This Yellow Taxi Cab In Which I Ride

(*WARNING* Explicit Language) Counting Crows are calling their 25 th anniversary tour, Twenty Five Years and Counting. I wasn’t going to go because there weren’t any dates near upstate NY and concerts these days are expensive before adding traveling and hotels to the mix. But, I had taken some days off from work for some plans that ultimately fell through and decided to take a look at the tour schedule on somewhat of a whim. There were two dates that would have fit into my schedule and I checked out ticketmaster to see what seats were still available only days before the show. There was a lonely 6 th row seat at Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts, which was enticing, so I started to plan out an adventure. On Friday, August 17, 2018 (it’s always apropos to see Counting Crows in August, isn’t it?), I packed up my car with blankets, a pillow, snacks, water, and a change of clothes. I plugged Mansfield into the GPS, dialed up Counting Crows on Spotify, and started my car… t...

Conor Oberst is my favorite songwriter. He sings about mental illness and melancholy, heartbreak and self help. His lyrics are clever and poetic, and they hit me hard in the place where my heart is supposed to be. I saw him play with Dawes -- who are another favorite of mine -- a few years ago at Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY. A good friend had actually won tickets and gave them to me and another friend. It was a great concert, but Conor Oberst has written his best stuff since then and I got to hear it live on July 22, 2017 at Upstate Concert Hall.

It was the summer of 1997. I was driving an ’85 Camaro that was just as much bondo as it was Camaro parts. Much of the summer was spent in that car with my brother and my cousins, driving to Lake George for mini-golf and to the mall for Laser Tag and the movies. The gas gauge didn't work and we had to guess at when it was getting close to empty. We never did run out of gas. I had two cassettes that we used to play most of the time: Summertime by Will Smith and Whoop! There it is. The four of us knew all the words by heart and when we would walk the streets of Lake George, we would sing acappella, badly. The adventures of that summer culminated in August. My cousins had to go home to New Jersey, college started for me, and high school continued for my brother. The last hurrah, if you will, was a concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC). I was always a loner. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends in school and was incredibly awkward around my peers. However, when I wa...

I used to go to concerts at SPAC a lot. I saw numerous bands back in the 90s and early 2000's and often attended multiple concerts each year. Over the past 10 years, there has been a change in popular music and the bands that were coming to SPAC weren't worth spending on, in my opinion. The bands that I wanted to see were playing smaller clubs, which was great because it was often much cheaper to see them. So, I hadn't been to SPAC in a while when I saw Tom Petty there this past Sunday. Back when I was going to lots of concerts, I was always searching for the key to snag the best seats. The "pit," as the orchestra pit at SPAC is known, was always the holy grail. These seats were as close as you could get to band that you were there to see. And I was never in them. I would log on to ticketmaster.com on the day that tickets went on sale with multiple browser windows. I would select "best available" and hope that I would end up with "pit seats....

Life is actually full of pleasant surprises. They await in hiding for the right time to jump out at you and make your feelings of unpleasantness disappear. Sometimes, the result is a moment . Moments are more than just moments (note the lack of italics). Moments are little pieces of happenings that occur in your life that you keep with you forever. If you carried around a little jar, you could put moments in it and then them out whenever you wanted to and relive it. What makes a moment different from a moment (besides the italics) is that moments happen when you least expect them to. This past Friday, I went to see Jackson Browne with my dad -- who is a big Jackson Browne fan. I remember hearing most of the songs he played Friday when I was younger. The concert was really quite great and I had a great time. I ran into a friend from a while back, who -- randomly -- was sitting two seats down from me. It was a pleasant surprise. I took a bunch of pictures: Anot...

When I was 18 or so, I unofficially made a list of things I wanted to do before I die. I didn't write these things down (thus, the unofficialness) and, so, I have no record other than my vague memory of making the list to go on. I don't recall how many items there were on the list, but they ranged from really ridiculous things (like: learn to rollerblade backwards) to things that are really totally, super-ridiculous and probably wouldn't ever happen anyway (like: marry Winona Ryder). My 18 year old self was a much different person than my current self, but we share many similarities (like: ridiculous sense of humour and slight inability to take life too seriously). Yesterday, I accomplished one of the items on my list. In the late 90s (when I was 18 -- yes, you can do the math), I was a huge fan of the Wallflowers. 6th Avenue Heartache hit a note the first time I heard the intro. My dad gave me their CD (wait, I think it was a cassette first...), because he worked for ...

I love my camera. It takes good pictures in dark places -- like where there are concerts. Last night, Stephanie and I went to the Egg in Albany to see Shawn Mullins and Dar Williams. (I'm a huge fan of Shawn Mullins and seeing him play solo is haunting and inspirational). Before the concert, we had dinner at the Melting Pot -- which just opened at the Crossgates Mall a few months ago. I tried explaining what eating at the Melting Pot is like to my dad earlier today and I found that I just couldn't put it into words. It's... quite different and incredibly expensive (imagine the most expensive meal you've ever had and then eat at the Melting Pot -- you'll have a new most expensive meal you've ever had). Still, it might just be worth it for the different experience now and again. The Egg is quite a cool place to see a concert. It's relatively small compared to most concert places and it creates an intimacy that you can't get at larger venues. I wrote ab...

I met Aimee Mann last night. I still can't believe how excellent the concert was and how extremely excellent meeting one of my favorite songwriters turned out to be. Earlier today I basked in the excitement of it all and hand-wrote over four pages (front and back) of potential blog about it. I have since decided that the whole story is unnecessarily long and overly detailed. Plus, I really don't need people thinking that I am a 10 year old girl who met Justin Timber-something (or whatever); because, I'm not... but I sort of come across that way when I tell the story. And, I've told the story a lot already. Instead, here are some photographs that I took: Aimee was absolutely awesome live! I love her songs and I can listen to her music for hours. It's mellow and her words are biting at times. It's often melancholy-ish, which I love. She is also quite sarcastic and cynical. Being so close to her, watching her sing and play, was exciting and inspirational. S...