The moody Blues put on a great show Tuesday night at the Paramount in Seattle. I was a little apprehensive as their music is such that the vocals need to work right to give it the sound that is so distinctive. I was’t disappointed at all. They sounded great, and the band was just incredible. The background singers (who also seemed to play almost every instrument imaginable) did a great job of rounding out the vocals of Justin Hayward and John Lodge. All three of the guys, including Graeme Edge performed with surprising agility given they are all around 70. It is hard to believe that they are into the 51st year as being a band…how incredible is that!

Some of my favorite songs of the night were their opening “Gemini Dream” followed by “The Voice” and then of course their hugely popular “Tuesday Afternoon“, “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)” and “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere“. By far though, my absolute favorites of the night were “Nights in White Satin” and “Isn’t Life Strange”. All together they played 19 songs in two sets with one encore.

Great old sixties/seventies progressive rock music.

Last night at Rogers Arena in Vancouver Canada. Toni and I had a meet and greet with Def Leppard and were able to meet all the guys and have our picture taken with them before the show. It is always fun to see super stars close up when you have been seeing them in concerts for years, watching them in videos on television and holding them in such an iconic level…we are usually surprised that they look and act just normal people and almost always are shorter than our expectations.

We got to our seats about an hour before the show and were blown away by how close our seats were to the stage. We were four rows back from the front and on the inside aisle. As there was a center extension from the main stage, our seats were actually right at stage side. These were the best seats to any concert we had ever been too. Both Toni and I were standing at the rail all night while the guys would go back and forth singing and playing…they were less than five feet from us throughout the show.

These guys always put on such a great show. They may have aged a bit over the last 30 years, they sound as good as they did in the eighties. Some of the most memorable songs they performed were, “Armageddon It“, “Rock of Ages“, “Rocket“, “Photograph“, “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak” and “let’s Get Rocked“. I think our favorites were when Joe Elliott was out solo,  standing right in front of us with his acoustic guitar playing “Two Steps Behind“, and the guys did an incredible version of the classic ’70s Dave Essex’s song, “Rock On“…awesome bass riff.

We have tickets to see Def Leppard again at the White River Amphitheater in September, but our seats are not even close to being as good as this show, so it will be very hard to top this. Both Toni and I feel this is the concert to beat this year…certainly ranks up with the top 5 concerts I have been to.

What a wonderfully funky, soulful, fun evening at the Key Arena in Seattle last night for the Stevie Wonder show. Toni and I got to the venue a little early as usual, but tonight was OK as we had early entry as part of the VIP package which allowed us in an hour before the regular “door open” time and we were able to meet some of the other fans over drinks and hors d’oeuvres. We had a great time with a lot of good conversation. We got to our seats about 20 minutes before the show started to get settled and for me to get my camera properly set-up.

Opening up the performance, Stevie was led out on stage by India Arie. Both were fabulously dressed, Stevie in an emerald green, sequined suit and India in very beautiful, bright yellow outfit. Stevie started the show off with Love’s in Need of Love Today and a duet with India of Have a Talk With God. The show was packed with great old song which included very lengthy jam sessions during one of them he even brought someone from the audience up on stage to do a little vocal jam and of course mixed in a lot of audience participation. The atmosphere in the arena was electric with just a ton of positive vibe being generated through his music and his personality. The background band for the show consisted of more than 30 other performers (hard to actually count), with 2 drum sets, 2 percussion stations, a horn section, string section, 2 guitarists, 3 other keyboardist and of course bassist Nathan Watts who has been with Stevie since the 70’s. There was a short intermission between the first and second set, with set two opening with Isn’t She Lovely which is a song inspired by his daughter Aisha Morris who is one of his background singers.

The night went well past the normal time shows usually end, not having the last song of the night (Superstition) until nearly midnight.. We unfortunately had to leave during My Cherie Amour which was the third to the last song of the night and were not able to see Superstition. This portion of the show was a real cool set of classics with Stevie putting on a persona of DJ Tick Tick Boom, as he walked the audience through snippets of all of these great hits and adding a ton of personality and humor to the show.

An absolutely delightful show.