August 2009

Arthur ashe kids day

In the summer of 1997, Hanson performed at kids day. I found out after the fact that a friend of my dads would have taken me and I have been bitter about it ever since.

When I found out Honor Society would be playing the event this year, I knew I had to go. We ended up getting general admission tickets and just before the event Lauren won tickets from Twist Magazine that were much better than what we had.

Hurricane Danny tried to ruin our day, it was raining a lot in the morning but when it was time for the stadium show, the skies cleared.

We got to see a bunch of tennis stars as well as comedic actors will ferrell and will arnett play in a game ref'ed by Kenan of SNL.

Jordin Sparks performed first, singing Battlefield, One Step At A Time and SOS (Let the Music Play)

Honor Society was up second and played Over You and See U In The Dark. There were people honor rolling in various sections of the stadium. It was such a proud moment to be a part of their national television debut.

Justin Bieber was the 3rd performer and did 3 songs which were hard to hear due to all the girls screaming for him. I wasn't all that impressed with him.

We also got a close up view of the unisphere and the spaceships for Men In Black.

Despite the staffers not being very knowledgable and a few overzealous parents, it turned out to be a great day! (And I told a woman I was 12 to get a free hat. I was supposed to be there when I was 12, so maybe now I won't be bitter anymore lol)

Photos of the performances and tennis stars coming soon!!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT

Oh Canada


We named our road trip ‘are you listening’ and somewhere in Vermont came out of a gas station shop to find 2 or 3 people standing around the car wondering why it wasn’t talking, since they were listening. Ummm, ok. We got out of there ASAP. This was also Zac’s first trip as “mascot”

I really wish that I had taken more pictures when we were in Canada, especially of all the Hard Rock Cafe’s we went to, but oh well. Can’t really do much about that now!!

More photos under the cut


My photo with Hanson after interviewing them

Our first dinner in Canada was at Planet Hollywood


Our hotel in Niagara was ghetto. (We went super cheap, figuring all we’d need was a bed and a shower. The water when I went to take a shower was YELLOW)

American Falls


Horseshoe Falls


Me at the falls


Pretty sure this was Toronto Hard Rock #1.


A pretty popular picture of Hanson that I took. Erin and I removed Machine from it and used it for the header on Hanson Secrets for a while. I’m not sure the version WITH Machine has ever actually been posted anywhere lol

Me & Zac after the Ottawa Show

With Isaac. Had to put up quite a fight to get this picture with him. This was when he was in his butthead phase. Which, thank god, he is now out of and he’s actually pretty sweet now. (I think we owe this to his wife, Nikki)


Taylor, just doing his job, wasn’t taking pictures with anyone.


Our room at the Jail Hostel. First it was a cell, but I couldn’t get to the top bunk. So we got moved.

Outside the Jail Hostel


I think this was the Ottawa Hard Rock


We were down to minimal gas in Montreal. And don’t speak French. And there were a LOT of corn fields. And this is what the stop signs look like when they are written in French.

Livenation Twitter Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday, Live Nation teamed up with Twitter to put on a scavenger hunt. The prizes is a lawn pass for concerts for 2010. (winner + a guest for every show!)

The first two clues were simple – first you had to find the venue’s website that Dan Aykroyd started and find the hidden scavenger hunt logo/icon and screen cap it. Then you had to tweet it to your local Live Nation’s tweet account (@LiveNationCT for me)

It felt like it took me FOREVER to find it, but I did, and tweeted it, as they sent out another clue with more details as to where it was on the page (I guess I wasn’t the only one having trouble finding it) I was I believe the first in CT to find it.

Later, they gave the 2nd clue. You had to go to the website Neilsen Net View ranked #7 in Music and find the logo there. The more specific clue came almost immediately after so I had no problem finding it and tweeting it. Again, I believed I was the first in CT to tweet.

For the 3rd clue, you had to go to a specific location. They gave a couple clues about the venue and I knew it was the Chevrolet Theater (formerly the Oakdale) I decided to run a couple errands up in that area and got the picture at the box office. Again, first to tweet it. (Well, technically, second, but the first clearly stole the image from someone in NM and didn’t even bother to re-upload it to their own twitpic!)

When I went to bed last night it was me and one other person. She went to the theater but the pictures weren’t posted yet. I’m assuming that will count for her.

When I woke up – I found that someone STOLE my picture and posted it as their own. Hopefully whoever is in charge will realize its obviously the SAME photo and that I had posted it looong before!

Winner is announced tomorrow.. so we’ll see what happens 🙂

A thousand years gone by.. you and I

5 years ago my friend Erin and I went on a crazy adventure. I’m not even sure why my parents even allowed me to do this, but it was crazy. Erin and I followed Hanson’s Underneath tour for a week – To CANADA.

August 16, 2004 – Erin arrive at my house from Virginia
August 17, 2004 – Concert #1 in Wallingford, CT where I had the pleasure of interviewing Hanson as the “hanson.net reporter” before the show
August 18, 2004 – we drove to Niagara Falls, Canada (boooring ride)
August 19, 2004 – we saw Hanson in Toronto, Canada
August 20, 2004 – we saw Hanson in Ottawa, Canada
August 21, 2004 – we drove to my uncle’s in New Hampshire by way of Montreal and Vermont.
August 22, 2004 – we saw Hanson in Portland, ME and then we drove all the way back home to CT.

We also managed to go to EVERY Hard Rock Cafe in the entire country of Canada. YEAH. (Niagara Falls, 2 in Toronto, 1 in Ottawa and 1 in Montreal)

Most notable of the trip was that we stayed in a hostel that used to be a jail. Erin took a tour of death row at like, midnight. I don’t think we got much sleep at all that night (terrified) and were up and at ’em at like… 8am and then off to Montreal.

Originally, we were going to roll in to the Ottawa show late. Then Erin got a M&G; so there went that idea. Toronto is like 5 hours from Ottawa. I slept most of the trip. Erin said I slept for like.. 400 exits. Awesome. We also ended up front row somehow for that show. I don’t even know. (And after the show we had a fun fight with Isaac!)

When I was reporter I asked Hanson why they were playing so many old songs, and not stuff off underneath. The next show in Toronto Zac goes “someone said we weren’t playing enough songs off the new album.. so here you go” and proceeded to play my favorite song off the album, Broken Angel. Score one for me.

I’ll have to dig up some pictures from the trip and make a post with them. Remember the time…

Taking a gamble on the Idols

Decided to go up to Hartford today to try and meet the idols. Didn’t have tickets, but figured it was worth a gamble to see who we could meet before the show.

Temperature was in the 90s, but luckily most of the barricade area was in the shade. We snagged a nice spot in the middle of the barricades. But then the buses came (3 of them) and we allll had to move so they could get in to the garage. (They were SUPPOSED to go in an alternate entrance, but I’m not sure what happened with that)

We ended up at what we thought was the end of the line at the barricade, but when Michael Sarver came out, he came all the way to our end and we were the front! He said “They weren’t going to let us out, after what happened at the hotel” and I was like “why? what happened?” he turned around to sign more so I thought I wasn’t going to get a story, but then he turned to me and said that a guy and his daughter were at the hotel at 5 am and “they” don’t like when people show up at the hotel. And that he got kind of aggressive and said “we’re trying to sleep! How would you like it if I came to your house at 5am?” Which is generally my theory on hotels (I won’t go to their house, so why go to their hotel?)

Then he went through the whole line and like half an hour later (maybe less, but it seemed REALLY long) Danny Gokey came down. Got his signature, we asked him for a pic (me and the girl next to me) and he said he couldn’t do photos, he had press and was in a rush. So I thanked him for coming out and spending time with us since he didn’t have much time and he was like “Oh! No problem!” Like 5 people down from us, were a group of girls who had at LEAST 3 photos w/ Danny (and most signed) They gave him a build a bear and HE STARTED TAKING PICTURES WITH THEM.

If you don’t have enough time for pictures with everyone, DON’T take them with ANYONE! Especially not girls who already have several with you and were bragging about them all earlier. I get wanting to spend more time with them because you “know” them, but taking pictures with them was really pretty crappy, imo. So that definitely did NOT impress me and I am still not a Gokey fan. (I went in trying to be open minded and nice to all of them)

A little later, Matt Giraud showed up. Girl next to me got a pic w/ him and I asked him for one and I guess he didn’t understand me or hear me, because he was just like “nice to meet you” and left. He didn’t sign Lauren’s thing either and we tried to call him back, at least for the autograph, but no such luck. We were the end of the line for him though, so maybe he had press also, I don’t know. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Around 3pm they said that was it and that it was “too hot” and no one else was coming out. OK, it wasn’t ‘too hot’ for us to be waiting in the 90* degree heat – and the area the Idols were in was pretty much shady and cool so THAT was a pretty lame excuse. Press, official M&G; coming up, etc. Fine.. but don’t make up stuff!

We’ll give it all a try next month, hopefully we can get at leassst a pic w/ Kris but I’m really not getting my hopes up at this point!

Tinted Windows – Wolf’s Den – August 4th

Last night, Tinted Windows played at the Wolf’s Den at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, CT. This venue is very unique. It is right smack in the middle of the casino, is completely seated and holds 200 people. There are no tickets, it’s all done on a first come first serve basis. If its a popular show and you don’t get inside the seated area, you can stand around the perimeter or even sit down at a slot machine and still have a great view!

When we arrived at 6pm, there were maybe 20 people in line. I went to find Mohegan’s version of Texas Tea, a machine I loved at Foxwoods. The game was totally different and quickly I was down $10. A little after 7 I went and got a seat. This was my first time being seated on the floor. There were 5 others at my table and we didn’t talk too much. (2 of the 5 didn’t show up until just minutes before the band came on stage though)

James Iha walked through the seating area, right past our table and looked right at me. I was shocked no one else seemed to notice him walking by. Although it did seem like most of the crowd was there for Taylor Hanson.

At 8pm the band took the stage! A couple songs in I started to feel a very cool and refreshing sensation. Oh, wait, the kid seated across from me knocked his water over which ended up all over my LAP. Oddly enough, earlier in the evening I was debating on what shorts to wear. WHY this was an issue, I don’t know as the shorts I have dubbed my “concert pants” should have been the ones to wear, right? WRONG. I opted to wear a pair made out of a windbreaker like material. The water ended up not getting absorbed by the pants at all so within another song or so I was dried off. And the kid sitting across from me was embarrassed and super apologetic. No biggie, it was only water! (And it didn’t make me look like I had an accident so really, I couldn’t hate on him too much)

Taylor and Adam encouraged the crowd to stand up (We were at a casino, but it was still a rock concert, after all) and many stood up and made their way to the stage. I opted to stay back, but HAD to stand up during the first song of the encore – if not Taylor wouldn’t start singing. And who wanted to be held responsible for that? Certainly not me.

They played for an hour, and the set list was exactly the same as the NYC show. (boooooring!)

Then I decided to try and win my money back on a Munsters nickel machine. For the night, I ended up losing only $2.40 and the concert was free so really, not a bad trade off at all!

 

David Cook – August 1 – MGM Grand Theater

Last night I went up to Foxwoods Casino’s MGM Grand Theater to check out David Cook. It was my 4th time seeing him and I think the farthest back I’ve ever been to see him. (And the farthest back I’ve been at a show lately!) But that didn’t matter, I knew I would be rocking out even if I was in the very last show of the venue (but I was thankful that I was not in the last row)

The opening act was Green River Ordinance, whom I was familiar with from January’s Rock Boat. I wanted to get their CD after the show – but their set went over SO well it was sold out! I’ll have to get it on their website or iTunes I guess!

David and his band took the stage to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” and started the set off with Heroes. He talked after just about every song. Once he heard someone say it was their birthday so he said “I hope your birthdays wicked rad” in a Boston accent. Then someone else said it was their birthday so he asked for the house lights to go up and said if its your birthday raise your hand. A LOT of people did so then he was like “You’re lying!” and started laughing and repeated “Youre lying!! I refuse to believe that many people in this section were conceived nine months ago”

I think that this was one of the larger shows that he had played on this tour. (We were show #95) He talked about how during soundcheck he looked up at the balcony and all the seats in the front and was wondering what they’d look like filled up. Now that he saw it – it was a lot of people.

I think he could have just talked to us the whole night and I would have been just as satisfied, he is so funny!

After Kiss On The Neck, which was dedicated to the single people in the crowd, he decided to share this gem with us: (Which I got on video, but the picture of it is really blurry so I’m not sure I’ll bother uploading it… plus he seemed so embarrassed its probably best to not have video evidence of this out there lol)

“For dinner tonight I had a waffle, couple eggs, some hasbrowns, some toast, 3 sodas, a milkshake… and im paying for it right now.. during that song i was like [makes burping noises]…. why did i just tell that to this entire audience? The sound guys is going ‘abort man, abort! get out of this conversation right now!’ If anything this should tell you, this show is not scripted. What the hell am I talking about?”

Then he went into a cover of Cutting Crew’s “(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight” and said that for the younger crowd it’s not a Jonas Brothers song, but it’s close.

During a quiet moment early in the show he said he was going to share “something important” with us, which led someone to scream “DAVID COOK FOR PRESIDENT” which totally made him lose his train of thought. He said he would probably not run for president. And I don’t think he ever did end up telling us anything important. haha.

Completely overwhelmed by the number of people there to see him, he shared a story about one of his first gigs in Kansas City. They were paid $100 to play for 3 hours. They learned 30 songs figuring that 3 minutes a song the math would work out. Except they played the set in an hour and a half and had to play the whole set over again the fill the 3 hours. ( 3 x 30 = 90 minutes, david!)

As always, David put on a great show and this show really took the bad taste out of my mouth that I kind of associated with his shows after the whole Toads Place drama. I can’t wait to see him again! (And I’m totally bummed he has 2 shows and a signing in NYC this week – but I don’t think I can coordinate my work schedule enough to go! Bummer!)

 

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