Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged concerts
RICHARRRRD!
Oct 6th 2010
It’s time for another one of those weekend activity reports I said I was trying to get away from, but this weekend happened to be totally amazingly awesome so you’re going to hear about it anyway.
Like I’ve been mentioning, I went out to Boston this weekend to meet up with my friends Kris and Marcy, hang out for a while and go see Roger Waters perform The Wall live at the TD Garden.
Saturday
I drove up Saturday morning and got there just after 11am. Saturday was going to be a day of mostly running around as they had to do some shopping and I needed to grab some landscape type photographs for my photography class assignment.
One of the first stops we went to was The Container Store as Marcy needed some….well…containers. And apparently they run demos of their closet organization system and at the end raffle off a $25 gift card. Well…we figured we were the only people who were interested so we had a pretty good shot of getting the gift card for standing around for 5 minutes listening to somebody talk. That is until Richard showed up. At the very last minute him and his (I presume) wife hopped on the bandwagon. And I know his name because he won the gift card in the random drawing. RICHARD!!! *shakes fist* This has developed into a running gag between the three of us now for whenever somebody gets screwed.
Other things I discovered on saturday:
- There is a furniture store chain (Jordan’s) that has an IMAX theater built inside of it.
- If you go into a men’s clothing store to look for a sports jacket to wear over a tshirt (a pokemon shirt in this instance) and jeans for a comic book convention, and tell the salesman who’s helping you such, he will give you a very funny look and ask several times if you’re sure that’s what you’re going to be wearing it with.
- Costume store employees who dress up as Master Chief from Halo enjoy dancing crazily on street corners until you manage to get your camera out to take a video.
We also visited a couple of scenic spots so I could get some landscape photos in considering there was actual sun this weekend. We hit a state park that was nice looking but only marginally useful for landscape photography as it turned out. But then Marcy and I took a walk down the road from their apartment (while Kris napped) and headed over to the Charles River which passes nearby which turned out to be great with the lighting of the sun just starting to go down. I took this picture which I like a lot (even though there’s some technical issues with the composition…namely the horizon being a bit too centered). As usual click to get a bigger view on Flickr.
We grabbed lunch from Domenic’s where I had the best tuna fish sandwich ever and hung out and chatted outside of Starbucks while enjoying some coffee beverages. Dinner was sushi at Shogun which was awesome. We sat at the sushi bar and got to see all of the prepwork that went into all the dishes they prepared. The sushi was great even though I ended up totally stuffed.
The night ended with with some Beatles: Rock Band and reading of comic books until I fell asleep on their very comfy couch.
Sunday
Sunday was more laid back. Woke up and grabbed breakfast at this awesome place called In A Pickle, where I had one of the best omelette’s that I’ve ever had (are you detecting a theme here?). Then we went back to their place and hung out for the remainder of the morning and afternoon, watching football. I took the time to adjust some of the photos I had taken for my class and get some work in on Kris’ book.
The Wall
Then we headed off for some Mexican and then headed into the city to visit the TD Garden and settle in to see Roger Waters. Our seats were on the left hand back corner, two rows from the very top of the balcony seating area. So pretty much almost as far as we could get:
Awful Phone Picture Of The Wall
Once the show got going though, we were in a pretty darn good spot to watch the production and video…so it ended up being a pretty good situation. The show started in a blaze of fireworks and pyro (which, as it turned out, were intended to make the arena smoky so the lighting effects would work). The end of In The Flesh? was amazing, with swirling spotlights from the ceiling lighting up the crowd to an airplane flying down from the top back of the arena into an explosion of pyrotechnics and then we were off.
The Wall which was being built brick by brick as the first half of the show progressed doubled as a gigantic video screen. As the workers laid bricks into the wall the video expanded to play on the bricks that were just put in. Gigantic puppets of the Teacher and Mother made their appearances. Eventually the band was totally seperated from the audience by the wall aside from a few small holes which, during The Last Few Bricks were stealthily covered up so you wouldn’t even notice they were gone. And then there was one brick left for Goodbye Cruel World…and then it was covered and the intermission started.
Marcy and I spent pretty much the entire intermission discussing the first half of the show (Kris kinda didn’t want to be there, he just came along to watch the show which was spoiled for him by a radio DJ a couple days before). The video show, the production…the music…everything was amazing. Especially Don’t Leave Me Now which is a track I tended to not like as much on the album but live, hearing Roger belt it out with all of the emotion in his voice…it really connected. My appreciation of the album and what it meant was growing by the second.
The second half of the show started with the band playing “Hey You” totally hidden by the wall which was surreal. It’s not something you DO in a live show. For the second half the traditional lighting you expect at a concert was mostly replaced by the video show on the gigantic wall. Comfortably Numb was a HUGE highlight with awesome guitar solos and the video show….wow. My favorite moment of the concert was during the second guitar solo, Roger (who was out in front of the wall at this point as the only band member visible) was acting like he was exploring the wall, eventually, with his back turned to the audience made as if to pound his fist on it and a gigantic crack appeared and the wall exploded “virtually” with him at the center, revealing a brightly colored landscape with the video bricks spiraling away.
Eventually the band reappeared on the outside of the wall as “the surrogate band”, with a completely different setup of instruments that just suddenly appeared ( I later realized they came out of the floor of the section in front of the wall) and they did the concert section of the album in character.
The Trial was amazing, with the iconic animations playing full across the entire wall, synced up with the lyrics and music. And with the chant of “Tear down the wall!” from the audience the gigantic wall crumbled and fell, and the band came back on with acoustic instruments to perform “Outside The Wall” and with that the show was over.
It was an amazing experience which I can’t fully duplicate through words. I’m still digesting what I saw and the more I think about it, the greater my appreciation for the album.
After the show we headed out to Spike’s Junkyard Dogs for a late night hot dog and drink which was also really good. Then back to their apartment for sleep.
Monday
Sadly, I had to return home on Monday, but not before breakfast from the local bakery (which was…well…you know) and some hanging out and Rock Band before I left.
The drive back was similarly uneventful to the drive out except I stopped at a couple more rest stops along the way making the drive more like 5 hours long.
So I’m left with an amazingly awesome weekend, spending time with some great people chatting about comics and music and life in general. I’ve determined to find an excuse go visiting again. I’ll be up there again for Boston Comic Con for sure and I’m considering hitting up PAX East this year (have to see if Jonathan Coulton is going to be performing this year or not. Probably he will.)
Unfortunately, it’s now time to get back to reality. Bah.
RUSH!
Sep 3rd 2010
Yesterday, as I’ve been mentioning for a while now was the day that Rush played the New York State Fair as part of their Time Machine tour. This was my first time seeing Rush (my previous first time was thwarted by my sister scheduling her wedding for the same day as the concert and refusing to move it) so I was pretty excited.
I had originally planned on going alone to the fair and the show but I ended up asking my Mom if she wanted to go with me during the day to the Fair and then we’d part ways when it was time for me to head to the grandstand, so that’s what we did. Despite the extremely hot weather, I had a good time wandering around the fairgrounds doing various fair type activities. Checking out the butter and sand sculptures, eating various foodstuffs, checking out some animals. Eventually the time came and I wandered over to the grandstand to find my seat and wait for the show.
Thus comes my one and only complaint about the show, and that’s the moron who sets up the track seating at the state fair. There’s about 2 inches of leg room per row which can be reduced to 0 inches if the person in front of you has pushed their chairs back. Thankfully the sitting didn’t last long as we ended up standing and folding the chairs up so we could have more room. I chatted a bit with the people next to me while we were waiting and eventually the lights went off and the opening video began.
I was sitting about 13 rows back, dead center (a lot closer than the picture above makes it out to look. The opening video was awesome, involving a music producer with a contraption designed to make a band called “Rash” sound good. The guys in Rush played various roles in these hilarious video bits. As the producer fiddled with the machine turning The Spirit of Radio into various versions from a disco song to polka, he eventually hit a big red button labeled “Time Machine” and the real rush stepped onto the stage and started playing the real The Spirit of Radio.
About this time I’m pretty sure I got a gigantic grin on my face. The stage show was awesome, the band was energetic and the playing was spot on. I am sad to admit that my Rush album collection isn’t complete, so the first set contained some songs I wasn’t too familiar with. I’m setting out to correct this oversight now though.
My real highlight of the show was the playing of the classic album Moving Pictures front to back. Tom Sawyer was awesome, with a video of the band as chimps playing along with the song as the real band was playing on stage. The other highlights included YYZ, seeing all of the solos being performed right in front of me. The big one though was hearing The Camera Eye. It’s one of my favorite Rush songs and I’m glad I caught this show to hear them play it. Witch Hunt and Vital Signs aren’t my favorite Rush songs ever, but I like them well enough and they capped the album off nicely.
The two new songs they played (Caravan and BU2B) worked out really well live (and were accompanied by a lot of special steampunk-y effects which was really cool). I also like to mention Neal Peart’s drum solo. I’m not a fan of drum solos generally but this one was REALLY cool. Lots of tricky drum bits but very well structured not to be complicated just to be complicated. And the animations in the background during the third section were amazing.
I was also a fan of the section of 2112 that they played. I hope someday they play the entire song again, but the first bit is good enough for me.
After the show was over I stumbled out to a parking lot (after realizing that it was the WRONG parking lot and I had to stumble back through the crowd and out the correct gate to find my car). And it took a while to get out and back on the road, but I ended up getting home just after 1am, eating the McDonalds I picked up on my way (I was hungry!) and then falling straight to sleep.
Very glad I decided to go see this show. It’s been a year of really good concert experiences. Transatlantic, Dream Theater, and Rush, plus TSO and 3. And I still have Roger Waters to see!
Friends and Dream Theater in Massachusetts
Jul 12th 2010
Probably should have mentioned this around here sooner, but I’m now back from Worcester, MA where Wassy and I went to catch a Dream Theater headlining show during their tour with Iron Maiden.
The weekend was, in a word, awesome.
Earlier in the week we had started to get worried because it was looking like pretty heavy rain for saturday, the day of the show, and we were going to have to wait for about 2ish hours outdoors in line to get in and get the spot that we wanted. And right on schedule, a cold front moved slowly into the area, bringing with it a ton of rain. So we left Saturday morning with umbrellas and the expectation we were going to get soaked, an expectation that was further backed up by the fact that we drove through torrential downpours pretty much as soon as we got out of Albany. We outran the rain just as we got to Worcester and checked into the hotel.
The awesome started earlier than the show since after we checked into the hotel, we headed next door to the Starbucks where we were to meet up with a couple of friends who live on the outskirts of Boston. Kris and Marcy (Bayani and Planet Girl from City of Heroes respectively) arrived a little late (had some issues finding the starbucks we were in, but it was an unfamiliar area for both parties so it was no big deal), bearing lunch from Domenic’s (which was AWESOME) and we proceeded to spend the next 2-2.5 hours talking and hanging out. It was super fun and felt really natural, despite only having met them over the internet.
Sadly, we had to part ways eventually so we could finish prepping and head over to the venue to wait. During our meeting the cold front rumbled on through, but by the time we had finished it was mostly rained out so that worked out really nicely. We walked over to the Palladium and got in line, but as soon as we got there Wassy realized she forgot her earplugs and walked back to the hotel while I held our place. And as soon as she got back, I realized I had pulled the tickets out of my pocket when checking if I had the room key and left them on the bed (!!) So thankfully I noticed before the doors opened and I ran back to the hotel to grab them and return.
All the comings and goings sorted out, we began the 2 hour wait. We got to hear a little bit of Dream Theater’s sound check as we were standing outside, but eventually we were squished up towards the front of the line to make room for more people and lost our stage door location. Thankfully, we had a step to sit on, so we weren’t standing around for 2 hours. Eventually we got into the venue and headed to find a spot. We were aiming for standing somewhere on the tiered seating area, near the bar, but we ended up sitting much closer, on the wall at the back of the pit. Great sight line to the stage, and best of all we could rock while still sitting down.
First thing I’d like to mention is that it got HOT in there. The cooling system of The Palladium consists of opening the venue doors and hoping some of the heat escapes which is only marginally successful. I would have to guess the place was sold out or close to it. The floor was packed in front of us by the time Dream Theater came on and the heat just kept getting more and more oppressive. But it was hard not to get into it with the crowd that was there. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The opener was Charred Walls of The Damned who were very 80s metal inspired. They started out by having a comedian(?) come out and tell some jokes. He was ok… parts of his bit were really hilarious and other parts not so much. The opener was all right. 80s metal isn’t my thing really so it felt a little dated. The sound quality for them was pretty awful until they actually turned up the lead guitarist’s guitar so we could hear him. Not much more to say about them really.
The wait for Dream Theater to set up is always longer than you think it’s going to be, but eventually they came on and it was GLORIOUS. Dream Theater usually plays the theme to the movie Psycho over the PA before they come on and you could tell it was going to be a good show even during this part as the crowd revealed itself to be energetic and totally into it.
It was just the fans and the band, no massive light shows or video screens, just an old fashioned club kind of concert. It was pretty cool for me too, since this is the place where I saw my first concert ever, also Dream Theater in a similar situation (1 off headlining show during a tour where they were opening) and it was neat coming back to the same place again.
The crowd was rowdy, the band had fun and the setlist was awesome. The highlights to me were Home, The Mirror, Lie and the Warped version of Pull Me Under where they sped the middle section waaaaay up. The rest of the set was awesome too, but those were the standouts. I had been bad and looked at what they were playing before the show, so I knew they were going to do Home and The Mirror. It was a very difficult thing for me to not mention this to Wassy who had just told me that Home, The Mirror and Lie were on top of her “songs I want to hear live” list. After they finished playing Home she turned to me and said “That’s it…I can die happy now”. And I told her “Not yet you can’t.” to which she replied “Seriously???”. And a couple songs later they played The Mirror.
The band seemed to be feeding off the energy of the crowd and Mike Portnoy didn’t need to prod us into getting into it very often, if at all since we were already clapping and fist pumping. A mosh pit opened up right in front of where we were sitting which was weird(so far back from the sage) and a bit annoying (I think moshing is stupid) but we were in a spot where we didn’t really need to worry about getting injured.
After the show I was dehydrated and tired with a budding headache, but Wassy convinced me to wait for a bit by the tour busses and see if any of the members of Dream Theater came out. After a guy walked by offering to sell us crack and we heard a sound that was either a car backfiring twice or somebody firing a gun (We’re going to assume it was a car) James LaBrie (the vocalist for those unfamiliar) came out much more quickly than I had thought he would and signed a bunch of stuff. I got my ticket stub signed and Wassy got to tell him how awesome the show was.
We walked back to the hotel and chugged some of the bottles of water that I had brought with us because I knew we would need them, relaxed for a bit and then eventually went to sleep.
I woke up at 6:00ish, feeling warm and noticing that the AC had turned off during the night in the hotel room. I tried getting it to come back on but I couldn’t figure out what the problem was until I went down to the front desk and asked. They then informed me that there was a sensor above the door and one on the AC and if there was anything in the room blocking line of sight between them the AC wouldn’t work. Like the desk chair they put right in that area. Move the chair and all was well. Sigh.
We got up and moving (in some degree of pain) and decided we were well enough to make the 30 minute drive over to the edge of Boston to meet up with Kris and Marcy again at their apartment. We hung out some more and talked about all sorts of stuff, grabbing lunch at this really great mexican place. It was quite awesome. Then on the way back to their place we swung by the local comic store which was very, very good. I ended up buying the first volume of Atomic Robo (thumbs up on Atomic Robo by the way) Sadly, again, we had part ways since we wanted to get home at a decent hour. I’m looking forward to going back over there in October for the weekend to hang out some more and go to the Roger Waters concert in Boston. We definitely need to meet up again.
The drive home was long and uneventful, basically taking I-90 back all the way, stopping at a couple of rest stops for various things but a ton of I-90. We arrived home around 5pm and collapsed from there.
So, in conclusion good friends + awesome show = amazing weekend.
Caught In The Whirlwind
Apr 26th 2010
So…Transatlantic was this weekend and if you’ve been watching my twitter feed at all, you’ll have noticed that the show was absolutely awesome. I just really don’t have the words to describe what a magical show it was and it’s going to be VERY, VERY hard to top. Such a special evening…
Just a small intro to Transatlantic. They’re a progressive rock super group made up of Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater on drums, Neal Morse (ex- Spock’s Beard) on keyboards and guitar, Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings) on guitar and Pete Trewavas (Marillion) on bass. They play progressive rock music, influenced by the old school 70s prog rock days, along with a heaping spoonful of Beatles influence (all 4 guys are beatles fans). They were joined on stage by Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation) to fill out their sound. He did everything from percussion to guitar to keyboards to singing. Sometimes all at once.
I began the drive up at 8am, stopping to grab some breakfast at a McDonalds on the way and lunch along the Pennsylvania turnpike. On the drive down, I was baffled by some guy randomly honking his horn at me (confusion which would be cleared up later). I arrived at the hotel in Philadelphia around 1pm and hung out for a couple hours before heading out to locate parking.
The parking situation was the most anxiety causing part of the deal for me as the parking in the area of the Theater of Living Arts on South Street is…horrific. I ended up grabbing a spot at a lot on the end of South Street near the waterfront and walking 3-4 blocks down south street to get to the theater. I grabbed myself a Philly cheesesteak (of the chicken variety) and hopped in the already forming line.
Soon after I stopped in line, Pete Trewavas (the bass player for Transatlantic (and Marillion)) wandered out to take pictures of the line. I knew he was short, but man…I didn’t realize how short he was until he was standing right next to me. So that was really cool. That was the first indication I had though, that the showtime had changed from 8pm to 9pm (as I found out later, due to a ticket printing screwup that had some tickets listed as a 9pm start time). It was around 4:30 at this point and the doors would not open until 8.
To make the 3.5 hour wait bearable, I ended up striking up a conversation with two guys who were waiting in line in front of me. I never actually caught their names, but they were really nice and we were joking back and forth about stuff. It was a fun experience. So if you’re out there guys, thanks for letting me join in! We talked about the likelihood of the streets resident pigeons supplying us with an unexpected aerial present as well as random prog bands. They were from the DC area so we chatted about that as well. Eventually as the hours went on we ran out of topics and resorted to critiquing the parallel parking skills of drivers trying to get parking spots on South Street in front of the theater.
Finally, around 7:45ish the doors opened and we went into the theater. I headed up to the bar upstairs to briefly grab a seat and then, once the floor started filling up, I wandered down that way to get a good spot. I ended up about 7 rows back.
9:00 came and went and still no band. At 9:10 or so though, the house lights went out, the intro tape to The Whirlwind started playing, the band stepped out onto the stage and the show had begun.
And what a show it was. The Whirlwind is an aweesome track live. They played all 78 minutes of it, straight through with no stopping. I was blown away by the emotion that Neal Morse (on keyboards mostly but he also played guitar too) plays and sings with. Amazed with his voice that sounded just like it did on the albums, and amused by his goofy antics on stage. You can tell that he’s genuinely happy to be there, making live music on stage with his friends. That went for the rest of the bad as well. They were all smiles all night, and not fake smiles either. You could tell they wanted to be there and were having as much fun as the audience was.
After a near perfect rendition of the Whirlwind (Oh my god…the ending of The Whirlwind was so freaking powerful. Neal absolutely sold it), they took a 15 minute intermission. By this time I had move back closer to the rear of the theater because the sound where I was at was kinda iffy. But I had a great position with great sound for the rest of the set.
The intro music to All Of The Above started played and the crowd went wild. From here on out the crowd was singing along with every word. The atmosphere was totally amazing. The band having a blast, feeding off the crowd…the crowd so into it. It was like what all good live music should be, a communal experience being uniquely created right there in front of you. The best way I’ve been able to explain what it felt like was like the musical equivalent of a religious experience. I’ll never forget it.
After the 30 minute All Of The Above, Mike remarked that it’s already been over 2 hours and they’ve only played 2 songs which got a huge cheer from the audience. Then Roine and Neal did a special version of their shorter song We All Need Some Light where Roine took over lead vocals from Neal who did the song in studio. It was a very cool rendition.
And after that the opening to Duel With The Devil started playing and the crowd went wild again. The highlight of this song to me was the new Roine guitar solo in the quiet part in the middle. It was jaw droppingly amazing. So much emotiveness and improv packed into one solo spot. It needs to be recorded because it was just…perfect. After the end of that song they had the standard fake ending. At this point it was closing in on midnight.
After a quick break they came back on stage for a very powerful version of the ballad Bridge Across Forever with Neal and Roine again, Neal singing this time and Roine adding some very cool guitar harmonies to the song.
And immediately after that Mike started playing the iconic opening to Stranger In Your Soul on drums and we were off for the most amazing ride of the night. Stranger In Your Soul is another 30 minute song, but probably their best recorded work (in my opinion) And it didn’t disappoint one bit. The coolest part was, somewhere in the middle of the song Neal ran over to where Mike was on drums and actually took over the drumming for him. Pete headed over to Neals keyboards (with his bass still on) and started playing the keyboard part of the song. Daniel Gildenlow came over, reached around Pete and started playing the bass line. Meanwhile Mike took off and stage dived. After that was over Mike came back and seamlessly took over the drums again and they all rotated to their normal positions.
The ending of Stranger In Your Soul was no less amazing. When it was happening I realized something. That I had sung along so many times with Neal to this song and now I was actually doing it when he was singing it live. It was one of those moments at a concert where you remember “Wait a minute…these guys are actually making the music right here in front of me!”
The show was over with at 12:40ish and I headed out of the theater, down South Street (a walk I would never like to do again at 12:40am, by the way. It’s not a BAD area of town but it’s slightly scary that late at night….) to my car and headed back to hotel. I eventually managed to get to sleep around 2am, and woke up around 5:30-6 and decided I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, so I made preparations to leave.
After a quick stop at the Dublin Bakery in Willow Grove, PA for a buttercake, I wound my way home. Fairly uneventful drive. I got home, had a piece of butter cake and basically took a 2 hour nap to help clear my headache.
Sadly, it wasn’t all fun and games. Saturday, while driving there, I heard a sound like a small rock or something hit my windshield. Low and behold, a couple days later, I notice a crack forming, and me without full glass coverage on my insurance (a situation that has since been corrected). But it means yet another costly car repair. Sigh.
The show was still worth it.
Beethoven’s Last Night – Live
Mar 30th 2010
So, I finally get a chance to actually write up my experiences with going to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their first ever non-winter tour. My parents and I went out to Syracuse on Sunday to catch the show at the Landmark Theater.
After a quick pit stop at Tully’s for dinner, we headed to the venue and began the search for parking, which we found in this little tiny lot with a guy who was walking car to car as they parked getting their money and handing out parking stubs which we were informed were to be placed “on your dash. Or else…” We were a bit worried if our car would still be in one piece when we returned from the venue, but he was offering reasonable rates so we left the car in his care and headed in.
Our seats ended up being a little more to the left of the theater than I was anticipating when I bought them, but still pretty darn good.
As for the show itself, they performed the entire Beethoven’s Last Night album from start to finish, including newly written passages of narration between almost every song, helping to explain the story as it went. The performances of the vocalists and the band were top notch. When I was at the show it sounded like the same vocalists from the album, but as it turns out, they were all different people, but they did an incredible job. Particularly the guy who played Beethoven and Jeff Scott Soto who did Mephistopheles as evily as one possibly could. They also played 3-4 more songs off of their new album, Nightcastle which was fine with me, as they hit the songs I liked and skipped a lot of the ungood ones that were on that particular album.
The production was very cool. They had 3 arches set up that they could project various things on, along with transparent LED screens inside each arch that they had various videos playing on through the show. The stage was stuffed with as many lights as one could possibly fit on a theater stage, and there were lasers galore. Sadly, no pyro, however this was expected as smaller theaters rarely allow it.
This video wasn’t from the show we went to but it’s the best video/sound I could find so far:
All in all, a very fun evening. My parents enjoyed it, as did I. TSO doesn’t disappoint!
Two Days In Philly
Sep 28th 2009
I have returned from my weekend trip to Philadelphia. As mentioned earlier, my friends and I had been planning on heading south to see Porcupine Tree in concert at the Electric Factory in downtown Philadelphia.
Philadelpha
There was a slight hitch in plans though, as Jay who got hit with a stomach bug earlier in the week was still feeling horrible Saturday morning, so Wassy and I were on our own for the trip.
Things started off uneventfully. We decided not to take the Pennsylvania turnpike down because of the potential for horrible construction, but we hit our fair share on the way anyway. One section of road was closed for about 4 miles with people who seemed to let random amounts of cars through the one available lane. And then as soon as we hit pennsylvania, it was construction galore. The runner up to most annoying construction zone was through Quakertown where they had a major road reconstruction project going on. It was slow going for us, but the other land was totally stopped for miles. We decided at that point to take the Turnpike back and avoid the horribleness.
The most annoying though was about a mile away from the hotel. They had set up cones closing off (for reasons totally unknown) the left lanes of a 4 lane (2 in each direction with a turning lane) road. This caused the last mile of our drive to the hotel to take roughly 10-15 minutes. And then as soon as we got into the hotel, they took the cones down! Jerks!
After that began the search for dinner. We had planned on hitting one of the Olive Gardens in the area, but we had some difficulty with this plan. The first one as plotted by my GPS didn’t exist. The second one existed but was totally full with no parking anywhere in the parking lot. The third one was also totally full with no parking, so we settled on Papa Johns pizza.
Then we made our way out to the venue. I had to game the GPS a bit to prevent it from making us drive straight through downtown Philly. And thankfully, Wassy and Jay had just gone on a trip down there for a wedding and knew about the evilness that is the Roosevelt Boulevard. If you are unaware of this road, I will direct you to this visual aid. Take a normal road with 6 lanes in each direction and then split it into 4 roads with 3 lanes each. In between each of the roads going the same direction, add some little merge lanes so you can go between the sections. If you need to turn right you need to be in the outside set of roads. If you need to turn left you need to be on the inside set. And if you’re in the wrong set of roads and you miss the merge lane to get you to the right set, you’re in trouble. So thankfully, Wassy was around to make sure I was on the correct road as the GPS doesn’t understand this setup at all.
We got to the venue without too much trouble, aside from having to park way the heck away in the event parking lot. Parking was only $10 though…I was thinking it would be more. The venue was pretty cool. Looked like something to come out of Guitar Hero actually. It’s a converted Electric Factory (hence the name of the venue) with some animations of machinery on the wall and 2 full bars on the upper and lower right hand side of the room as you face the stage. Pretty cool vibe, but it’s unfun being packed in like sardines on the floor.
The show itself was pretty cool. We watched King’s X and the first half of Porcupine Tree’s set from the back of the floor and then after we got tired of getting crushed by people trying to squeeze into places where they can’t possibly fit, we moved upstairs and listened to the rest of the show from the bar while watching on the video screens they had set up. PT’s second set was really cool and had a lot of treats, including Strip The Soul into .3. They had some sound issues in the second set, but nothing too bad. Trains in the encore was also really cool with everyone clapping in time and singing along. Overall, I wouldn’t mind going back there to see a show, as long as I didn’t mind not actually seeing the band all the time.
The drive back was abysmal. It was raining…at night…on unfamiliar roads…unfamiliar 4 lane highways…with lots of traffic. We somehow managed to make it back to the hotel ok though, and after Wassy scared the crap out of me (She was sitting over by the window after I came out of the bathroom into the dark room. I thought she was in bed, but she wasn’t. Once I got over to my bed she said quietly “It’s awfully dark in here…” and it freaked me the heck out).
The next morning I got up before her and went down to the hotel lobby to plan our route to the Philadelphia Museum Of Art. Wassy wanted to go to complete a couple of school requirements, as well as to look around at their collection. So I figured out the best way to get there and wandered back up where I was informed that the roads in the area of the museum were going to be closed due to a charity run/walk. Daaaaaahhh!!!!!
Philadelpha Museum Of Art
I managed to find an alternate route and we left expecting horrible traffic in our future, but we were able to make it to the museum parking garage without any problems at all. The first thing we did was walk around to the front of the museum where the famous steps are that Rocky ran up in the movie.
Being a tourist, I had to grab a picture of the stairs since I was right there…but I declined to do the whole “Run up the steps and celebrate once you reach the top thing”. Much too tourist-y for me. Plus there’s an awful lot of steps and it was very slippery out.
Thankfully, not 30 seconds after we arrived at the steps we were graced by the presence of not one, but two individuals making the famous run. Or trying to. One of the guys had to stop to catch his breath halfway through. But the first guy made it, allowing me to snap this picture:
He’s the guy in the middle with his arms raised. The guy on the right hand side is also running up. You can click on it and see the original size in Flickr for a better view. Every single time we looked out a window at the front of the museum, there were people making the run up.
French Cloister
The museum itself was REALLY cool. This was my first time there and I didn’t realize that they had more archetectual installations than actual art. Entire columns from old temples and churches (even the entire front of a church). They also had a bunch of recreated rooms, like a chinese study and an old kitchen. The coolest two was a French Cloister (pictured above) and a Japanese tea house sitting in a garden.
Celestial Woman
One of the coolest things though was the HUGE collection of Indian art and artifacts. The exhibition that Wassy used for her assignment was particularly cool. Ragas and Rajas: Musical Imagery of Courtly India. You can read more about it there but I’ll briefly summarize. It’s an exhibition of works that went hand in hand with the music of the court of India’s rulers. The pieces were amazing, very vivid colors and amazing detail with a style that looked a lot like it came from ancient egypt…except they were mostly painted in the 1600-1700s. And accompanying the exhibit was the music. It was extremely neat.
They also had a bunch of other artifacts from India and Nepal on display, including a Buddha statue that had about 40 hands, all giving the metal hand sign (throwing up the horns as it were). Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of a lot of stuff since I was too busy looking at it all. What I did take is in my Flickr photoset. We enjoyed the museum so much that we skipped out on going to the bakery we had planned on visiting and picking up some butter cake from.
So when we were done with the museum, we started the trip home, with a pitstop at an Olive Garden in Binghamton. This time it existed and it wasn’t busy, so we finally got our never ending pasta bowls. But we could really only eat one, so they ended pretty quickly.
But the drive back, in the Philly area was all about traffic and construction again. I-76 out of the city was packed and slow moving in places and the turnpike was also packed for quite a while. Oh yeah, the best invention of all time in highway toll roads is the EZ-Pass express lanes. No need to even go through the tollbooths or slow down. Awesome. Although speaking of EZ Pass, I’m afraid to look at my statement to see how much all of this cost me…
Once we got sufficently north of Philadelphia, the traffic thinned out and the driving was a lot easier. We started to wonder if we were going the wrong direction though because every time there was a construction zone, the way we were going, north, would be clear but the way south was backed up for miles with cars trying to make the merges. Strange.
Despite the heavy rain at night making it nearly impossible for me to see much in the way of lane markers on the roads and the guy who thought he would just make a left hand turn in front of me across my path of travel at an intersection that would have caused a pretty nasty accident had I not seen him, we arrive back at the apartment around 8pm. Just in time to unpack and get settled in for sleeping.
It was a fun trip, although I’m sad that Jay wasn’t able to come with us. I really want to go back to check out the rest of the art museum as we only had time to view about half of the main building. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it back down there again soonish.
Uh Oh
Sep 24th 2009
First off, the training yesterday went pretty well. Aside from the fact I forgot the password of the account I created about 15 seconds earlier, everything else went smoothly. Not something I’d like to be doing all the time or anything though…
But now to the title of the post. As I mentioned earlier, my friends and I are planning on journeying south to Philadelphia to catch a concert and visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Well, Jay has now developed a stomach bug which we’re hoping does not infect the rest of us and put the trip in danger. He always seems to develop some sort of stomach bug before a concert since the same thing happened before we went to see Trans Siberian Orchestra last year. Here’s hoping everything turns out ok.
And also on the not so good things track, my body has decided that it enjoys waking up at 3am. For the past week I’ve been getting up around the same time in the middle of the night, much to my dismay. It’s really screwing up my sleep schedule and I wish it would stop happening. It would be nice to be able to sleep through the entire night…
Progressive Nation 2009
Aug 5th 2009
Progressive Nation 2009 was VERY awesome. As I mentioned before Wassy and I went off to Albany to catch one of our most anticipated concerts of the year. The bands were Scale the Summit, Bigelf, Zappa Plays Zappa and, of course, Dream Theater.
We left for Albany around 3:30 and aside from one small hitch (some local construction had closed one of the lanes of a 2 lane road for 2 freaking miles why the paved it. Totally unnecessary…) we arrived at the parking garage on schedule. We grabbed some sandwiches and headed over to the venue a few blocks away.
Wassy grabbed a ridiculously overpriced t-shirt (seriously…$40 for very thin shirt?? Add $5 if you're XXL) and we settled in for the show.
First up was Scale The Summit which I liked well enough. They were a pretty dorky looking band, honestly. One of the guitarists wore his guitar so high it looked like a necklace. They had good music but it was a little same-y for doing a setlist like that. There's definitely instrumental bands that I like better. After they had their set, we decided to go see what beers they had on tap. They happened to have newcastle which was one of the ones we like (we're kinda picky about beer) and so off we went.
Bigelf started soon after we got back to our seats and man, they blew me away. I liked their studio CD but seeing them live really made the whole thing "click" for me. Very high energy show and their main vocalists is…scary looking. Complete with top hat and a coat with a long beard. I am definitely going to have to pick up more of their stuff.
Zappa Plays Zappa…eh. I had high hopes for this band as it's the sort of music I might enjoy. And sure enough the first couple songs were really good. But then it got…weird. Too weird for me. I need a little song structure in my songs. So instead I spent an hour and 15 minutes being bored.
However, about halfway through the ZPZ set, two obviously huge older Zappa fans came and sat in front of us in matching tshirts and one pair of binoculars. It should be noted at this point that we were sitting in the 9th row. Binoculars at this point seem a bit unnecessary. But use them they did. In fact they sometimes fought over them so they could watch the individual fingerings of the flute/sax player I guess. Anyway, despite being huge zappa fans and practically bouncing up and down through the entire set, they got up and left before ZPZ was finished. They confused the crap out of me…but it gave me something to watch.
After Zappa Plays Zappa, the main wait for DT arrived and, man was it worth it. They have a totally badass way of opening the show this year. Their stage setup is also really cool with a new upgraded video show and some neat stuff that Jordan does with a HDTV behind his setup that has a computer animation of him playing that's synced with the song as he's playing it.
The setlist was A Nightmare to Remember, A Rite Of Passage, Hollow Years, Erotomania, Voices, Prophets of War, The Count of Tuscany and with an encore of Metropolis pt 1. Pretty much the perfect setlist.
Wassy and I were praying that we were going to get Voices this time as it's one of our favorite Dream Theater songs and we thought we'd get it in Washington DC last year, but ended up not getting it. So the moment the first note of Erotomania was played, we went kinda crazy. My throat hurts this morning… But it was so worth it. Voices! It still feels a little like maybe I imagined it. Those were all the songs that I was expecting to hear and even the extended soloing bits in Metropolis pt 1 were pretty cool. Sometimes they can go on too long, but the band was interacting and having a lot of fun which kept things interesting.
James LaBrie was good last night, but I've heard him better. I've also heard him much worse. He hit all the right notes but had a little trouble in Metropolis which is a hard song to sing at the end of the night anyway. He was totally on in the showmanship department. Interacting with the crowd…lots of energy and it looks like he's in better physical shape than he has been in the past few tours too. I was particularly impressed by Jordan and John Petrucci during the introduction to Hollow Years where they had a really neat extended introduction solo that was just the right mix of technical and melodic stuff.
I'd put this as one of the best DT shows that I've gone to (this is my 8th DT show). I do enjoy going to concerts with Wassy as it seems like she has some sort of concert karma that makes the show extra awesome. And going with a friend who's as into it as you are is much more fun than going alone.
After the show got done, a quick walk back over to the parking garage and an easy drive out completed the evening. We ended up making an emergency stop at a McDonalds in Herkimer since we were both pretty hungry after the show and couldn't find anything good on the thruway.
All in all, a very enjoyable evening and well deserving of the anticipation
Longest. Morning. Ever.
Aug 4th 2009
This morning is one of the longest mornings ever because in an hour I get to leave work. And then 3 hours after that, my friend Wassy and I leave for Albany to catch a show on the Progressive Nation 2009 tour. As I mentioned earlier.
It felt a little weird last night since it didn't really seem like we were going to be going to a concert today, but here we are. I've got my ear plugs ready and the GPS all programmed and I'm ready to go. Just need to get out of work so I can run my errands and get everything all set for the trip out.
Didn't report much on the goings on of this weekend because it was a lot of relaxation. It was double XP weekend in City of Heroes so Wassy and I (Jay's been really tired recently so he excused himself from the festivities) did some CoH-ing. It got me more interested in playing the game so I've been dabbling back in from time to time since. We also did some Rock Band/Guitar Hero which has been a long time in coming. Nothing much interesting to the outside observer I suspect, but some much needed relaxation for me.
I hope to post again tomorrow with a ProgNation update.
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