Saturday, 28
July
07
Deerhunter
- 'Heatherwood' -
eMusic 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival
sampler (free download)
Continuing from last
night's post...we slept in a little on Saturday morning, but I had to
get up and go down to pick up my rental bike at Navy Pier. I hopped on
the free trolley that stopped near our hotel and it was much quicker
than walking. I got my bike and rode back to the hotel, then we grabbed
coffee at Starbucks downstairs and hopped on the train to Pitchfork
which was starting at 1pm with gates opening at noon. We were running a
little late and the train was packed with all sorts of festival-goers,
and we all poured out at the Ashland stop. There were lines snaking
down the street at both the front and rear entrances. We headed towards
the back entrance because I wanted to see part of Ken Vandermark's Powerhouse Sound
(Chicago 'free jazz') on the rear stage at 1pm before going to catch
some of Califone on the main stage at 1.30pm. I enjoyed the skronky
sounds then walked to the main area and found where Kelly had staked
out a spot for the day with our beach towel, partially shaded by one of
the canopies scattered around the park. Califone were decent, but I
only listened to a bit before going back to the rear stage (which was
set up in a really poor location) to catch some more of the Chicago
jazz sound from the William
Parker Quartet. It was great to see such a mix of music at this
festival ranging from indie rock, to free jazz, to hip-hop, to
slowcore, to metal, to poppy dance music. After William Parker, Beach
House was playing at the rear stage, but at the same time on one of
the
main stages was Grizzly Bear.
Kelly and I both wanted to see some of
each of these artists, so we took turns at each of the stages. The
music of both is kind of similar, but I think I liked the sound of
Grizzly Bear a bit more, but maybe it's because the sound from that
stage was much better. Battles were alright, kind of an interesting
sound, but two of my highlights for the day were again on the rear
stage, Fujiya & Miyagi
and Professor Murder.
Both played some kind of peppy dance-rock music, which seems to be the
'in' sound lately, but it's cool with me. I stuck around and listened
to most of Fujiya & Miyagi while Kelly was checking out Iron &
Wine on one of the main stages. I wandered back to our spot so she
could catch some of the F & M set and then kind of slept while
'nu-metal' stars Mastodon rocked hard for the metal kids. I guess there
was even some sort of crazy mosh pit close to the stage, but luckily we
were far from it. I really didn't care for Mastodon at all. It was
worse because it was slightly breezy and our allergies were acting up
with the dust from the softball field in the park blowing all over the
place. Yuck! After Mastodon on the other main stage were Clipse, who I was really
impressed by (another highlight). I think they bill themselves as
'concious rap'. Maybe, maybe not, but it's bumpin'. We stayed in our
spot and waited for Cat
Power & Dirty Delta Blues Band. I like Cat Power a lot, but
have never seen her (Chan Marshall) play live and was looking forward
to this set. She seemed to be having a bit of problems with the sound
equipment, but was trying really hard and apologized to the crowd. I
thought she was great though and was happy to see her live. We left
towards the end of her set, completely skipping Yoko Ono on the main
stage and Girl Talk on the small back stage. Reading reviews it sounded
like lots of people left during Yoko Ono's set, even with Thurston
Moore playing guitar, but that Girl Talk was a dance party that was
packed and spilled into the street beyond the stage, showing that
logistics could have been planned better, such as switching Girl Talk
to the larger main stage as a closer and having Yoko Ono on the smaller
rear stage for the few amount of curious listeners. We rode back to the
hotel and I actually went to take a short nap while Kelly went
downstairs to a champagne bar, but ended up getting us Chicago deep
dish pizza for dinner (or in my case, lunch the next day). I slept for
about an hour, then I got up and got dressed to head down to the
fountain at Millenium Park for the start of the L.A.T.E. Ride. Kelly
came back a little bit before I left and ate and I left her watching tv.
The L.A.T.E. (Long After Twilight Ends) Ride is an annual bicycle event
that raises money for Friends of the Parks of Chicago. It's a 25 mile
bike ride starting at Millenium Park and riding west out of downtown,
then travelling north, northwest, east and south through the suburban
streets of Chicago before getting back onto the bicycle/pedestrian path
that runs through the Lakeshore Park. It was neat as I was cruising
through the streets downtown at 12am to the registration area there
were cyclists appearing from all over the place, but even more awesome
was the sight of thousands of riders all gathered in one area (well,
spread around the fountain, into the street, and other areas of the
park) all waiting for the first of four start groups to begin riding at
1.30am. There were people of all ages, some with crazy costumes or
fancy decorated bicycles with glowsticks, lights, and other oddities.
After I registered I sat down in the trees to rest a bit before the
ride started and there was this guy near me who was a regular
participant of the local Critical
Mass rides who had a large battery pack on the rear of his rig, and
on the front he had a small crate amp with his mp3 player hooked up to
it and he was jamming some tunes before the band played. It was a
pretty sweet set-up. I talked with him and a couple other guys for a
few minutes (as they were drinking their beers and chillin') and they
were telling me about the Chicago
Critical Mass rides which sounded like a big party. It was pretty
entertaining.
Pimped out ride with front amp
and rear power supply
I was in the fourth and last starting group of riders and we took off
around 2.10am. It was slow going in some spots at the beginning (to be
expected with 9000 riders) and even major congestion at a few points
where police were helping to direct traffic, but it was still a hopping
Saturday night, so in some of the 'hot' night spots we had to walk our
bikes a bit and come to a complete stop until we were able to roll
again. It flowed a bit better further out into the suburbs, although it
was still heavy bike traffic taking over the streets, and despite a few
real idiots riding it was a LOT of fun. I didn't stop at the halfway
point rest area since I'm used to riding frequently and managed to
finish in just over two hours. It wasn't a race, although I was a bit
disappointed I didn't finish sooner, but as I said there were just a
large number of cyclists to roll with and adjust speed/pace accordingly.
Looking like a bike messenger (in my
dreams...)
Literally 1000's of riders at the starting point
I finished the ride around 4.20am and although McDonald's (THE major
sponsor) was serving breakfast to riders in the park near the fountain,
I just rode back to the hotel, quietly snuck in so I wouldn't wake
Kelly at 5am, and slept for about 5 hours. I had to make sure to get up
and return the bike before noon, which I did by 11am so we could hop on
the train and go back to the final day of Pitchfork.
We got to the park early today and staked out an excellent spot under
one of the canopies. I was torn because I really wanted to see both of
the acts that started at 1pm. Lightbox Orchestra
on the back stage and Deerhunter
on one of the main stages. I listened to a little of Lightbox
Orchestra, then wandered to where Kelly was and really enjoyed the
Deerhunter set. It's interesting that these guys are from Atlanta, but
I don't think they've ever come down to play in New Orleans. I'd
definitely go see them play live again. We stuck to our spot kind of
inbetween the main stages for the rest of the day. There were a couple
of acts I wouldn't have minded seeing on the rear stage, but mostly I
wanted to see those on the main stages. The Ponys and Menomena were
okay, but nothing great. Canadian dance popsters Junior Boys were really good.
The Sea and Cake were good, but not as great as I had hoped. Kelly
really liked Jamie Lidell,
while I found him amusing and entertaining, but wasn't as sold as she
was. Stephen Malkmus
(ex-Pavement) came out with his acoustic guitar (and a drummer who
wasn't Janet Weiss on a few songs) and put on a great set. Of Montreal
were as entertaining as always with plenty of wild costumes, energy,
and fun.
The wacky Of Montreal on the
big screen
The New
Pornographers were one of the final bands on the main stages, and
we both were looking forward to them. We had read in a local Chicago
weekly entertainment magazine that Neko
Case wouldn't be performing with the band, but other rumours from
people around us said she was flying in for this show. We hoped for the
latter, but it wasn't to be, although they still put on a really great
set, although Kelly did say that as good as the other woman singing
was, she just didn't hit some notes like Neko. Oh, well. I"m going to
see Neko Case in New Orleans in a couple of weeks (while Kelly goes to
see Chris Isaak that same night elsewhere in town) and The New
Pornographers are coming to New Orleans on Halloween, so maybe Neko
will be with them that time. Towards the end of the New Pornographers
set I headed over to the back stage to see The Klaxons. Unfortunately, the
time slots had been totally screwed up that day, so they started late,
but I got to see a few songs of their dance party (like I said, it's
the 'in' thing). It was actually more of a mixture of dance party and
punk rock, but it was fun. The sound was crappy though and it sounded
muddy. It didn't help that De La Soul was starting on the other main
stage and the sound was almost overwhelming The Klaxons. I walked back
to where Kelly was sitting and we packed up since we'd seen De La Soul
in their heyday back in Portland (or at least I had seen them, I can't
remember if Kelly went or if it was before I knew her). We exited
towards the train as we listened to them pumping out the sound (with
guest Prince Paul) and ending the night. We rode back to the hotel and
had pizza for a late dinner and watched some of the Tour de France
(which we'd been following since it started the previous week) before
going to bed.
All in all it was a great trip to Chicago with many activities and a
great music festival. And we still had a week left of our vacation to
relax in Grand Rapids with Kelly's relatives. We were picking up our
rental car the next morning downtown and driving over to Michigan so we
packed everything up that night, then I went downstairs to the
breakfast lounge where the wi-fi reception was decent and checked up on
some news and email before coming back up to the room and reading
before falling asleep. I'll let Kelly tell about our adventures in
Michigan later in the weekend. Her friend Amy came down from Washington
D.C. last night to visit for the weekend, so we're hanging out with her
and going to 'The Simpsons Movie' later tonight.
-posted
by Chris
Friday, 27
July
07
Grizzly
Bear - 'Deep Sea Diver' - eMusic
2007 Pitchfork Music Festival
sampler (free download)
It's been
a little less than a week since we got home from our vacation on
Monday. Wow, what an excellent trip! We had a great time in Chicago
doing all sorts of activities besides the Pitchfork Music Festival,
then we relaxed at Aunt CJ's in Grand Rapids for a week. Couldn't ask
for better weather the whole time, temperatures in the upper 70's/low
80's with little humidity and a few strong winds (duh, Chicago IS
nicknamed 'The Windy City'). This will be a pretty long post, but there
are plenty of pics to go along with it an even a few links.
Leaving Gulfport was kind of a hassle. Kelly's plane was slightly
delayed, but it still managed to leave much closer to on time than mine
did. My plane had mechanical problems, so we left Gulfport almost 3
hours later than scheduled, which meant I missed my connection in
Memphis, but was able to get on another later flight to Chicago and had
time to kill (3 extra hours worth) in the Memphis airport. Kelly ended
up arriving on time with her multiple connections and beat me into
Chicago by 3 hours, when I was originally supposed to arrive an hour
before she was. At least she was able to check into the hotel and do
some shopping nearby (we stayed downtown for convenience) while waiting
for me to arrive. When I finally arrived at the hotel around 6pm I
unpacked a few things then we took the train up to the Wicker Park
district where a local radio station was having giveaways at various
bars for tickets to the 'secret' Spoon show at Schuba's late on Friday
night. We wandered the streets a bit and found a restaurant called Pot Pan Thai which was kind of a
'fusion' Thai place. It had a good selection and Kelly picked a noodle
dish while I had the panang curry tofu. It was excellent. After eating
we went to one of the bars where there were a couple of musicians and a
table with the dj's from WXRT taking names for the ticket giveaway,
this was after they made you try to balance a spoon on your nose. There
were a couple other women trying, but with little success, then I tried
and couldn't do it at first, then I figured out the trick of moistening
my nose and it hung there for a few minutes. After filling out the
'entry forms' we went towards the front of the bar where it was a
little less smokey to listen to the musicians. One woman was from
Portland, and I think the other two were local musicians. The first act
was decent, the woman from Portland playing second was good, but we
left before the first song by the headliner finished. And to top it off
the stupid radio station didn't seem to give the tickets away, or at
least not to anyone who wasn't hanging around their table in the back
like a vulture. That's what we get for paying attention to the
musicians. We left and headed back to the hotel downtown. The next day
was going to be a busy one.
Thursday morning we slept in a bit, then I walked down to check out
bicycle rentals at Navy Pier for the L.A.T.E.
Ride I had found out about on-line and thought sounded like a lot
of fun. After I went to the Navy Pier and Millenium Park locations for Bike Chicago (a good distance
of walking) while Kelly was shopping, then I met her at the Museum of
Contemporary Art. There were a couple of exhibitions going on that
I had read about and sounded interesting. We spent some time there,
then we went back to the hotel for a few minutes before grabbing dinner
downstairs at the Weber Grill restaurant and hopping on the train for
the 2 hour taping of NPR's 'Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me'
at 7.30pm. That was a lot of fun. It was a small theater with Carl
Kasell, Peter Sagal, and guest panelists Kyrie O'Connor, Charlie
Pierce, and Paul Provenza on stage cracking the crowd up with the
week's news. We try to listen to this show regularly and thought it
would be great fun to see it live in person. Unfortunately, we didn't
get a picture of Carl Kasell, but we had fun and were part of the live
audience (no canned laughter or 'Applause' signs to prompt the
crowd). After 'Wait, Wait...' we walked back to Navy Pier where we had
tickets for the midnight showing of 'Harry Potter and
the Order of the Phoenix' at the IMAX theater. I reserved them the
previous week and we had great seats near the top of the theater
seating. It was nice that the screen was large, but not curved like the
IMAX in New Orleans. The final 20 minutes of the film (the 'action'
sequence) was in 3-D and Kelly was concerned that it might make us
dizzy. We were fine though. The movie itself was good, not what I'd say
spectacular, but then this wasn't the most exciting book in the series.
It paced well and even with major cuts from book to movie it was
enjoyable, and not really even that long. We're hoping maybe they'll
have more in the dvd version. After the movie we walked back to the
hotel and I got on-line for a bit and we both went to bed around 4am.
Outside Navy Pier I was surprised and happy to see one of the R2D2
mailboxes that I had read about to celebrate 30 years of Star Wars.
Friday morning I got up and rode the subway up to Old Town to Village Cycle Center where I
picked up a flashing head and tail light and some bike gloves for the
ride on Saturday night. I also rode back and went down to Navy Pier to
reserve my comfort bicycle for the next morning. After my bike errands
I met Kelly at the Eleven
City Diner where Kelly had already eaten lunch while waiting for
me, and had a salad and we shared a yummy chocolate shake. After eating
we went to the Museum of Contemporary
Photography located at Columbia College. It wasn't big, but had
some nice photos. After the photo museum we took the 'L' up to Union
Park and the Pitchfork Music Festival. Doors opened at 5pm, and there
wasn't a line to get in. We wandered around the grounds checking out
the few food vendors, the t-shirt stand, and the record fair/local
artist craft fair. A pretty wide selection of hipster goods to choose
from. We then went back to stake out a spot kind of between the two
main stages for the evening and waited for the music. Friday night's
shows were a collaboration with All
Tomorrow's Parties- Don't Look Back series. Slint started the night
(and festival) off playing 'Spiderland'. I don't know why I never
really listened to Slint, but I really enjoyed them a lot. I almost
purchased the album that evening from the record fair, but Kelly
thought that Jason had burned some Slint for us previously. Thinking
about it now, Jason burned Seam for us, not Slint. I guess I'll have to
see if he or anyone else has the Slint record and could burn it for us.
After Slint was GZA (Genius of Wu-Tang Clan along with guests)
performing 'Liquid Swords'. Not bad, but the sound wasn't great and it
seemed like a lackluster performance. Finally, the main reason we had
originally decided to come to this festival, Sonic Youth took the
stage. They were performing 'Daydream Nation', which is my favorite
SonicYouth record, and I remember when I was in high school and my
friends Gavin and Amy would play it as we drove around Fairbanks in the
dead of winter, raising some kind of hell. They were dead on tonight.
The sound still kind of sucked (which I found out later reading a
review of the festival that the organizers were disappointed with the
sound output and had it fixed for the rest of the weekend), but hearing
the first notes of 'Teenage Riot' to the last piece of 'Trilogy' was
bliss. We left as they were finishing the album because we wanted to
catch the 'L' train before the masses crowded the platform. I guess we
missed the encore of some new songs and a track from last year's album,
which is a bummer, but that really wasn't what we came for anyway, just
a bonus for those who stuck around. We got off at a different stop and
switched trains to head to the Golden Apple restaurant, a 24 hour diner
we had heard about on 'This
American Life'. It was a neat little place at the intersection of
two streets. There were some cab drivers sitting at the tables outside
talking, smoking, and having coffee while inside it wasn't too busy yet
(only 11pm). The revolving pie case near the front door with all sorts
of yummy looking desserts beckoned us, but we resisted. The portions
from the dinner menu were pretty hearty themselves. Our waitress was
friendly and talkative while we played cards after ordering. I got clam
chowder and a turkey burger while Kelly had a large breakfast burrito.
It was the best place to go eat after the show. The suburb we walked
through was nice, but we saw the oddest thing. I saw something dash in
front of us across the sidewalk and when we took a few steps and looked
down the alley we saw a small rabbit hopping away. Very odd to see in
the middle of the city suburbs.
Thurston Moore of Sonic
Youth
Chris at the Golden Apple Restaurant
Okay, it's
getting late and I'm getting up early to bike in the morning. I'll post
more later in the weekend. Probably tomorrow.
-posted
by Chris
Monday, 9
July
07
Professor
Murder - 'Free Stress Test' - eMusic
2007 Pitchfork Music Festival
sampler (free download)
It's only
a couple more days before we leave on our vacation. Today's song is
from one of the many acts playing this weekend in Chicago at Union
Park, where Kelly and I will be enjoying ourselves in supposedly cooler
weather at the Pitchfork
Music Festival. Either way we'll be seeing Sonic Youth perform
'Daydream Nation', Slint perform 'Spiderland', as well as other artists
like Cat Power, The New Pornographers, Klaxons, The Sea & Cake,
Battles, Deerhunter, Menomena, and much, much more. I'm excited to get
out of the office and take a vacation.
We kept ourselves busy this past 3-day weekend. Friday we went to the
gym in the morning then headed out to Picayune for lunch at the Indian
restaurant (India 4 U) that is way the hell outside of town, but
totally worth it and is I'd say almost better than the ones we've been
to in New Orleans. Too bad they're in Picayune and out of town because
they'd probably be much busier. As long as they don't go out of
business and we can go up there every once in awhile that's fine with
me. After lunch we went grocery shopping at the Picayune Walmart. It's
hard to tell which is more of a redneck hangout, the Waveland or
Picayune Walmart. Both have their fare share of hicks, but I think the
influx of New Orleans residents to Pearl River Country gives Picayune
the edge. We came home and I kind of fell asleep while Kelly was making
the 3-bean 'chili' from Peter's mom's recipe. She also made a buffalo
chicken marinade to soak our chicken breasts for the kolaches I was
making Sunday. In the evening we just stayed home and cleared up some
of our Tivo shows before we left on vacation. I actually watched the
'Ghost in The Shell: Solid State Society' movie that I had recorded
almost a month ago when SciFi aired it, but hadn't watched it yet. It
was an excellent film, set a few years after the second series ended
with the same characters (same voice actors as well voicing the
characters) in a different storyline. It played out well, although I'd
like to watch it unedited on dvd because the video feed seemed to have
some 'glitches' in it. It also left it open for future films if the
creator so desires, so that's a plus.
Saturday morning we slept in a bit, then I made my salsa from peppers I
grew in our garden. I toned it down a bit in how spicy I made it, but
it still tasted good. In the afternoon I made a checkerboard cake to
celebrate Jason's birthday a little over a week late while we watched
some of the Live Earth concert broadcasts on Bravo and Sundance and
also flipped between Wimbledon and Tour de France coverage. The cake
turned out a bit dry unfortunately, but that was due to our oven
cooking too hot or my initial error with the butter and sugar. Kelly
made the frosting, which turned out well, but was a bit thin initially,
so the cake layers were sliding off when we first attempted to frost
them. Kelly thickened up the frosting with more powdered sugar, and we
let it set in the fridge for a bit and finalized the stability with
some bamboo skewers (a la Duff from 'Ace of Cakes'). We headed over
with food in tow, and ended up being the first ones there. Jason was
finishing grilling turkey burgers and Ellen was finalizing spinach
& artichoke dip. There was a pretty good sized crowd of 16 people
playing, which made the winnings break down 1st- $180, 2nd- $80, 3rd-
$40, and 4th- $20 (the buy-in amount). It was a good evening with
friends and as blinds increased, players went out and we merged into
one table when there were four players left at each table. Somehow I
made it to the final table, but my chip stack wasn't that high and at
one point I was by far the shortest stack, but luck was with me
(7/7/07?) and I doubled up my money a few times with suckouts, then I
slapped down a really bad beat on Jason going against his Ace/Queen
with my Ace/Jack and a Jack turning up on the flop. He had gone all-in
and I took him out. I felt kind of bad, but that's how poker goes. I
then took Christie out and added to my increased chip stack, and it was
Darrin, Lam, and I. Lam took out Darrin, but I still had a good lead
with chips, so we kept going back and forth for awhile until finally
around 11.30pm I got him to call me on a hand that I ended up having
the best cards and I crippled him to where he only had $5 in chips
left. He did double up once, but then I won the final hand and the
$180. As Kelly said earlier in the evening I was playing for 'Chicago
money', spending money for our trip, so I guess that motivation helped
me to win the game (along with luck of the cards in my favor). We
headed home afterwards and I watched Bleach before going to bed. It's
really starting to get interesting now.
Sunday morning we went out to Alltel in Gulfport and had lunch at High
Cotton Grill. We stopped at Barnes and Noble on the way home to pick up
a fold-out plastic map of downtown Chicago that included the RTA lines
as well as some trash magazines for Kelly. We got home and watched a
bit of Wimbledon and the Tour, then I made some kolaches. The dough
turned out really well, and the filling mixture that Kelly made with
the buffalo chicken, blue cheese, and cream cheese seemed like it would
be perfect. We baked them, then went out to do some yard work while
they cooled a bit. Unfortunately I couldn't get the lawnmower working
(maybe I need a new fuel filter?), so it's going to be a weed jungle
until I get back and can spend some time on making it look good again.
We did pull/trim some weeds near the garden though and it looks better
there. We came in and the kolaches were still warm, but tasted great.
For a trial run I was pretty pleased and after letting Gary try one
today and give his critique, I know how to improve them next time
around. I told him when we get back that I'll make another batch of
improved kolaches.
I packed my clothes in the suitcase this evening, so I'm pretty much
ready except for getting the laptop together and putting it in my
carry-on with other travel info. It should be a good two weeks in
Chicago and Grand Rapids. We'll have tales to tell when we return.
-posted
by Chris
Sunday, 1
July
07
The
Police - 'Driven to Tears' - Urgh! A
Music War (A & M Records)
It's
been a good weekend. Friday night after work I came home and biked down
to Bay St. Louis where I was meeting Kelly at one of her co-worker's
for a Pampered Chef barbecue party. It only took me an hour to get down
there, but then again it's only 15 miles from our house to theirs going
down through Pass Christian and across the new Bay St. Louis bridge
span. I was a bit concerned with the clouds coming in and partially
obscuring the sun, but managed to make it over before it got too
dangerously dark. Kelly passed me on the way just as I was riding up
the bridge from the Pass side and arrived about 15 minutes or so before
I did. Unfortunately, we got there at the end of the party, but we were
still able to enjoy the grilled chicken and shrimp. Kelly also was able
to place her order for the chopper she's wanted for awhile. We went
down to the Cuban restaurant but it closed at 9pm, so we just missed
out. Kelly ended up settling for Wendy's because Quizno's in Bay St.
Louis also closed at 9pm and the Subway was really crowded. Not many
offering for a quick bite to eat down there still. We came home and
watched The Daily Show and something else before going to bed to read.
Saturday morning we slept in some, then went out to Gulfport to CVS for
Kelly to pick up some earplugs, Petsmart for kitty food, Barnes and
Noble for coffee, Sam's Club for dishwasher soap and draino, then lunch
at Cafe Froothie's (what we used to call Boba Fett wraps when it was
located near my previous office in Gulfport) which we took home. We
relaxed the rest of the afternoon, reading and watching 'Firewall' with
Harrison Ford because it was on Showtime or HBO (and it was actually
quite disappointing). I also started to fall asleep in the recliner,
but woke up before Jason and Ellen arrived. We drove over to New
Orleans and arrive a little before 6pm. Plenty of time to eat and even
get coffee and park the car before the show started at 8pm. We decided
to eat Indian food at Taj Mahal, an early favorite place of Kelly and I
since when we originally moved down here years ago. We've taken Jason
and Ellen to their sister restaurant, Nirvana, on Magazine Street, but
it hasn't been so great the past few times, so we decided on something
a bit different. I'm really glad we did because it was better than it
has been in awhile, and really back in form to the early visits we had
made so long ago. Of course we had the vegetarian samosas (filled with
potatoes and peas) for an appetizer, which were of course tasty fried
goodness. Main dishes we all kind of shared. Jason ordered the Biryani
shrimp (saffron rice with prawns), Kelly ordered makhanwala
chicken (shredded tandori chicken in a creamy sauce of tomatoes,
butter, and fenugreek), Ellen ordered some kind of curried vegetable
dish, and I ordered a spicy Vindaloo fish dish (mahi mahi was the fish
they used, and I really enjoy the hot, spicy flavor). I also ordered
some Aloo Paratha (bread with peas and potatoes), while they ordered a
bread sampler. Overall everything was great and we filled our bellies,
plus we came home with leftovers for later (good idea that Kelly did
bring the cooler along). After dinner we went down to Rue de la Course
where I got iced coffee, while the others got gelato for dessert across
the street. We drove downtown and parked on the street a few blocks
away from the arena because we still had time to walk off dinner going
to the show, plus I'm too cheap to pay for parking, plus I don't like
being stuck in traffic leaving the arena that is shuttled in only one
direction and most roads that we usually want to go on are blocked off
by the police department.
Sting's son's band, Fiction Plane opened, starting a few minutes before
the announced show time of 8pm. They weren't horrible, but didn't look
like they fit on a big stage, plus they really weren't anything to
write home about. They played for about 35 minutes. While they were
breaking down the opener's equipment and bringing out Stewart
Copeland's huge-ass drum/percussion set up (complete with full scale
gong) it looked like there were a lot of empty seats around, especially
in the lower level. It wasn't until the band came out, Stewart banged
his gong, and the first notes of 'Message in a Bottle' played did
I realize that all the seats had magically filled up and the place was
packed with standing, cheering fans. I won't nitpick the show
performance other than a few gaffes at the very beginning that were
obvious in Sting's facial expressions of wrinkled disgust displayed on
the huge screens above the band, because overall it was a pretty
awesome show. I haven't been to an arena show for a few years, but this
one sounded really good, plus the light show was impressive as well as
the large screens of crystal clarity gave a great view for all fans not
down on the floor close to the band, even the ones behind the stage.
The trio themselves looked a bit aged, but still pulled off the
standard setlist they've been performing on this tour quite well, and
even looked like they were enjoying themselves (and maybe even each
other) as well, and not just the mountains of cash they are raking in.
Kelly said it was a lot different from when she saw them in 1983 on the
Synchronicity tour at an outdoor amphitheater for $15 in the steaming
hot, Phoenix September with temps over 100 degrees, and people passing
out all around her, plus being mashed up against the barricade near the
stage. I'm sure the drunk girls she had next to her last night though
weren't too much different from back in 1983. These two women were
attempting to dance (out of sync with the songs) while splashing their
cups of beer around (and on Kelly's foot) and literally sticking their
ass right in Kelly's face. At least we got a $6 tip out of it because
one of the drunks dropped their cash when they left before the show
ended and Kelly picked it up off the floor. Score for us! Kind of made
their antics worthwhile. The show lasted a little under two hours
total, playing the standard setlist of roughly 20 songs (didn't include
'Spirits in the Material World' or 'Murder by Numbers, I wonder why...)
and was really enjoyable. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing them again
and maybe if they haven't killed each other by the time they play
Atlanta in November, we can go up and check out the show again there.
We walked out afterwards and back to the car, then headed home. Ellen
fell asleep on the way home, and I think even Jason was starting to
doze a bit, but they've had busy weeks with long hours, so that was
fine with us.
Today we surprised ourselves by sleeping in until 10.30am, although we
did stay up until almost 2.30am. We got dressed and then went down for
our ritual Sunday lunch and cards at the Mockingbird Cafe before
grocery shopping. We came home and I watched some anime while Kelly was
on-line, then we cleaned the house, and here it is Sunday evening. In
two weeks we'll be in Chicago listening to the ending night of the
Pitchfork Music Festival acts, and this week we'll be enjoying our
short work schedule with a Wednesday holiday and our off Friday. We're
planning to go see 'The Transformers Movie' on Tues. night or sometime
Wednesday, but that's about it. I'm planning to bike often and finally
hit the trails next weekend sometime since I haven't gotten out to do
it yet since my ankle recovery. Gary and I are also trying to find time
to have another anime fest, but probably not until early August. Time
just seems to be flying by this year with all things just passing by.
Weird.
-posted by Chris
