![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThat was quite the week. After an amazing evening of theater, and seeing the review of the first stop on this year's Who's Left tour, in Grand Rapids two nights before their scheduled arrival here, I took the plunge and secured a seat in the 300s.
That's "up there."
The Jumbotron was off, but there were good sized video boards either side of the stage, so I saw and heard way more than I did the last time I saw these guys outdoors in 1982. It was just under 40 bucks all-in, I took the free-to-ride-downtown Metro Rail from a free parking spot, and spent nary a nickel on the hockey team's overpriced wares. Including not even having the chance to shop in the closed-for-the-season Sabres store:
For Sale. Playoff jerseys. Never worn.
Several escalators later, I was in place. The decent (and keeping it decently short) opening act came and went, giving some time for the sense of the place. The house lighting was shit when it came to putting the history of the building (and its predecessor Aud) on display. Of the retired Sabres jerseys, only Tim Horton's Number 2 was the least bit visible-
- and the playoff and division/Trophy banners behind the stage, not legible at all. Maybe when they actually win a Cup....
But then Pete and Roger came on, accompanied by Ringo's son on the drums, their own bassist, keyboardist and additional guitarist, two string players who tour with them on first violin and cello, and a decent chunk of the BPO on stage with them. My pictures from that point on are even more crap than the ones I just posted, but the paper provided a photo gallery and a good review of the proceedings.
It wasn't perfect. Nobody's hitting every one of the high notes any more, but both singers did their level best to keep it as close to the originals as they could. What they did mix up was fun and inventive; Rog coming out with an acoustic guitar for at least two pieces, and Pete going with his own acoustic and singing lead on "Won't Get Fooled Again." (One of my all-time favorite renditions of that is one he did, singing the vocal with an acoustic accompaniment at a 1979 Amnesty International benefit, and this one, with him essentially soloing, was goosebumpy.)
The setlist largely followed, with a few expansions, the one from the opening night of the tour earlier in the week- and also included the BPO-less interlude where Just The Who played mostly hits, from early "Kids are Alright" to more recent "Tea and Treasure." (Roger practically hugged Pete at the end of that one. More goosebumps.) Then, after running through much of Tommy at the top, they rocked out about a side and a half of Quadrophenia, including "The Rock," an instrumental which presents and blends all four of the member's motifs before getting real quiet just before the finale, "Love Reign O'er Me." Roger did not nail every note leading up to the final scream of "LOVE!," but saved his mojo to blast that out as authentically as ever.
No encore BS- we're too old for that. They introduced their mates, traveling and local, thanked us for their first stop here in 13 years, and went right into "Baba O'Reilly," with their violinist jamming out the closing section from the middle of the stage.
We arrived home safely. No guitars were harmed in the making of the performance.
----
Friday promised an earlier but international adventure. We're friends with a lawyer from the UK named Caroline, once known in these parts ashooton but no longer posting regularly here. She's brilliant, and funny as hell, especially when faced with adversity, which her two previous in-house gigs gave her plenty to experiment with. She's also been blessed with being able to travel to all corners of the world when on holiday, and this past week she got as close to Our Fair City as we were ever likely to see: most of the week in Toronto, with a day trip Friday to Niagara Falls.
It was one of those package deals- you know, the kind that Eric Idle made Watney's Red Barrel famous for- but they'd laid out three whole hours of on-her-own time for Friday afternoon. Eleanor was working, but I met my one client early, grabbed some filings for downtown Buffalo, and planned a Peace Bridge crossing and a quick 20-minute run up the QEW for some combination of fallsviews, butterflies and beer.
"Plans," alas, were as close as we got. I sent Facebook messages over during the day, finally plunging over around 3:30, when my AT&T coverage morphed into ROGERS. I decided to decamp at the first convenient Timmy's over there, which had double-doubles just like home but, unlike home, no wi-fi. So I next grabbed signal from a Wally World in the adjacent town centre, checked again, no word. Finally, near the end of her tour window, I boogied to the bridge (Rainbow this time), but not before seeing, for the first time, this new sign of progress between our two nations:
Now granted, the evil weed is still illegal in New York, but talks are practically burning up (heh) to bring us in line (no, not legalizing THAT;) with several of our more progressive neighbors and neighbours. This will lead to the conundrum of a substance being legal on both sides of the border but subject to arrest and confiscation at the entirely theoretical federal boundary between them.
Forget the cat. It's Schrödinger's Pot!
I was breezily admitted back in, confessing to my smuggling of half a Canadian double-double (that's coffee, you prudes), and finally got the word: they'd shuffled the tour schedule, forcing her into a vineyard with no wifi for our scheduled meet time. So we shall have to do this in another land on another day.
I spent most of yesterday running my ass- all around the gym, our floors and about fifteen of the back forty. We watched a fun old Michael Keaton movie last night, and have Beale Street on tap for tonight before we likely make an early turn-in of it.
I won't die before I get old. I already am.
That's "up there."
The Jumbotron was off, but there were good sized video boards either side of the stage, so I saw and heard way more than I did the last time I saw these guys outdoors in 1982. It was just under 40 bucks all-in, I took the free-to-ride-downtown Metro Rail from a free parking spot, and spent nary a nickel on the hockey team's overpriced wares. Including not even having the chance to shop in the closed-for-the-season Sabres store:
For Sale. Playoff jerseys. Never worn.
Several escalators later, I was in place. The decent (and keeping it decently short) opening act came and went, giving some time for the sense of the place. The house lighting was shit when it came to putting the history of the building (and its predecessor Aud) on display. Of the retired Sabres jerseys, only Tim Horton's Number 2 was the least bit visible-
- and the playoff and division/Trophy banners behind the stage, not legible at all. Maybe when they actually win a Cup....
But then Pete and Roger came on, accompanied by Ringo's son on the drums, their own bassist, keyboardist and additional guitarist, two string players who tour with them on first violin and cello, and a decent chunk of the BPO on stage with them. My pictures from that point on are even more crap than the ones I just posted, but the paper provided a photo gallery and a good review of the proceedings.
It wasn't perfect. Nobody's hitting every one of the high notes any more, but both singers did their level best to keep it as close to the originals as they could. What they did mix up was fun and inventive; Rog coming out with an acoustic guitar for at least two pieces, and Pete going with his own acoustic and singing lead on "Won't Get Fooled Again." (One of my all-time favorite renditions of that is one he did, singing the vocal with an acoustic accompaniment at a 1979 Amnesty International benefit, and this one, with him essentially soloing, was goosebumpy.)
The setlist largely followed, with a few expansions, the one from the opening night of the tour earlier in the week- and also included the BPO-less interlude where Just The Who played mostly hits, from early "Kids are Alright" to more recent "Tea and Treasure." (Roger practically hugged Pete at the end of that one. More goosebumps.) Then, after running through much of Tommy at the top, they rocked out about a side and a half of Quadrophenia, including "The Rock," an instrumental which presents and blends all four of the member's motifs before getting real quiet just before the finale, "Love Reign O'er Me." Roger did not nail every note leading up to the final scream of "LOVE!," but saved his mojo to blast that out as authentically as ever.
No encore BS- we're too old for that. They introduced their mates, traveling and local, thanked us for their first stop here in 13 years, and went right into "Baba O'Reilly," with their violinist jamming out the closing section from the middle of the stage.
We arrived home safely. No guitars were harmed in the making of the performance.
----
Friday promised an earlier but international adventure. We're friends with a lawyer from the UK named Caroline, once known in these parts as
hooton but no longer posting regularly here. She's brilliant, and funny as hell, especially when faced with adversity, which her two previous in-house gigs gave her plenty to experiment with. She's also been blessed with being able to travel to all corners of the world when on holiday, and this past week she got as close to Our Fair City as we were ever likely to see: most of the week in Toronto, with a day trip Friday to Niagara Falls.It was one of those package deals- you know, the kind that Eric Idle made Watney's Red Barrel famous for- but they'd laid out three whole hours of on-her-own time for Friday afternoon. Eleanor was working, but I met my one client early, grabbed some filings for downtown Buffalo, and planned a Peace Bridge crossing and a quick 20-minute run up the QEW for some combination of fallsviews, butterflies and beer.
"Plans," alas, were as close as we got. I sent Facebook messages over during the day, finally plunging over around 3:30, when my AT&T coverage morphed into ROGERS. I decided to decamp at the first convenient Timmy's over there, which had double-doubles just like home but, unlike home, no wi-fi. So I next grabbed signal from a Wally World in the adjacent town centre, checked again, no word. Finally, near the end of her tour window, I boogied to the bridge (Rainbow this time), but not before seeing, for the first time, this new sign of progress between our two nations:
Now granted, the evil weed is still illegal in New York, but talks are practically burning up (heh) to bring us in line (no, not legalizing THAT;) with several of our more progressive neighbors and neighbours. This will lead to the conundrum of a substance being legal on both sides of the border but subject to arrest and confiscation at the entirely theoretical federal boundary between them.
Forget the cat. It's Schrödinger's Pot!
I was breezily admitted back in, confessing to my smuggling of half a Canadian double-double (that's coffee, you prudes), and finally got the word: they'd shuffled the tour schedule, forcing her into a vineyard with no wifi for our scheduled meet time. So we shall have to do this in another land on another day.
I spent most of yesterday running my ass- all around the gym, our floors and about fifteen of the back forty. We watched a fun old Michael Keaton movie last night, and have Beale Street on tap for tonight before we likely make an early turn-in of it.
I won't die before I get old. I already am.
Schrödinger's Pot
Date: 2019-05-13 07:36 pm (UTC)