Saturday, November 29, 2014

Stevie Wonder - Songs In the Key of Life Tour

When: Saturday, November 29, 2014
Where: MGM Garden Arena, Las Vegas NV
Accompanied by: KJ

Genre: R&B

Las Vegas Sun article by John Katsilometes

Set List: Love's in Need of Love Today, Have a Talk with God, Village Ghetto Land, Contusion, Sir Duke, I Wish, Knocks Me Off My Feet, Pastime Paradise, Summer Soft, Ordinary Pain, Isn't She lovely, Joy Inside My Tears, Black Man, Ngiculela - Es Una Historia - I Am Singing, If It's Magic, As, Another Star, Saturn, Ebony Eyes, All Day Sucker, Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)

Holiday weekend in Vegas? Sure why not. First off, the magnitude that this was to see the legendary Stevie Wonder was not lost of me. But to be completely honest, this is not a concert that I would have chosen to attend.  It's not that I don't appreciate his music, it's just not the genre of music that I listen to on a regular basis. And the fact that this was to be a tour in support of Wonder's eighteenth studio album, Songs in the Key of Life, really didn't mean a whole lot to me as it was not an album I was familiar with. It came out in 1976. I was only 8 years old. But I also knew that live music makes me happy no matter what, and it was apparent that my better half really wanted to see this show and also knew me well enough that the enticement of Vegas would be a huge selling point for me!!

Photo from Rolling Stone 2014

And here is 22 minutes of video I found on YouTube from the MGM show....



All in all, it was a fantastic evening. I was in Vegas with the one person who tolerates my madness while seeing a performance by a living legend. That alone made it completely worthwhile. 


Thursday, November 20, 2014

Princess

When: Thursday, November 20, 2014
Where: The Troubadour, Los Angeles
Accompanied by: KJ, Tiffany & Lisa

Genre: Purpleness & Estrogen

Princess is Maya Rudolph, Gretchen Lieberum, & other various beautiful people.

SNL vet Maya Rudolph and LA singer-songwriter Gretchen Lieberum are PRINCESS, a Prince cover band. The two have been singing together since college but it was only recently that the duo turned their mutual adoration for Prince into a musical project. Born out of their collective, life-long obsession with Prince, each performance is a love letter to the Artist himself. Don't Worry, They Won't Hurt U... They Only Want U 2 Have Some Fun.

No Set List Available and my brain is too old and full of random fluff, that I couldn't even venture a guess as to what songs were performed this night. I do remember that there was plenty of old school Prince and lots of sexy!!

A few for sure: Irresistible Biyach, Lady Cab Driver, Automatic, Purple Ran, Let's Go Crazy, Little Red Corvette

An evening of sexy good times and one that I recommend catching if ever given the opportunity. If you really want to know why...watch this video posted on Gawker from 2012.

Grainy Cell Phone Pix from Troubadour Show 2014



Friday, November 14, 2014

Foo Fighters, Sonic Highways LA Episode

When: Friday, November 14, 2014
Where: The Roxy, Hollywood Los Angeles
Accompanied by: Geo

Genre: Rock

Set List: The Feast and the Famine, Learn to Fly, White Limo, Arlandria, Times Like These, Rope, The Pretender, My Hero, Hey, Johnny Park!, Monkey Wrench, Congregation, Cold Day in the Sun, In the Clear, I'll Stick Around, Generator, Walk, Outside (w/ Joe Walsh), Rocky Mountain Way (w/ Joe Walsh), Mountain Song (Jane's Addiction cover) (w/ Perry Farrell and Joe Walsh), All My Life, Miss You (Rolling Stones cover), Dear Rosemary, Breakdown (Tom Petty cover), Best of You, Something from Nothing, Under Pressure (Queen/Bowie cover), Everlong

NOTE:  This one's for Geo....I don't know if trying to obtain these tickets would have been met with such determination had it not been for her extending her trip from Australia a few extra days in hopes of being able to go to this show....She was my inspiration and because of that, my good luck charm!!



Oh the insanity. Two full weeks of absolute insanity once the word got out that Foo Fighters would be performing at The Roxy in collaboration with the HBO documentary "Sonic Highways" Los Angeles episode.  I mean, we all knew it was coming since the precedence was set with the previous episodes and small intimate shows in Chicago, D.C., Nashville, and Austin... with LA as the 5th location for the HBO broadcast, all we needed to know what how to get tickets.

Oh, yeah, there in was the catch. No tickets would be sold for this show. No waiting for some tweet to direct us to the box office within a minimal time frame. No Facebook post alerting us of an online ticket sale date and time. The only way into this show was to win tickets from The World Famous KROQ. Piece of cake, right? A full 5 days with the opportunity to win every hour on the hour?! Surely this would not be a challenge. It might take a little bit of time, but between the group of us making the effort, I felt confident that we would all be attending this show. 

Yeah, not so much. The week came and went. We had a Facebook messaging tree up and running to alert of when to call in. I utilized people out of state to call in when it was time, just to up the odds. This was the golden ticket that became the impossible dream.  One more week before the actual show date and just when we thought no more tickets were going to be offered up, Alt 98.7 announced that they would be giving away tickets - but only 3 sets throughout the day with really no rhyme or reason as to when. This took the challenge to a whole new level. 


But Goonies never say die!



You don't wanna know...
Thursday morning, the day before the show, the morning radio crew announce to call in for a contest called "Spit or Swallow"...  ummmmm, yeah, no. I can't possibly participate in such a thing. Even as I was dialing the number, I thought there is no way in hell I can do this. Didn't really matter because they had their female volunteer, so I figured it was time to accept that we would not be going to this "secret show". Listening to the contest, the girl they had chosen choked (pun intended?), and they hung up on her. It was a sign from the rock gods, right?  I quickly dialed the station and nervously waited as the phone rang... and rang.... and rang. I won't go into the specifics of what this contest entailed. The fact is that just by being the female volunteer, answering a bunch of silly questions and endearing a little bit (okay, okay, a whole lot) of embarrassment, two tickets to this Foo gig at the Roxy would safely belong to me and Geo.  In the end, it became clear that there really isn't much I wouldn't do for Foo. And for friends.

Needless to say, the hours between then and showtime were all a blur... but man, oh man, what a night!!!  There are no words. This was an evening that consisted of pure magic. In every way.

Geo, Cass, Tai

Sonic Highways 2014
Geo n Tai - Front, Shifty side

Hi Dave....

How you doin....

Wait...don't go!!

This one will go down in the books of amazing memories!!