The daily lives of Brett, Julia & Data
Tonight Julia and I went to see Blues Traveler at Alive At Five, a free concert series in Stamford. The crowd was pretty ridiculous (a lot of “Fairfield County” type people), but the show was good. We ducked out early to grab always-delicious pizza from Colony Grill. Here are some photos from the concert. Click “there’s more to…” to see them all.
We picked up Sam from Toad’s Place, where he had just finished his sound check with Tally Hall, at 5:30 p.m. and made our way to Modern Apizza.
There was, as always, a wait, but we were seated relatively quickly and our waiter was attentive. We ordered bruschetta and two large pizzas. One plain cheese and one with cherry peppers. We fully understood that we would have extra pizza, but we wanted Sam to have some leftovers to bring back with him so the band would know what they were missing. Our food arrived quickly and we were able to stuff ourselves completely with time to spare before Sam had to be back at the venue to prepare for the show.
We found a parking spot directly in front of Toad’s Place and were able to catch the last two songs of The Republic Tigers’ set. This was ideal for me as it gave me a chance to get an idea for the type of lighting in the venue, which was quite nice. There was a good variety of lights on all sides of the stage, with gels of different colors and a few moving spotlights that provided nice angular lighting. I didn’t get a chance to get much of an impression of The Republic Tigers’ music, but what I heard was good.
After a quick set change, Tally Hall took the stage. First, a projector played a video that exhibited some of the other content that can be found on their website. When the group came out, found a few different spots from which to photograph and began snapping away. Their music clearly has a variety of influences and the band members themselves have a lot of fun being on stage. They don’t take themselves too seriously, which makes it much more entertaining when they break into spontaneous bouts of old-school hip hop (Biz Markie’s “Just A Friend”, specifically). They closed their set in a particularly nice and unique way, which was to descend from the stage and have the entire audience sit around them in a circle while they played a few acoustic songs.
We had a great night, both because it was good to see Sam again and because we had a lot of fun at the show. Hopefully he and Tally Hall will roll through the area again one of these days.
Here are tonight’s photos. Click “there’s more to…” to see them all or visit my SmugMug.
Apparently my disparaging review of the Jay Electronica show with Mos Def at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square last night has touched a nerve or two. In addition to the comments on my post from last night, blogs The Full Clip and GRANDGOOD referenced my review of the show. I was pleased to see that both reviews seemed to admit that Jay had made mistakes in his performance, as opposed to simply chiding the audience and claiming that they were too stupid to get it. There are a few discussions of the show taking place on the Okayplayer message board and another review of the show courtesy of Parlour. I’ve said just about as much as I care to on the show itself, but it’s interesting to see the different opinions on this guy who clearly has not honed his talents as a performer.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been excited to see Mos Def, one of my favorite artists. Julia and I met our friend Adam at just after 8 p.m. outside the Nokia Theatre in Times Square. A line had formed that stretched the length of the block, around the corner, and a full avenue block past that. The line moved relatively quickly and we were inside around 9 p.m. The Nokia Theatre is slick and modern, with electronics on display throughout the lobby. We made our way into the three-tiered concert hall and found decent spots in the closest area to the stage.
The opening act, Jay Electronica, took the stage at roughly 9:45 p.m. In short, he was horrible. I’ve seen some terrible opening acts over the years, but he was right up there with the worst of them. He had no stage presence, so he repeatedly allowed himself to be manhandled by the audience, stopping numerous times to ask permission to speak despite being the one with a microphone. His music was horrible and it was immediately clear that nobody wanted to listen to anything he had to offer. The only exciting thing about his performance was an all-too-brief appearance by the wonderful Erykah Badu, during which he remained silent and diminutive. After giving up his final attempt to tell a story, Jay Electronica played a final song and quickly left the stage.
At 10:45 p.m., Mos Def took the stage. His show, as with his music and character, varied widely. For over two hours, he transitioned from hip hop, rock, funk, oldies, reggae, and many other genres of music. Sometimes he would rap, sometimes he would sing. Sometimes, he would have the lights turned low and play some of his favorite music without saying a word. He is an electric performer and shares a mutually beneficial relationship with the audience. Throughout the entire performance, images and video were streamed from an Apple laptop to a screen behind the stage. The images featured New York scenes and characters such as Yankee Stadium, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, graffiti, breakdancing, and more, all iconic of the culture of the city in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The show was great, although sometimes there was too much time between actual performances while Mos Def simply had the DJ play random music, which noticeably affected the crowd.
When we left, Adam drove us to Grand Central Station just in time to catch the 1:12 a.m. train back to Connecticut. We had a great night, but since Julia and I both have to be up at 8 a.m. tomorrow, we may be feeling the effects of it for a little while.
I wasn’t able to bring my camera, but I did manage to take a few photos with Julia’s smaller Canon SD450.
Erykah Badu.
The guy on the left is Jay Electronica.
Mos Def (blurry as hell).
