Renaissance (and R.I.P. Noodles)

It's been another one of those weeks. The worst part was that on Thursday, after countless vet appointments over the last two years trying to treat some kind of a respiratory ailment, our family had to say goodbye to the oldest of our three cats, Noodles.

Noodles was a stray who adopted us. He came to us right after my kids first moved in, when my daughter was 13 and my son only 10. The kids fed him once, and he moved into our front yard and never left. According to the rules of our adoption agency, we weren't supposed to bring a new pet into the house until we had all completed our adoption steps, the idea being that it's unfair to let children get attached to a pet until you have made the final commitment that you will all become a solid forever-family together. But Noodles was unplanned.

The night another cat tried to steal Noodles' food, and my 10-year-old charged out of the house screaming, "Hey you, get away from MY cat!" I knew we were done. We took him to the vet (Noodles, not my son), and moved him into the house shortly after that. Then we all learned to be a family together, Noodles as much as any of us. (To date, Noodles is the only cat to graduate our agency's steps program -- every time my son presented evidence to move up an adoption step, he gave evidence on Noodles' behalf as well.) He's been with us these past ten years, and he was no spring chicken when he first came to us -- we think he was already eight or so then.

In any event, we've been trying to take care of him, but this week, we finally ran out of options. He wasn't feeling well, and the vets couldn't do any more to make him better. So on Thursday night, the five of us (My wife and I, my two young adult kids, and my daughter's boyfriend) made the sad drive to the vet to give him some peace. We all cried -- a lot -- and said goodbye to our beloved friend. He was maybe the sweetest and gentlest cat I ever knew. It was a heartbreaking night.

Unfortunately, Denise and I had tickets to see Renaissance on their 50th Anniversary Tour the next night. It wasn't the best timing.

Friday was a bizarre day. I started by getting up at 7 to drive my daughter to her job training in Huntington. We've been doing this for five weeks now, and it's kind of crushing my soul. Saturday was supposed to be the last day for a few weeks. Unfortunately, before I even got home, my daughter texted to tell me she had to work in Huntington for one more week. Sigh.

Then, on the way home, I had something happen that had never happened to me in 35 years of driving. It was an exceptionally windy day, and as I pulled off of Sunrise Highway at the Hospital Road exit, I noticed a flock of birds overhead. They were whirling back and forth crazily, as if they were all being buffeted by the wind. And as I entered the service road, they started spiraling downward, lower and lower, until I suddenly realized they were going to shoot right in front of me. There was no time to brake -- I could only grip the wheel tightly as birds pounded into my car, smashing off of the roof and the windshield. I thought the windshield was going to break, but luckily it didn't. I looked in my rear view mirror, and didn't see any bodies on the road. But I must have taken out about eight of them, because there was bird grue on several parts of my car, even the driver's side window. It was like the Hitchcock film The Birds, or a frightening, Biblical event.

There were other weird things that happened on Friday, too, but I won't go into all of them, or you and I will never get to the damned concert. Suffice it to say that the day really didn't make my mood any better. As for Denise -- well, she's a cat person. She was devastated by Thursday night, to the point that she took off from work on Friday to avoid going into her office and crying all day. She's usually more of an upbeat person (by far) than I am, so I think she was looking forward to the concert to take her mind off of things. Here's what I was looking forward to.

As my regular readers know, I always like to print out the probable playlist for a show beforehand. I like to know what's coming. And most of the time, bands (especially older ones), tend to keep to pretty much the same setlist from one night to the next.

Denise and I, and Rich Da Drumma (who had accompanied us when we saw Renaissance in the Boulton Center last year, and was going to come with us again tonight) had seen the band play a 12-song set the last time, and the set they had performed in Annapolis on Thursday night looked to be very similar. In fact, there were only three songs that were different -- "Midas Man", which is a decent song, "Ashes Are Burning", which is one of their best, and my favorite song of all, "Mother Russia". (When they had played the Boulton Center, someone called out, requesting "Mother Russia", and Annie Haslam had laughingly suggested that they should "get stuffed.") So I was looking forward to hearing the band play my favorite Renaissance song.

The traffic heading into the city was, as you'd expect, fairly heavy. We'd picked up Rich on the way, and he gave us a shortcut to get onto the Cross Island Parkway, which probably cut twenty minutes or so off of our trip. By 7:15, we were close to Town Hall, where the show was taking place. But the crosstown traffic was ridiculous as we approached the theater district, and we unfortunately accidentally bypassed the parking garage where Denise had made a reservation. By then it was 7:30, and it was clear that if we had to circle the block to get back to that garage, we'd miss the opening of the show. So we called an audible, and decided to eat that parking fee and pull into a different garage up the street ahead of us. It was kind of a pain in the butt, but under the circumstances, I think it was the right choice. We made it into the theater with twenty minutes to spare, giving us enough time to use the facilities, get some waters (and for Rich to grab a snack, since he hadn't eaten anything beforehand) and get to our seats.

The one major difference between this year's tour and the one I had seen last year at the Boulton Center (besides my having to haul my sorry ass into Manhattan for this one) was that for this tour, Renaissance was playing alongside what Haslam would later refer to as a chamber orchestra. And as we stepped out onto the mezzanine of the theater, we could see that not only was Frank Pagano's drum kit once again enclosed inside of a 3-sided plexiglass wall, but so was the whole back of the stage where the orchestra would sit (in a straight row across).

One curious (and kind of disappointing thing) was the attendance for this show. When Denise and I had been in this venue in the beginning of the year to see Joe Jackson, it was pretty much a sellout. But tonight, while I think the downstairs area was completely sold out, the upstairs area where we were was only a little more than half full. We had purchased the extra seat for tonight, but as it turned out, we didn't really need it -- Our whole row was empty, save for Denise, Rich and myself.

Before too long, the lights went down, and the orchestra filed out, followed by the band. There were eleven players in the orchestra, and Renaissance themselves played as a six-piece (including Annie). This included drums, bass, (usually acoustic) guitar, and two keyboards.

Now I had been listening to Renaissance all week, specifically the Ashes Are Burning album. (I was under the erroneous impression that the concert was supposed to feature the band playing this LP from front to back). I rank their top three studio albums as Turn of the Cards, Ashes Are Burning and Scheherazade in that order, but others might disagree, and some might even throw Prologue or Novella in the mix. In any event, listening to Ashes reminded me of all the things I love about this band. The most important are:
1. Annie Haslam's ridiculous five-octave-ranged voice. There weren't a lot of '70s rock bands out there with female lead singers, and most of the female leads who did exist had voices more of the harsh, hard-rock variety. (Think Ann Wilson of Heart, Janis Joplin or even Gracie Slick.) Few had Haslam's vocal beauty, and none that I can think of came anywhere near her almost-freakish range.
2. The use of keyboards, especially piano. I love the piano. It's one of my favorite instruments. And Renaissance inserted a lot of piano (and even some harpsichord) into their music. And
3. The way they mixed both folk and classical music into their songs. Yeah, sometimes they lifted whole pieces of classical music (such as Mussorgsky's Pictures From an Exhibition) and inserted it into their material (not too cool, I admit). But I still loved their style of prog rock. King Crimson, for example, was more brilliant, but they and many other prog rock groups inserted too much jazz into the mix for me to fully embrace them, and others (like Procol Harum) maybe relied a little too much on basic blues. Renaissance had just the right mix for me.

If they followed the previous night's setlist (and I was pretty sure they would, as this was only the second show of this particular tour), they would be playing two sets, of six and five songs respectively, and performing "Ashes Are Burning" as an encore.

They started out with three of their best, "Carpet of the Sun", "Ocean Gypsy" and "Running Hard", all in a row. And they sounded great, except ... 

It was clear from the beginning of the evening that Annie was having some vocal problems tonight. When I'd seen her last year, she was having some control issues in her lower range, but tonight, they were more pronounced. It could have been because this was only the band's second show since last December, so she was still a little rusty. Or maybe she was under the weather -- a lot of people I know are dealing with colds, etc., due to the recent change in temperature. (Even my son is coughing it up today, and talking in what I like to call his "FM Radio Voice".)

Annie was trying gamely, and she seemed to be having a reasonably good time in spite of whatever was ailing her, but even she made a reference at one point to the notion that they loved still being able to go out and play this material to the best of their current ability. (And in spite of her good spirits, she seemed a little less interactive between songs than she had last year, although that could have just been because the Boulton Center is a more intimate venue than is Town Hall.) It's also worth noting that Annie is 72 years old now, so it's not surprising if she's lost a step.

They continued through the first set with "Midas Man" (which they apparently haven't played live since 2012 prior to this tour). Annie then had her strongest number of the night, "Symphony of Light", a song about the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, from their 2013 LP Grandine il Vento. This song finds her singing much of the time in her very highest range, and the power and exquisiteness of her voice on this one brought the crowd to their feet in a standing ovation.

(And the crowd was pretty well behaved tonight. Yeah, the guy behind me was singing off key for a lot of the night, and at one point, a guy who looked like Bernie Sanders plopped himself down in the row in front of us, blocking Rich's view and annoying him for a song or two before he moved on. But in general, they were less irritating than the usual concert audience.)

Renaissance closed the set with a nice moment, inviting founding ex-member Jim McCarty onto the stage to join them for the set closer, "Island", from the band's first (pre-Annie Haslam) self-titled album. (McCarty would accompany them again for the last song of the night, "Ashes Are Burning".)

I was having a pretty pleasant night in spite of the events of the previous week, and I was in a pretty philosophical mood. You see, there's a chance this might be my last Manhattan concert ever. I've decided to take a bit of a break from live shows for awhile (once our current set of tickets runs out), and if my current state of mind lasts, I've gotten to hate the hassle of going into the city so much that I'm intending to cancel Manhattan from my life forever.

Denise has been trying to tempt me with some pretty cool bands playing in the city in the upcoming months, including The Fixx and Dead Can Dance. Last year, I would have jumped at them, or at least agreed to them. But for right now, my mindset is that unless they want to play on Long Island, I'm out. The combination of the physical and mental stress of going into the city, plus the disgusting condition of the city itself, make me just not want to go there again. If Madison Square Garden was a little more physically comfortable, I'd be inclined to consider shows there, since it would involve a simple LIRR trip into the venue's basement. But the physical discomfort of MSG, and the venue's crappy attitude, has led me to eliminate them from my concert life as well.

Never say never, because things can change. Maybe in a few months, when I'm not driving to Huntington four days a week, I'll feel differently. But for right now, I'm so tired, physically and emotionally. So I need to believe that I'm done with Manhattan.

The band opened their second set, and for me, the first few songs themselves were less impressive -- "Opening Out", "Day of the Dreamer" and "The Mystic and the Muse". They were well played by the band and the orchestra -- and I would single out Rave Tesar's piano as being especially impressive throughout the night. But Annie's voice was flagging, and the songs just aren't among my favorites from the band's repertoire. But I steeled myself. "Mother Russia" was next. After all, the band had been following the previous night's setlist song-for-song up until this point.

So you guys can guess what's coming, right? I sat back, waiting to hear that delicate intro to the band's musical tribute to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, an intro that always elicited a very physical reaction of pure joy from me. Wikipedia describes it as "a sparse, string-driven introduction marked by occasional piano crescendos". I'd describe it as orgasmic. Haslam announced it thusly: "Our next song is called 'A Song for All Seasons'".

Damned straight! Wait ... What?! ... Noooooooooooooooooo!!!

Yes. They skipped over "Mother Russia"'s spot in the setlist, and went straight on to the next song. It should be noted that "Song for All Seasons" was probably Haslam's worst number of the night. Her voice was flat as hell for much of the song. I don't know if "Mother Russia" is, for some reason especially hard for her to sing these days. I wouldn't know, because I've never heard her try to sing the fucking thing! But she might have known she didn't have many songs left in her for the night, and decided to cut down the setlist. I'll never know for sure.

I tried to hold onto hope. But in my heart, I think I knew it was over. After "Song for All Seasons", they called McCarty back to the stage ("Maybe they were waiting until McCarty could join them for "Mother Russia!" I told myself.) "This one is called 'Ashes Are Burning'". Grrrrr!

Still, ridiculously, I kept trying to delude myself. "Last night, they did 'Ashes Are Burning' as an encore," I told myself desperately. "Maybe they've switched the order! 'Mother Russia' would be a great encore!" After all, as "Ashes" wound down, it was still only 10:15PM.

"Well, thank you for that!" Annie told the audience, beaming. "We'll see you all next time."

Bitch!

The lights came on, and the crowd began to file out.

Now, I still have at least some sanity left. (Not much. But some.) The logical me recognizes that Renaissance has no idea who I am, and that they doubtlessly cut the song for some reason relating to whatever was going on with Annie's voice last night. There couldn't possibly be anything personal towards me.

But let me tell you, it felt personal. I felt like a little boy whose favorite toy had just been crushed by a bus, or like my delicious slice of chocolate cake had been knocked onto the ground by a bully. Where I am mentally right now, hearing "Mother Russia" live would have been like a soothing balm, even if Haslam had had to croak the damned thing. (Because it's one Renaissance song where it's more about the music itself for me than it is about Annie's vocal, anyway.) In the grand scheme of things, not hearing "Mother Russia" is clearly a tiny bump in the road, what some would rightly call a first-world problem. Still, it was just one more shit sandwich to choke down this week. Thanks, life.

We worked our way out of the city, and ate dinner at a diner somewhere near Rich's house. Then we dropped him off and headed home. By the time we got there (after waiting on line at the Taco Bell drive-thru at my son's request for about a half an hour) it was after 2AM. (It could have turned out to be even later. We just missed hitting three deer that came dashing out in front of us on South Country Road, which might have held us up for another hour or two waiting for the police so we could file an accident report. Like I said earlier, Biblical. But 2AM still sucked.) By the time I got to bed, it was almost three. And as you might guess, I was tremendously excited to know I'd be getting up at seven the next morning to drive my daughter to Huntington again.

So there it is ... the story of what I hope will be my last Manhattan show ever. The setlist for the concert is up at setlist.fm, at www.ICantBelieveTheyScrewedMeAgain.com. You'll see that whoever posted the setlist was kind enough to post this little comment at the bottom: "Note: 'Mother Russia' was on the printed setlist, but not played." Thanks for that.

Renaissance played again on Saturday night in Glenside, PA, but I have no idea if they played the song there, because no one has yet posted the setlist for that show. They probably did, though.

Fuck you, Renaissance.

But more importantly, Rest in Peace, Noodles. We love you, buddy. And we always will.

Sunset Boulevard

Spoiler Warning: There'sa gonna be lotsa spoilers ahead in this write-up. So if you've never seen this play (or the Billy Wilder film on which it was based), be forewarned.

I've stated here before that Andrew Lloyd Webber is my favorite composer for musicals, based especially on my love of such classics as Jesus Christ, Superstar, Evita and The Phantom of the Opera, and to a lesser degree Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Cats. But these are pretty much his most successful shows. There are quite a number of shows he's composed for that I hadn't seen and that were less successful. One of these was Sunset Boulevard.

Sunset Boulevard opened on London's West End in 1993, and on Broadway in 1994. Webber had had one relatively unsuccessful musical between this show and Phantom, but at the point when SB first came out, it would be fair to say that Webber was still golden. Sunset Boulevard turned out to be more of a mixed bag. It had decent runs in both London and New York, and it won a host of Tony Awards in 1995, including Best Musical and Best Original Score (and Glenn Close also won the Best Leading Actress in a Musical award for her performance as Norma Desmond).

However, it was a tremendously expensive show to produce -- it had a huge advertising budget, and there were lawsuits against it by both Patti Lupone (who had played the role in London and been replaced by Close in New York), and Faye Dunaway (who was supposed to replace Close in a Los Angeles production that had been running pre-Broadway, before that production was closed down altogether). So somehow, in spite of a Broadway run of 977 performances, the damned thing still lost nearly $20 million dollars (at least according to New York Times critic Frank Rich).

And as for its Tony Awards, they came during a down year for musicals. There was only one other show nominated against SB in the Best Musical category (Smokey Joe's Cafe, which I wouldn't sit through even at gunpoint, but some people still insist should have won), and Close only ran against one other actress (Rebecca Luker for Showboat). So even the awards weren't that impressive.

I guess what I'm saying is that this show is only moderately popular, and consequently, it's only performed by Long Island theater companies but just so often. The Gateway Playhouse did a run maybe five years or so ago, and I almost went once or twice to a matinee performance. But something always stopped me (including my own laziness a couple of times.) So when I saw that the John W Engeman Theater in Northport was doing a production this year, I promised myself to catch it.

This is one of those shows that Denise really didn't have an interest in -- let's face it, the show doesn't have a reputation for being a barrel of laughs -- and I knew my daughter would have even less interest in it than Denise -- so I was on my own for this one. Consequently, I bought myself a ticket for a Wednesday night show, when I knew it wouldn't interfere with any possible weekend family plans.

Yesterday was one of those days when I felt like death in the morning. I've been driving my daughter three or four mornings a week to Huntington for the last month or so, for training for her job. And most of those days require her to be there at 9AM, which means we have to leave the house about 7:20 or so to hack our way through the morning rush hour traffic. And my system just doesn't work at that hour of the morning. I'm usually either short of sleep, or dealing with stomach issues, or both. So the day didn't start well for me.

I felt a little better as the day wore on, though, and I managed to catch a power nap in the late afternoon, which also helped. So by the evening, I was as ready as I could be to enjoy the show.

I left my house at about 6PM for an 8 o'clock show. My plan was to drive to Northport, which I figured would take about an hour, then find someplace to grab a light dinner before the show. This plan mostly worked out, although there were some minor bumps along the way.

The first was that the directions on the theater's website kind of sucked. I had been there once before, when Denise and I saw Once a couple of years ago. But Denise had driven that day, so I hadn't fully paid attention. The directions on the website made it seem like three easy steps -- take the LIE to the Sagtikos north, take the Sagtikos to the last exit before the park toll, and make a right at Pumpernickel's restaurant. But they don't give the mileage between steps, and they make it sound as though Route 25A (which is what you get on when you get off the Sagtikos) and Main St. in Northport (where the theater is located) are the same thing. They're not.

The other thing I hadn't really thought about was that it gets dark at about 7 now. So just as I got to the point where I was a little confused, I was also losing the light. And I'm not that great these days when it's dark out and I don't know where I'm going.

It wasn't too bad, though. I did briefly wind up going the wrong way on 25A. But I quickly righted myself, and once I did, everything started to feel vaguely familiar. Before too long, I had found the theater. But by this time it was dark, and I didn't immediately see a good parking spot, so I turned around and took advantage of Engeman's free valet parking.

I asked one of the valets where was the nearest food spot. There was a restaurant across the street, but they looked like they were closing up. I was just looking for a little pizza parlor or something. The valet mentioned a couple of places a few blocks down. But I really didn't feel like wandering around Northport in the dark. (I wasn't afraid of crime or anything, just my own lousy vision.) He also mentioned they had food inside. Now this didn't jibe with what I remembered, nor did it jibe with the theater's website, which said they had $15 cheese platters, but you had to order them 36 hours in advance. But I figured I'd take a chance that he was right. (I wasn't really starving, more looking to kill some time.)

I picked up my tickets at the Box Office (I had a "will call"), and proceeded inside. In the bar area, there was a pianist playing old standards, and a bunch of nicely dressed people milling around. Around the corner was a small food buffet. I asked one of the two servers if this was free for theatergoers, as I didn't see a place to pay. She informed me in a sympathetic manner that the food was for a private party. I must have looked sad -- lack of food makes me do that. Because a moment later, a female voice behind me said, "No, it's OK, he can have some." I turned, and saw a woman with long black hair, wearing a black dress, and, I think, a halo. "I'm the host for the event," she explained, "and we had ten people who didn't show up. So you're welcome to have some."

Now maybe it was because I was wearing my finest Hawaiian shirt, the black one with the deep blue flowers, so I looked like a nice upper class gentleman! Oh, let's face it -- at my best, I barely make the class level for that random pizza parlor I had been hoping to find. But in any event, it was a very kind gesture, which I deeply appreciated. I got myself a nice plate with some steak bits, some chicken, baked ziti and a couple of rolls, bought myself a diet coke from the bar. I then sat down at a small table in the waiting area to enjoy my bounty.

As I ate, there were some speeches going on inside, where I learned that my benefactor's name was Ellen, and that the group holding the event were the people who put together the Huntington Fall Festival, which is scheduled to occur the weekend after this coming one. There will be rides, live music, carnival games and food. They fed me, so here is their link: https://lifallfestival.com/. (What can I say? I'm easily co-opted.)

Before too long, the doors opened up and we theater goers began to file inside. I'd actually remembered to bring my eyeglasses so I could read the program, which made me very happy. Torturous music played over the speakers, music of the 1940s which my dim brain eventually worked out was meant to set a mood (as the play is set in 1949). The house filled up. But not much. I had been curious to see if this playhouse, which normally does great business (it's one of the three Actor's Equity theaters on Long Island) would sell out on a Wednesday. Not even close. At it's height, the room was a little less than half full. All well and good. More room for me.

I was seated reasonably comfortably in the first row of the mezzanine section. There was a little metal fence in front of me, and the leg room wasn't bad. The seats were unfortunately a little tighter than I'd like. I guess I've gotten spoiled by the fact that in modern movie theaters, you can actually put the armrests up so they don't dig into you. These dug in, to the point where I actually wrenched my back a little trying to shift around and get comfortable. But at least there was no one next to me. In fact, I had the entire row to myself. And for most of the evening, I was the person sitting furthest back in the whole auditorium. (There were a few rows behind me, and once or twice, I turned my head and saw someone sitting in the last row. But I'm pretty sure this was a theater employee, as the person wasn't there for most of the performance.)

So I'll give you my overall review, and then I'll break it down for you. In essence, I'd say that this production gave a top-quality performance of a somewhat flawed show.

Let's talk about the show first. For starters, as I mentioned, it's a fairly downbeat story. It follows Joe Gillis, a cynical young Hollywood screenwriter in 1949 who is down on his luck. On the same day, he meets Betty Schaefer, an idealistic young woman who works as an assistant at Paramount, and Norma Desmond, a middle-aged former silent-film star who lives in a huge but run-down mansion with her devoted manservant Max.

Betty believes that Joe has some real talent, and tries to convince him to turn a story he'd written into a quality screenplay. Norma is rich, but cray-cray. She has a manuscript that's thicker than a phone book (ask your parents, millennials), and is hoping for a big film comeback playing the sexy and 16-year-old Salome. Good luck with that. Betty is bright and practical. Norma is wealthy and larger-than-life, but batshit insane. Or at least lives a very rich fantasy life. You decide.

The play (and the film on which its based) starts with Joe narrating shortly after his own death, so we know from the get-go where this is going. And it's not Happyville.

Joe, of course, sells out to Norma and becomes her kept man, but regrets it when he falls in love with Betty. Norma's hoped-for comeback ends with humiliation for her, and a bullet in the back that leads to a nice post-mortem swim in Norma's pool for Joe. It's a little like the opera Madama Butterfly -- you don't really want to get too close to any of the characters, because you know it's not going to end well for them.

So the story is interesting, but not especially enjoyable. And depending on how they're played, the characters aren't always all that agreeable either.

As for Webber's score -- well, ask yourself, how many songs do you actually know from this play? Unless you're a real musical theater buff, chances are, not many. It's not a bad score at all. It's simply not that memorable. At times, there are flashes of "Music of the Night", or little whiffs of something from Superstar. But it just never reaches those heights. And for Webber, it never would again.

The sad irony here is that unbeknownst to himself, by the time Webber wrote Sunset Boulevard, he pretty much was Norma Desmond -- an aging artist whose best days were behind him. I don't love saying that, but look at his list of shows post-Phantom -- there's not a blockbuster in the lot.

In any event, the story is pretty well told (a lot of the dialogue was lifted directly from the Billy Wilder film), and the one thing the score does do really well is move the show along. SO there are some pleasures to be had here. And thankfully, this particular production does a good job of maximizing SB's strengths.

The show is well directed, the orchestra (I couldn't see 'em, but the announcer assured us there was one) was spot on, the scenery was pretty good, and the cast -- the cast was delightful!

The main players included Judy McLane as Norma Desmond, Bryant Martin as Joe Gillis, David Hess and Max Von Mayerling, and Sarah Quinn Taylor as Betty Schaefer. All were quite good.

The film version of Sunset Boulevard featured Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond. As I mentioned, I've never watched the movie, but from the clips I've seen, she plays her fairly melodramatically, in spite of the fact that she won an Academy Award for the part.

It's telling, then, that for years whenever I thought about Sunset Boulvard, the portrayal that first came to mind was Carol Burnett's, in a series of skits that she and Harvey Korman did about the Norma and Max characters on the old Carol Burnett Show.

McLane's Norma is imposing, and at times pathetic, but her interpretation of the character seems more realistic than Swanson's, and for most of the production, you actually like her. (At least I did). You feel bad for her when she realizes she is losing Joe, and even worse when she finally discovers that her big comeback was only ever a fantasy.

In fact, I'm going to embarrass myself here, and talk about the soap opera General Hospital. Much to my shame, I know most of the characters on General Hospital, past and present. This is because Denise has watched General Hospital for as long I've known her. And when you're married to someone for almost thirty years, and they watch a show for all that time, you can't help but absorb some of it, even if you're kicking and screaming all the way.

There's a character on General Hospital (I think she's off the show right now, but she'll doubtlessly be back) named Tracy Quartermaine, played by the actress Jane Elliot. She's described by Wikipedia as "spoiled, rich and often badly behaved," and she eventually marries a younger man, Luke Spencer (of Luke and Laura fame). I understand that when the character originated, she was basically a villain. But in more recent years, she's been kind of a likable character. Judy McLane plays Norma Desmond as a delusional Tracy Quartermaine, but one who can sing her ass off.

Bryant Martin's Joe Gillis character is in an unenviable position. He's actually the protagonist of the play, but he's also far less riveting than Norma. (He's also saddled with a lot of 1950s-style dialogue, the kind where taxi drivers would say things like "Now look here, Mac!") But he makes the most of the part, and also manages to make his role a sympathetic one (at least for most of the show). In spite of the fact that he's using Norma, you can kind of see where he's coming from. And for most of the show, he at least attempts to be kind to her.

David Hess's Max is well played, although I don't feel as though the character itself was all that consistently written. There's a lot of missing info here on how exactly Max went from being Norma's first husband (which we learn in the second act) to being her toady. Hess had some amazing musical moments, though.

Sarah Quinn Taylor's Betty is actually a little annoying at times. That's OK, however, as initially Joe finds Betty annoying also. (The character seems to have been played as something of an innocent ingenue in the film, but I think this interpretation works just as well, or maybe even a little better.)

So overall, I won't say it's the best night of theater I've ever had. I thought it got a little draggy towards the end, and it's just not that pleasant a story, however well it's performed.

I also have to say, though, that it must have struck some kind of a chord with me. Because when I got home, I went up on Amazon Prime and added the original 1950 film to my to-watch list, and my plan is to watch it sometime before the end of the weekend. So I guess that theater doesn't always have to be delightful to be effective.

Sunset Boulevard will continue playing at the John W Engeman Theater in Northport through October 27. The website is https://engemantheater.com/.

September 2019 Song of the Day

September started out as a strong month for the Sputnik Music Song of the Day chart, and we had a greater number of different people participating than had taken part in the charts for the last few months.  This was a good thing, even though it meant that all of the participants were reduced to recommending a max of two songs for the month.  did tail off a bit around the end of the month, though.

I was also the host for the month, and I got to pick the theme. And although it was unknown to most (all, really) of my participants, I chose to give a bit of a nod to our old friend Jeremy Gilchrist by declaring the theme for the month to be "SONGS OF DEATH". And fittingly enough, a Long Island artist actually had the highest scoring song of the month (It was one of my recs. But before my head got too big, my second rec came just short of getting the lowest conglomerate score of the month, so I'm still my usual humble self.)

Artist/song/link/overall rating given by Sput users (out of 5)/my rating (X=I rec'd it)

1. My Favorite - Burning Hearts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZJWWrKewpE - 3.74 - X
2. Emery - Dear Death Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc-2Wc7DmKc - 2.28 - 3.4
3. Depressive Silence - To Die in Your Dream - https://youtu.be/Ijn09_fJpDk - 2.89 - 3.3
4. Lagwagon - One More Song - https://youtu.be/LGNJ7hBBQLA - 2.32 - 2.9
5. Hammock - Floating Away in Every Direction - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyEHzlgdkIA - 3.56 - 3.4
6. Gravediggaz - 1-800-Suicide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vLiJIgVlRQ - 3.53 - 2.0
7. Beyond the Bridge - All a Man Can Do - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g79F1WND5AU - 2.40 - 3.7
8. R.E.M. - Try Not to Breathe - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RokyGRQP0no - 3.56 - 3.4
9. DJ Krush - Final Home - https://youtu.be/S-9lOwfUaYQ - 3.38 - 3.6
10. Anathema - Memento Mori - https://youtu.be/zcLuemrQmNQ - 3.52 - 2.4
11. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eISo-iFGGDg - 3.67 - 3.1
12. Purple Mountains - Nights That Won't Happen - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMqODXQf3_s - 3.49 - 2.9
13. We Lost the Sea - Bogatyri - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okv8yAIYTFI - 3.07 - 3.0
14. Dirty Projectors - About to Die - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ytC1BJlWE - 2.62 - 2.1
15. Gladys Knight - License to Kill - https://youtu.be/vQKaujX6R-U - 2.82 - 2.3
16. Neck Deep - Candour - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AUC-Nxkcpo - 1.73 - X
17. Mastodon - Jaguar God - https://youtu.be/yvSPWG_mE4c - 2.67 - 3.1
18. Bad Books - Army - https://youtu.be/Xp3JJ5CtSdc - 2.03 - 2.7
19. B. Dolan - Who Killed Russell Jones? - https://youtu.be/97W1sLRsrtE - 1.75 - 1.0
20. Alkaline Trio - Heart Attacks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz-DBV1NmIw - 2.20 - 3.6
21. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahr4KFl79WI - 3.27 - 3.2
22. Coldworld - Suicide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSWVe3z7i1Q - 3.31 - 2.8
23. The The - Phantom Walls - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3ELPnHlz9U - 2.93 - 3.0
24. Regina Spektor - Samson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p62rfWxs6a8 - 2.79 - 3.6
25. Lil Peep and Lil Tracy - White Wine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wckAAh-V428 - 1.61 - 1.7
26. Flying Lotus - Coronus the Terminator - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4vLEBxIo4 - 3.60 - 2.1
27. Black Moon - Reality - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYN3c85AldA - 2.70 - 1.0
28. The Pogues - The Body of an American - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOZHwWFjb30 - 2.48 - 2.6
29. Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat - The Copper Top - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu_qjcsF6Gs - 2.85 - 3.0
30. Los Jaivas - La Poderosa Muerte - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oxvmNgBjTE - 3.52 - 3.6


My recs for the month were on the 1st and the 16th (My Favorite and Neck Deep). The My Favorite went over well, but I learned tragically late that most of my cohorts have no tolerance at all for emo vocals. Sigh.

The highest rated song by the group was My Favorite's "Burning Hearts", which I wholeheartedly concurred with. But since we're not allowed to rate our own songs, my highest rating went to Beyond the Bridge's "All a Man Can Do," a bit of epic prog metal (which many of my colleagues hated.)

The lowest rating for the month went to Lil Peep and Lil Tracy's "White Wine," which might not have received my lowest rating, but was certainly a deserving pick. My lowest scores went to B. Dolan's "Who Killed Russell Jones?" ( a mostly spoken-word piece that had no musical accompaniment at all), and Black Moon's "Reality" (a bit of gangsta rap that my son probably would love).

Follow the links and give them a listen if you like. See how your ratings match up with this lot's.

Joywave, Bastille and why we can't have nice things

This one is going to be much shorter than most of my write ups. I had a bunch of things I wanted to talk about: The torturous, hip-hugging seats at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden; the usher with no sense of personal space who kept running into me; the millennial couple sitting in front of me who spent most of their date ignoring one another and staring at their phones; and the girl two rows in front of me who kept swaying into and out of my sight lines even when the music was no longer playing. There was all kind of fun to write about, and I was having a fairly enjoyable time in spite of all of them. But these days, you can't go out and enjoy anything -- football, a movie, a concert, anything -- without some twit injecting their personal politics into the situation and spoiling the evening.

So the briefest of recaps:

Joywave: This is a weird, geeky indiepop band from Rochester, NY. In comparison, to say, Glam Skanks, I should like these guys better. There's a lot of synth, and they have a weird sense of humor. Denise likes them because they incorporate a lot of that low, chunky, Trent Reznor-style synth in their music. But much like the Glam Skanks, I feel like the key element they're still missing is strong songs. I like "Tongues", and they did another one called "Content" that was pretty good. But beyond that, I thought most of their material was just so-so.

Bastille: They had a tremendous night musically, and most of the Manhattan millennial crowd stood up for the first song and never sat back down. Their sound was crisp, and vocalist Dan Smith sounded great all night. They also featured a guest appearance by Joywave on one song, and by a female singer who bills herself as The Dawn of MAY on three songs in a row.

I was having a nice night, singing along on my favorite Bastille song, "Things We Lost in the Fire", and generally enjoying the full set, which was broken down into four "Acts".

But somewhere along the way, Smith thought it would be cute to take a couple of shots not only at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but also at President Trump.

Now I wasn't aware that Nancy Pelosi had caved to the pressure of the far-left wing of her Party and decided to open an official impeachment inquiry into the President that day, because I spent the afternoon traveling to get to the stupid concert. But Smith, a British citizen, made sure to celebrate it with the Manhattan crowd. Now I wouldn't want to hear what he thought about President Trump if he was an American -- you're a singer, no one paid to come here to hear your keen political mind. But to come into someone else's country and slam their legally elected leader seems to me to be height of rudeness. I'm so sorry I gave up seeing Rick Wakeman at The Paramount last night to travel into the city and see them.

If I spend the money to buy tickets to your concert, take the time (and the expense) to travel there, to an uncomfortable venue that treats their crowds rudely (and frankly, this is true of most music venues these days, especially the Manhattan ones), and you use the occasion to insult me and my beliefs, then I have to be an idiot to keep coming back. (In this case, Denise bought the tickets, but you know what I mean.)

So, from that point on, I was done with them. And frankly, for the immediate future, I'm done with live music.

Denise and I have tickets to see Renaissance in a couple of weeks, and there's a Halloween concert and an Irish music concert we have tickets for in Patchogue. We've talked about seeing Mannheim Steamroller at the Tilles Center in December, and maybe we'll do that (and maybe we won't.) But for right now, I'm done with live music, and equally done with Manhattan. (We were literally stepping over sleeping bodies in the middle of the floor at Penn Station last night. It took DeBlasio a little more than one term to take the city, which Giuliani and Bloomberg had done an incredible job of cleaning up, and turn it back into a shithole.)

Since it's impossible to do anything nowadays without having somebody's politics shoved in your face, maybe I'll channel my extra time into my own political activism.

In any event, apologies to any of the readers of this blog who feel ambushed by reading this, as you know I usually try to keep my blog as free of politics as humanly possible. I'm not really sure what the future of this blog will be. I'll certainly write up those last couple of shows, and I've already been working on my Best Of the Decade lists. But maybe I'll close things down here at the end of the year. Or maybe the blog will morph into something else music-centered.

Either way, many thanks to those readers who have stuck with me (and my mad rants) over the years. As soon as I figure out where I'm going with all of this, I'll let you all know.

I Got Kidnapped, Part 2: Glam Skanks and Adam Ant

I won't lie, Friday night was a tough night. When we left Foxwoods, we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts on the way home. Denise hadn't eaten anything since dinner, but I'd had a bagel and a really over-sweet (and badly made) iced mocha at Juniors. I should have passed on getting anything else, especially since that Indian food was still rumbling in my stomach. But I'm dopey, like a goldfish that eats himself to death, so I got a bacon, egg and cheese croissant to add to the mix.

We went back to the motel and went to bed. But my stomach was a mess, my back was out of whack, and my feet were throbbing. I slept for about two hours, then got up to go to the bathroom. When I laid back down, my back started spasming, badly enough that I accidentally woke Denise up cursing. I found a somewhat comfortable position, and was afraid to roll over for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, I was up every couple of hours, slowly relieving myself of the Indian food situation. The bathroom took on a gentle, red glow, and I hoped they were sending in a Hazmat team in the morning.

Sleep helped a lot, and we both slept through the free continental breakfast that the hotel offered. We got up at 11 or so. I was better, but my whole body was sore.

Luckily, we had a lazy day planned for Saturday. We headed into Groton to a diner we had eaten at in the past to get breakfast. We passed it the first time, because the Best Western that we usually stayed at in Groton that served as something of a landmark for us had been bought out, and was now The Colony Bay (or something like that). But eventually, we backtracked and found it.

Breakfast was underwhelming. Mine wasn't too bad -- a mushroom and cheese omelette with sausage on the side -- but Denise's "Patriotic Pancakes" were served with strawberries that were well on their way to going bad, and my toast even tasted a little funky for some reason. Next time we're in town, we'll find someplace else to get breakfast.

After breakfast, we took a ride up King's Highway, which we'd never really checked out before. After a little while, Denise figured out that we were running parallel to I-95, heading in the general direction of the casino. She predicted that if we kept going, we'd eventually come to the roundabout where Mystic Pizza II sits, and she was right. We went that far, then turned around.

It was a quiet, laid back Saturday in Groton, and the drive was soothing. I checked in on both of our kids, and found that somehow they'd managed to survive the night without us. We headed back to the motel with the plan of going in the hot tub, and maybe, if the mood struck us, the pool.

We changed into our bathing suits and headed down. Unfortunately, they were doing maintenance on the pool area, so we had to wait a half hour

We went back to the room to kill some time. I spent 45 minutes or so listening to my mp3 player, while Denise played on her phone. This year marks the end of the decade, so I've been starting to think about my Best of the Decade lists. I might have my Top 10 Songs worked out.

When we went down to the pool area again, it was quiet. The only other people there were a father and a grandmother with two little boys: a child or about 7, who was swimming in the pool, and a toddler of about 3 who was leaning over and playing with the bubbles in the hot tub, while grandma sat close by.

I have to tell you that as sore and tired as I was, as much as I enjoyed the two concerts, the highlight of my weekend was that hot tub. As I slowly (and I mean very slowly -- I was moving like a hundred-year-old man) eased into the tub, it felt soooooo good. I wanted to stay in there forever. We soaked for twenty, maybe thirty minutes. When I got out, I tried the pool. But by the time I'd gotten hip-deep, I decided it was too cool. So Denise and I sat and relaxed by the side of the pool as we dripped dry.

After a little while, we heard a sound overhead that sounded like a herd of wild buffaloes trampling across the plains. I made a joke about the University of Connecticut football team doing jumping jacks in the room above us. But as we rose to start to leave, I saw the source of the noise. A pack of seven young boys, ranging in age from about five to eleven years of age, burst in and immediately infested the hot tub. They were followed by two rather beleaguered-looking women. I uttered King Arthur's battle cry from Monty Python and the Holy Grail -- "Run away!" -- and Denise and I skedaddled out of there and back up to our room.

We then made a plan to eat at Mystic Pizza II that night, and laid down for a nice two-hour nap.

By the time we got up, I almost felt alive again. As we drove back up King's Highway, we passed a place called "Gus's Pizza".

"Eff you, Gus!" I cried out. "We're going to Mystic Pizza!"

However, when we got to Mystic Pizza II, the parking lot was jammed, and there were people dressed as if they had just come from a wedding sitting outside, seemingly waiting for a table.

"We should have eaten at Gus's," I lamented. But Denise suggested that the people in the suits and gowns were probably there for a private party upstairs, and she was right. We went inside, and were soon seated. We each ordered a "grinder" (which is what annoying New England people call heroes), and were served shortly thereafter. There was a live musician playing, someone who grew up in Rhode Island but now lived in Nashville, but I didn't catch her name. I bet Denise that she knew Dave Isaac, though.

We ate quickly, so as not to be late for our concert.

So I guess it's time we actually talk about the concert, huh? Oh, OK.

As you've probably figured out from the title above, the headliner was Adam Ant. Denise was always a big fan of his, and I understand why. Besides the whole obvious male sex symbol thing, his music fits her taste. She likes a lot of low end in her music, and between the double drums and the use of a lot of bass, Adam fits the bill. I always found him a little silly (which also fits Denise's taste just fine), so he never really interested me. I didn't hate him or anything. But to give you some perspective, on my mp3 player, on which I currently have over 34,000 songs downloaded, I had exactly two Adam Ant songs: "Desperate But Not Serious", and "Strip". (And "Strip was downloaded fairly recently.) I'd have never in a million years have gone out of my way to see him. But since Denise's other arrangements had fallen through, I didn't want to make her go alone. So here we were.

Denise had also been supposed to see him play earlier in the week at the Beacon Theater -- Tim and Mandy had seen him there -- but that had fallen through also. So this was Denise's only chance to get her Adam fix.

At first, we thought just he and his were playing. But about two weeks ago, I had somehow learned he was scheduled to have an opening act -- an all-female band with the godawful name of the Glam Skanks. This sweetened the pot for me a little, as I was at least curious to see if they were any good. So far, opinions were mixed. Mandy and Tim hadn't been too impressed by them at the Beacon. But someone else on Denise's WLIR Group had posted that they really liked the band, enough to buy both of their albums after the show. So we were hopeful. (Well, I was. Denise, I'm not so sure about.)

As usual, I found and printed out recent setlists for both bands. At that point, I discovered that while Glam Skanks were only playing a fairly short eight-song set, Adam and his band were playing an intimidating full 28 songs, if you counted his encore. And I did.

We entered the main building (The Grand Pequot Tower) of Foxwoods, and made our way to the Fox Theater. We entered through the metal detectors, only to find out that we had to go back outside again to use the restrooms. (Who the hell designs these places?) So we did what we had to do, and entered again.

Tonight, we were sitting in two seats on the aisle way up near the top, on the left side of the theater. You had to go in, then back out a different door to get to the bar to buy water. As I watched Denise ascend through several levels of the ozone layer and into a section obscured by cumulus clouds, I asked the young usher if there was perhaps an elevator. She said that yes, she could take me to one. So I dashed off quickly to buy our waters, met Stormy the friendly usher back near the entrance, and let her take me by elevator up to the top of the arena. Then we surprised Denise by coming up behind her from the top. Denise and I both decided to drink as little water as possible, so we wouldn't have to go all the way back down and leave the arena to use the bathrooms until the end of the show.

The seats were a little tight -- this was an older facility than the one we had visited last night -- but the sight lines were nice and clear, and the fit was doable.

Gradually, some people started to file in. In front of us were two guys who definitely didn't seem like they'd be Adam fans. They were big, beefy fellows in their twenties, wearing well-worn T-shirts (one of which said "Welcome to the Jungle".) I wondered idly if they had mugged two little eighties gals and stolen their tickets. "Rock Lobster" played over the loudspeaker as the crew did a lazy sound check, and these guys made it very clear they weren't B-52s fans. But I guess it takes all types.

The arena was only about a third of the way full when the lights went down, and Glam Skanks took the stage. The vibe was totally different from the one the night before. Last night, there had been excitement from the get-go. Tonight, the sparse crowd seemed to be taking a wait-and-see attitude.

So here's my assessment of Glam Skanks. They're a four-piece all-female band who plays in what I would consider a classic hard rock style. They're an energetic, hard working group. The girls are all proficient at their instruments (the drummer in particular was banging her butt off), and the lead vocalist had a powerful and well-controlled rock voice. I liked them. They were four gals living the rock and roll dream and trying their best to entertain. Unfortunately, I wasn't blown away by their songs.

The band seemed a little afraid to engage in the beginning, instead trying to win over the crowd by playing with a lot of spirit and running around a whole bunch. As the theater filled out some, the singer, Veronica Witkin, made a few tentative attempts to talk to the audience. By a few songs in, she seemed comfortable enough to at least tell us a little about the songs.

They got their biggest reaction of the night with a nicely rocked up version of disco queen Donna Summer's song, "Hot Stuff". They also made one change to their setlist, switching out "Glitter City", the title track to one of their albums, for a song called "Bad Bitch", which some of the ladies in the crowd seemed to appreciate.

Overall, I wanted to like them better than I actually did. If they ever up their songwriting game, they're capable of a making it to a higher level. They definitely have some musical chops, and that likability factor is nothing to sneeze at. They really ought to change their moniker, though. The name "Glam Skanks" really isn't doing them any favors. They're really not a glam rock band, nor are they particularly skanky. The name really isn't very descriptive of who they are. You can find their setlist at www.morepussycatsthanskanks.com.

Between sets, I told Denise I wasn't going to try to follow Adam Ant's setlist tonight, and I think she got insulted. "Oh, just because it's Adam, huh?" she asked me accusingly. But it wasn't like I wasn't going to pay attention to his set, or take notes about it.

The reason I print out setlists is that when I'm pretty familiar with a band, it's easier just to follow along and check off what I know. Sometimes, like with OMD, I might hit a song I'm not sure about, and I'll ask Denise, "Was that one "Talking Loud and Clear?'" Or sometimes I can figure it out from a lyric. But with a 28-song set scheduled, I knew that this guy was going to be playing some deep cuts. And I'd be lucky if I knew a quarter of them. So I figured I was better off just to concentrate on listening to the music, and taking the occasional note, especially since I was pretty sure that someone would wind up posting a full song list on setlist.fm anyway.

At some point, Denise texted with Mandy and Tim, and learned that they were in the very front of the room (looked like first or second row) on the right side of the stage. They waved up at us, and we waved back.

"Ask them if they want switch seats!" I suggested, and Denise did. The only reply we got back from Mandy was "LOL." We took that as a no.

One thing I want to say about Adam before talking about the actual show is this: While I wasn't into his music much back in the day, there were things I liked about the guy. He clearly had a sense of style. More importantly, this was a man whose music the critics seldom, if ever, said a kind word about. But he managed to build a pretty happening career, and one that has lasted for four decades now, anyway. So if I entered this show as something less than a fan, I still entered it with respect.

Adam and his band soon took the stage to what I believe was the theme music from the old Roger Moore show The Saint. He came out wearing a hat that was more Australian cowboy than pirate, but he did have a pirate hanky sticking out of one pocket. There was a five-piece band behind him, including his traditional two drummers (but at times, one or even both of the guitarists drummed as well). Interestingly, though, there was no keyboard player (which probably has something to do with why I never got very into Adam's music.)

As soon as Adam and his band started playing, a pair of women in front of us (to the side of the two klunky guys) got up to dance, and Denise (and some of the other people around us) popped up as well. This time, Denise handed me her purse to hold rather than beating me into raw hamburger meat, and I took it gratefully.

I thought Adam's voice sounded a little weak at first -- not bad, or off key, just a little breathless. But I wouldn't rate him as a super powerful vocalist anyway -- that's not really his style -- and as the night wore on, he seemed to get stronger. He never stopped dancing, though, which I guess is another reason why the ladies love him. He moves in a very feline manner -- everything is circular motions, nothing threatening or straight ahead. At times, he reminded me of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow character. And while I know that Depp has said that he based a lot of the character on Keith Richards, as I watched this show, I wondered if a little of Captain Sparrow wasn't created with some Adam Ant in mind as well.

I also had the thought as I watched throughout the night that there were some similarities between Adam Ant and Alice Cooper. Not that their music sounds alike. But both are very theatrical performers, and both of them write songs that are very tongue in cheek. Alice's is obviously more horror themed, and appeals more to guys, while Adam's is more swashbuckling, and meant to appeal to the ladies.

This was billed as the 2019 Friend or Foe Tour, and Adam and his band played that album in its entirety from front to back, before moving on to various other songs from his long career.

I'll tell you the good and the bad of it. The good is that quite a bit of the show was very engaging, to the point where I picked out a number of other Adam Ant songs I need to add to my monster-sized mp3 catalog. The bad is that for someone like myself, who isn't really an Adam Ant fan, the set was just too damned long. If you were an Adam lover, chances are you were in heaven. But I was mostly checked out mentally by the twentieth song or so, and by the encore, I had lost my will to live. "Just finish," I begged, mentally. And by this time, even Adam looked tired.

If Adam and the gang would have played through the 21st song, "Strip," and then ended the night with "Stand and Deliver", the last song of their regular set, I'd have left the arena feeling I'd seen a solid show. It would have cut a half hour off of the running time. Hell, they could have even thrown the Glam Skanks an extra song or two. As it was, I left the venue drained and tired, feeling like I'd just been through an ordeal. Denise pointed out that if it had been The Who, I'd have much preferred 28 songs to 22. "But," I countered, "Adam Ant isn't The Who".

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the show more than not. And I enjoyed how much Denise was enjoying it. But from my point of view, this was a case where less would have definitely been more.

Denise also pointed out that overall, the crowd was a little more standoffish than the crowd had been the night before. The people right in front of the stage were up and dancing, and there small pockets of dancers throughout the theater (including the group surrounding us). But on Friday night, it seemed as if most of the building was up and dancing, whereas for this show, the enthusiasm was a little more restrained. Tim and Mandy also reported that they felt that Adam's show at the Beacon a few nights earlier had been a better show. So maybe Adam is just wearing himself a but thin.

Adam Ant's setlist for the Foxwoods show can be found at www.geezAdamgiveitarestwillya?.com.

After the show, we made our way to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Tim and Mandy had had enough, and had gone back to their room. As Denise and I ate, several members of the band made their way to the bar there, and presumably ordered food to be delivered to their rooms. Denise thought about asking them for a picture together, but she didn't want to disturb them. I'd have told them "Nice show," if I'd have passed them on the way to the Men's room, but they weren't there long enough.

Anyway, we gambled for a short time at the Smoke Free Casino. That, however, has been cut down to about a fifth of its former size, which I took to be kind of an F.U. message from Foxwoods to the non-smoking crowd. The next day, we found a tiny Denny's in New London at which to eat breakfast, then took the Orient Point Ferry back to Long Island. It had been a long weekend. The concerts had been good, but oh man, that hot tub! That was the best.

So that was the story of how I got kidnapped.

R.I.P. Eddie Money and Ric Ocasek (and Sid Haig)

I didn't want to let this pass.

I won't lie -- I wasn't a huge Eddie Money fan. Most of his hits were alright with me, the kind of thing you hear on the radio and don't think much about. But I did really like his collaboration with Ronnie Spector, "Take Me Home Tonight", and I loved that after a kind of traumatic past, Money was responsible for kind of luring Spector back into making music.

And as a fellow Long Islander (because Brooklyn is, geographically at least, part of Long Island) and a fellow New York City boy (I grew up in Queens), I'm proud of what Eddie Money accomplished in his career, even if much of it wasn't necessarily to my personal taste. And all of this is all the more so because I was part of that Long Island Music Hall of Fame Board of Directors that voted Money into LIMHoF's inaugural group of inductees in 2008. (Yeah, I know it looks like he was actually part of the second group of inductees. But we actually voted that whole initial group of 2006 and 2008 inductees in at the same time, and just broke them into two groups pretty much at random.)

So R.I.P Eddie Money.


Ric Ocasek is a different case. The Cars were actually one of my favorite twenty-or-so bands. They were one of the most important links between '70s rock and '80s new wave. I always hoped to see them live one day. Even after Benjamin Orr's death in 2000, I hoped that perhaps the other four members of The Cars would reunite at some point for one last tour. Obviously, now, that can never happen. (I guess the best you could hope for is that maybe Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes will hook up again someday with Todd Rundgren and company as The New Cars.)

Ocasek, of course, also had a decent little solo career, as well as a career as a music producer.

So R.I.P. Ric Ocasek.


They say these things come in threes. Let's hope that they're wrong. Unless you want to count Rob Zombie film star Sid Haig, who I also admired, and also wish a hard R.I.P. to.

I Got Kidnapped, Part 1: Berlin, OMD and The B52s

So yeah, Denise kidnapped me this weekend to a pair of '80s concerts at Foxwoods Casino. The Friday night show was at the Grand Theater in the Fox Tower (the newer and larger of Foxwoods' two main concert venues), and the Saturday night show was at the Fox Theater in the Grand Pequot Tower. (Confusing, right? It gets worse. I mentioned to one of the ushers how confusing the names seemed, and she told me that one night recently, it was even more befuddling. On that night, John Legend played at one of the venues, and Legends in Concert was featured at the other.)

Anyway, here's how it happened. I don't remember all of the machinations, but the gist of it is that originally, Denise was supposed to go for the weekend with one of her friends from her WLIR Facebook group. Then that person had to drop out. Then Denise drafted me to go. But after thinking about it, for a variety of reasons (that you know I'll get into), I asked her if she could find someone else to go with. She did. But then that person also had to cancel, so I was informed that I was back in. ("Please coach! Don't send me in!") (Btw, I'm not not naming names here to protect the innocent. I just don't even remember who she was going with.)

Here's why I originally didn't want to go. The #1 reason was leaving my son alone. He's been showing a little more maturity lately, but back when Denise originally planned the show, he was more touch-and-go with the judgment he was showing. I'm a terrible worrywart anyway, and the thought of leaving him alone for the weekend (and probably with access to my car) made me reluctant to go. (Actually, I think the car is what's been helping him to mature, though. He loves driving, and he knows that any mess ups or poor judgment mean loss of driving privileges. So his love of driving has been keeping him more on the straight and narrow.)

Also, I just didn't have the money. My agency took a salary cut near the end of last year, and we still haven't had full salaries restored, which is causing me to go more and more into debt every month. Not a great time for a casino vacation.

Then there were the concerts themselves. The B-52s are Denise's favorite band (along with Blondie), so we've seen them together at least eight or nine times. And we just saw OMD last year. (Although I'll admit, that was a great show.) Berlin was a nice sweetener, since I've only ever seen them once, and that was a couple of decades ago. But all told, given that I had seen them all at least once, I wouldn't have chosen to go out of town just to see them again. And as for Saturday's show -- well, I'll tell you all about in my next post. For now, suffice it to say it's an artist who Denise loves, but I never really had any interest in seeing.

And the fact that we wouldn't actually be staying at Foxwoods (because it's frickin' expensive!) was also an issue. These days, I wear out suddenly, and when I wear out, I just want to go to sleep. But when we hit the casinos, Denise almost always (always, actually) has more stamina than me. I like when we stay at Vernon Downs upstate, because when I'm done playing, I can just go up to the room without ruining Denise's good time. At Foxwoods, I wind up waiting around for her, which wasn't so bad when I was younger. But now, I don't want to conk out on a bench and wake up with no shoes, if you know what I mean.

And this time, there was also the matter of the tickets. Because Denise didn't originally buy them with me in mind, we didn't have the extra seat for either night, and she wasn't even sure we were on an aisle. Not knowing for sure we're going to fit comfortably into our seats always gives me a ton of anxiety.

And because we had tickets for concerts both nights, we wouldn't even have time for the thing we usually most like to do at Foxwoods (or at Turning Stone upstate) -- play high-stakes Bingo! For people with my body type and fitness level, Bingo is our kind of sport. Not very taxing, you might scoff. But you'd be wrong. Those of you who would say that have never played Marathon Bingo, or as I like to call it, "Death By Bingo"! Regular Bingo is a challenge in-and-of itself. The Warm-Ups and Early Birds usually start at 5PM and run until after 11PM. But Marathon Bingo runs an hour or two longer than that. The last time we tried it, I couldn't feel my butt cheeks for a week.

So anyway, no Bingo this time out. Unless we wanted to get up early on Saturday and play daytime Bingo. And that just wasn't happening.

As it turned out, most of these concerns turned out not to be the issues I anticipated. My son did reasonably well alone for the weekend (although he did manage to lock himself out of the house on Friday night. But he problem solved, and drove over to his sister's place to borrow her key, so I felt like he did pretty good.) Also, the seats did turn out to be aisle seats for both shows. And while they weren't necessarily the most comfortable, they were serviceable, anyway. I did spend too much money, but hey, that's what credit cards are for, right? (I have no idea why I'm always in money trouble.) And the other stuff I just dealt with.

What killed me, though, were two things I hadn't even figured into the equation.

The first was job-related. I work for the adoption agency from which Denise and I adopted our two children ten years ago. And at some point after we had originally spoken about the idea of going away for this weekend, one of the families I've been working with scheduled their Covenant Ceremony.

Now at our agency, the Covenant Ceremony is the climax of everything. It's the ceremony at which the prospective adopting parents make their final promises to their maybe-children that they will always love them, protect them, and be their family forever, and the children make their decision to put their faith in their new parents' honesty, and vow to forever be their children. In this case, as the parent's transition worker, it was the climax of nearly two-and-a-half years of work I did with this family. It's a very emotional evening, and a physically exhausting one as well, as I had to be there early to move everything around and help to set up the room for this ceremony, then help to put it all back together after everything was over. For the last Covenant Ceremony I took part in, it took me almost two days to start to feel human again after it was over. And this ceremony wound up being scheduled for 6PM Thursday night on the night before our trip.

The other factor that helped to exhaust me before the weekend had even begun involved my daughter. I mentioned in a recent post that her job is making her go for training every day in Huntington. Sometimes she catches a ride back and forth with a co-worker who is training with her, and she usually at least gets her rides home from her boyfriend. Given that I had to be in Little Neck for the Covenant Ceremony at 6PM on Thursday night, I was really hoping she wouldn't need me to drive her Thursday morning. But as many of you know, well, Murphy was an Irishman. And he had a law, not-so-coincidentally named Murphy's Law. So you can see where this is going.

I wound up driving my daughter to Huntington to leave her at her job on Thursday at 12 noon. At that point, all of my options were lousy ones, so I decided it made more sense to just continue on to Little Neck five hours early than to drive all the way back to Patchogue only to have to drive to Little Neck two hours later. So I took her to Huntington at noon, drove to Little Neck at one, had the Covenant Ceremony at 6, and got home aching and exhausted at about 9:30. Then, just for fun, I had to drive her back to Huntington the next morning. (We left at 7:20AM so I could get her there by 9). I dropped her off, got some bloodwork done on the way home, packed my bag for the weekend, and left the house with Denise at 11:30 to catch a 1PM ferry in Port Jefferson. My back hurt, my feet hurt, and I was emotionally exhausted. And the weekend hadn't even started.

The trip to Connecticut was blessedly uneventful. We caught the ferry into Bridgeport with no problem. We hit a little bit of traffic on I-95, but it could have been worse.

Denise and I have been going to the casino area of Connecticut for years, and when we do, we usually use the town of Groton as our base of operations. It's midway between Foxwoods and The Mohegan Sun, and when there used to still be Jai Alai in Connecticut and Rhode Island, it was convenient enough for that, too. This time, we were staying at the Ramada Inn, where we'd stayed at least once or twice before. The motel has an indoor pool, which I like, and it's connected to an Indian restaurant. I remember once when we stayed there, we had a hell of the time finding the place. This time, though, we found it right away.

We got to the motel at a little after three, which gave us a couple of hours to rest before grabbing dinner and heading out. We ate at the Indian restaurant. The food was delicious, and tired as I still was, we discussed the possibility of maybe eating there again tomorrow. The prospect of just moping around at the motel all day sounded pretty good to me.

We made it out to Foxwoods at a little after 7 for an 8 o'clock show. As it turned out, our seats weren't exactly on an aisle -- they were actually in a corner, against a wall. But because the concert hall is pretty new, the seats were nice and wide, so were able to make do. We were on the far left side of the auditorium, near the back of the floor section. (There was only one row behind us.) The biggest downside was that we were pretty penned in. Our bladders needed to hold up, because we couldn't get out on my side. This meant that if we needed to use the restrooms, or get something from the concessions stand, we'd have to climb over (and inconvenience) the 17 people to Denise's right.

We also couldn't see the full stage. There was a "BERLIN" logo on the video screen at the back of the stage, but all we could see was "LIN".

We found ourselves in the midst of a nice little enclave of music fans of about our age, and traded music stories and info, and camera photos of shows we'd attended, with the couple in front of us and the couple to the right of us. (And Denise found a pack of fans behind her who were planning to be on the '80s Cruise she'll be going on next March.)

At 8 on the dot, the lights went down, and Berlin took the stage. Now as usual, I had done my due diligence and printed out setlists for all three bands playing this show, so I knew what to expect. (I had also been listening to the new Berlin album Transcendance in preparation for the show. It didn't interest me much at first, but some of the songs have since started to grow on me.)

Berlin came out as a six-piece, which included original members Terry Nunn, David Diamond and John Crawford. Nunn was dressed in a some sort of black-sequined outfit, and looked good -- glamorous, and kind of sexy. (And why not? At four years younger than me, she's still a hot young thing.) More importantly, she also sounded really good, with a voice that was both strong and true.

The crowd gave Berlin a great response right away, which the band clearly enjoyed. They played their way through a (too short) eight-song set that included five of their classics, an AC/DC cover (of all things!), and my two favorite songs from the new album. Nunn even came out into the crowd over on our side as she sang "Take My Breath Away" from the soundtrack of the Top Gun movie, which was the band's highest-ranked single on the Billboard charts (at #1!) back in their heyday. Nunn looked legitimately touched by the outpouring of affection that she, and Berlin, received from this very-receptive audience.

The only negative to their set was that the sound was a little muddy throughout. Nunn's voice was pretty clear, but I really wanted the synth to be cranked more, especially for my favorite Berlin song, "Metro". (It did sound a little more distinct for my second-favorite track, "Masquerade".) Berlin's setlist can be found at www.heysoundmanturnupthosesynths.com.

In between sets, Mandy and Tim from Denise's WLIR group came over by my wall to visit. They had gotten caught in some vicious traffic coming from Brooklyn (no ferry for them!), and as a result, they had missed the first three or four songs from Berlin's set. It turned out that they were sitting basically right behind us, in the first row of the next section back.

OMD was the next band to the stage. (I'm only going to spell out "Orchestral Manouevers in the Dark" this once for you. This write-up is long enough as it is!) Denise and I had seen them late in 2017 at Terminal 5 in Manhattan on their tour promoting their very tasty The Punishment of Luxury album. It was one of the best shows we saw that year.

This time out, though, the band had a different game plan, as they stuck almost entirely to their most popular '80s fare (with the exception of one song taken from their 2010 LP, History of Modern). Now I would have sworn that when we'd seen them in 2017, they'd played as a five-piece. But then I realized that I hadn't "seen them" much at all, as we'd had handicapped seats at the side of the room that night, and I couldn't really see a thing over the crowd. So anyway, they played as a 4-piece (all of them dressed in black), as usual.

This was another really strong outing by this band. They performed a full, 12-song set, that included one of my favorite songs of the '80s, "Tesla Girls", as well as other popular numbers such as "Enola Gay", "Secret", "If You Leave" and "Locomotion". This time out, I could see Andy McCluskey's dancing, which was pretty frightening. (And lest you think I'm just being mean -- perish the thought! -- he made fun of it himself). It was somewhere in between the movements of a person with severe neurological damage and a chicken, with maybe a little bit of Jerry Lewis thrown in for good measure.

The crowd danced up a storm during their set, including Denise, who (unbeknownst to her) pelted me mercilessly with the small purse flung over her arm as she swayed from side to side. She asked me later why I didn't tell her, but I figured it was better that she pummel me than the stranger sitting to her right. As it was, I sat watching fascinated throughout the set, as her purse repeatedly just missed the back of the head of the lady sitting in front of her (who was sitting leaned back throughout the night, nursing a broken foot.) She's a dangerous gal, my Denise.

OMD closed out their set with another of my favorites (and their oldest single), "Electricity". They then left the stage, to wild applause. You can see their full setlist at www.youdancethatmessaroundAndy.com.

At this point, I knew there'd be a bit of a break. OMD's equipment had been set up behind Berlin's, so the set-up time between those two bands had been relatively brief. But now they had to do a full set-up for the B's, so they ran a series of '80s music videos on the onstage screen. At this point, my bladder was doing reasonably well. However, I figured if I didn't go now, there was a chance I'd have to annoy everyone to go in and out to use the Men's room in the middle of the B-52s' set. So Denise and I decided to go together, so as to minimize the inconvenience. People (most of whom were our age) were very understanding as we climbed past them.

The line for the Men's room was immense, but moved pretty quickly. The line to the women's room moved less quickly.

At this point, I should tell you that I was dragging, and had been for the whole concert. I recognized that the bands were putting on a great show, and the crowd energy was right there to meet them. I, unfortunately wasn't. I was enjoying myself, but not nearly so much as I would have been if I hadn't had the hectic schedule I did on Thursday night and Friday morning.

The Indian food was also sitting like a rock in my stomach, and making me feel a little nauseous. (And Denise said the same). I don't blame the food for this -- I think it was delicious, and well cooked. But my system can't handle what it once could. Mentally, I revised my plan to revisit the same restaurant tomorrow night. I would choose something a little blander.

I visited briefly with Tim and Mandy as the set-up on stage continued. Then I waited for Denise, and we "Excuse Me"'d our way back across the row to our seats.

Not too long after that, the lights went down, and The B-52s took the stage.

Now the last time I saw the B's was last year at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. I hadn't really enjoyed them much that day, partly because a drunk doofus behind me thought that he was Keith Moon and our row of chairs was his drum kit, and partially because Cindy Wilson's throat that night had been raw humburger meat -- just painful to listen to. We've seen this band together a number of times over the years, and it seems like maybe two thirds of the time, Cindy has had vocal problems. (And on one or two the shows when she didn't, Kate Pierson did.) Tonight, happily, was a completely different story.

The B's played the show with a four-piece band backing Kate, Cindy and Fred Schneider. Cindy was in good voice tonight, Kate was in great voice, and Fred was ... well, Fred. They opened with one of my favorites, "Private Idaho", before playing Denise's favorite B's track, "Mesopotamia". She was a little disappointed, though -- she said that now that guitarist Keith Strickland has retired from touring, the song didn't have that little Egyptian riff he used to play that really makes the song for her.

(By the way, I should tell you that the keyboard on my laptop has a problem with the "B" key. Having two "B" bands in the lineup for this show -- Berlin and The B-52s -- is really starting to piss me off, as I have to go back and keep retyping their names. Can't wait for the Bastille show next Tuesday!)(Subtle Coming Attraction for you there.)

In any event, The B's continued their way through a very strong 12-song set before playing their two-tune encore. They made one change from the setlist I had printed out from last Tuesday's Washington, DC show, switching out "6060-842" for "Channel Z" (which was an upgrade as far as I was concerned.) They played most of the stuff you'd expect, including "Give Me Back My Man", "Deadbeat Club" (another of my favorites), "Roam", "Party Out of Bounds", "Strobe Lights", "Dance This Mess Around", and "Love Shack".

At one point, Fred disappeared from the stage for a full three songs, and I missed his contribution to "Deadbeat Club". When he was there, though, he was pretty actively engaged, playing a variety of hand instruments, including a tinkly little xylophone. And when he came back from his break, he was wearing a long blonde wig, sunglasses and a unicorn horn with unicorn ears to boot.

They started the encore with maybe my favorite B-52s song, the weird and eerie "Planet Claire". They then tore into their last number for the night, the obligatory "Rock Lobster". And towards the end of the song, a person came out dressed in a full lobster costume (kind of like a school mascot outfit if your school happens to be the University of Maine Lobsters or something.) The lobster then proceeded to dance around the stage for the rest of the song, and took a bow with the band. Fred then kindly led the lobster by the hand safely off of the stage, and I'm sure he or she couldn't see a thing from in there. Denise is really hoping they bring the lobster with them on the '80s Cruise.

You can find the B-52s setlist for the night at www.comebacktousfred.com.

We let out into the casino at midnight. It had been a full four-hour show. But it was a happy and satisfied crowd that left the theater.

At this point, Denise and I used the facilities once again. We then made a plan to meet up at 1AM, so Denise could play some slots.

Unfortunately, the Fox Tower of Foxwoods, where this show had taken place, has no non-smoking casino area (that I know of, anyway.) And the casino floor was smoky and disgusting, so I had no intention of playing.

Instead, I checked in with my son by text. (This was when I learned about the adventure of the lost keys.) I then bought some Pepto-Bismol tablets and a couple of waters (so Denise and I could take our night meds later) in one of their little casino stores. Killing time, I headed over to the Junior's Cheesecake stand, where I ran into Mandy and Tim grabbing some dessert. We compared notes briefly, and I left them to enjoy their treats. I then gimped my sore and tired body over to the hotel lobby, where I sat in the soft chairs for thirty minutes or so, eating my Junior's bagel and drinking an iced mocha while I waited to meet Denise.

We hooked up at 1 as scheduled, and headed back to our motel in Groton. By this time, I was one tired buckaroo.

By the way, if you happen to read this in time, all three of these bands are playing in Manhattan at the Central Park SummerStage on Tuesday night, September 24. They put on a great show. Denise is looking forward to seeing Berlin and The B's again on her '80s Cruise next March, although sadly, OMD won't be there.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of "I Got Kidnapped" later today.