Smashing Pumpkins in Seattle

 music  4 Responses »
Sep 132010
 

I think my emotions can best be described by Buddy the Elf right now:                                                                                                                                “I’m in love, i’m in love and I don’t care who knows it”

Tac and I saw The Smashing Pumpkins on Friday night, and they (Billy) were so good.   I wasn’t sure what to expect that night, so I tried to hold off my anticipations with a good ol’ fashioned tabula rasa.  But oh, they came on stage and just started playing and Billy was singing and he sounded just as marvelous as he ever did.   His voice has lost none of its beautiful razor.

They pretty much rocked all night, things were not folksy nor too mello (I really like his mellow stuff, thats why I added the italics on the too).  They even did a harder version of Stand Inside Your Love, which I would have thought unlikely to please so much, but it totally did.   They played lots of old favorites like Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Today, Cherubrock, Drown, Eye (that is a really hot song), Ava Adore,and Zero. They really got the crowd going with those.

We also got to hear some of the new songs, and I was so happy to like them.   At one point Billy introduced the concept of “new music” to us, I get the feeling he gets tired of people only wanting to hear about the old stuff when he is excited about creating new music also.

But, I want to get back to Buddy the Elf:  Spangled; one of the aforementioned new songs was lovely.   I have watched the clip of it on youtube  so many times since then.  I feel the joy of a confused guy who thinks he’s an elf and he’s madly in love!   Mostly it just feels so good to be enjoying Billy Corgan’s music again so much, especially a new song.  I’m pretty jazzed right now.

Well if you listened to the song just now, then know that I was one of the woo hoo-ers.   Also, this gives me the chance to complain about jerks who yell dumb things when nice songs are playing, and chatty girls who will not stop talking even though they are right next to me and I  nicely ask them to be quieter.  Seriously, if you want to go out with your friends and talk it up all night, there are more comfortable ways to do it than standing on your feet for four hours in a crowded sold out room trying to talk over the person that is singing up on stage.

So to recap:  I had a great time, I will be listening to The Pumpkins a lot more again, and *THANKS* to Tac for taking me to an awesome concert.

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Hey Seattle, Thanks For the Boost!

 music  No Responses »
Mar 112010
 

Seattle has given me a boost -  in concert attendance.  I am the proud ticket owner for two upcoming shows, both of which I have been “hoping against hope” I would get to see someday.   I think everyone who knows me is aware that I am going to see Muse next month.   While I don’t break into spontaneous clapping and jumping anymore when I think about it, I’m still purely delighted as the big day approaches.

One month later, I will be sitting in a nice little club while Matt Hales/Aqualung makes my ears purr.   Years ago after discovering that I loved Aqualung, I read the wonderful news in the Boise Weekly  that he would be performing that month, unfortunately that particular day had already come and gone.   Another time I remember getting so excited because he was going to be in San Francisco, and then I did the math on just how far away that was from us and how impossible it would be for us to leave like that.   So, when I read that he was coming to Seattle on his really small tour, I did a happy dance, sent Tac a hyper text message and bought tix!

Aqualung is on the mellow end of my musical cup of tea, but I find that I can listen to it at any time.   Some bands require me to be in a certain mood, Aqualung is is always choice to me.  

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Mew Concert in Seattle

 music  2 Responses »
Dec 122009
 
_Mew Live Concert @ Botanique Brussels-4222
Image by Kmeron via Flickr

Mew played in Seattle a couple days ago and we finally got to see them!  No car crashes this time  (Last month we wanted to see Say Hi and Tac got hit on the freeway that day so we didn’t go).   We totally owe it to Scary Larry who gave us the heads up that Mew would be here.

The show was at Nuemos, which is a medium sized club.  It was so wonderful to be in a venue like that, and not at some huge place with lots of annoying people everywhere.  The audience was great, it was a bunch of Mew fans.   We got there about 15 minutes before they came out, and then the lights dimmed and the band came out and started the night with Into to Palace Players.  Everyone was just dancing and swaying and really happy to be there.

After Palace Players they played a longer cool intro to Special.  I love when bands start songs off different than normal, and everyone is listening and waiting to figure what song it is, and then when they play a recognizable beat everyone starts cheering.   After that I lose track of the order of things.  I’m not good at remembering things like that when I’m so busy having a great time.

New Terrain really stands out in my mind as so awesome!  They amazed me with the amount of work they did on stage to make that song happen.  Several of them were singing different things at the same time, cupping the microphones differently in their hands to change the sounds.  They were intense in the layers they created, and I loved it.

Louise Louisa was phenomenal.   Towards the end of the song Jonas Bjerre’s voice was all that could be heard (or its all I heard) as he sang out soft and at the same time loud in perfect pitch the words:

“I’m in a car, I don’t know where we are headed for. Stay with me, don’t want to be alone.”

It was beautiful.  The light shone on his face as he was singing, and I was pretty much entranced with it all.  It will definitely be a sweet moment to remember in my life.

You know when you hear a band live for the first time, and you get that wonderful fuzzy feeling because you know for a fact that they are as good as they sound from the studio?  I got it.   The show was awesome.  When it ended and then they came out a little later for an encore, I was thrilled and figured we would be lucky to get 1 or 2 more songs.   They came out and started playing Circuitry of the Wolf really loud and hard.  Seriously, WOW!

Then, they went straight into Chinaberry Tree and so on for around 45 minutes.   Tac and I made a list of the songs we are pretty sure they played- just for you Larry.

  • Intro to Palace Players
  • Special
  • Reprise
  • Apocalypso
  • Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy
  • Zookeepers Boy
  • Repeater Beater
  • Envoy to the Open Fields
  • New Terrain
  • Beach
  • White Lips Kissed
  • Louise Louisa
  • Am I Wry, No
  • 156
  • Silas the Magic Car
  • Circuitry of the Wolf
  • Chinaberry Tree
  • Fox cub
  • Saviours of Jazz Ballet
  • Snow Brigade
  • She Spider
  • Hawaii

and probably more.

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Bryan Scary, Purple Rockets, Issaquah and Cosmic Treasure Hunts

 kids, life, music  1 Response »
Jun 192009
 

OK,  here’s the situation (my parents went away on a weeks vacation…Will Smith) Ha ha, I have no idea how that just happened, but it really did, please tell me I’m not the only old person who actually remembers when that song came out.

Actually the real situation is that I am kind of a slacker and haven’t blogged in a wee bit, partly because we moved to the Seattle area this month.  Issaquah to be exact.  The whole moving thing is never fun, but we are starting to get back in our normal life groove and I actually had time to blog.

I am happy to be writing again. 

Our new house

I wrote about Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears 2 years ago, or so (if you followed that link I just made I hope you are listening to “The Zero Light” right now, what a fabulous song!).  Since then they have made another album called “The Flight of the Knife.”  I never wrote anything about it because I had just blogged about them, but we have been listening to that album at least once every day for weeks now.

Our house essentially turns into the stage for a musical when they are playing; singing, dancing and overall cheerfulness.  I don’t think I want to try and describe the music, you can figure it out yourself, and I hope you do because it has several of the best characteristics of different types and ages of music all in one, however it DEMANDS and DESERVES a second listen.

The kids favorite song is “Purple Rocket” because 1) its so awesome 2) we are reading a book called “Georges Cosmic Treasure Hunt” by Stephen Hawkings and his daughter Lucy, that is all about space and rockets n’ stuff.  This book has “blasted” Bryan Scary into our daily music fun.  I very much recommend this book and the one before it to any parent looking for something to read their kids this summer.

I somewhat obsessively check Bryan Scary’s concert dates hoping so very badly to see them live someday, so far they seem to stick to the east coast, but I’m comforted by the fact that Seattle offers me a much better chance than Boise ever did.

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 Posted by at 11:28 pm  Tagged with: , ,
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