Curbside Prophet

Oh yes, did I mention I went to go see Jason Mraz the other night?? I love him. I think I love him so much because he is a complete smart ass and it comes through very wittily (is that even a word) in his music. I'm a sucker for clever lyrics and his songs just get me every time.

Of course I attended with, my concert partner in crime, Joelle. I realized I have been to all 3 of the concerts (for my goal #19 of my 101) with her. We went to Coldplay for my birthday in October, Bad Fish (Sublime Tribute Band, coincidentally for Joelle's birthday) and now Jason Mraz. She is just so much fun to go with. Even if she has never heard some one's music she rocks out like it is her favorite band!When we checked to see who was opening for Mraz, it listed K'nan (never heard of him) and Bushwala (didn't know he was still around). We were pleasantly surprised to find out that Bushwala was basically the M.C. and that G.Love & Special Sauce were the main openers! After they did their set, G. Love was in the pavilion signing autographs. While I am all about getting pictures of and/or with people, I am NOT down to wait in a huge line for it. That being said, we creeped around to the side of the table where he was doin his thing and took pictures of him from there.

Between G. Love and Jason Mraz, we managed to use the facilities, snap a few photos and get some beverages before returning to our seats. You will notice the pics of Joelle and I are much more subdued than those from the Coldplay concert where I was not with child and could indulge in numerous a few adult beverages.

The show Jason Mraz put on was nothing short of amazing. I love when an artist is even better live than on their CD. He is so talented that he can sing his older songs to a completely different tune and they still sound awesome! He also has so much fun, which draws the crowd into it as well. He sang Lionel Richie's "All Night Long" and it was funny to see all of the tweens in attendance faces go blank. No matter because all of us "old fogies" were jamming to his rendition! I swear Joelle and I have the best luck too. We already had decent seats and I was stoked because we were right next to the sound guy and I had no one on my right. We were stoked when we thought it was almost over and Jason Mraz left the main stage and popped up on a platform in the sound area right next to us!!! This is the second time this has happened to us. At the Coldplay concert they came into the crowd to play too right next to our section!

The only thing that could have made it better was if their backs hadn't been to us on that platform, but he turned to the side or around often and it was great! All in all we had a blast. The traffic on the way home sucked and I didn't get in bed until almost 1am, but it was so worth it!

What I Got

I went to my second concert last night (Goal #19: Attend 3 concerts)! You'd think, for a girl that had been to 1 concert in the last 3 years, it would take me the entire 1001 days to achieve my goal of attending 3 concerts. It seems I may finish this goal rather early! The first concert was, of course, Coldplay for my birthday in October. Last night we went to see Badfish at Lupo's.

Badfish is a cover tribute band to Sublime, and I love Sublime, so I jumped at the idea of seeing them. I saw Sublime in concert in high school. I still remember it like it was yesterday. December 2, 1995. My senior year of high school. I was such a goodie-two-shoes, so a Sublime concert was definitely stepping out of my range of normal at that time. I guess it was the beginning of me stepping out of my range of normal...for a few crazy years. Anyway, I digress.

When I told Aaron I wanted to go see this band at Lupo's, let's just say, he was less than thrilled. He is not a big fan of sardine-like crowds or standing to watch concerts. I told him that, even though Joelle and I had seats at Coldplay, we didn't sit down once. Um, he was still unconvinced, but he agreed to go anyway. It was Joelle's birthday so her husband had no grounds to object and the 4 of us went.

We decided to go out to dinner before the concert so we met up at Mediterraneo for some wine and way-too-freaking-expensive-especially-right-after-Christmas good food. After we left the restaurant, we embarked on the park-a-thon that happens any time you want to go anywhere in downtown Providence. This consists of driving around the same few blocks of one way streets surrounding your destination, for what seems like forever trying to find a place to park. After about 15 minutes we managed to find a spot because of my hawk eyes (yes, this time I used the saying appropriately) and went in for the show!

I had never been to Lupo's before so I was unaware that it wasn't an out of diapers yet kind of crowd. Seriously, we were probably the oldest 4 people in there! Most of these kids were probably embryos when Sublime came out. The bright side was we were able to post up at the middle bar, which is raised above the floor in front of the stage. We had to let the occasional person in to get a drink, but we had the perfect vantage point for the concert. Plus, I didn't almost get my ribs broken, like the first Sublime concert I went to (did I mention I was in the 2nd row the first time??). Sadly this is the only picture I got of the whole outing since I forgot my camera {bad blogger!!} and had to take this shot with the hubby's new phone.

We had a good time. Aaron even surprised me by getting into it and dancing and singing along. I will attribute that to the amount of adult beverages he imbibed, but he had fun just the same. This is the latest we've been out in forever, 1am! We grabbed some nasty Whopper juniors on the way home to prevent the inevitable hangover of the next morning and got home to relieve the grandparents. I was super tired the next morning but feeling great otherwise. Only one more concert and goal 19 bites the dust! Something tells me that I won't have any problems with this goal...unlike number 38.

Viva la Vida!

All I can say is fantastic! Joelle and I had so much fun last night.I've been fighting off a cold so I was hoping I would be good to go for the concert, and I totally was (today is another story)! I haven't been to a concert since I was pregnant with Nathan (John Legend and I had never heard of him before I went) and before that, probably in Vegas, though it's been so long I can't remember what show it was. I love watching artists live. Let me rephrase that, I love watching amazing artists who are even better in concert, live! Coldplay did not disappoint.

Joelle and I left early so we didn't hit Boston traffic on our way to the Garden. We got there around 4pm and headed over to Boston Beer Works for some food, adult beverages and to shoot a little pool before the concert. It was so nice to spend some "let your hair down" time with Joelle. A lot of our outings involve our boys, so it was great to have some time just for us. We may have been having a little too much fun though, as it took us almost an hour to shoot 2 games of pool! We both swore up and down that we do not stink that bad usually. I'll admit, she beat me...both games. I'm blaming it on the beer and my fabulous new boots...the heels were throwing me off!

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On to the concert! Duffy was the opening act. I had heard 2 of her songs before, and she was really good. I was surprised that such a big voice came from such a petite girl. The main event of course was Coldplay. I love them and was so excited that they were playing a second show in Boston since I missed the first one (It sold out in less than an hour). The concert was at the TD Banknorth Garden, home of the World champion Celtics! We had good seats, i only wish I had a better camera. In the pictures it looks like we are further away than we actually are. Without further ado, here are some of the shots from the night! Please disregard how ridiculous happy we look...again I blame the beer, my heels had nothing to do with that one!

The screens they had were amazing. They weren't just showing what was happening on stage. It almost looked like a video with all of the effects they had going. This shot is of lead singer Chris Martin. Again, sorry my camera stinks...

Early on in the concert.....

Um, yeah......

My absolute favorite part of the show was when the band left the stage and surprised the crowd by appearing in the stands right next to our section!!!! They played 2 songs acoustically, one of which is my favorite, The Scientist. They were so close and I was way too wobbly at that point to get many good shots (besides I wanted to enjoy the songs), but I got a couple and this one is my favorite.

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All in all, the show was amazing and we had a blast! The last shot was the background of the stage during the encore. I thought, at that moment, of the juxtaposition of the crazy evening I was having and what was happening with Mck Mama and her family. I loved that the last thought that came to my mind at the concert's end was Viva.....Life.

When I got home I checked Mck Mama's blog and was so happy to see the prayers of so many were answered in the birth of her sweet, HEALTHY little man!