Who Knew?

Well, that got a lot of attention - I guess my Klout number ought to go up.

Cool!

Another Melissa Concert

The Post Gazette said "Without question, it was the gayest Melissa Etheridge concert ever."

I would concur.  Mrs. TANBI and I went to see Melissa at the Pittsburgh Pride festival last weekend.

The show was general admission and there were no seats.  A little bit my feat still hurt.  Doors were at 6:00.  The plan was there would be a DJ until 8:45 and then Melissa for 90 minutes and then another DJ until midnight.  When we got there, one of the lighting guys we know said that the end of the show was scheduled for 2am - ouch.

What really happened was that there was a DJ until around 8:45 and then there was some talking, and then some drag, and then an opening act, and then time for setup.  Melissa didn't get on until easily 9:30ish.

We didn't come in at doors open.  When we got downtown there was already a line to get in so we decided to get something to eat.  It was fun looking at people and trying to guess if they were there for Pride, one of the theatres, the ArtsFest, or the Pirate game.  I think we got in a little before 7:00.  Right off we managed to weave out way up to maybe 25 feet back.  Sometime a little later I got particularly aggressive and we moved up to maybe 12 feet.  By the time Melissa started her set we were probably 4 or 5 bodies back.  I was a little disappointed to see that they'd put up barriers to keep the crowd 4 feet from the stage.

I didn't shoot many pictures.  Several concerts ago I decided I'd rather watch the show first hand than watch it through a viewfinder.  If you don't keep the camera ready all the time you normally don't get the best shots and that being ready keeps me from really enjoying the show.  So these are camera phone shots.  I learned a little about my phone camera - mostly I am trying to remember which way it thinks is down so the pictures don't need as much editing (also learned that stage lighting tends to wash things out and that the front camera has not nearly the resolution of the rear).

Since taking pictures wasn't keeping me from enjoying things there'd inevitably be something else.  In this particular case that thing was a drunk or altered middle aged lesbian woman with some boundary issues and a propensity to should "sign my dick!"  She had a balloon wrapped around her arm she was having people sign.  It was cute for the first 10 minutes.

The PG wasn't wrong. The show was definitely a little different because of it being a pride event.  Mostly I think is was about things that weren't the set list: things she said and things she improvised.  The set list was pretty good.  I don't think we got to hear anything from the next album but there were tunes from the whole catalog.  It was great to hear Silent Legacy and Meet me in the Back.  I still miss The Angels and Giant and Secret Agent but there isn't time for everything (and I suspect there are other reasons aside from time in play).

I've got a better version of this pic from a prior concert...

Maybe it would have been better with the rear facing camera - but then I wouldn't have been able to aim.  Someday I will have to make a list of all the shows so I can keep track.

The show ended around midnight with Like the Way I Do.  Kind of astoundingly a bunch of people left right after their curtain call, which turned out to be before the encore.  So for the very last song I got to move up even closer, but no handshake due to the configuration.  After that we got ourselves some water and soda and took our aching feet to the car. 

I don't know if the late DJ went past 2am.

Cool

If she had a Frisbee this would undoubtedly be just for me.

Melissa PICS!

So I have been holding off on writing any kind of a Melissa post until the pictures came back. I got them yesterday, did my scans and some clean up, and now they are ready for posting.

I should say something about taking pictures at a Melissa concert. This is maybe the third or fourth time I had taken a camera in. Because I am paranoid about security taking it away I have always done this with a disposable. Years ago at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas I did actually have a camera taken away and I was glad it was a throw away. They told me I could check it at the front desk and get it later, but that would have meant missing like 20-25 minutes of show - both annoying and expensive. So we took a throw away. The other important thing to think about is that taking pictures can really ruin the concert. You basically have to watch the whole thing through the viewfinder, waiting for the picture to come up and then jump on it. If you don't you will never get the shot; so your concentration isn't on enjoying the show, but rather on shooting pictures.

I compromised this time. We took a throw away, but I shot most of my pics pretty quickly and spent most of the show with the camera in my pocket - and I gave myself permission not to care if I missed "the perfect shot."

Most of the photos are blurry because these cameras aren't meant for this kind of lighting environment, and because for the first half of the show I didn't use the flash to try not to call attention to myself. One of the security gaurds had been real nice to us and I didn't want to screw that up. So they're blurry, poorly composed, the color is lousy, but what do you want? I did start using the flash eventually because it was sort of a photo free-for-all. Also, for what it's worth, the throw-away was a Kodak APC camera - which strangely none of the 1-hour places seem to want to develop. I only picked that camera because it came with a zoom lens. Naturally none of the zoomed pics came out.

That's the photo inside scoop.

Seats are always an adventure at these things. If you are in the fanclub you can order seats through a back-channel and they are guaranteed to be good, I think the first third of the floor or something. Unfortunately you don't get to see exactly where you are sitting until you pick up your tickets at the will call. So there's always a little bit of xmas morning excitement as you watch fan club people open their envelopes and discover where their seats are.

This show was at the DAR Constitution hall, so here's what we were up against:

Not actually a very intimate venue as it turns out. I hadn't looked ahead of time, but by the name I was expecting something smaller. When we got our tickets they were Row D, seats 9 & 11. So far they seem like they are good, 4th row, although I have been places with an AA (or more) in front of A so there's no real knowing. When we got into the space I was a little disappointed as I gathered that we were all the way against the side - when I checked, the middle sections were in the 100's, so at that moment I was just hoping that 1 was against the wall. But that was unlikely.

So we did have pretty crappy seats. But then it turned out that we were in the first row of that section they'd sold. So even before the show started we moved up to row C on the aisle which was a vast improvement. After that it became clear they hadn't sold row A either. Often they withhold those seats and give them away to enthusiastic looking people in the back. There was a security person at the top of the aisle who wouldn't let us right into the front right away, but after a few tunes he let in one couple and then at the next blackout he let us up. So for the bulk of the show I was in the front row. Before the encores I moved into the middle. So by the end I had a pretty cherry spot. Here's our journey:
The show was great. Something I have discovered about Melissa is that the first 6 feet or so is a totally different show that the first 10 rows or so, and that's totally different than the rest of the floor. It really pays to be real, real close up. This show was organized as a personal history, so she started with old stuff and worked her way forward. I have to say that I didn't so much enjoy this formula. She left out a lot of the songs I really like. She hasn't played The Angels in a very long time, but this time there was also no Like the Way I Do or the absolute monsters from the last time I saw her: Giant & Secret Agent. But I shouldn't complain. The show was three hours, she did an encore and then did Piece of my Heart to finish up. There was Bring me Some Water and I got to hear 2001 live for the first time, and she played all her newest environmental/political tuneage. I think it's likely that Imagine That/What About Tomorrow might find it's way to the Obama people if it hasn't already. There also was lots of wild guitar from Phil Sayce, and the drummer this time around was decent too (although I miss Kenny Aronoff). The stage was nothing to speak of either way, and the lighting seemed like an afterthought - but Mrs. TANBI and I are snobs in that respect.

Soundwise we paid for our spot. We were just in front of the guitar monitor and really for the whole show that's pretty much all we heard. There was just no intelligibility to the vocals at all. I didn't mind much, the missus thought it was too bad. What was really too bad was that when I did move to the center I discovered that they had thought to include a small vocal reinforcement speaker for those people. So if we'd move 6 or 7 feet in at the begining we would have heard the whole thing perfectly.

So this is probably my favorite of the pictures I did get. The reason is that it was a true "snapshot" in every sense of the word. I got an inkling of what was about to happen and pulled the camers out of my pocket, stuck it up in the air, and shot the photo without looking - all in one motion. I had to crop it a bit, and from the sharpness it looks like I never stopped moving, but it really does have that "rock star photo" quality to it.

Mrs. TANBI asked me what it was that I liked so much about Melissa Etheridge. I am not sure I can explain aside from that I connect on a very deep level with the music. There's something to the rhythms of the tune and how they fit with the lyrics. It's almost as if she's able to fill more counts with words than anyone else would be singing the same lyrics. I think that's about intensity, like if you or I were to sing it we would punch it up by going faster but she just moves along with her power, her punching it up coming from inside. She's like a thunderstorm to me, like the Las Vegas sun or the wind off Lake Michigan, she is just so forceful in the way her feelings come across. That's not a good description, and it's certainly colored by my seeing her live which does nothing to explain what pulled me to her music to start with, but it's all I've got - it's about bandwidth, volume (as opposed to pressure), intensity, authenticity, power - there's just so much of her coming through.

I've been to a lot of shows now. I actually think I lost count, but it's something like this: Chicago, New Haven, New Haven, Chicago, Las Vegas, Chicago, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York, Cleveland, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, and Washington DC - so that's 16 times. The last half dozen or so I have gotten a handshake at the end. I'm not sure if it's because I'm typically a little taller than the women around me or if I'm memorable in some way or if it's nothing. I am going to pretend it's because I'm memorable, but it's probably because I can reach higher. I did get that handshake again this time. Afterall, we were fairly close. Here's our version of the pic everyone seemed to be taking:

Mrs.TANBI says it looks photoshopped, even though she took it. By the end of the show, hell from about 20 minutes into the show, I was a little sweaty - maybe that's the memorable part: "the guy that looks like he's about to have a coronary."

Anyway, good tunes, good times, fun people, absolutely worth the drive and the money. I guess I will keep my fan club membership active a little bit longer.

Here's the rest of my pics:

MELISSA!!!

DAR Constitution Hall - Front Row!!! More later.

Got MLE Tix?

Yup.

And not a moment too soon.

Why'd it Take me This Long to Google This?

I Just Love Her To Death

But I am not sure how much this will help...

Myspace.com Blogs - Important Message From Melissa - Melissa Etheridge MySpace Blog: "I want to talk about a good friend of mine who is the only candidate for President of the United States that I support: Dennis Kucinich. Dennis is the only candidate running for President who supports full marriage equality rights. He's also the only candidate who has consistently voted against the War in Iraq. His plan for universal single-payer not-for-profit health care also stands out as the only plan that does not funnel money into huge corporate health insurance companies. I could go on and on about why I feel Dennis is the best candidate, but you get the picture."

I Do Like My Melissa

Yes I do. As another curious part of the Google Reader experience, I am following the blog on Melissa Etheridge's MySpace page (Melissa has over 27000 friends - that's networking!). I rarely if ever check the MEIN page even though I am a proud fan club member. So I am often a little bit behind on the news. I'm on a mailing list or two, but really I tend to delete them after a real cursory scan (read - "not"). So you can imagine how cool it was to see the story some up on the feed saying they were leaking 30 seconds of a new track off the upcoming album on MySpace.

And how much cooler it was to see on the MySpace page that for MEIN members you could hear the whole song on the fan club page - I knew I paid again for something.

The song is sort of more of the same. It's nothing that will blow your socks off if you aren't already a Melissa fan. I however was floored. Really I think it wasn't so much the song as the idea of the song - and I don't mean the thought behind the song or its construction or lyrics. I just mean: WOW wasn't it just unbefuckingleavably cool to be hearing Melissa Etheridge again!

I can remember being at shows after a long hiatus, and being close enough to make eye contact and just grinning so hard my face hurt. It's been quite a while since Lucky, and when I got to hear a new tune I was just so stoked. I wish she had a new album every 10 months, and would tour behind every single one.

Ok. I am an MLE geek. But today I was a floored, stoked, happy geek. Welcome back old friend.

All is Right with the World

My fingers were crossed, but then my fingers are always crossed for Melissa Etheridge. Couldn't have happened to a better person.

Be strong. Speak True.

Watch it Sunday Night!

Supposedly the top of the second hour. My fingers are crossed for her!