Concert Katie

the same song over and over again

September 2025

Media Random

John Candy I Like Me Documentary Screening with Ryan Reynolds

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As if I had not been busy enough, Tuesday night I went to see a screening of the upcoming documentary about John Candy: I Like Me at the Prospector Theater in Ridgefield, CT.  Ryan Reynolds was doing a tour screening it ahead of its release on Amazon Prime on October 10.  The CT venue was by far the smallest of the tour with only 150 seats, but Ryan hand picked this  theater after visiting with his kids.  I somehow managed to snag the last ticket when they went on sale.

At 7pm we watched the documentary, which has about a 2 hour run time.  Then Ryan Reynolds was introduced and talked a bit about making the movie and why he wanted to make it and then invited out very special guest – David Letterman.  They showed some clips about John on Letterman’s show (one of which was the first week of the show in the 80s!) and had a really fun conversation.  John’s son Chris was also in attendance celebrating his birthday and ended up getting interviewed by Letterman.

We were told no photos or videos allowed during any of the event, but Ryan told us to take the stickers off our cameras and they all posed for a photo at the end.  Willie Geist was also in attendance.

Upon returning to my car, I realized there was a whole bunch of paparazzi outside trying to catch a glimpse.  That was a bit weird to see!

Concert Hanson

Hanson in Durant and New Buffalo

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Shows 3 & 4 were Hanson in Durant, OK and Hanson in New Buffalo, MI.  After Casey Abrams, I made my way up to the airport to stay at the attached hotel, which I hadn’t done before.  I was able to get from my room to the TSA Pre-check line in 10 minutes.  The line was quite long, but I still managed to get through in another 10 minutes and then had time before my flight to Dallas would take off. I was meeting a friend so I made my way to the car rental center, we got the car, stopped for some food and made our way to the Choctaw Casino in Durant, OK.  We wandered around a little bit, found some plugs to charge our phones, went to eat at the cafe and then made our way back to the theater area for doors.  I was front row for the show and fell victim to FOMO and Ticketmaster’s Platinum pricing.  The venue had a screen behind the stage and kept changing the scenery in the background. We were underwater, in lava, in a lava lamp, there were love scenes and hearts and it was pretty amusing.  The setlist was pretty standard, although we did get an Isaac solo of “Begin Again”.  Taylor seemed to be having trouble with his mic stand and had to hold the mic while it got fixed by their crew.

After the show we hit up the bakery, hung out with some friends before making our way back to TX to hit up Buc-ees and then try and get some sleep before returning the car and flying from Dallas to Chicago.  Upon our arrival in Chicago we were picked up by a friend and went to her place to nap before heading to New Buffalo for pre-show dinner.

During the New Buffalo show, they flubbed the words to TWO songs which was pretty surprising.  Taylor forgot I Will Come To You (again) and Isaac forgot Cold as Ice and my friends had to yell the next line to him to get him back on track.   I thought that this setlist was better than the night before, we got a full band River, A Song To Sing with the extra verse, Get Up and Go and an encore of Hey.  After the show Taylor hosted another after party, but I was able to see him from outside sitting at a slot machine, so I didn’t bother going in.  We hung out at a bar until the dance party ended so I could just kind of chill after my whirlwind last few days.

Afterwards we went to stay at my friend’s childhood home and on Sunday we did a tour of the area, ending up in Holland and then at her grandmother’s and Dad’s houses as well.

Monday we headed back to Chicago for our flights home.  Mine ended up nearly an hour delayed, but fortunately no other issues. It was definitely a whirlwind few days!

American Idol Concert

Casey Abrams at The Kate

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Show #2 of 4 days, 4 shows, 4 states was Casey Abrams and friends at The Kate.  Casey is from my all time favorite season of American Idol and during the show I realized that the talent that season was all SO GOOD that a lot got overlooked.  Casey’s voice was just amazing. The show started out with Casey on his own, he explained that his bass was on a bench for the show because the stick that usually holds it up was left at the venue of the show he performed the night before.  If  that was a challenge for him, you’d never know it.  He sang Lost and Lookin’, Dry Spell, Nature Boy (which he whistled part of and holy crap was I blown away and jealous as someone who can’t whistle) and Simple Life.  Then he was joined by Dylan Chambers and they did an amazing rendition of Drive My Car followed by I can never get enough and don’t give up on my love, which were Dylan’s originals.  Casey then said he needed to go pee and left Dylan on his own to perform Knock on Wood and What Kind of Fool.  When Dylan began playing House of the Rising Sun, Casey appeared in the back of the venue to sing and did a medley of it with Amazing Grace and Row Row Row Your Boat.   Dylan left Casey alone again and he did Your Song by Elton John – asking the crowd if anyone had any sun glasses for him to wear but he ended up getting bifocals from someone instead. He also did Midnight Girl and Sober – explaining that after having a surgery he has been sober for 3 years now and how much he had to drink to not be nervous on stage before, but that’s no longer a problem for him.  Dylan came back out for Sara Smile, You and Me, Golden Handcuffs and Ya Gotta Respect Yourself (the latter 2 also being Dylan originals).  One of the “friends” was supposed to be Hunter, but she wasn’t able to make it as she is in space… so Casey did what she probably would have done with a medley of Shallow / Barbie Girl and Natural Woman.  He finished up the main set with Cougartown and Sweet Home Chicago with Dylan.  For the encore he did Georgia on my Mind from in the crowd (with no mic, which he did a few times throughout the night and his ability to project was very impressive) and finally Hit the Road Jack.

I was going back and forth on if I was even going to go to this show with so much else going on, but I am glad I didn’t end up missing out!

 

Casey Abrams Setlist The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, Old Saybrook, CT, USA 2025

American Idol Concert

David Cook at Daryl’s House

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Wednesday night I kicked off my ambitious 4 shows in 4 states in 4 days by heading to NY to see David Cook. Fortunately the show started at 7, was over by 830ish and I made it home before 10.

He has a new album out and did a couple of songs from that, as well as old favorites and some covers thrown in for good measure.

Daryl’s house has video monitors around the perimeter and David was being vain and saying it added 40 or 50lbs (honestly, it was distorting his appearance) which led to some banter with his sound guy and ended with us all flipping him off.

The in between banter is what makes a David Cook show so great and this time he had a fart machine with him.  There also was a 10 month old in the audience he took a liking to.

For fire he had us do the F I R E but also had us do J E F F, M I K E and T H O M A S and then we tried to do it on our own for David but there was a mix of D A V I D and D A V E going on.

He didnt seem overall very sure with the crowd and blamed it on the weeknight and that he lost us with the fart machine.

Seeing him is always such a fun time and I cant wait for all of his new music to come out!

David Cook Setlist Daryl’s House Club, Pawling, NY, USA 2025

Banana Ball

Savannah Bananas in New York

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This weekend I went to my final Banana Ball games of the regular season, to see the Savannah Bananas and the Firefighters in Yankee Stadium.  Being a Mets fan, I opted to wear a Mets hat over any of my banana ball team hats.

For Saturday’s game we were up in the 200s section and I was whining about how it was the furthest back I think I have been at any game.  The Firefighters took an early 1-0 lead scoring in the first inning. The Firefighters had 3 fan outs, including 2 back-to-back in the 8th inning.  I don’t think the bananas had any fan outs against them.  Dakota McFadden had a homerun in the 2nd. In the 5th, Eric Jones Jr hit a homerun but it ended up being ruled a triple because he “didn’t touch home plate”, he did touch it with his helmet and said they had touched it with props before in the past and it was never called against them.  Also in the 5th, Dalton Mauldin wanted me to feel like I was closer so he hit a foul ball that almost hit me IN THE FACE.  The guy in front of me tried to catch it, but it bounced off his hands, came at me, and I guess ended up hitting a guy a few rows back in the leg.  The game ended tied and we had 2 rounds of show downs with the bananas coming out victorious in the end.

We also had a LOT of special guests at this game.  The Firefighters were joined by FDNY members and brought out the ‘We Will Never Forget’ banner from the World Trade Center.  Wrestler Damian Priest threw the first banana of the game.  Noah Bridges had a walkup with Sam Tinnesz, Keegan-Michael Key joined the Bananas Foster family.  The half time show was BIG TIME RUSH (!!!) Miguel Cervantes performed a song from Hamilton and Joe Torre was a guest 1st base coach.

Sunday we had VIB and also hit up the K-Club area in the Great Hall. There were quite a few players that we knew would have longer lines in VIB so we hit them up with less people being around – Stilts, RAC (Who told me wearing my Mets hat was a ‘bold move’), Danny Hosley, Jackson Olson and KJ Jackson.  We also met a few of the firefighters before getting escorted to the elevators to make our way down to the field.  They gave us a head start before the rest of the group made their way down the stairs which was nice.  I went over to Reese Alexiades first, as he is also a Mets fan.  He said he had seen me earlier outside but couldn’t get to me and told me how he got to go to the Mets game on Friday and they had good seats and then we talked about David Wright a bit (of course). We also hit up a bunch of other players as well AND got to meet Chief the bat dog. (Which honestly might have been the highlight).  They then had us sit in the stands for a bit in between the end of VIB and the opening of the gates (which is not the norm and most likely when I got sunburned…)

For this game we had really nice, cushiony seats right behind home plate.  They had a bit less on the big name guests, but did honor a lot of first responders including a 100 year old WWII veteran.  We did end up getting guest umpire ELI MANNING and guest hitter Nick Swisher (this is his 3rd year playing on the bananas!).  I spotted Zach Hample and Stephen Kellogg in the stands and also saw Pink, but didn’t realize it was her until I got home!  Ryan Cox got his 200th trick play of the season in the 8th inning.   The Firefighters once again took an early lead, we had 2 firefighter fan outs and 1 bananas fan out.  Dakota McFadden hit another homerun. Alex Ziegler broke a bat that went flying into the stands. The game ended tied 3-3, so we had showdowns again!  In the first round, both teams scored. In the second round, Dalton Cornett scored for the Firefighters, but DR Meadows ended up out at home, leading the Firefighters to a victory.

My stats for my 16 regular season games are:

Party Animals – 2 wins in Savannah, 2 wins in Louisville, 2 wins in Allentown, 2 wins in St Paul
Bananas – 1 win in Savannah, 2 wins in Chicago, 2 wins in Pittsburgh, 1 win in New York
Visitors – 1 win in Louisville
Tailgaters –  0 Wins 🙁
Firefighters –  1 win in New York

 

My next (and final) games of the season will be the Championship Playoffs in Savannah in a few weeks! I can’t wait to go back to the super tiny ball park.

Concert

The Brotherly Love Pod LIVE

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Saturday evening The Lawrence Brothers brought their live podcast to Foxwoods.  I purchased a VIP ticket which meant I got a merch package including a tote bag, hat, signed poster and laminate and also got to meet the brothers before the show. They were all super nice and already picking on each other as they left the M&G, I said I would be in the front row and Joey said to watch out because Matt spits, so I asked if I should wear a poncho and Andy said yes and I may need an umbrella too.  Fortunately once they came out Matt didn’t sit in front of me, Andy did. 😉

They chatted about a bunch of topics, including how air travel has gone to shit. Which, I must agree with.  They got a direct flight to JFK from LA because they didn’t want to risk layovers (I can’t say I blame them) and then were going to drive the last 3 hours.  They said at midnight the flight got “delayed” (which that early is more like a “bump”) and then once they landed they were on the runway for 2 hours, but they were happy to be back “home” on the East Coast. They told stories about Andy with Tom Arnold and Arnold Schwarzenegger as a kid, hanging out with John Travolta and Matt’s relationship with Robin Williams.  Matt told that Robin had dressed up in full Mrs. Doubtfire attire and took him out in the city to see if it was believable, he had a table of grandmothers in a cafe laughing and crying and fully believing that Mrs. Doubtfire was Matt’s caretaker and he knew that it would work.

Joey and Matt spoke about how they got to meet the Pope and gave him friendship bracelets they had made even though they weren’t supposed to touch him or give him anything.  Andy then said he also met a Pope, but wasn’t with them at that time.  The older brothers didn’t believe him, which made Andy say he also met Ronald and Nancy Reagan.  They confirmed he did meet the President and his wife, but did not believe that he also met a Pope.  Andy said he was going to ask their Mom, and he texted her but she didn’t respond.  Matt took it one step further and called their Mom.  She sweetly answered, “how did it go?” to which he replied that they were still on stage and had us all say hello.  Joey said that their Mom would now somehow side with Andy and said he didn’t meet the Pope but Andy’s soul was inside of her when the other two met the Pope.  Andy still seems convinced he met a Pope, so hopefully he can figure out where that memory is coming from.

Overall they sang three songs – the podcast theme song when they first came on stage followed by the Brotherly Love show theme song and then they ended the night after Q&A (QNA?) with a rendition of Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix.  The three of them made their way to the front of the stage and took selfies and chatted with the audience.  They had said they will be back, so I am hoping they’ll either do more live shows in the area, or maybe come back for 90s con!

American Idol Concert

Ruben Studdard at The Kate

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Thursday night Ruben Studdard came to The Kate.  He played for about an hour and a half doing 10 songs.  Most of them were covers.  Almost all of them got a story about why he was singing it, and most of those stories went back to his Mama.  After the first 2 songs he said he was not used to being the one having to carry the whole show lately as he had been on tour with some legends and he just had to come out, do his song, have the crowd go “Was that Ruben? It looked like Ruben” and get off the stage.  He also said he was feeling every minute of his 47 years and had woken up at 6:30am.  He seemed a bit annoyed when the crowd didn’t stand when he told them they could – then said he gave instructions that weren’t followed and said that we all were like “Thanks for the suggestion”, but by the end of the show he had most of the crowd up and dancing.  He went off on a couple of tangents – one being about how he wanted some Air Jordan shoes and once his Mama saw the price she said no way – which he looped back into a story about how he was supposed to be babysat by his cousin so his Mama could go to a concert and his cousin had a date so poor little Ruben got dragged to see Luther Vandross.  I found him to be very funny with his stories and understood most of his references from growing up – but it seemed to fall flat with some of the rest of the crowd and he kept saying he was done with us all and shaking his head.  Overall the show was a really fun night, I think he ended up only playing 1 original song and mostly Luther covers, but he did a great job with all of them!

Ruben Studdard Setlist The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, Old Saybrook, CT, USA 2025

Banana Ball

Savannah Bananas Pittsburgh, PA

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Savannah Bananas at PNC Park | Pittsburgh Pirates

This weekend I made my way to Pittsburgh for 2 Savannah Bananas games vs the Texas Tailgaters.  I flew in on Thursday morning and was able to snag a Southwest flight that had a stop in Baltimore but I didn’t need to get off the plane.  Interestingly enough the plane then went on to Nashville and then California and there was at least one gentleman who got on in Baltimore that I was going all the way to Cali on it!  The flight(s?) were uneventful, I got myself a ride to the hotel which was right across the street from PNC Park.  I had debated going to check out early merch but ended up getting wrapped up in a book I was reading and finished it Friday shortly before I needed to head out for the first game!

I made my way through the gates around 2:30 and the Tailgaters were out and about signing. I ended up finding Zach (Bam Bam) Blankenship and giving him one of my disposable cameras and he seemed really excited about having it.  I got to VIB and waited for my friend to meet me and managed to get her in via a much more convenient entrance and we waited to make our way to the field.  It was very exciting that everyone went via a ramp so I didn’t have to wander around to find an elevator.  The ramp however was quite steep.  We went to KJ first as he is my friend’s nephew’s favorite and then made our way around to everyone else. Priorities, you know?  I ended up giving my 2nd camera to Cowboy Kyle.  We then figured out how to get to our seats, which were about 10 rows up from 1st base.  Jesse had teased a BIG guest that we wouldn’t expect for the game.

The game ended up being one of the most exciting ones I think I had ever been to.  The special guest was Mr. Beast, who did a contest to give away $50,000.  He chose 2 seats from the crowd and if his friend got on base one would win $50k, if he got out, the other would.  Well, in that ‘I can’t believe this isn’t scripted’ kind of banana ball way, his friend got out TO A FAN IN THE CROWD.  Mr Beast ended up giving him $10k and then later had his friend bat again and he won another $50k.  The poor girl lost both rounds and went away empty handed.

The Tailgaters were ahead 3-2 after scoring 5 in the 7th, with DR Meadows at the plate in the 8th with about 5 minutes on the clock – I was like “He just needs to hit a homerun, no wait, KJ is up next, he can do it.”  AND HE DID! That tied it 3-3 going into the 9th, but both teams didn’t score so we went into showdowns.  There ended up being THREE rounds of show downs (and we were kind of begging for the game to be done because it was getting chilly!)  For the 3rd round the bases were loaded and EJ ended up hitting a GRAND SLAM to win the game for the bananas!

Saturday my friend and I returned to VIB, while leaving her husband safely in the KClub bar to meet us at our seats later.  This time we decided to forego autographs on the posters and just go for photos with the players and knew we needed to see Jackson and Coach RAC after their lines were too long on Friday.  Of course, we had to see KJ again, pick up my cameras from Bam Bam and Cowboy Kyle (who had forgotten it in his locker but was able to go back to get it) and then saw who else didn’t seem to have long lines and also met Reese, Taj, and Sunshine among a couple of others.  We made our way to the ADA seats and waiting for my friend’s husband to join us.  She grabbed me a drink and banana dog before the crowds got too out of control – and it was soooo good.  I couldn’t eat it like a hotdog like it was intended because of too much chocolate sauce, but I was impressed from the first forkful of strawberries and chocolate sauce.

This game didn’t end up being quite as exciting as Friday’s, but it was still a lot of fun.  We had noticed there was a band set up outside the dugout during VIB and got a glimpse that the drums said “Gym Class Heroes” (which was quickly covered up after we noticed) so we had a pretty good idea that we were getting a musical guest. Travie McCoy ended up joining Dalton for his walkup, falling on his way to the field (which was edited out of the reel the bananas posted) and doing a few songs before Dalton got his at-bat.  We also got 2 former pirates – Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson. The Bananas won 2-0 and I think the Tailgaters only had a couple of hits! The game was a whole heck of a lot faster than the night before.

Sunday I overslept, ran around like a crazy person to pack and get out of my hotel room by 11am.  Then I opted to get a “wait and save” ride to the airport – that came in 3 minutes.  My flight wasn’t until 3:45 so I figured I had time to wait – but of course it came quickly.  I also immediately got a wheelchair – again – of course – because I had all the time in the world.

The flights home were quick and easy and I made it home by 9pm! And then I had all of Labor Day to relax.

Just a couple more weeks until my last series of the regular season!

 

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