[live-shows] Suzanne Vega in April / Ben Folds and Cake in August
I haven't posted in a while, but I do like to keep up at least a little bit with event posts, so I can refer back to them later when I wonder what the hell I did or when I did it.
Saturday April 28, 2018: Suzanne Vega at the Sellersville Theater
I was so excited when I saw that Suzanne Vega was doing a special tour performing all of Solitude Standing in its entirety in honor of the album's anniversary (it came out in 1987). I tried at first to get F to go with me, and he would've been game but wasn't all that interested. And then I realized that the perfect concert buddy for this show would be my dad. He and I had that album on cassette and stole it back and forth from each other for ages when I was a kid! So I got the tickets for his birthday. He was psyched. And it was a win-win because I brought Freya to hang out with my mom while Dad and I were at the show, so F got the night off, Frey got a Mom-Mom night, and Dad and I had a great time.
The show was fantastic. I had listened to the album again in preparation, and I still remembered all the words to all the songs. She did Solitude Standing for the first half, then after intermission she did all of 99.9 F, which came out in 1992 and so was also having an anniversary. I didn't know those songs as well but still enjoyed the performance. And she closed with the remix of "Tom's Diner" that we all know so well.
Probably the most fun thing (besides just seeing a great show with my dad) was revisiting who I was when I first was listening to the album. I listened to it so many times, and hearing it again brought up a lot of feelings. I also remembered not only all the lyrics but the way I interpreted them in my middle school brain, which in some cases was pretty hilarious. Major thumbs up and I'm so glad I got to see this show.
Thursday August 16, 2018: Ben Folds and Cake at the Mann Center
I've seen Ben a bunch of times, so although I was looking forward to the show, I wasn't super-psyched about it until like the day before. It was a pleasant surprise to have such an amazing time.
We arrived early at the show and got dinner from a vendor at the Mann. (In the future, I could see us getting dinner elsewhere and then going to the Mann, but it was still a decent meal at a not-terrible price point.) We then wandered around and did some people watching, and I got in line for a t-shirt (which I LOVE). We ended up missing the opening band Tall Heights, which was OK with me because they ended up being Ben's backing band, but I do now want to look them up as they had some interesting instrumentation.
Ben opened with "The Ascent of Stan", which is one of my favorites. Just Ben alone on the piano. The band came in on the next song, and I think they gave Ben the chance to have some fun with arrangements. The cello line in "Jesusland" gave me chills! They did "Levi's Blues" which is just such a great song (afterward, I exclaimed excitedly about how I love knowing all the words to all the songs, and F was like, "You knew all the words to THAT song?!" Yessir!). "Landed" was gorgeous, as well as "You Don't Know Me". He played "Zak and Sara" and "Annie Waits", both of which are a lot of fun, and the punch at the end of "Annie Waits" was great. He also played "Brick" and "Rocking the Suburbs", which I think given the crowd (split between Ben fans and Cake fans) he was pretty much required to play. And, characteristic of any Ben show, there were special moments when he divided the audience into parts and conducted us while we harmonized the background vocals. I love Ben.
I hadn't been particularly excited about seeing Cake. I mean, I had paid for the tickets and splurged on decent seats, so I was going to stay until the end, but I was really there for Ben. Sure, I listened to Fashion Nugget on repeat back in the day, but I thought Cake was kind of a jokey gimmicky band. Joke was on me, man, because I truly had no idea. Seeing them live really brought out for me how talented they are and how brilliant the trumpet riffs are. Just so much awesomeness.
After the break, Cake started (on time!) with the song about the opera singer, which I didn't know well. They went on to "Frank Sinatra", which I remembered most of the words to. They did fun songs like "Stick Shifts and Safety Belts" and "Sheep Go To Heaven". I really, really loved "Meanwhile Rick James", which I had never heard before. And "I Will Survive" was truly amazing. Hearing it live really brought me right back to when I was first listening to Fashion Nugget and heard it for the first time and it completely blew my mind. Wow. And they gave away a tree mid-show, which was random and really cool.
Toward the end, we were getting worried about getting home for the babysitter, so we headed out pretty much right at the last song. They did "The Distance" as we were walking out, which sucked. And we heard snippets of "Short Skirt Long Jacket" as we were out in the parking lot. KILLING us to miss those, it sounded so great from what we could hear. But we already had postponed the babysitter. :(
And the next day, I rode into work in my friend Danton's car and he had been at the show too, and we spent the entire ride talking about our favorite songs and how awesome it was.
Saturday April 28, 2018: Suzanne Vega at the Sellersville Theater
I was so excited when I saw that Suzanne Vega was doing a special tour performing all of Solitude Standing in its entirety in honor of the album's anniversary (it came out in 1987). I tried at first to get F to go with me, and he would've been game but wasn't all that interested. And then I realized that the perfect concert buddy for this show would be my dad. He and I had that album on cassette and stole it back and forth from each other for ages when I was a kid! So I got the tickets for his birthday. He was psyched. And it was a win-win because I brought Freya to hang out with my mom while Dad and I were at the show, so F got the night off, Frey got a Mom-Mom night, and Dad and I had a great time.
The show was fantastic. I had listened to the album again in preparation, and I still remembered all the words to all the songs. She did Solitude Standing for the first half, then after intermission she did all of 99.9 F, which came out in 1992 and so was also having an anniversary. I didn't know those songs as well but still enjoyed the performance. And she closed with the remix of "Tom's Diner" that we all know so well.
Probably the most fun thing (besides just seeing a great show with my dad) was revisiting who I was when I first was listening to the album. I listened to it so many times, and hearing it again brought up a lot of feelings. I also remembered not only all the lyrics but the way I interpreted them in my middle school brain, which in some cases was pretty hilarious. Major thumbs up and I'm so glad I got to see this show.
Thursday August 16, 2018: Ben Folds and Cake at the Mann Center
I've seen Ben a bunch of times, so although I was looking forward to the show, I wasn't super-psyched about it until like the day before. It was a pleasant surprise to have such an amazing time.
We arrived early at the show and got dinner from a vendor at the Mann. (In the future, I could see us getting dinner elsewhere and then going to the Mann, but it was still a decent meal at a not-terrible price point.) We then wandered around and did some people watching, and I got in line for a t-shirt (which I LOVE). We ended up missing the opening band Tall Heights, which was OK with me because they ended up being Ben's backing band, but I do now want to look them up as they had some interesting instrumentation.
Ben opened with "The Ascent of Stan", which is one of my favorites. Just Ben alone on the piano. The band came in on the next song, and I think they gave Ben the chance to have some fun with arrangements. The cello line in "Jesusland" gave me chills! They did "Levi's Blues" which is just such a great song (afterward, I exclaimed excitedly about how I love knowing all the words to all the songs, and F was like, "You knew all the words to THAT song?!" Yessir!). "Landed" was gorgeous, as well as "You Don't Know Me". He played "Zak and Sara" and "Annie Waits", both of which are a lot of fun, and the punch at the end of "Annie Waits" was great. He also played "Brick" and "Rocking the Suburbs", which I think given the crowd (split between Ben fans and Cake fans) he was pretty much required to play. And, characteristic of any Ben show, there were special moments when he divided the audience into parts and conducted us while we harmonized the background vocals. I love Ben.
I hadn't been particularly excited about seeing Cake. I mean, I had paid for the tickets and splurged on decent seats, so I was going to stay until the end, but I was really there for Ben. Sure, I listened to Fashion Nugget on repeat back in the day, but I thought Cake was kind of a jokey gimmicky band. Joke was on me, man, because I truly had no idea. Seeing them live really brought out for me how talented they are and how brilliant the trumpet riffs are. Just so much awesomeness.
After the break, Cake started (on time!) with the song about the opera singer, which I didn't know well. They went on to "Frank Sinatra", which I remembered most of the words to. They did fun songs like "Stick Shifts and Safety Belts" and "Sheep Go To Heaven". I really, really loved "Meanwhile Rick James", which I had never heard before. And "I Will Survive" was truly amazing. Hearing it live really brought me right back to when I was first listening to Fashion Nugget and heard it for the first time and it completely blew my mind. Wow. And they gave away a tree mid-show, which was random and really cool.
Toward the end, we were getting worried about getting home for the babysitter, so we headed out pretty much right at the last song. They did "The Distance" as we were walking out, which sucked. And we heard snippets of "Short Skirt Long Jacket" as we were out in the parking lot. KILLING us to miss those, it sounded so great from what we could hear. But we already had postponed the babysitter. :(
And the next day, I rode into work in my friend Danton's car and he had been at the show too, and we spent the entire ride talking about our favorite songs and how awesome it was.