Concert – Page 29 – Concert Katie

Stephen Kellogg & November 15th

Katie November 18, 2015 0 Comments

The morning of November 15th I woke up and like most mornings, I read my TimeHop to see what I was up to in the past. I laughed because it seemed like almost every year I had gone to a concert – and was getting ready to go to another one that evening. But the more of my old tweets and facebook notes I read, the more I realized a pattern was forming.

6 years ago I went to see Honor Society. The pattern didn’t begin there (though I did get a drumstick from Alex at that show! Yay!)

5 years ago I went to see Hanson. Stephen Kellogg was at the show and ended up on stage performing with Hanson for the encore.

4 years ago I went to see Katy Perry. Stephen Kellogg had tweeted something that made me think he may be at the show with his wife – and sure enough I saw him as I was leaving the show.

I kind of thought nothing of it. Until a few songs into Jon’s set on the night of November 15, 2015… a guy sat down a few feet from me and I realized… it was Stephen Kellogg.

I’m not sure what it means, if anything, but it certainly was a pretty funny coincidence!

Concert

Jon McLaughlin at Stage One

Katie November 18, 2015 0 Comments

Sunday night Jon McLaughlin returned to StageOne in Fairfield, CT for his 3rd visit. He seems to come every 2 years which is not quite enough. He did mention about how much he liked the venue once again, so maybe they can figure out a way to get him to come more often!

Before the show I had purchased a VIP pre-show ticket from Jon’s website. That got me in to the show early to hear Jon perform 2 songs and get pics with Jon and an autograph before the show. Oh and a really cool lanyard. (That I spent half the ride there trying to figure out how I would put it in my scrapbook)

There was a small group of us in VIP and Jon came out with and guitar and his guitarist (whose name escapes me) and said that the guitarist will be playing everything Jon was playing, just louder. First he did Beating My Heart. He talked a bit about how we were the 19th or so show on the tour and it really doesn’t start to get good until the 18th or so because they finally work everything out, but that his voice was starting to go. He said he wasn’t drinking tea, but instead just scalding hot water. Next up he did my favorite song, Beautiful Disaster. He mentioned that neither of the songs he did at VIP would be done during the set at the show and we were VIP and superior because we got to hear them while everyone else would just be wishing they did.

He took pics and chatted with everyone and then it was time to wait for the show to start!

Tess Henley kicked off the show – Jon had said that we wouldn’t want to miss her and he was right! Tess also was a piano player and recently got to record an EP with Don Was – who also worked with John Mayer (who is from Fairfield, where this venue is) Tess had a 40 minute set that I enjoyed.

Jon played roughly a 90 minute set, with the majority coming from his latest release, Like Us. He said he promised that we would play it well, but thought it might be a boring show for those who didn’t have the album (but they are available at the merch table!) Before Don’t Mess With My Girl he said that this song is really the most descriptive of his personality if you know him in real life – he is very aggressive. Of course the crowd couldn’t help but laugh. He said he shot a music video for the song and it should be coming out soon. He then went into a cover of I Can’t Feel My Face… which I tried to record, but fell victim to the security flashlight in the face. I had the camera on my lap too but apparently that was more of a problem then the cell phones up in front of people’s faces recording. He said that he thought that was the song that all the kids are listening to and when he heard it on the radio he really liked it.

He then went into a story about it being cold in Nashville where he lives (but not as cold as up here, but too cold for his little daughter Luca to go outside and not die instantly from it being too cold for her) and how he would play a riff on the ukelele for her and she would dance. Until one day she stopped, turned to him and said “Stop playing that song. Play a new song” He tried to explain to her that his instrument is piano and he doesn’t even really know how to play the ukelele but she didn’t understand so he ended up writing a song on the guitar. He also mentioned how he liked when other bands did a breakdown of their set and kind of unplugged, but that his “piano” was fake and if he unplugged it no sound would come out. So he now had this song, that he felt he had to be put on the album, but “buried” it as track 6 that he could do as a breakdown song in his set. And went on to do “Thank God”.

Before Merry Merry Christmas Everyone he said he was going to get a bit controversial and do a Christmas song and if someone needed to walk out of the room because it may have been too early for Christmas songs, he was ok with that – but he has a Christmas EP he is trying to sell! He had Tess Henley come out and join him for a duet of Merry Merry Christmas Everyone (which they first tried at a different show – rehearsing for Fairfield, of course). During the encore he also did Jingle Bells but promised that 2 was his limit.

For the encore he let everyone yell out songs since there was no real setlist and everyone yelled out something different. He teased that there were not 2 people who wanted the same song and ended up playing Indiana. A few people cheered and he was glad 6 of us would be looking forward to it.

He ended the show by talking about how he wanted to do something to help human trafficking for years and finally with this tour he is doing something. He has partnered up with World Vision who will be building safe houses in Bangladesh to help keep children from being sold. He mentioned how Bangladesh is roughly the same size of New York State but they have 19 million people in New York and Bangladesh had I think he said 115million people. So World Vision is going to build these safe houses – and he thought they would be really expensive – like $100,000 to build one. But then he found out that they only cost $2,000 to build. So all the profits from the sale of his new album on CD or vinyl (at shows, I am not sure if through his website as well) are going to World Vision to help build these safe houses and they already raised enough to build a few but want to build more.

Jon put on another great show, as was expected. He mentioned that he loves the venue and loves that we come to see him (and that we are all rich in Connecticut. Ha!) and buy tickets (and merch!) and hopes to come back soon. I just hope it’s not another 2 years before he comes back!

VIP pre-show performance
Beating My Heart
Beautiful Disaster

Before You
Down In History
More Than Me
I Want You Anyway
Don’t Mess With My Girl
I Can’t Feel My Face (cover)
Thank God
I Am Always Gonna Love You
Without You Now
Merry Merry Christmas Everyone
Summer Is Over
Industry

Already In?
Indiana
Jingle Bells
Human

Concert SK6ers

Stephen Kellogg Band at Stage One

Katie November 17, 2015 0 Comments

Lately I’ve been trying to avoid concerts during the week because it messes with my being able to sleep a decent amount before work. (I know, I’m so not a rock star anymore) However, there are some exceptions and Wednesday night that exception was Stephen Kellogg. He is touring as the “Stephen Kellogg Band” as a part of the promotion for his upcoming album South, West, North, East. Brooks Hubbard opened the show, Miranda Mulholland was up next with stand up bass player Zachariah Hickman. The latter two also were part of Stephen’s band.

Brooks did a set of 3 songs. He is from New Hampshire but relocated to Nashville. He had posted a cover of one of Stephen’s songs and Stephen wanted to know who this guy was that sang his songs with better pitch than him.

Miranda had teased during her set that Stephen plays a lot of songs about hope and family songs and that there was legislation passed that you can’t have a set full of just that so she was going to sing all the autobiographical songs about relationships that didn’t work out.

The Stephen Kellogg Band consisted of “South” – Zachariah, “North” – Miranda, “East” – Boots Factor (former SK6er) and “West”- Sam Getz (former SK6er).

The set started with Curtain Call, with everyone up around one mic. I found that Zachariah and Miranda were a welcome addition to the band – who knew that what was missing was a fiddle and a stand up bass?

After Thankgiving, the band left the stage. Stephen said “The band said they’d learn Thankgiving, but then they needed a break!” Since they were home, Stephen was going to try something that had not been planned and he called backstage to see if his kids were still there. “A couple” was yelled back. “A couple? I hope a couple didn’t leave” and then shortly after all 4 of his girls joined him on stage and he asked them to sit on the stage and he was going to tell them how much they were loved. He started crying and had to turn around and compose himself for a minute and then did a medley of “Four Kids”, “Sweet Sophia”, “Oh Adeline”, “Noelle, Noelle” and “Greta Girl”, which are some of the songs he had written for his daughters. Greta ended up having to leave the stage before her song came up because she was not too thrilled to be out there. Stephen was also using a guitar strap that had S A N G on it – of course after this medley I realized the letters stood for his daughter’s first initials.

The band played from about 10 minutes to 9 until shortly after 10. It was a great set with a mixture of songs off the new album (that I have not yet listened to even though I got it early for backing the project through pledgemusic) and some older favorites as well.

Curtain Call
Wolf
4th of July
The Open Heart
Start the Day Early
Such a Way
Father’s Day>
The Bear
Thanksgiving
Four Kids / Sweet Sophia / Oh Adeline / Noelle Noelle / Greta Girl
Wallpaper Angel
Shady Esperanto
Almost Woke You Up
Gravity
Last Man Standing
E: We Say Goodbye
Big Easy (with Brooks Hubbard)

Concert David Cook

David Cook at Infinity Hall

Katie November 11, 2015 0 Comments

Friday night David Cook played a sold out show at Infinity Hall in Norfolk, CT. I had purchased a M&G package which allowed me to meet David before the show, get something signed, get a photo with him as well as get a copy of his new CD, Digital Vein. Since David is a big Royals fan and I’m a big Mets fan, we talked about the World Series and he said he was trying to keep his mouth shut for the next couple of shows (Saturday night was NYC) but that he was glad he could go back to liking the Mets now because he did like them. (Just not as much as the Royals) He also said if the Mets could keep their pitching for a while they’ll be really good… and get some bullpen help. I agreed.

After the M&G we could either stay upstairs at our seats or head back downstairs. I opted to stay in my 2nd row seat and had forgotton how tight the seats were. My knees were practically touching the row in front of me! Andrew Ripp was the opener and didn’t come out until sometime after 8. He has a Hanson connection and I was going to talk to him about it after the show either way – but then he decided to tell a story about David. Which started out with “I flew to Tulsa, OK… to write songs with Hanson” I, of course, cheered, but then he had to say “You know. Hanson, MMMBop?” and proceeded to butcher the chorus. The story continued that on his flight back home to LA, some guy came and sat in the middle seat next to him with a sandwich (and he didn’t like people who brought on food that smelled because he was always hungry) and that guy was David Cook. They talked and found out they were both musicians and David told Andrew he was heading out to LA to cut a record. 2 weeks later, Andrew turns on American Idol and there is David… and he figured out that he lied to him the whole flight to LA and Andrew believed everything he said. But he was going out there to audition for Idol and couldn’t say anything! Andrew’s set was really good and after the show I bought all of his CDs and talked to him about Hanson. He said writing with them was “awesome” and that he really does like them and they are really great guys. Then he asked if I had a Hanson bumper sticker and I said I did it said “I <3 Hanson” and my car was parked right outside. He laughed and ended up writing “I <3 Hanson too!!!!” on my autograph. ha.

David was on around 9pm. His set was a lot shorter than I was expecting it to be, but was still great. He talked about how his new album was out and that some of the songs would be new if you didn’t yet have the CD. (I failed and had intended to listen to it a few times before going to the show to brush up on my lyrics and never did!) Before the 4th song he said it would be new if you weren’t familiar with the CD – but then the drums kicked in and David kind of made a face and then they went into the song “Heroes” which was not a new song. I just kind of shrugged it off until after the song David went on about his professional band and how his professional drummer started playing the wrong song and the rest of his professional band followed right along.

After that he asked what guys were there because their significant others made them come along. He decided it was time to play something for the guys and did Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll and Whole Lotta Love. (Sorry Dave, ZHan does it better) After he finished the next song, Declaration, he said he had to make a note to not do that one back to back with Zeppelin.

The backdrop at Infinity Hall has a bunch of lights on it that they can make twinkle and blink along to the music and David commented that if anyone had been to Disney it reminded him of the Tower of Terror. He also spotted a sign in the audience a little girl had that said “WE LOVE DAVID COOK” 4x on it. He asked if he could have it to put it up on stage with him for the show, and then laughed and said it “got sinister” when he realized she put her phone number on it! He said he was still going to put it on stage but if anyone prank called Hannah.. “I swear to god…” At the end of the show he called her back up front and autographed the sign and gave it back to her.

During the encore, he talked a bit about how everyone’s faces are always covered by a giant cell phone during his sets and he wanted us to just have a moment. He asked for everyone to put their phones and cameras in their pockets or purses so we could have a moment and how he has gone to a lot of concerts and doesn’t have any pictures and he’s ok with that. Because he has the memories of the moments. (Sorry David, I like the memories AND the scrapbook pages – but had no problem with his request for putting everything down for just one song)

Heartbeat
Paper Heart
Broken Windows
Heroes
Rock and Roll / Whole Lotta Love
Declaration
But You Won’t
Laying Me Low
Wicked Game
Kiss And Tell
Come Back To Me

Better Than Me
Light On
Criminals

Concert Hanson Photos

Hanson Roots and Rock N Roll New York

Katie November 10, 2015 0 Comments

The last of the picture posts is the first of the concerts. New York City. Lighting wasn’t the best but here’s a few that came out a bit better than the rest!

Hanson Photos

Hanson Roots & Rock N Roll Tour New Orleans

Katie November 9, 2015 0 Comments

Some more photos!

Concert Hanson

Hanson Dallas

Katie November 1, 2015 0 Comments

The final set of shows was in Dallas, TX. Hurricane Patricia was making its way to Mexico and Texas as well and there was talk of Dallas being flooded. The House of Blues also had no power the night before, but we found out it was not weather related. We left at 4am and made the 8 hour drive (well, I was copilot when not napping) with a few pit stops along the way.

We wandered around a bit to find something to eat and ended up at TGI Fridays and got sweet tea! yay! I also found it funny that the valet told us that we should bring a jacket because it was cold. Being from CT – I didn’t think it was cold. And Sunday I had shorts on half the day while everyone else was freezing. (It ended up getting windy which was making me cold so I ended up putting long pants on before the show.)

I had bought balcony seats for this show – 2nd row. But did not realize that first row and second row are on the same level floor, there’s no incline. The chairs are higher so if you are seated you can see over the people in front of you, but if they are standing you are SOL. Especially when you’re not all that tall. So we spent most of the night swaying to find a view. I could see Ike and Zac most of the show, Taylor was the problem. At the end of the night there were more girls than seats and when my friend went to complain they ended up moving us – alllllll the way in the back – we might as well have been on the moon. The next night we tried to make things work out a bit better and for the most part we did. But just a note if you’e going to HOB Dallas and 2nd row balcony is available in row BB (the middle section is fine) you might want to reconsider unless you are tall.

For this set of shows there was nothing “new” – but there were some fun bits of songs the second night that I enjoyed – Taylor’s solo was A Song For You and a guy yelled out that he loved him in the middle of the song – and Taylor worked it into the song and made it pretty funny. One of my travel mates, Rachel, captured the song on video so that is below. Also before Isaac’s solo of Hand in Hand (I always want to type “Hanson” after I type “Han”) he made up a couple of songs which was pretty funny – I found a video of that on YouTube. (Thanks to Lisa L for uploading that!)

Before the second show they had another walk. I once again worked the walk table. We had 286 registered walkers (2nd or 3rd biggest of the tour) and a lot of kids which was really awesome. And one of Isaac’s sons even took the walk – and kind of stole the show afterwards! They also did an acapella Great Divide through their megaphones which was pretty cool!

After night 1 I got a pic with Paul McDonald and got to talk to him a bit. It was funny he introduced himself to me and I had to tell him I had met him before – waaay back on the Idol tour!

After night 2, we ended up in the elevator with him. I think he was trying to talk to us to try and get away from a couple of drunk girls – but I was on a mission to get to the bus and didn’t feel like saving him.

The bus was a bust – Isaac came out early but we were about 6 people back because the barricade was very, very small. Zac tweeted and said he wasn’t coming out because he had family there and then Taylor came out at midnight – but we left after Zac’s tweet. We thought we’d have no chance even if Taylor did come out because of the barricade, but it seems like he came outside of the barricade. Ah well… 2 missed opportunities for pics with Taylor.

Setlists under the cut and photos coming soon!

Hanson New Orleans

Katie October 28, 2015 0 Comments

My second set of shows on Hanson’s Roots & Rock N Roll tour was in New Orleans, LA. I woke up at 2am, headed to the airport and got to New Orleans about 11am. Tara picked me up and then we waited for Rachel to land about an hour after me and then we headed to the hotel, which fortunately let us check in early.

We did some shopping, exploring and eating before the show both days. Night 1 was Zac’s birthday show so we knew we would be in for at least some cake. During the last song of Paul McDonald’s set, Carrick joined him on stage and next thing I knew all of Hanson was on stage too for “Renegade” (Check out my youtube for video!)

When Hanson first took the stage they sang happy birthday to Zac and mixed up the setlist a bit by starting with “Teach Your Children” – this wasn’t a new song for my never before heard list, but it was the first time it had been done on this tour and it had been a while since they had done it live. (It was a bit of a staple in 2003, and only came up a few times since then in setlists)

The rest of the setlist, for the most part, was the same as in New York City. But they did add a totally new cover to the list – Leon Russell’s “Delta Lady”. I ended up trying to google what they were singing to figure it out and when I saw Leon Russell’s name I figured that had to be it – and Isaac confirmed after the song by mentioning it was a Leon song!

After Zac’s “I Believe In A Thing Called Love”, Taylor went and got a cake that had candles for “30” on it. Zac sang happy birthday to himself and then smashed his own face in the cake because then he’d get to eat it all himself. It was cheesecake. He also mentioned if you licked him, he’d taste like cheesecake.

Then it was time for the after party. I thought Zac may show up to have a bit of a birthday party with us all, but I only saw him sneaking around on the balcony. We ended up leaving before it was over to head back to the hotel.

Day 2 Hanson took a 1 mile walk with concert goers in the afternoon. I worked at the registration table and got to talk to Zac a bit after the walk about how hot, humid and muggy it was and mardi gras beads. We had 172 walkers.

The second show had a similar setlist as well, but Taylor did Love Me as his solo which is probably my favorite Taylor solo so I was excited about that. They also did Yearbook (again) which features my name so my 2 friends in front of me on the balcony turned around and made sad faces at me!

Afterwards, we decided to wait by the bus. Zac came out, but there were too many people for us to get near him. About an hour later Isaac came out and we moved to a spot to get a photo with him and decided to leave. Taylor ended up coming out about an hour after that, but since we decided to leave for Dallas at 4am because of the hurricane coming we decided not to bother sticking around.

Setlists under the cut. Pictures coming soon.

Hanson Roots & Rock N Roll Tour NYC

Katie October 20, 2015 3 Comments

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, Hanson’s current tour is 2 shows in each city. I am going to 6 shows, or 3 cities. My first one was New York City. My goal for the entire tour was to hear *10* new songs live that I had never heard before. After the first 2 shows I have heard 13. I guess now with my trip I have nothing else to aspire to – only to hope they start to mix the setlist up a little more.

We were a bit nervous heading back to Irving Plaza after all the trouble we had last time Hanson was in town. But the staff members we had issue with seem to no longer be on the staff and everything worked out ok – except for the fact that they didn’t tell us I could only bring 1 person to ADA with me so we’d have to split up 2 and 1. Fortunately for the second night we were able to work it out so we could all be together.

Night 1 was covers night where I had 9 new songs. They did mix in a few Hanson songs too. They did U2, Stevie Wonder, Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Paul Simon… a lot of the music I grew up on (because as my mom said “their parents are your parents”) That was going to be a hard setlist (and a hard tour) to top.

Night 2 was Hanson night but the did some more covers – like Michael Jackson and Ed Sheeran and Taylor did a solo rendition of “A Song For You” which I know from American Idol (Elliott and I think Kris Allen has done it too) but I may be biased but I think Taylor’s is one of the best I’ve heard.

And of course since every Hanson concert needs to be an adventure – we were told the afterparty was starting at 11 and ended up getting there a little after 11 (thanks to a super slow waiter) and decided we’d leave about 12:30 to give us roughly an hour to take 2 subways to Penn Station. (Looking back – we should have just gotten a cab but hindsight is 20/20) When the first subway took FOR-EV-ER to get to the platform we thought we’d still have enough time because we had built in extra time to account for me walking slow, etc and I’d just kick it into high gear if I had to. Well, when the second subway also took FOR-EV-ER to get there we knew we were screwed. So were a bunch of others on the platform. So we had 2 options. Wait until the next train 3 hours later (4am) OR pay a premium to get a ride back to New Jersey – something that a lot of cabs didn’t want to do. So we decided to pay the premium for a ride.

Night 2 we decided to drive in to make sure we wouldn’t have to deal with missing any trains – only to have my friend Marisa tell me she was in the car with it running charging her phone and she sees a guy in the side mirror peeing on the back of my car. I mean how stupid/drunk/on drugs do you have to be to pee on a car that someone is obviously in because it is RUNNING? She ended up turning the car off and hitting the lock/unlock to make the lights flash and then he went “oh shit” yeah. Asshole.

Also in attendance Night 2 was MTV Wanna Be A VJ winner – Jesse Camp! We saw him during the show (and I may have freaked out a little…) and after the show he went by the barricades set up at the bus to meet people. We were nowhere near close though I did try t get a few pics. We also struck out getting pics with Hanson since we weren’t near the barricades. Bummer.

Highlights include…

Taylor: If you’re with a guy you have to remind to tell you you’re beautiful, you’re with the wrong guy
Isaac: And if he doesn’t hold a door open for you, he’s also the wrong guy
Zac: And if you have to remind him to shower… he’s every guy
(paraphrased)

After night 1 there were 2 girls fighting and security went to break it up and one of the security guards (female) grabbed on of the girls and put her IN A HEADLOCK to get her off the other girl. Probably one of the craziest things I’d ever seen at a Hanson show.

At the after party there was a girl in just her bra dancing around. At the bus after the show night 2 there was a girl in a bra because she took her shirt off to have Zac & Taylor sign it. (And it was COLD that night)

Watching the bus driver attempt to park the bus along the sidewalk 18 thousand times (which then blocked the view of the bar across the street and the playoff baseball I was watching!)

Song of the weekend: I can’t feel my face

Setlists under the cut and photos coming soon!

Hanson T-Shirts

Katie October 14, 2015 0 Comments

For Hanson Day in May I decided to make a couple of custom Hanson T-shirts for the weekend. I am getting into using heat transfer vinyl (and hoping that I will get a heat press for Christmas so I can stop using the iron – which works well but not as great as a press would) and I also decided to make a rhinestone Hanson symbol. A lot of people stopped me and asked where I got the shirt so it was always nice to say, “I made it!”

The vinyl shirt was blue glitter and symbols to mean “eat, sleep, hanson” Although we teased for Hanson Day Weekend I should put Red Xs through the first two because there’s so much Hanson going on there is not a lot of time for eating and sleeping! I’m sure these shirts will be making an appearance on the fall tour at some point – although when I went to photograph them I did notice that some of the vinyl and rhinestones are coming loose so they will have to be fixed up a bit first!

The rhinestone shirt was silver rhinestones on a red shirt. This one was tough to make, it took a long time to set all the rhinestones in place, but I am super happy with how it came out. I am going to try to make another rhinestone shirt soon – probably the Mets NY… so stay tuned to see how that comes out 🙂

EDIT I managed to fix the popped up vinyl and rhinstone using my hair straightener! It’s probably not enough of a heat press to do an entire shirt but it definitely worked in a pinch!