Highlights for me:

• Al looked like he was having the time of his life on stage, singing with a big smile on his face.
• Althought the stage was about the size of the Catalyst stage he still managed to ride a Segway out for White & Nerdy.
• He had a medley of his older songs that must have gone on for 20 minutes with about5 quick changes thrown in there.
• During “Wanna B Ur Lover” (he pickup line song) he came out into the audience and sang them to women in the aisle.
• He did his version of James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful,” which is “You’re Pitiful” while stripping off wardrobe. One of the shirts read “Atlantic Records Sucks” since they didn’t allow him to put that on his album.
• When the bomb drops in “Canadian Idiot” streamer cannons shot red and white streamers into the audience.
• During an “Al TV” interview with Michael Stipe he asks him for lyrics for a song they can collaborate on. Michael Stipe says “Everybody’s got cell phones, get real.” At the start of the encore Al sings the song he made out of it. Also everyone took out their cell phones and waved them like lighters.
• For his encore he performed “Albuquerque” which I had always hoped to see in concert but never thought I would since it’s about 11 minutes long on the album. He extended the doughnut section for another minute or two.

They Might Be Giants were tight, moving from one song to another with few breaks in between. There were a few mistakes which probably wouldn’t have been noticed had they not apologized for them. It’s still the beginning of their tour so I guess they’re still working out the kinks. One thing is for sure and that is they were getting better as the concert went one, finishing up with two encores.

This was my first time in the Rio Theater sice it stopped being a movie theater. One the whole it was the same, but cleaned up and about the first 20 rows removed to make room for a stage and floor space. It makes for a good concert space. I’m not crazy about whomever was doing the sound though. The vocals and mid range were great, but the bass tones were muddy which made hearing what the bass was playing very difficult.

Tangentially related, when did Yngwie Malmsteen get fat, and how does that not interfere with his playing?

Anyway, another great album from Al! All the songs are great and the flip side is a DVD. The DVD has 6 music videos, the one for White & Nerdy, and 5 animated other ones. Also surround sound mixes of the album and karaoke mode! Oh yeah, there’s video of Al in the studio too.

I’m going to be listening to this all day!

Next year we bring chairs and hats.

The first was the mockumentary It’s All Gone Pete Tong. It’s about a DJ who goes deaf and tries to find a way to do what he loves. It isn’t consistently funny but that doesn’t matter since it’s all just really well done. It actually pulled me in as a story and I appreciated that. I loved watching his battles with cocaine. That’s probably one of the few times that sentence has existed.

The other was The Aristocrats. Which is probably the most concentrated verbal description about bodily fluids and sex acts I’ve ever experienced, all in the telling of a joke. My the end there is little that’s disgusting about it because you’re brain starts looking for the variations and how they approach the joke on your mental check list. This film must have been a nightmare to edit. Deciding on order and what to keep had to be difficult. Phyllis Diller has the best laugh. It was worth seeing her and Bob Saget in the special features for their full recorded bits. The mime in the special features did an act that made me feel sad, and not because I was watching a mime, it was just a strong performance. And then I also realized that we as people must get a lot of our cues from other people through hands since that’s most of what you get from the mime.

Finally, here’s Chad Vader – Day Shift Manager (Episode 1). There are three episodes so far, but I’m just linking to the first one.

I saw him in concert six times, but the most memorable were the shows at the Great American Music Hall in S.F. and at Doc Rickett’s Lab in Monterey. The Great American Music Hall was a great show. The sound, the connection, it was all there. During “Hey Jude” the trumpets came out into surrounded the audience while playing the chorus. This was the ultimate surround sound. It gave me chills. The show at Doc Ricket’s Lab in Monterey. A large room with a low ceiling and a weird shape. The band stand had a weird pole in it but they managed a great show. The best part was a long solo that lulled everyone as the lights went down on teh band to highlight the soloist. Then the solo came to an end that the rest of the audience wasn’t expecting and Maynard had the band punch back in. The entire room jumped! Maynard was up on the stage giggling at getting everyone.

Maynard Ferguson’s home page has the official obituary and links to others and memorials.

I’ll end this with three video clips:

Here’s Maynard at 22 with the Stan Kenton orchestra on the Ed Sullivan show.

Here’s a concert video of Maynard trading on a solo with Serafin Aguilar recorded this year. The sound is out of sync but it’s still good.

Here is Maynard’s band in the 70s playing “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”

It’s just over an hour long, check it out!

This year on our honeymoon I was in a cd store and looked for it and found instead another LTJ Bukem album. Then shortly afterwards I picked up “Journey Inwards”.

Yesterday Nightfall posted about Method-One so I downloaded the mp3 files I found there and liked it a lot. (We’re talking LONG mp3 files.) Today I asked mo what else I should be getting. She told me: Dieselboy, DJ Dara, Kaos, Goldie, and Grooverider. So I went to Streetlight and picked up a geeky sounding album from Dieselboy called “The Dungeonmaster’s Guide”. I’m enjoying it muchly.

Thanks for the pointers!