Asia At Club Nokia

This past Friday night I was able to see a band I never got a chance to see when I was a kid. Years ago on their second tour Asia had a live special on MTV called Asia in Asia. This was broadcast live from Japan and occurred the day before my 11th birthday. Here is a clip from that show that I stayed up until the wee hours of the night to see. They later broke up and went through numerous line up changes.
Some 27 years later I was finally able to see the original line up live at Club Nokia. Strangely I had a number of friends independently at this show as well. So we had a good little group at the show with Natasha, myself, Brian and Jay (from my apartment), and another couple of friends of ours Liz and Steve.

The stage was minimal with only the instruments and a small video screen above the drums. The only thing the video was used for was to show the album cover for the song they were playing.

This was a surprisingly enjoyable show with a great vocal performance from John Wetton, an expectedly good drum solo from Carl Palmer and of course some great acoustic solos from Steve Howe of Yes fame.

For a low key show in a small venue this is probably one of the best theater shows I've been to in years. Great music, a great environment and a crowd that really showed respect for the music, which isn't something you see much as shows these days.

Asia
Club Nokia
Los Angeles, CA
August 27, 2010

I Believe
Only Time Will Tell
Holy War
Never Again
Through My Veins
Don't Cry (Geoff Downes & John Wetton)
Steve Howe Solo (2 songs)
The Smile Has Left Your Eyes (Geoff and John, ended with full band)
Open Your Eyes

Intermission

Go
Time Again
An Extraordinary Life
End Of The World
The Heat Goes On (w/ Carl Palmer drum solo)
Sole Survivor

Encore
Days Like These
Heat Of The Moment

Old is new again

Well after having my car for nearly 7 years I decided it was time to get a new car. I wasn'tplanning on doing this right now, but after too many repairs this year, tires, alternator, belts, and then warning signs for a new clutch I decided to do what my Mom always did. When a car starts to break down, don't fix it, just trade it in for a new one. :-)

Here is one of the last pics of my old car and a couple of pics of the new one. Yes, it is basically a new version of my old one. Upgrading from a 2003 530i to a 2011 528i.I didn't think the drive and experience would be so drastic. My previous car was very nice and I had no complaints about the car it self. But this new car drives has both an amazing ride, and is decked out with outrageous technology. Starting with the navigation, smartphone, blue-tooth, and it even has a hard drive for time-shifting radio and for ripping CDs to your car. Some of these things I didn't even know they were doing.

The first road trip will be to Las Vegas in October. Can't wait.

Here is a link of the car I picked up today, down to the exact colors and options..

http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/BYO/SharedBuild.aspx?ConfigurationId=599325

The Rush Vacation before I turned into the Working Man...

After 6 weeks of vacation I head back to work tomorrow. I'll be joining Gogii, a start up that currently builds a free texting application for smart phones call textPlus. I'll be their VP of Engineering and will be working to both improve their current product line and expand their portfolio of products and services. So on my last week off I had planned a little vacation and was able to see Rush twice on their Time Machine tour. First in Los Angeles and then at the world famous Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver Colorado.

I went to the first show with my friend Brian

from Helio/Virgin/Sprint and who is also a resident of the lovely Mansfield Estates. I had just joined the House Of Blues Foundation Room so Brian and I were able to get access to the VIP area at the Los Angeles show. I had great seats and towards the end of the show I caught one of the shirts Geddy Lee threw into

the audience. The shirt featured Geddy on front dressed as the character from Gershon's that was the movie featured pre-show and during the intermission.

On Thursday I flew out to Denver to meet up

with Brett. I stayed at his place my first couple of nights and we took in a lot of mountain driving. First on the back roads to Manitou Springs and then after a couple of hours of driving our destination was rewarded with an old school video game arcade straight out of the 1980s. We played Tron, Asteroids, Joust, Galaga, Q-Bert, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Pole Position and maybe even a few others. We got the high scores on nearly every game we played with Brett taking the #1 spot on some and me #1 on others. EED and DAV lived on.

After a late night dinner with Brett and his wife Sandy, we headed back to Brett's for some late

night gaming on the Xbox 360. Friday Brett and I headed to Rocky Mountain National park. I had done this a few years back with the family when we there for Brett's wedding, but this was one thing I wanted to do again. We spent most of the day driving through the mountains and saw some Elk and Moose along the way. Took some great pictures and at the peak we were over 2 miles above sea level close to 13,000 feet.

Friday night concluded with another dinner and more Xbox gaming. We had a great time and although he turned 40 the following Monday I felt like I was able to be a part of his 40th birthday celebrations. Brett and Sandy were off to a family vacation on Saturday so I was dropped back off at the airport to meet up with Terry and Geoff, Terry's other brother in law.

Once we met up we headed to Matt's, a friend of Geoff's and had lunch at Cherry Cricket, as featured on Man Vs. Food, and then we took in a Colorado Rockies game at Coors Field with a pre-game event at Lodo's for a Texas Exes meet up. A little pre-game drinking with UT alumni.

We had a great time at the game even though the Rockies ended up losing. The game went into the 10th inning but at the end of the day the Milwaukee Brewers came out ahead.

On Sunday we took in brunch at a place called The Buff Restaurant in Boulder. We took in a tour of the Coors Brewery, saw the grave of Buffalo Bill and had dinner at another little place in Boulder.

That night Terry, Geoff and I got a hotel and did some late night drinking at Buffalo Wild Wings and topped the night off with some Coors (Yellow Belly) and Coors Light (Silver Bullet) back at the hotel. Listening to music, telling stories, and acting a lot like we did when we all lived in Austin when we were in college.

Monday was the primary reason for being in Denver. The Rush show at Red Rocks. After sleeping in we are started our day once again at the Buff Restaurant in Boulder. Afterwards we headed up to the Estes Brewery in Estes Park and took an air tram to the top of the hill above Estes Park. After a couple of hours of sight seeing we were off to see Rush.

Once at Red Rocks we walked around the park grounds and were able to hear Rush's soundcheck which featured the songs Presto, and Faithless. We met a number of people from out of town including a couple from Texas. A little rain shower and then a beautiful but faint rainbow emerged. And all of this happened about 30 minutes before the doors to the venue opened.

Once we got inside we all just took it in. The Rush show is always a great spectacle with great music and on this tour they were playing their best selling album, Moving Pictures, in its entirety. The Red Rocks show had some technical difficulties with the into movie and it seemed the high altitude might have given the band a couple of challenges during the set. A few missed cues here and there, which is odd for a Rush show, but nevertheless a great show and if you ever get a chance to goto Red Rocks then do so. A visually stunning venue.

Rush played the same set in both Los Angeles and Denver.

Rush

Setlist

The Spirit Of Radio

Time Stands Still

Presto

Stick It Out

Workin' Them Angels

Leave That Thing Alone

Faithless

BU2B

Freewill

Marathon

Subdivisions

Intermission

Tom Sawyer

Red Barchetta

YYZ

Limelight

The Camera Eye

Witch Hunt

Vital Signs

Caravan

Drum Solo

Guitar Solo -> Closer To The Heart

2112 / Temples Of Syrinx

Far Cry

Encore

La Villa Strangiato

Working Man

Tuesday morning Terry, Geoff and I all headed to the airport said our goodbyes. A great way to finish out my stretch of time off, and now after a great week of escape its back to reality.

Rush closed their show with a song called Working Man. So as I start my new job on Wednesday and it's time to "Call Me The Working Man".

I took quite a few pictures so here are links to the different photo albums from the trip.

Manitou Springs / Rocky Mountain National park

Denver Weekend

Estes Park

Rush at Red Rocks 2010

Kings Of Leon - Hollywood Bowl

First off Happy Birthday to my sister, Lisa! It is number 30-something for her, but who's counting :-)

Tonight I took Natasha to a sold out performance by Kings Of Leon at the Hollywood Bowl. You really can't beat the great Southern California weather. I live close enough to the Bowl so we didn't have to drive or deal with parking and the weather was between 60-70 degrees the entire night. We left around 7pm and got home around 11:30 and spent the entire evening outside.

The walk takes about 20 minutes and we were inside and seated towards the tail end of one of the opening acts, Built To Spill. Another band, Futures, played before but we missed their set.

It's hard to believe I saw Kings Of Leon play the first show of the day in a tent years ago at Bonnaroo and now they are headlining and selling out the world famous Hollywood Bowl. They played 4 new songs tonight and surprisingly they went over well for being unfamiliar material for the audience.

Highlights for me included The Bucket, Use Somebody and the new songs Immortals and Southbound. And the surprise of the night they saved until the very end. Pyro!!!

Kings Of Leon
July 12, 2010
Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood, California

Crawl
Taper Jean Girl
My Party
Be Somebody
Immortals
Molly's Chambers
Fans
Milk
Closer
Mary
Four Kicks
The Bucket
Radioactive
Sex On Fire
Notion
On Call
Southbound
Trani

Encore
Knocked Up
Manhattan
Use Somebody
Black Thumbnail

A mini Vacation

A couple of weeks back my friend Ron hit me up and asked if I'd be willing to meet him in Las Vegas the last weekend of June. Let's call this required minimal arm twisting considering I was wrapping up my job at Virgin/Sprint and I'm always looking for an excuse to head to Vegas. I drove out Friday June 25th and we met up that afternoon at the Palms. Since I had stayed at the Palms the last couple of times in Vegas I was able to get our room comp'd for the entire weekend.

After a few drinks in the room we headed down to the pool and then out for some dinner at SW (see my last Vegas post) and some late night gambling. Nothing too crazy and it was great to catch up since we hadn't just been able to hang out as two guys in many years.

Saturday we took in some more drinks, some more time at the pool and then was able to see a special concert at the Paris hotel with Cheap Trick presenting The Beatles Sgt. Pepper in it's entirety. The show featured a small backing symphony, background singers, an Indian Ensemble (for Within You Without You) and of course Cheap Trick.

The set started with I Am The Walrus, ran through all of Sgt. Pepper, Cheap Trick were able to play a mini greatest hits set and closed with some additional Beatles songs. We got tickets last minute and due to some extra seats in the front section the ushers upgraded our seats so the front section would be filled.

And the remainder of Saturday was left for more gambling.

Sunday ended up being the highlight of the trip. After a late night of gambling the night before we were eating breakfast and Ron suggested instead of hanging at the Casino all day we venture out to the Grand Canyon. The drive is a little over two hours and takes you over the Hoover Dam. However the directions failed to mention that the last 13 miles of the road is dirt up to the top of the West Side of the Grand Canyon. My car made it, but definitely was making some strange sounds on our way back.

I had never been to the Grand Canyon so this was quite a treat. The journey was also a bit touching because the day before my grandfather died he told me about the Grand Canyon and how amazing it was. He was actually driving out to the Grand Canyon when he died.

We went to Grand Canyon West and did the Sky Walk. This is a horseshoe walk way that goes out over the Canyon so you can get a birds eye view into the Canyon through the see through floor. A great time and definitely an unforgettable memory. They wouldn't let us take pictures on the Sky Walk but they had their own photographer and here are a couple of those photos.

Sunday night ended with more gambling and almost got ugly for me. Let's just say I had put my very list chip on to the table for the night and ended up rallying for five hours to break even on my trip. I wrapped up around 3am and by the time I left the Casino, I had a VIP card and also the business card of a Casino Host. I guess they want their money back next time I come. :-)

We both headed out early Monday morning, Ron a little earlier than me, and after a little get away I was back home by 2pm on Monday. Considering the close proximity to Los Angeles it was nice to have a spontaneous getaway with a good friend that resulted in a trip neither of us will ever forget. Good times!

On Gene Simmons Family Jewels

This past February I went to a CD release party for Bruce Kulick, the former guitarist from KISS. At the performance Nick Simmons, son of Gene Simmons, got on stage and sang one song (twice actually). Gene Simmons' Family Jewels production was there to document the occasion and yours truly was front and center for the performance.

I just found out that A&E aired the episode last night. I found the episode online and watched the episode and there is a shot of me in full KISS Army glory :-)

Here is a picture I took of Bruce and Nick from the show , and below is a picture they took of me!

The show ended up being a great surprise and one of those things that you only get living out here in Hollywood. They played a couple of songs off of Bruce's new CD, and also played one KISS song from each album where Bruce played guitar.

Bruce Kulick
The Cat Club
February 1, 2010

Come Hell Or High Water (KISS)
Hide Your Heart (KISS)
Tears Are Falling (KISS)
Heart Of Chrome (KISS)
Hand Of The King (w/ Nick Simmons)
Hand Of The King (again w/ Nick Simmons. They played twice so they had enough video footage for the TV show)
No Friend Of Mine
I Walk Alone (KISS)
God Gave Rock And Roll To You II (KISS)

You can watch the full episode here.

http://www.aetv.com/gene-simmons-family-jewels/video/?bcpid=58345455001&bclid=82355205001&bctid=82331971001

A little Vegas and staying busy in LA

I just got back into town from a mini-vacation in Las Vegas. The primary occasion was just a little get away along with a concert with a friend. I stayed at Palms Place, the same place I stayed at when I saw KISS in November. The concert I saw was Muse and Silversun Pickups at Mandalay Bay on Saturday.

Drove up Friday, gambled Saturday and Sunday and had one of the best steak dinners ever at SW Steak House in the Wynn hotel Sunday night. Check out the picture of the Funnel Cake dessert. Amazing!

After dinner I went to a couple of clubs, first the Ghostbar which is on the roof of one of the Palm's Towers. Their gimmick is they have a see through floor where you can look straight down 50+ floors. It was super windy so I didn't stay too long. After the Ghostbar I headed over to the Playboy club near the top of the other Palm's Tower. Great drinks, great bar and lots of Playboy logos along with waitresses in the classic bunny outfits.

I just got back to LA Monday evening. And this week is another full week. First I have band rehearsal with Spidersuit tomorrow night in preparation for our show at the Joint in Los Angeles on Thursday night. Wednesday night I'm seeing Them Crooked Vultures.

And then on Friday Terry is flying into town and we are headed to Coachella for a 3 day music festival.