The Rock & Worship Roadshow

After weeks of anticipation I finally got to spend some quality time with @supergwen.  Well, if goofing around with 6000 other people at a concert can count as quality time.

The opening band was Sidewalk Prophets and followed by Remedy Drive. We'd never heard of either band and neither have you. It's likely you never will except perhaps in passing.  Remedy Drive had too much gimmick and zaniness.  They were clearly trying to have a much bigger presence than they had. Perhaps with better percussion and another guitarist they'll sound as big as they're stage theatrics.

Next up was Fee and they did a great job rocking the house. I wasn't sure what to expect but I really enjoyed them.  Frankly, after this performance, their discography deserves another listen. Later in the show, Steve Fee came out to lead a very small worship set.  Whoever gets this amazing talent in your Sunday service give thanks!  He's quite the leader and I'll admit I'm a little jealous.

In a mildly awkward change of pace, Francesca Battistelli performed next.  She had really solid vocals and some slightly catchy ditties but was otherwise unremarkable. Not having heard her music before I will definitely give her a more thorough listen to see what her recording presence is like.

And then came Family Force Five. At first I just laughed at laughed at their obvious rip-off of so many secular club-bangers.  But frankly, they had a great stage presence, very mature sound, and an all around polished act.  It was entertaining and amusing.  And if I wasn't supposed to be at a worship concert I probably would have cut loose and danced too.  The purple shirts with huge epaulets were a real visual treat if not entirely original.

David Crowder Band is a very hard-working and extremely talented group.  I would love for a chance to hear them perform a more extended worship set.  I also didn't realize how shy on stage he acts.  He constantly hid behind the microphone or turned away from the crowd. Perhaps it is a sign of his humility, but this aspect of his presence let me down.

Mercy Me closed. They are a reliable, mainstream, Christian band.  You get exactly what you expect.

The only aspect of the show that detracted was the usual shilling for Compassion International and repeated harping about the cheap tickets.  In my opinion, this type of commercialism detracts significantly from the experience.  I would have gladly paid twice as much to not have had such messages littering the event.

If this roadshow is coming to your town, check it out. The people watching will be great and you will h

Hellogoodbye & Co

After a hard day navigating the Mouse House with the family, we enjoy some snacks at HoB before the show.

Now I am enjoying the sweet aural candy that is Hellogoodbye.

In a few minutes I will have sat through Saves The Day again to earn another amazing set from New Found Glory.

Talk about your great days...

New Found Glory

My favorite band of all time was playing tonight in Seattle at the Showbox at the Market.

Needless to say it was one of the most fun times I've ever had with my clothes on.  There were a couple of openers who did a good job of warming everyone up and made it quite the rowdy night. The first opener was Fireworks followed by Hellogoodbye, Saves the Day and then NFG.

The venue was pretty full, way more crowded then the last time.  My friend @madscientist and I got to mosh a bit to each of the openers, include the favorites Bonnie Taylor Shakedown and Here in Your Arms.

When New Found Glory came out, I was the second row of people from the rail and it was absolutely nuts!  They played the entirety of their original self-titled album to celebrate their 10 year anniversary.  Which means we got to rock out to all the old favorites non-stop.  Then they played some of the new hits.

For the encore, they came back and played every other hit (which is a lot!) and ended with My Friends Over You.  I made some new mosh-friends, @jwalking lost his shirt, and the girls almost got in a fight.

This is not a night, I'll soon forget.

Wiggling The Worm

It seems that spending even a small amount of time on your own terms, dateless, means that you will die alone, a bitter shadow of a soul that no one will miss.

Or at least that appears to me to be what the majority of the people I've run into lately believe.

Now I'm hardly a player, but I'm pretty good with chatting up some nice stems when my the mood strikes my fancy. I just haven't really been using my fancy very often lately and I've been getting bitched at like it's a crime.

The most recent example was a rather nice lady who is soon to be grandmother and one I've always allowed to pry into the particulars of my somewhat monotonous life. We were discussing the dearth of socialization I'd been waking up from and she had the tenacity to tweak my nose over a few recounted adventures. Namely, she thought I wasn't playing the game enough. (I think she's just flaunting her soon to be matriarchal status.)

I'm no stranger to the game, mind you. But I have some reservations when it comes to dipping my toes in that particular river. I've never seemed to be truly lacking in companions, and my submissiveness means I often overlook someone taking advantage of me out of intention. These make me less than properly prepared for partaking in playtime.

My friend however, laid into me with quite the rant about how I much better my relationships could have been. How much quicker I could have moved along, how much more balanced things could have been, if only I had been willing to play the game more. Evidently, I made it too easy or I gave up too quickly. (I'm still not convinced this was all just about her tea being too warm.)

So with much hard reflection (okay, laid up with the flu provided ample time to think) I realized there might possibly have been something to this crazy theory. After all, the last few forays I've endured haven't exactly panned out, or would be even be considered fair play. When applying a friends advice it is possible to consider how many more adventures I could have engaged in if I'd only played the game a little more. How many different dates would I have had? How much less time would I have invested? How many more trips to gym could I have fit in? How would things have been different if I let someone else buy me drink once in a while. Or gave me the backrub. Or just took the hint when her hand was on my butt.

I guess I can't get around the notion that if you love someone, let them know. If you enjoy someone, spend time with them. If you don't feel these things, politely move along.

Evidently such simplicity is all wrong.

According to my kind lady friend, and everyone else I've ever known, we don't want anything that is easy for us to acquire. We start to doubt when that person we set our eyes on just jumps right in after us. We get bored when the unknowns and newness of our relationships starts to fade. Our thoughts wander. Or so I'm told. (Supposedly I live "too much in the present", for me to notice this says the cranky old broad.)

So maybe I need to learn to "wiggle the worm" a little and not be so direct. To leave a little mystery and "let the fish come to you". I'm not so sure I'm keen on having my love life compared to a fishing expedition, but I try to listen to advice when well intentioned.

Where's The Music?

Last night I couldn't sleep while I slept.

Don't look at me like that! You know what I mean! I was asleep, but I wasn't really sleeping. Instead I was fitfully tossing and turning with dreams and random thoughts bouncing around my cranium.

I'm not someone who typically remembers my dreams so it was disconcerting to wake up in full sweat with a vivid memory of the horror in my nightmare. Specifically, I couldn't find my music!

What happened is that I was at some function/party/gathering. And we needed to dance. So first I pulled out an iPod and kicked things off with "Bedrock" by Young Money. And then I couldn't find any other dance music. Nothing. Nada. It was was all emo and mellow and not appropriate for the rumpus we were trying to instigate at all.

Thinking quickly, I conjured up a MacBook (huh? I don't own a MacBook...) and proceeded to try and navigate my usual playlists to keep the party bouncing.

Once again, it seemed there was no dance music to be had. Anywhere. A complete dearth of bass-pumping beats, techno-thumping, or booty-shaking hip-hop. I found lots of Taylor Swift and Matt Nathanson, a sprinkling of Dashboard Confessional and reams upon reams of New Found Glory. But no Britney, no MGMT, not even a little Selena Gomez remix to get hands up and hips moving.

The sheer panic and distress this caused me was terrifying. I was on the verge of tears that all the music was gone. I felt like Captain Jack on the island ready to weep for the rum! And then I woke up.

My alarm was beeping and I was sweaty and cramped. Let's hope this never happens in real life.