It wound up being one of those in which you have three hours total sleep over a three-day period and in pictures it kind of looks like zombie nation, but enjoyment-wise it'll be tough to top.
Enough of the vague-irities. First sis was coming in from Florida, first for the Devils season opener (which 'ark told everyone who would listen -- and a few that probably didn't want to -- that he was benched and unable to attend.) As sis and I have been doing the Devils thing together since Nov. 23, 2001 (in-joke: Ellyosh and seeeee-kora), and this being the first game of the new season we planned it that way for sis time.
So the Devils have two scoring lines and two power-play lines now (something we haven't had for a few seasons), so that's great to see. Zachariah Parise scored the first Devils' goal of the new season and my boy Patrik (Patty) Elias had the game-winner. All good and lots of fun.
Mere hours later we were up and heading for the bus to Atlantic City to see Lindsey Buckingham and 'ark ... not necessarily in that order. After dumping the bus voucher credit in about half an hour, we did a lot of shopping and some eating. AC has better Devils merchandise, than the freakin' Devils Den.
Funny moment when I was buying something on the boardwalk when both Pook and 'ark saw each other before I did. I believe sis' quote was "It's either Mark or some pervert." Hey she was doubly right! ;)
More shopping and lots of joking and general frivolity ensued. Not sure sis took it as a compliment when 'Ark said we not only look alike but have the same method of reasoning. We played the water gun balloon arcade game. 'Ark won twice and the girls took the prizes, haha.
Oh yeah, we still had Lindsey to see. It was a small venue, Xanadu at the Trump Taj Mahal, and there were a ton of empty front seats at the beginning, but the diehard fans started moving forward. It turned a staid early show into an incredibly vibrant meeting of the minds. The band (particularly Lindsey and guitarist/keyboardist Brett Tuggle) really seemed to appreciate it.
Here's a great vid of "Go Your Own Way." I don't know how 'Ark stood still, me personally, I was pogoing around not of my own free will. It doesn't have quite the energy level we experience, but I just love the fans playing the guitar with Lindsey near the end.
I made a small nuisance of myself during band intros with the ol' harmonica ... and by yelling "Play Jessie's Girl, Brett" to Mr. Tuggle -- two decades ago he used to play backup for Rick Springfield. The girls my age seemed to get it.
One of my fave parts was the encore "Second Hand News." I was standing on two front-row chairs by then and there was some kind of go-go dancing going on. This is not yet up to full go-go strength at the beginning of the song...
And akin to Pook's Clapton experience back in 1990 ... "Tusk" is the new "Cocaine"!
It took us forever and a day (plus a bus, two trains, a cab) to get back to Newark and another two trains (one broken) and a plane to get Pook home, but I'm still flying high on all of it. Thanks Pook and 'ark!
2 comments:
'Ark gave me such an 'arkian response to an earlier email on LB, that I just HAVE to share. If someone could buy me the Cliff Notes on this, I'd really appreciate it!
I was surprised how much I liked LB. I'm real finicky about the acoustic stuff, and yes it's not something I can handle at length ... two shows will probably be pushing it, for me. There are so few people I can handle, on solo acoustic, as (with PC and Z) I really prefer more high intensity stuff. But LB even alluded to that, that this material just isn't something that will work with the mass audience. It's sort of the thing I have been saying about EC for years, we have this dichotomy between, at a gig with 18,000 people, the 15k who are there to hear WT, and Cocaine, and Layla, and the 3k of us who would love to hear some of the obscure stuff. Clapton is Clapton but I think *he* would enjoy it so much, if they sold tix to shows the size of the AC gig straight through a fan club, and he could warn people up front it was going to be just obscure stuff, maybe even a night just on solo acoustic, then he could do arena shows as well to pay the bills. The Stones sort of got it right on some of their tours, they'd do a small theater gig and then an arena show to pay for the crew, ya know?
I thought of a perfect analogy to describe how I feel about LB. When it comes to all the Romance languages ... they all have that common ancestor of latin, so that it doesn't matter if it's French, or English, or German ... whatever ... there's still that feeling that it all "belongs" and is accessible. When you go to learn something completely alien, like Chinese or Japanese, or even some of the stuff like Gaelic or some of the Gypsy tongues, it's clear that there is not even a common ancestor, no frame of reference. To continue the analogy, even with say Japanese or Indian music, even the scales have nothing in common. So if you think of the stuff that really gets to me an an emotional, gut level, it's blues, and the genealogy of it is so clear, you know it's that I-IV-V progression or whatever. Even if there's a pop or rock influence on top, it's always there. Whereas someone like Lindsey, in so many ways it's alien, it's coming from a totally different root, between classical and folk. I was observing his fingerings and chords, especially on the solo acoustic stuff, it's just an alien beast to me. Not bad, mind, but at the same time, different. To even further abuse the analogy, when I got into the Beatles, it's interesting to listen to each solo work and really see where the influences are from, and for me, Paul is my least favorite. EC once famously said of an artist "I think she listened to all the wrong records growing up" and you can so tell that Paul comes from a more shallow, light, pop background. My point being that not that I don't enjoy Macca, but at the same time it's just missing something much of the time (ie I don't ever want to hear 20 flight rock, from him or anybody).
Hopefully we meet up with journeycouple again Saturday for Joe B. And then there's the Halloween party in Virginia with maybe a Robert Randolph chaser followed by two Derek Trucks Band shows and a Susan one. Then it's home to Florida for a USF game and Thanksgiving!
Post a Comment