On the plus side, Asylum Street Spankers are playing at the Triple Door.
On the down side, it’s a farewell tour, and doesn’t include Wammo.
On the plus side, it is the Triple Door, so the food will be good, and I’ve got a reserved ‘table’ spot for the front row.
We’ll see how the music turns out….
A big thanks to the Kirkland Performance Center for giving me free tickets, front row center, to a Lost Fingers show tonight. They do an energetic cross of 80′s pop with Django Reinhardt-esque acoustic guitar freakishness. And sometimes straight-up franco jazz swing standards I’d heard before from Frank Vignola. I came down with the start of a headache on the drive over, but once the show started, I was too entertained to notice. Three guys, two guitar and one stand-up bass. One of the guitarists was primary singer, the other was primary talker. The speed at which they all could play was quite impressive. The banter was witty, and the crowd receptive. There was one change of outfits during the intermission, and one encore. I think I heard they were staying around to sign and chat, but I really wanted to make sure I got to Chocolati before it closed, and the headache was making itself known again.
Ran off to Vegas for a short portion of the holiday weekend, to go see Star Wars in Concert with my dad, for his birthday present. When we made the plans, I totally spaced on the significance of the weekend, and that it meant I’d be missing out of NW Folklife in Seattle. Luckily, my desire to get out of Vegas ASAP meant I was getting back here in time for at least one day of folk-lifing, and it turned out to be dry and sunny during the parts of the day I was out and about.
Before we went to see the Star Wars concert, we went to go see the Cirque de Soleil martial-arts show, Ka. Wow. Lots of people on flying ropes, a stage that splits into two independent planes, rotating into humongous walls for them to fall down…the sheer omg-they-are-risking-their-lives-for-my-entertainment-factor is beyond measure. Quite the experience. And that’s not including the 4-way wheel-o-death bit they do near the end. It’s a spectacle worth watching more than once. I will be trying to find some friends to go back with.
Star Wars in concert was just OK by comparison. The orchestra performed admirably, the light show was competently presented, and Anthony Daniels did a fine job narrating things along, though having him walk from one side of the stage to the other after every movement seemed silly and pointless. There were a lot of kids for a show that seemed mostly focused on the music, rather than the visuals, or Star Wars. Lots of people in costumes. I wore my @@ shirt. =p