Final Fantasy & Pink Floyd: A Weekend of Concerts
I see it's been close on 2 and a half years since I've checked out my LJ. It seems most of my business has moved onto Facebook. Maybe I will be back here from time to time, when I actually want to blog about something rather than pare the experience down to a one-liner I post for the world to see. I sure do hate the idea of losing all the words I've written on this site...I really do need to back it up somehow. The only back up I have of it is on a Floppy disk somewhere...maybe on my hard drive somewhere...I'll have to check.
Anyway, this weekend Steve and I went on a little mini-just-us vacation, our last planned before baby comes. We didn't really go to stay anywhere, but we picked up tickets to see two different concerts: Distant Worlds Final Fantasy in Pittsburgh and Brit Floyd in Akron.
Saturday afternoon we headed out to Pittsburgh to check into the hotel as early as possible, and get our money's worth. We stayed at a Best Western near the airport, about 3 miles from the theater the show was playing at. We checked in and learned the bar gives away TWO free drinks PER PERSON at happy hour. Happily, we partook, though of course I had just juice (though I did take two tiny sips from Steve's whiskey & coke...so delicious). After that, we thought we left in enough time to have a nice dinner before the concert, but because Pittsburgh is one messed up little mass of highways, we ended up getting downtown in enough time for Steve to grab some quick Arby's. I picked up a couple small snacks at 7-11 for later, because I just wasn't hungry at that time.
Having already parked at a nearby garage, we walked back to the theater and decided to do some exploring. Like most old theaters, this one was architecturally interesting and smelled of olde opulence. We took some pictures, and found our seats in the balcony. There were some interestingly dressed characters in the audience, but the one I took the most notice of, probably because she was sitting just a few seats from us, was Cupcake Girl. She wore her curly (fake?) hair up in two half pigtails, pink on one half and purple on the other. In the center of the top of her head was a life size cupcake, just sitting there.
The concert itself was great. Most of the music was familiar to us, by playing the games or listening to OCRemix, and the orchestra did a great job. The video made the audience laugh out loud at times, especially during the quirky chocobo theme. Mostly, it made me want to watch Advent Children and play FF8 and FF9. The encore was brilliant - the conductor asked the audience to join in and be the 'chorus' for Sephiroth's theme from Advent Children. Many ridiculous fans knew how to sing the Latin sections, but I contented myself with just 'Seph-i-roth' whenever it came up.
We exited the theater surprisingly quickly and orderly and made it back to the hotel a little after 11pm. We weren't tired, and I was thinking we could have saved the money and driven home that night. But when we got up the next morning and were watching the news with our delicious continental breakfast, we heard the weather actually got pretty bad and there were two incidents of large pileups on the freeway, one of them involving 25 cars & semis. So it's probably a good thing we stayed the night in Pittsburgh after all.
We stayed at the hotel as long as possible, leaving just before check out time, since it wouldn't take us long to reach our lunch and touristy destination: the McDonald's Big Mac Museum & Restaurant. I couldn't help myself. I just had to check it out. The restaurant was about a half hour in the opposite direction of home, so we got there a little before noon and spent some time checking out all the Big Mac history and memorabilia before ordering lunch. Before leaving, we sauntered into the Playplace area and took a silly picture of me standing next to the world's largest statue of a Big Mac.
The next concert took place the following night (Monday). We left for Akron in plenty of time to find a great (free) parking spot on the street about 1-2 blocks from the Civic Theater. It was cold and windy, but we walked there quickly and found our seats easily. The first thing we noticed upon entering the theater, especially being on the balcony, was the dark dome ceiling with "stars" (light pinpricks) in it...constellations and everything. There were also two spotlights trained on the ceiling which were made to look like clouds moving across the night sky.
Pink Floyd. Was. Amazing. There is no way to accurately impart the awesomeness of this show. The music is phenomenal and the light show makes it what it is. During very brief seconds throughout the performance where the band played but no lights were on, it was painfully obvious exactly how much the lights make the show. It was a 'Best Of' show, not an album show, so they started off with one of my very favorites (Shine on You Crazy Diamond) which gave me tingles, and played a smattering from several different albums, including favorite sections from 'Dark Side of the Moon' and 'The Wall'. It wasn't necessarily overwhelmingly loud, but we could feel the vibrations from the bass through our entire bodies - which must have bothered baby as he moved around quite violently until the breaks between songs, where he quieted down a bit.
Sometimes I have to remind myself watching a concert is not like watching a movie, where the audience must sit still and quiet throughout. There were two guys behind us who were obviously big fans of the band, and behind them was a girl who just couldn't stop talking through the entire show, about everything, but mostly about nothing. But the woman in front of us took the cake. In her mid-50s and tagging along with her friends, a married couple by the looks of it, she got up several times to get more beer which was apparently one time too many. On her way back the last time she couldn't find her seat, and Steve and I giggled as we watched her wander around the wrong balcony looking for her friends until they finally took pity on her and got up to lead her back, after which she promptly fell asleep for the rest of the concert.
We had both taken the next day off because we knew we'd be getting home pretty late, so we enjoyed the day together. So, in conclusion, the Final Fantasy concert was nice. Something I'm glad I was able to experience the once. But I seriously hope that's not the last Pink Floyd concert I ever see.
Anyway, this weekend Steve and I went on a little mini-just-us vacation, our last planned before baby comes. We didn't really go to stay anywhere, but we picked up tickets to see two different concerts: Distant Worlds Final Fantasy in Pittsburgh and Brit Floyd in Akron.
Saturday afternoon we headed out to Pittsburgh to check into the hotel as early as possible, and get our money's worth. We stayed at a Best Western near the airport, about 3 miles from the theater the show was playing at. We checked in and learned the bar gives away TWO free drinks PER PERSON at happy hour. Happily, we partook, though of course I had just juice (though I did take two tiny sips from Steve's whiskey & coke...so delicious). After that, we thought we left in enough time to have a nice dinner before the concert, but because Pittsburgh is one messed up little mass of highways, we ended up getting downtown in enough time for Steve to grab some quick Arby's. I picked up a couple small snacks at 7-11 for later, because I just wasn't hungry at that time.
Having already parked at a nearby garage, we walked back to the theater and decided to do some exploring. Like most old theaters, this one was architecturally interesting and smelled of olde opulence. We took some pictures, and found our seats in the balcony. There were some interestingly dressed characters in the audience, but the one I took the most notice of, probably because she was sitting just a few seats from us, was Cupcake Girl. She wore her curly (fake?) hair up in two half pigtails, pink on one half and purple on the other. In the center of the top of her head was a life size cupcake, just sitting there.
The concert itself was great. Most of the music was familiar to us, by playing the games or listening to OCRemix, and the orchestra did a great job. The video made the audience laugh out loud at times, especially during the quirky chocobo theme. Mostly, it made me want to watch Advent Children and play FF8 and FF9. The encore was brilliant - the conductor asked the audience to join in and be the 'chorus' for Sephiroth's theme from Advent Children. Many ridiculous fans knew how to sing the Latin sections, but I contented myself with just 'Seph-i-roth' whenever it came up.
We exited the theater surprisingly quickly and orderly and made it back to the hotel a little after 11pm. We weren't tired, and I was thinking we could have saved the money and driven home that night. But when we got up the next morning and were watching the news with our delicious continental breakfast, we heard the weather actually got pretty bad and there were two incidents of large pileups on the freeway, one of them involving 25 cars & semis. So it's probably a good thing we stayed the night in Pittsburgh after all.
We stayed at the hotel as long as possible, leaving just before check out time, since it wouldn't take us long to reach our lunch and touristy destination: the McDonald's Big Mac Museum & Restaurant. I couldn't help myself. I just had to check it out. The restaurant was about a half hour in the opposite direction of home, so we got there a little before noon and spent some time checking out all the Big Mac history and memorabilia before ordering lunch. Before leaving, we sauntered into the Playplace area and took a silly picture of me standing next to the world's largest statue of a Big Mac.
The next concert took place the following night (Monday). We left for Akron in plenty of time to find a great (free) parking spot on the street about 1-2 blocks from the Civic Theater. It was cold and windy, but we walked there quickly and found our seats easily. The first thing we noticed upon entering the theater, especially being on the balcony, was the dark dome ceiling with "stars" (light pinpricks) in it...constellations and everything. There were also two spotlights trained on the ceiling which were made to look like clouds moving across the night sky.
Pink Floyd. Was. Amazing. There is no way to accurately impart the awesomeness of this show. The music is phenomenal and the light show makes it what it is. During very brief seconds throughout the performance where the band played but no lights were on, it was painfully obvious exactly how much the lights make the show. It was a 'Best Of' show, not an album show, so they started off with one of my very favorites (Shine on You Crazy Diamond) which gave me tingles, and played a smattering from several different albums, including favorite sections from 'Dark Side of the Moon' and 'The Wall'. It wasn't necessarily overwhelmingly loud, but we could feel the vibrations from the bass through our entire bodies - which must have bothered baby as he moved around quite violently until the breaks between songs, where he quieted down a bit.
Sometimes I have to remind myself watching a concert is not like watching a movie, where the audience must sit still and quiet throughout. There were two guys behind us who were obviously big fans of the band, and behind them was a girl who just couldn't stop talking through the entire show, about everything, but mostly about nothing. But the woman in front of us took the cake. In her mid-50s and tagging along with her friends, a married couple by the looks of it, she got up several times to get more beer which was apparently one time too many. On her way back the last time she couldn't find her seat, and Steve and I giggled as we watched her wander around the wrong balcony looking for her friends until they finally took pity on her and got up to lead her back, after which she promptly fell asleep for the rest of the concert.
We had both taken the next day off because we knew we'd be getting home pretty late, so we enjoyed the day together. So, in conclusion, the Final Fantasy concert was nice. Something I'm glad I was able to experience the once. But I seriously hope that's not the last Pink Floyd concert I ever see.