Trans Siberian Orchestra – Seattle : November 25 2017

November 26, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Exceptional night last night at the Key Arena in Seattle with the Trans Siberian Orchestra. This was the 5th year in a row of this being a holiday family event for us and this year we decided to go all out and enjoy the show with the whole family including Toni’s and my side..14 of us in all. We had an awesome suite and had it catered so we could all gather, visit and enjoy the show together. This is the way to attend a show for sure…not up close to the stage, but definitely a great view, comfortable seats, lots of food, drinks and your private bathroom.

The show was as good as always with the band putting on an absolutely stunning show of music lights and pyrotechnics to the similar holiday theme. This year was the same show as last year which I think is better than the previous show they had been putting on for a number of years…hopefully they will keep this show for another couple years at least.

We attended the early (3:30pm) show as we typically do. We like to come into the city and get a hotel for the night, take the monorail from Westlake Center to the Seattle Center, enjoy the show and then come back to the hotel for some evening festivities with family and friends. Besides me in the midst of a very nasty cold, we had a good, albeit an early ending post show party.

A Video of their “Nutcracker Suite”

 

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Neil Diamond – Seattle WA : July 26th 2017

July 28, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Very good show Wednesday night at Key Arena in Seattle. A bit of a bummer that Toni could’t make it as I had to do the VIP pre-show by myself, but I made sure I ate both our share of the food and free drinks, and actually it was nice (all be it expensive) to have a open seat next to me during the show for a little elbow room and to store my swag on, but do wish she could have made it.

I was seriously impressed with Neil Diamond’s voice, and he still had a little spring in his step as he engaged with the crowd moving constantly across the stage from one side to another – not bad for a 76 year old dude!

50 years of music is what he was celebrating during this tour…totally amazing that someone can continue to entertain and for 50 years these days. I was never really a huge Neil Diamond fan, but I do appreciate a good clean,honest love song once in a while and every song in his set I actually remember from throughout the years. Some of my favorites were, Song Sung Blue, Shilo, Forever in Blue Jeans, Cherry Cherry, Love on the Rocks, I Am I  Said and then an awesome three song encore with Sweet Caroline, Crackling’ Rosie and America.

Check out the short montage

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The WHO – Key Arena – Seattle : May 15 2016

May 16, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Great show last night at the Key Arena in Seattle. This was The Who at 50 show which was rescheduled from back in September of last year. Roger and Pete still have what it takes to put on a great Rock show. Even after 50 years of performing, they can still bring the house down…Roger’s still has a great deal of vocal range and Pete continues to kill it on the guitar. With so many years of hits, they could play forever, but kept it to about 22 songs, and just over 2 hours. What a great set of songs it was, with stuff from early on such as My Generation and I Can See For Miles, through the seventies with The Kid’s are Alright, Baba O’Riley and Behind Blue Eyes. The eighties were well represented with You Better You Bet and Eminence Front which has always been one of mu all time favorite Who songs.

Sad to think this will probably be the last time I wills see The WHO perform live, but I have seen them 4 times throughout the years, and will keep their music playing loud on my radio for many years to come.

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Bruce Springsteen – Seattle WA : March 24 2016

March 26, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Great show at the Key Arena with Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen is one of those artists who is in the iconic category and one which everyone should see in concert at least once. I know that some folks follow him around from city to city and throughout the world, and after seeing him tonight for the first time, I can totally understand why. He puts on such an incredible show. I have to admit that I was never a real hard core Springsteen fan, but did like to hear his music on the radio and many of the songs he played tonight brought me back in time to when I first heard them, reminding me of good time….like all good music should do.

One of the thing that I appreciated about the show was that the stage was not elaborate and neither was the lighting, and there are no unreasonable costume changes…just a basic set-up designed to focus on the music and not the theatrics. This was actually quite refreshing from such a big show such as this.

The setlist was jam packed with material…of course he played the entire The River album, 5 sign request songs including tour premier, Adam Raised a Cain and an additional 10 songs bringing the total for the night up to 35 songs in all. Absolutely amazing!

He came on stages a little after 8:00pm and I don’t think he left the stage until after 12:30….although Toni and I had to leave during Rosalita (Come out Tonight) which was just the forth of his six encore songs. One of the coolest things at the show was his crowd surf from the small stage out on the floor back to the main stage….it was a slow surf, but he made it without getting dropped… that was pretty cool that he trusts his fans so much. It was also super cool that he took signs from people in the audience with song titles on them and then performed those songs… I understand this is common for a Springsteen show and makes each show unique I think.

As customary with concerts in Seattle, there has to be mention of the music culture and scene that is one of things Seattle is most known for, but Bruce took it one level higher and actually brought Eddy Vedder from Pearl Jam out during the first of the encore songs and they performed the song Bobby Jean. Eddy was’t the only local musician at the show, Kim Thayil (lead guitar from Soundgarden) was sitting two rows in front of me.

Great night of fun music.

 

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