Elf Sternberg

Raen and I went out to Marymoor Park last night for an outdoor concert with Idina Menzel. Menzel opened one of her songs (the one from Rent) with "If you're a straight guy who don't know who I am or what I'm about to sing, and who probably got dragged here by your friends and didn't have time to google for me..." So, if you don't know who Idina Menzel is, Menzel's huge break was playing Maureen from Rent, she was the original actress playing the title character Elphaba in Wicked (for which she won a Tony), and if nothing else everyone on the planet has heard her as the voice of Elsa from Frozen.

The evening was delightfully warm with just enough of a breeze. There was one star visible in the night sky at first, and my best guess is that it was Vega, 25 light years away.

The concert was a collection of hits from all three shows, plus a few covers (including Led Zepplin's Black Dog and the Beatle's Dear Prudence), as well as songs from her latest album, which, er, um...

... let's just say that it's somewhat embarrassing to hear someone thrashing out her anger and sadness with her ex onstage. Because, to be honest, that's what a lot of those songs were about. Cake is about how she's found a better man than her ex, I Do is a rant about how marriage can suck in general, and Perfect Story is an apology to her young son about how fucked up life can become. (On the other hand, her opening song Queen of Swords was pretty rockin' and sounds like something she should duet with a very angry Stevie Nicks.) Even Raen picked up on that theme. I know you're supposed to take the pain life gives you and make art out of it, but sometimes an artist can be just a little too obvious about it, ne?

The band behind her was pretty damned good, with her backup singer and cellist and the violin player. Menzel worked really hard to get the audience to appreciate the band, and she named them all time and again, to make sure we appreciated them as much as she did.

Naturally, of course, the finale of the night was the hit from Frozen, Let It Go. She invited dozens of small children, all dressed in Tiffany blue dresses and t-shirts, and had several of them sing the third stanza, over and over. I now officially feel sorry for every kindergarten teacher who had to survive the winter of 2013.

It was fun.

Kouryou-chan had an assignment from her art teacher: attend a public performance. While she's been to plenty of little shows in the past, including local favorites Vixy & Tony, Uffington Horse, and Sooj, as well as the Seattle Gay Men's Chorus annual shown, Omaha and I decided to take her to her first rock concert: Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

I've actually never been inside Key Arena. I wasn't aware of just how small the place was. It's tiny! Then again, it's primary purpose was as a basketball arena, so I guess it doesn't have to be that big. When I saw the stage, I realized just how much this was going to be a light show: there were six cages hung from the ceilings and elevated platforms at the back of the arena.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra isn't a rock band: you're not going to watch people play their art. You're going to watch performers perform work written and assembled by commercially-oriented craftsmen of the highest caliber; this is a production-oriented show. There are two TSO's-- one for the east coast, one for the west, and they perform their Christmas shows every year for two months-- and make most of their cash in that time. Every once in a while, the original line-up (which is also the line-up for the ancient prog-rock band Savatage) tour together in the "off-season" to present new material to fans who remember TSO before it became a Hollywood production.

The first half of the show featured a deep-voiced narrator standing in front of a microphone between pieces from their album The Lost Christmas Eve. Three guitarists, two keyboards, drums, a line-up of eight backup vocalists, a ten-member string section, and an electric violinist. Strobes, lasers, smoke, fire, sparks, the whole kit and kaboodle of a modern sensory overloading rock show.

My one disappointment was that only two guitarists were given even brief solos. The violinist would continue to strum her instrument even at times when it was obvious she had nothing to do, which was terrible form-- it led to the suspicion that she wasn't actually contributing anything at all, and her instrument was tuned such that it sounded like just another electric guitar.

Kouryou-chan thought it was very loud, it being her first, but she was energized and a little exhausted by it all, especially by the flamethrowers in the back of the auditorium. I was impressed with the pace of technology; the servos on those lights are fast, the strobes are fully tunable both in speed and color, and the positioning amazingly precise. Timothy Leary, later in life, explained how "the light show" of stained glass was the first attempt to routinize a psychedelic experience, and this show was a crowning example.

We drove home exhausted.

As I mentioned last week, Omaha bought us tickets to Porcupine Tree at the Showbox last night.

Now, I've never been in the Showbox. I had no idea what to expect from the facility, nor did I have a real clue what to expect from the fans of Porcupine Tree. As it turned out, the audience was a complete mix, with kids as young as fourteen and fifteen all the way up to serious geezers whose first concerts involved Yes and Peter Gabriel's Genesis. There was even a rumor that Alan White of Yes was in the audience although I didn't see him.

Omaha and I took refuge in the bar-- it was less crowded than the center stage. I won't discuss the opening act here, but not for lack of desire. See the next post.

The Showbox speaker system is huge. Depending upon the frequency hit I felt more than heard some of the baselines all up an down my innards. By the end of the concert my hearing was seriously dulled (and today still feels a little weird although it's mostly recovered) and I felt like I'd been standing behind a 747 for three solid hours.

Porcupine Tree is a much harder band than it used to be. They were once a high-end psych-prog rock band, doing all kinds of nifty things and playing musically solid and lyrically intellectual songs in the vein of Pink Floyd and Yes. Last night they rocked like they wanted to be a heavy metal band, or maybe the last great grunge band. Steve Wilson was amazing naturally but so was his back-up guitarist, who isn't identified on the website dammit.

They had one technical glitch when the video player went out, so they played an instrumental piece that then dove into hard rock and loud metal grunge. They did that a lot: playing pieces like "Light Bulb Sun" and "Sever", pieces you don't think of as heavy, with so much volume, power and energy that it left my head spinning.

Omaha's only problem is that when the band went really loud they also broke out the fucking strobes and she has to be aware of that because they might trigger an epileptic seziure. But she was good about keeping her hands over her eyes and the band gave cues.

The audience was fabu. Some kids tried to start a mosh pit but it fizzled, and one of the kids who was in the mosh pit lit up a spliff I could smell from fifteen feet away, but other than that it was a good time.

If I had one disappointment, it was that they didn't play any really old stuff: No "A Slave Called Shiver," or "Last Chance To Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled," or "Voyage 34: Phase I". A different crowd, maybe, would have found those pleasing. They're among my favorites. But I had a wonderful time rocking out to one of my favorite bands, and I think I might have a new love, too. More on that later.