all their songs are all so great. Piano standing must be a theme with these guys because he jumped up on the piano just like Jack’s Mannequin did.

View photos

Kings of Leon
Blog Reader Kristen and I attended the Kings of Leon concert last night. White Lies, a band from London, opened the show. Neither BRK or I had heard of them but we both enjoyed their set.

Kings of Leon put on a great show. They have great music and they sound just as good live as they do on recordings. The lead singer, Caleb Followill, has a great voice. It’s gravely, but smooth, and he can sing or scream equally as well. I also think they have good personalities. They were really personable, talking about how they attended the Vikings game the night before and celebrated the big win even though they aren’t from here, and they didn’t need to emphasize with the f-bomb every time they talked to the crowd. And apparently yesterday was special because they had their first #1 hit, I assume it was “Use Somebody” because Caleb held up his index finger for a little while before the song started. The only thing I was disappointed about was they didn’t play “Closer” which is one of my favs.

The audience was a completely different facet of entertainment. Lots of interesting people, in looks, clothing and personality. Stand outs of the evening include a guy who towered over everyone on the floor but was considerate enough to stand off to the side. And let us not forget the security guards that were rocking out.

There was also a group of guys that were dancing and getting progressively more drunk throughout the evening. I probably would have been content watching them all night if the view didn’t get blocked half way through KOL’s set. I took this video of them, but at the time I didn’t realize it was a bad idea to hold the camera portrait style. Just tip your head sideways, because it’s totally worth the irritation.

There was also a guy dancing on the stairs across the Target Center from us. He was really getting into it and the security guard kept sending him up to his seat. During the encore BRK saw him take a swing at one of the guards and he got taken out, struggling the whole way. Good times, good times. I will definitely see KOL next time they come to the Twin Cities.

View photos

That wraps up this summer’s concert series blog post!!

My journey into Twilight the Movie, and other movie related paraphernalia

January 5, 2009

Friday 11/21 was a day was the day I had been waiting three long weeks for. I bought my Twilight movie ticket online in advance in order to get a free iTunes download of a special “Bella’s Lullaby” remix. Since I didn’t already have a date for the evening I talked Renee into seeing it with me. I practically had to twist her arm. Here’s what I posted afterward on the cklahr forum:

Here is my experience (no spoilers, or anything specific about it for that matter)

Twilight definitely did not disappoint. I thought they did a great job adapting it, but am still glad I had the knowledge of the book. For example, they could have explained the vampire conversion process a little better, Renee was confused. She liked it a lot too, which surprised me because she made it quite clear before hand that she’s not into the whole fantasy thing and didn’t like Harry Potter or LOTR. I practically dragged her kicking and screaming. I think the only reason she agreed to go was because I told her you guys liked the book, and that even Curtis wanted to see the movie. So I was really surprised on the way out when she told me if they make a second movie we have to see the midnight showing so there will be less irritating girls there. Sweet, she’s in.

It would have been a lot better if the theater wasn’t full of teenagers, although it was humorous to see the hordes of parents parked outside waiting. And the moms taking pictures of whichever group of girls they were chaperoning. Here’s pretty much how our experience went: Movie starts = excited murmuring, clapping. Enter Edward = squealing, seat bouncing (yes, I could hear them bouncing). They only had one reaction to funny parts. Giggles. No laughing, chuckling, gasping or otherwise scene appropriate reaction. Giggles were the only vocal remedy to whichever situation arose. It was really distracting actually. I think I missed the entire scene after Edward first entered the cafeteria because Renee and I were laughing so hard at them. Good times, good times.

The experience was definitely crazy. The line of traffic to get into the theater was absurd, but apparently it was all drop offs and pickups, because we got rock star parking and there were tons of spots open around us, which is unheard of in Maple Grove on a Friday night no matter what time it is.

Dive Fest 2008, part 3

September 30, 2008

After we got out of the water and trudged up the hill we learned that Mark and his buddy did in fact find the medallion, which I think we all suspected to be the case since none of us found it. Apparently it was to the left, and not too far either. Pooey. But I have a good feeling about next year.

We headed back to the HQs to drop off our tanks again. We knew we wanted to stay at the campgrounds for the live music, but there were other decisions to be made. We narrowed it down to dive now and eat later, or eat now and do a night dive. I was feeling sickly and fatigued from Snowshoe, so I didn’t much care what the decision was since I was about 90% sure I was done for the night. We decided to eat at Gary’s, but after we ate everyone was feeling sluggish and tired so we just headed back for the live music.

As we were sitting around the campfire patiently waiting, I became entranced by some music that was playing on someone’s laptop. After I got home I used my mad Google skillz and discovered it was the CD Charmed and Strange by Yoav. It was definitely the musical highlight of the evening. I’m not saying the live musician was bad, he was very talented, just not my type of music. We didn’t stick around too late that night.

Sunday morning we got up and ate breakfast at Sportsman’s again. This time I was able to enjoy an Ike Muffin. Mmmm. I also got a pancake because everyone raved about them the morning before. It was good, but it was no Fat Nat’s pancake, sorry to say I was slightly disappointed.

Once at the HQs we decided to dive Padi #79 because there were lots of chips left. Our plan was to go somewhere with a lot of chips so we could dive twice without moving locations. That was ok with me since I missed diving there the day before.

Mass Update

May 24, 2008

The new Gavin DeGraw CD is really good. My favorite tracks are “In Love With a Girl,” “Next to Me,” “Medicate the Kids” and “Relative,” in order of track number, not favoritism.

Softball has officially started. If you haven’t already, checkout the new Killer Beez website. There’s a bunch of fun stuff, like a forum, stats, player bios, game schedule and field maps (I ♥ Google).

Speaking of ♥ing Google, everyone should use the Google Reader. It’s got a fun little share feature that you can share specific feeds with your friends. And just when I was thinking, “I sure wish I could add a note to my shared items,” voila!! Notes were available. I don’t even know why I’m preaching this. C of cklahr already uses it, BRK doesn’t want to be bothered with it, Renee doesn’t know what RSS means, and Nick is just hopeless. That’s why I added the Cool Feeds For You section to my sidebar on the right. ====> My top 5 shared items will appear there, and you don’t need to use Google Reader to access them. The Read More link at the bottom will bring you to my shared page where you will find everything I think is worth sharing, complete with notes!! And if you do decide to use an RSS reader, please don’t use the on in IE. Darn conformists.

My feet suck. I was having some pain in the big toe joint of my right foot. I went to the doctor and I was misdiagnosed with gout. I went to see a podiatrist when I ran out of drugs and the pain came back. Apparently, my big toe bones are too long in relativity to the rest of the bones causing the joint to be jammed against the ball of my foot. And my extremely flat fallen arches are only adding to the problem. Since it was my second time to the podiatrist, and the second time he recommended custom orthotics (arch supports), I figured I had better bite the bullet and pay the $380 that my insurance company won’t cover before the next problem occurs. So far I love them. I’ve only had them for a week, but they are completely worth the money. They have wicked arch support. A thousand times better than any OTC inserts I’ve ever seen. My only wish is that I had multiple pairs so I didn’t have to swap them between my workout shoes and my fashionable tennis shoes. I’m also seeing a physical therapist to make my feet all better. My feet should heal up just fine, with a combo of orthotics, toe wiggling, stretches and time.

I’m glad the nice weather is finally here. This weekend I’m throwing a b-day party for my sis Lani, next weekend I’m doing a Crawl for Cancer with some friends, the weekend after that one of our friends is having a poker/b-day party and hopefully after that we will be at some lake every weekend. Diving, boating, reading or just basking in the sunlight. Woo-hoo, I ♥ summer!!

Gavin DeGraw CD out today!!

May 6, 2008

Today I picked up a copy of Gavin DeGraw’s new CD, appropriately self titled Gavin DeGraw.

I’ve been super excited to get this CD because I’m in love with his new single “In Love With A Girl.” Not to mention that his last CD, Chariot (don’t forget Chariot Stripped) is among my all time favorite CDs. You know the kind, where every track on it is good.

Anyway, I played the new CD at work today, and so far I like what I hear. Next step, give it a high volume test drive on the way home. Woo-hoo!!