2 posts tagged “concert”
farrah and I went to see Imogen Heap at the Warfield this past Sunday, December 3rd. We hadn't been to a concert in quite sometime. I think the last concert we saw was Esthero at the Filmore back in July.
We got a late start to the Warfield, not really having a desire to see the only listed opening act who, Kid Beyond. I had never heard of him, but then again I have never heard of some of the opening acts I had seen at the Warfield before. I never heard of Cheryl Crow when she opened for Crowded House. I never heard of Jewel when she opened for Liz Phair. And I never heard of Tricky when he opened for PJ Harvey. I'm not saying Kid Beyond is in the same league as these opening acts, but he was very entertaining.
We caught the tail end of Levi Weaver's performance. He had the crowd going on and made me interested in hearing how his studio work would be.
Imogen then came out twenty minutes later. She started by walking through the general admission crowd on the floor. farrah and I were located in very good seats, first row lodge, so we could see her milling about there in the dark, singing the vocals to her first song. I had never seen Imogen Heap perform, or never seen a video by her, so I was quite surprised to by her stage presence and performance.
He put on a strong performance considering she had a nasty cold she caught from Levi Weaver. From her stage look and keyboard talent, all I could think of was that she may be the lost love child of Cyndi Lauper and Thomas Dolby. You can see photos of her on Flickr here. I didn't realize she is the girl in the red coat you see on Flickr's home page from time to time.
She danced around stage with reckless abandon and played her keyboards and other instruments with (mostly) perfect precision. Her parrot failed her on one of her songs, but her cold never slowed her down. She talks and responds to the crowd in her cute voice. Very cool interaction.
Hopefully she'll come around again in a couple of years after working on her next album.
I took today off to attend a company anniversary party. The party was for a biotech company my wife recently joined. We had heard they throw amazing parties, but I didn't realize the scale until today.
I always thought my previous employer had great parties. For past Christmas parties my last employer has had The Flaming Lips, Ozomatli, and Earth, Wind and Fire. (Yeah, I know the last one seems odd when compared to the other two.) This last company is a Internet media-type company, so I would think they would get cool acts. And so I was disappointed last year when Sugar Ray was the performer for the 10th anniversary party. Yawn!
Anyway, for today's party I attended - a biotech company - they had some amazing secret acts in store. When I say secret, I mean the performers were not announce to the companys' employees beforehand.
First off was the Foo Fighters, who performed an acoustic set. Dave Grohl was in fine shape, and interactive with the crowd. I believe I saw them only once and concert perviously, but I think this one tops it.
Next up was big Bob Dylan! I'm not too much into Dylan, but what I heard I could get into. His shadow seems more animated in the iPod commerials though. He seemed to want to get through his set an be off, a sharp constrast to the Foo Fighters and the next act.
The next act, the Black Eyed Peas, had the crowd rockin'. farrah and I saw the group way way back when they opened for Macy Gray, and were pre-Fergie. I must say, I'm wasn't a fan of the addition of Fergie, but boy can those guys perform. And yes, she can too. Fergie sang a solo of "Sweet Child O' Mine" and even did a little Axel Rose shuffle (you know that side-step dance move he does). The show could have ended there but....
Last up were The Eagles. Those guys can still rock, sounding just like they do on CD. But again, it seemed - from the few songs I saw them do - they just wanted to play the tunes and get off stage.
We didn't stay until the end, as our feet were getting tired from standing all day and the long drive home still yet to come. Overall, it was a good day. If I learned one thing today, it is that biotech can rock better than a bunch of Yahoos!
