As most people know, I have a rule about not writing about work in the blog. Mainly because I’ve discovered that my company does not exactly posses a sense of humor when it comes to many issues but also due to the fact that spreadsheets don’t interest people the same way they do me. (But, come on, is there anything cooler than writing a macro?) However, for those people out there who know me in real life, remind me to tell you a story from last week. It might be up there with the time at my old job when I had the mayor of Chicago refer to me as an idiot during a press conference.
(Technically, he didn’t single me out specifically. He just called all of ComEd’s engineers “a bunch of idiots.” That is really uplifting to hear on the news as you’re leaving the office.)
So I went out on Saturday night to see Lucinda Williams in concert. As usual, just getting there was an adventure for me as I didn’t decide to go until literally an hour before the show and then went there wondering a) would I get a ticket and b) where the hell would I park? See, this is a new venue in town behind Grinders (a sandwich shop downtown) and I drove around wondering where to park until it just dawned on me to park in front of the Brick like I always do when I play trivia. It was a two block walk and worst case scenario I’d just hang out at the Brick. Did get a ticket to the show, though it was a pretty packed scene.
The venue itself is really cool. It’s just this big, open air lot behind this restaurant/bar and it looks and feels a lot like the venues in Austin. Like you wouldn’t be surprised to find that this was the furthest north venue for South by Southwest. Sound was decent but could have been better and the beer was not horribly expensive, which is a huge plus. While standing on mulch is slightly better on my legs than standing on concrete standing on uneven mulch on the edge of a slope for four hours without moving results in my legs screaming at me for several hours.
Charlie Louvin opened and he is just a legend in country music. I think every other song you hear on classic country radio is written by the Louvin brothers. He took the stage right as a storm front came through and it is rather interesting to hear the song “Atomic Power” sung while a 30 mph wind gust hits the stage. They had to stop the show for a while because the wind threatened to turn the stage into a kite. Show did get back on track with only a few drops of rain in between and Charlie’s set was cool. Not the greatest sound in the world, which isn’t surprising given the guy is in his seventies at least, but a memorable set.
Lucinda is still Lucinda. She exudes cool. Just this complete “seen it all, done it all, stayed true to myself the entire time” attitude that you can sense from the moment she walks on stage. One part of her show that does bother me a little is that she has a music stand with presumably the words and music to her songs on it and she has someone flip to the next song after every song. Now I have two issues with this. First of all, I wouldn’t think that it would be that difficult to memorize your own songs especially when you are touring behind them. On certain songs you could actually see her looking down at the next line and that just seems odd. I’ve seen people do that on songs they weren’t familiar with but not on songs that they actually wrote. The other part is why in the world does she need to have one of the sound techs walk on stage and flip to the page in the book where the next song is going to be? Is that an incredibly difficult task? Lucinda is incredibly talented as a writer, I’m pretty sure she could figure out alphabetical order.
All in all it was a pretty good night. Show was good, not the best I’ve seen but Lucinda always plays great music. Venue was cool enough that I’ll probably try to go see The Polyphonic Spree there in a few weeks, though I honestly don’t think the entire band can fit on that stage. If anything I at least got out in the fresh air for a little bit. Yes, the fact that I actually got outside over the weekend is sometimes cause for celebration. I’ll admit, I live a strange, fluorescent filled life.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Pieta Brown “I Never Told”
2) Lyle Lovett “The Road to Ensenada”
3) Jay Farrar “Terroir Blues”
4) Bruce Springsteen “Lucky Town”
5) Kelly Willis “One More Time: The MCA Recordings”
No comments:
Post a Comment