Late late late late late...
Ok, so Jamie! Yay!
I have to say, the most disturbing moment of the evening was also the most hysterical, namely the whole "Don't you wish your boyfriend were short like me?" Something about hearing him sing pop songs cracks me up. I loved some of the differences between this concert and the last, like the pop medley, the screen with the awesome animations, and the kazoos. I loved the kazoos - on "These Are the Days" they had people throwing little kazoos to the audience, and he instructed us on how to best accompany him throughout the song. The first time the entire place erupted in kazoo-music, he started laughing and lost his composure so much he had to play a few more bars to finally achieve a straight face.
I ended up running into someone I worked with on my current show right before the concert began, and I think my crazed monkey dancing may have scared him and his wife :) But when Jamie, god of jazz, tells you to open your cell phone and jump up and down while singing, you obey. (And watching the live feed on the screen on the stage of the entire Wiltern doing that was totally awesome!)
For those (very few) of you who've been to the Wiltern, I was in the very very front section, where you need a wristband. I love that place, because you're right in the action, but yet not. You can stand in the "back of the front" so to speak, and be uncrowded while watching Jamie just 8 or 10 feet away. When he did his famous "romp through the audience" bit (which I thought he would forgo because of the design of the stage) he ended up trying to pull himself over an audience barrier two people away from me. I love Jamie and his infectious energy!
I ended up leaving with a t-shirt and some super-fun buttons, and two barely decent pictures of Jamie. Despite repeat assurances by the box office that cameras were allowed at the concert, the guards were utter Nazi's. When they spied someone getting a picture, they took that person to the side and made them delete it while watching them. That was my biggest pet peeve - I was actually quite angry. To paraphrase from the best musical ever: You told us one thing, then you did another! That's what you did!
I also liked Josh Ritter, the opener, quite a bit. I have ideological issues with a few of his songs, but on the whole I enjoy them. I love wordplay (as evidenced by my love of The Lucksmiths) and Josh is great with words. I also love that you can literally hear him smiling while he's singing on his albums.
The big downer at the end was when Jamie informed us that he was going back to London to record his next album (yay!) so we should expect to see him touring again in about a year (noooo!). I got spoiled seeing him in January and then in October. *sigh* He told us how much he loved LA and the audience and how we've always been good to him, so he played us an extra long set. And it was the last night of his US tour, so it was a celebration of the completion of that leg of the journey. Josh and one of his bandmates even came out and played a song with Jamie as a sort of "goodbye" and of course they all came out to celebrate Carnivale, which is the single best moment of any Jamie concert, ever.
I have to say, the most disturbing moment of the evening was also the most hysterical, namely the whole "Don't you wish your boyfriend were short like me?" Something about hearing him sing pop songs cracks me up. I loved some of the differences between this concert and the last, like the pop medley, the screen with the awesome animations, and the kazoos. I loved the kazoos - on "These Are the Days" they had people throwing little kazoos to the audience, and he instructed us on how to best accompany him throughout the song. The first time the entire place erupted in kazoo-music, he started laughing and lost his composure so much he had to play a few more bars to finally achieve a straight face.
I ended up running into someone I worked with on my current show right before the concert began, and I think my crazed monkey dancing may have scared him and his wife :) But when Jamie, god of jazz, tells you to open your cell phone and jump up and down while singing, you obey. (And watching the live feed on the screen on the stage of the entire Wiltern doing that was totally awesome!)
For those (very few) of you who've been to the Wiltern, I was in the very very front section, where you need a wristband. I love that place, because you're right in the action, but yet not. You can stand in the "back of the front" so to speak, and be uncrowded while watching Jamie just 8 or 10 feet away. When he did his famous "romp through the audience" bit (which I thought he would forgo because of the design of the stage) he ended up trying to pull himself over an audience barrier two people away from me. I love Jamie and his infectious energy!
I ended up leaving with a t-shirt and some super-fun buttons, and two barely decent pictures of Jamie. Despite repeat assurances by the box office that cameras were allowed at the concert, the guards were utter Nazi's. When they spied someone getting a picture, they took that person to the side and made them delete it while watching them. That was my biggest pet peeve - I was actually quite angry. To paraphrase from the best musical ever: You told us one thing, then you did another! That's what you did!
I also liked Josh Ritter, the opener, quite a bit. I have ideological issues with a few of his songs, but on the whole I enjoy them. I love wordplay (as evidenced by my love of The Lucksmiths) and Josh is great with words. I also love that you can literally hear him smiling while he's singing on his albums.
The big downer at the end was when Jamie informed us that he was going back to London to record his next album (yay!) so we should expect to see him touring again in about a year (noooo!). I got spoiled seeing him in January and then in October. *sigh* He told us how much he loved LA and the audience and how we've always been good to him, so he played us an extra long set. And it was the last night of his US tour, so it was a celebration of the completion of that leg of the journey. Josh and one of his bandmates even came out and played a song with Jamie as a sort of "goodbye" and of course they all came out to celebrate Carnivale, which is the single best moment of any Jamie concert, ever.