Concert
I had a blast at the concert last night. (btw: I spelled 'Morissette' right. English Teacher; mmmm-hmmmm.) I love concerts. Which is mostly why I wanted to play guitar in the first place. I wanted to be one of the people on that stage with the lights and the cheering crowd singing along. Being a local-level folk musician is a lot like being a rock star in absolutely no possible way. I could list all the differences, but I came here to blog about the concert, not my ineptitude at being a rock star.
Sooo...
Mute Math was the opening band. They are a poppy rockish (I'm terrible at labels) foursome from New Orleans. They rocked out. They have a song called Typical, which I've heard on 102.7 and happens to be pretty good. I might have bought a CD at the concert except for that they were 20 dollars and that is about twice as much as a CD full of music is worth (and is a completely different debate for a completely different time).
Here are some pictures:
The second is tough to make out, but if you look closely you will note that the lead singer is playing a "keytar." If you don't know what that is: Wikipedia does.
Mute Math was quite entertaining. The lead singer was engaging. He danced around on stage and moved about. When he was playing the sit down keyboard he did hand-stand-like things on it a few times. At the end of their last song, the guitarist hit a note and then threw his guitar offstage to a roadie. Then he picked up a foot pedal and started messing with the settings, which caused that last note to do some weird things. It was unique. At the same time, the lead singer and the bass player started messing with the drums. At which point, the drummer grabbed a huge bass drum and moved it over the keyboard. Then he started playing a beat on the mic stand. He did some other funky things that I can't really describe before putting the bass drum on the keyboard. At which point, he climbed it and jumped off. Kind of cool.
Alanis was good. I really love her voice and I like her songs a lot. They are catchy rock songs. Her stage presence was... um... a little weird. During a couple songs she paced the stage... back and forth, back and forth... like a pendulum. It was truly strange. Still, her songs rocked.
My Alanis pictures didn't come out too good.
After Alanis's set, I noticed the seat next to mine. They put chalk numbers on the bottom so people could find their seats. Someone also chalked a:
Stephanie guessed "nose." I think it's either a happy mushroom or a peep with a smile.
Anyways, Matchbox rocked! They really do have a bunch of great songs. They opened with How Far We've Come, their new radio hit. It really is a great song, like most of Matchbox's songs, however -- and it pains me to say this because I really do enjoy their music -- their songs are so radio friendly, poppy, whatever, and they are soooooo over played. I actually didn't want to hear 3 am or Real World. Even so, the concert was great. They played a cover of There's Always Something There to Remind Me, which was pretty freaking cool. Rob Thomas said that they practiced it once during sound check.
Okay. Some pictures:
While I was waiting for the pictures to load, I picked up my guitar and played 3 am... I hate myself.
Anyways, as can be observed by the pictures, we had decent seats. It's a small venue so you really can't be too far away. Even so, these seats don't even remotely compare to the ones we had at SPAC a bunch of years ago: 3rd row. BooYah! (I don't think I've ever said, "BooYah!" before... I don't like it).
Anyways, I need to go to more concerts...
Oh! I almost forgot: regarding the waiting-around-the-venue-near-the-tour-buses-before-and-after-the-show that I said we were going to do. We did... for a little while. But, it was FREEZING and we decided that we couldn't brave it.
Instead, we went to Starbucks and read. I'm nearly half-way through Children of Hurin (Tolkien). It's okay. It's very broad. In other words, it seems like I'm reading a summary of the story, rather than the story itself. There are short scenes here and there, but most of it is a summary of a long period of time. Still, it's quite depressing. It's an epic tragedy. The cover of the book is very grey and dark, and it happens to fit the story perfectly.
-------
On a more personal music-related note. I'm learning a new cover song: Hurt, the Johnny Cash version. Cool, right? I know.
Sooo...
Mute Math was the opening band. They are a poppy rockish (I'm terrible at labels) foursome from New Orleans. They rocked out. They have a song called Typical, which I've heard on 102.7 and happens to be pretty good. I might have bought a CD at the concert except for that they were 20 dollars and that is about twice as much as a CD full of music is worth (and is a completely different debate for a completely different time).
Here are some pictures:
The second is tough to make out, but if you look closely you will note that the lead singer is playing a "keytar." If you don't know what that is: Wikipedia does.
Mute Math was quite entertaining. The lead singer was engaging. He danced around on stage and moved about. When he was playing the sit down keyboard he did hand-stand-like things on it a few times. At the end of their last song, the guitarist hit a note and then threw his guitar offstage to a roadie. Then he picked up a foot pedal and started messing with the settings, which caused that last note to do some weird things. It was unique. At the same time, the lead singer and the bass player started messing with the drums. At which point, the drummer grabbed a huge bass drum and moved it over the keyboard. Then he started playing a beat on the mic stand. He did some other funky things that I can't really describe before putting the bass drum on the keyboard. At which point, he climbed it and jumped off. Kind of cool.
Alanis was good. I really love her voice and I like her songs a lot. They are catchy rock songs. Her stage presence was... um... a little weird. During a couple songs she paced the stage... back and forth, back and forth... like a pendulum. It was truly strange. Still, her songs rocked.
My Alanis pictures didn't come out too good.
After Alanis's set, I noticed the seat next to mine. They put chalk numbers on the bottom so people could find their seats. Someone also chalked a:
Stephanie guessed "nose." I think it's either a happy mushroom or a peep with a smile.
Anyways, Matchbox rocked! They really do have a bunch of great songs. They opened with How Far We've Come, their new radio hit. It really is a great song, like most of Matchbox's songs, however -- and it pains me to say this because I really do enjoy their music -- their songs are so radio friendly, poppy, whatever, and they are soooooo over played. I actually didn't want to hear 3 am or Real World. Even so, the concert was great. They played a cover of There's Always Something There to Remind Me, which was pretty freaking cool. Rob Thomas said that they practiced it once during sound check.
Okay. Some pictures:
While I was waiting for the pictures to load, I picked up my guitar and played 3 am... I hate myself.
Anyways, as can be observed by the pictures, we had decent seats. It's a small venue so you really can't be too far away. Even so, these seats don't even remotely compare to the ones we had at SPAC a bunch of years ago: 3rd row. BooYah! (I don't think I've ever said, "BooYah!" before... I don't like it).
Anyways, I need to go to more concerts...
Oh! I almost forgot: regarding the waiting-around-the-venue-near-the-tour-buses-before-and-after-the-show that I said we were going to do. We did... for a little while. But, it was FREEZING and we decided that we couldn't brave it.
Instead, we went to Starbucks and read. I'm nearly half-way through Children of Hurin (Tolkien). It's okay. It's very broad. In other words, it seems like I'm reading a summary of the story, rather than the story itself. There are short scenes here and there, but most of it is a summary of a long period of time. Still, it's quite depressing. It's an epic tragedy. The cover of the book is very grey and dark, and it happens to fit the story perfectly.
-------
On a more personal music-related note. I'm learning a new cover song: Hurt, the Johnny Cash version. Cool, right? I know.