Tartan Terrors at The Kate

Saturday night I went to check out Tartan Terrors at The Kate. A friend had seen them earlier this year and said if they came to CT we’d have to go and that I would enjoy them – and that they wear kilts.  That was enough to convince me so we snagged some front row tickets for their show.  I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect but I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed them and am looking forward to seeing them again!  After the show I managed to snap some photos of the setlist which I got added to setlist.fm and you can check out below!

David Cook at Daryl’s House

Friday night I braved the rain and winds from Hurricane Nicole and made my way to Pawling, NY to check out David Cook.  He had been in CT for two dates over the summer but unfortunately it clashed with my Hanson shows so I wasn’t able to see him.  Before the show I did a M&G which was scheduled to start at 6:30 and the show at 8.  Well, the M&G line was quite long and David was quite chatty so the line was still going at 8pm. The show ended up starting at 8:30pm, for which David apologized but said he was a popular guy and it was the M&G that was taking up the time.  While the setlist appears to be rather short, he played for about 2 hours and threw some stories in throughout and seemed genuinely happy to once again be in front of a crowd and not in his basement doing streams like he had been doing.  As the show was on Veterans Day he spoke a bit about veterans and dedicated the song Light On to the veterans in the room.  I can’t wait until he comes back around again!

Blues Traveler at Foxwoods

Last week, Blues Traveler concluded their 35th anniversary tour at Foxwoods.  This show ended up being a free private show for those with players cards to the casino, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.  Seating was GA (with the first several rows reserved for higher rollers) so I managed to be 8th row center.  Most of the crowd sat for the entire show, despite a guy to the left of me trying very, very hard to get everyone up and dancing.  The show was a lot of fun, with John Popper throwing out several harmonicas into the crowd (I knew he had done this in the past but wasn’t sure if he still would now that covid is a thing!) and the band playing about a 90 minute set including their hits.

Book Review: The 24 Hour Dating Agency

The 24 Hour Dating Agency was a fun book. As someone who has also been on and off all the dating apps for the past few years, I could totally relate to these characters.  There are 3 main characters – Saffie – a single journalist, Tamara – a single mom of 3 and Milo – Saffie’s best friend who has just been dumped.  They end up seeing an ad for a “24 hour dating agency” where a match maker will fix them up with “the one” or their money back.  A few of them are skeptical but the three of them try to find it out.  Saffie is the most skeptical of the whole experience and thinks she will just use it to write an article about the dating agency, but when she seems to fall for her match, she changes her mind.  Tamara gets matched with a ventriloquist who at first she is unsure of, but decides to spend more time with him anyway and Milo gets matched with an ex from his younger days.

There are a lot of twists and turns in this story and it was a fun quick read and now I am off to find a 24 Hour Dating agency in my area because the way they had to decode and figure out the places they are going on their dates seemed like a lot of fun!

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review and I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Tinder, Hinge, Bumble – thirtysomething journalist Saffie has tried them all. Now she’s wondering whether it’s time to throw in the towel and give up on love for good – and she’s not alone…

Saffie’s boss Tamara has been single since her divorce four years ago, but at forty-five, running her own magazine and with three kids at home, she doesn’t feel she has the time, energy or confidence to go through the dating mill again. Meanwhile, Saffie’s best friend Milo has just been dumped – again. A hopeless romantic with terrible taste in men, this is his fourth break-up in six months. There must be a secret to finding Mr Right, surely – but what?

Step forward The 24-hour Dating Agency, a matchmaking service with a difference. Instead of wasting months on casual dates, they promise to send you on an intense twenty-four-hour date with your perfect match – like speed-dating but in reverse. And even better, the agency offers a soulmate guarantee: meet The One or your money back.

Figuring they have nothing to lose, the three friends sign up. But when their matches turn out to be not what they were expecting, it seems like even the soulmate guarantee can’t find them what they’re looking for. Or can it?

Book Review: History’s BIGGEST Show-Offs

History’s Biggest Show-Offs is a children’s book featuring the Boldest, Bravest and Brainiest people of all time. The book is broken down into People in Charge, People who Think Up Stuff and People Who Create Things. The book is trying to inspire young ones to be their own kind of show-off. The book contains some great stories as well as some games throughout to make learning a bit more fun! Of course my personal favorite is probably Ada Lovelace – one of the People Who Think Stuff Up and that’s probably the kind of show-off I am, as a woman engineer also in science and math following in Ada’s footsteps! You’ll learn a lot about various royalty, inventors and artists in this book and even get to see what the top 5 is from each category, all with a lot of fun quizzes and illustrations along the way.

I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

 

About the Book

Some people just can’t resist showing off… and this BIG book introduces readers to some of the biggest braggers and loudest show-offs throughout history. 

This book takes young readers on a tour of some of history’s greatest show-offs, from wealthy kings and queens who loved to splash the cash to masterful musicians who weren’t shy about their talents, or brilliant artists who could not stop telling others how great they were.

Some of the showoffs in this book include:

  • Queen Elizabeth I of England, who owned over 2,000 pairs of gloves,
  • Alexander the Great, who named more than 70 cities in his vast empire after himself,… and one after his horse!
  • The Montgolfier brothers, who showed off their flashy new invention, the hot air balloon, in front of huge crowds and even the King and Queen!

Andy Seed’s hilarious text brings these crazy but true stories to life, as he tells readers tales about massive palaces, fast cars, monster banquets, immense armies, frilly outfits, dazzling bling, musical masterpieces, epic artworks, outrageous inventions, and much, much more!

Featuring long-dead leaders, artists, musicians, and more, from all around the world, the snappy facts are paired with humorous character illustrations from the brilliant Sam Caldwell for maximum hilarity.

Jon McLaughlin at Stage One

Sunday night, Jon McLaughlin took his 15th Anniversary Indiana tour to Fairfield.  Initially tickets went on sale for The Warehouse which is the larger of the two spaces run by the Fairfield Theater Company.  The floor is entirely flat so I got myself VIP front & center tickets.  Last week it was announced that it would be moving to the smaller Stage One and our tickets would be “comparable”.  Well, Stage One has 2 steps to get from the main floor to the front row – and no railings. I typically avoid this due to my disability and will get row C which is even with the main floor – no steps involved.  But since I had also purchased the VIP option I figured I’d be stubborn and stick it out.  I ended up getting moved to front row still, but almost the entire rest of the front row never ended up showing up?  So strange.

At 5:45 it was time to check in for the VIP portion of the night, where we got a Jon CD and then had him sign it, photos, chat, Q&A and he did one song with his band for us. He answered 3 or 4 questions and then it was time to wait for doors.  Kris ended up coming to check on his merch so we had a nice chat preshow where I got to tell him how excited I was that he and Jon were touring together!

Kris opened and while his set was shorter than I am used to, he absolutely killed it.  I could feel the shift in the crowd the moment he won them over with a few notes on “Out Alive”. His banter was on point and I particularly enjoyed when he asked if he could play a new song and then teased that everyone thought everything he was playing was new. (For the record, none of the songs he played were new to me!)  He also got the crowd doing a sing-a-long for Hallelujah For Now.  After his set was over the guy behind me exclaimed “Wow. He was good!”

Then it was time for Jon to take the stage. I love the way he tells stories and intertwines jokes right into them. His delivery is hilarious.  I had asked him during the Q&A if there were any songs he felt differently about 15 years later and he said he felt different about all of them and touched on there being some he hadn’t played until he did the 10 year anniversary.  One he went into in more detail during the show saying for some reason he absolutely hated one of the songs (Just Give it Time) and had wished it wasn’t on the album and that Far From Home was (it is now on the deluxe version).  His retelling of being a bit nervous playing it 10 years in and then getting to the end and realizing he couldn’t remember what it was he hated and that it should have been on the album was just hilarious.  He also slipped a couple newer songs into the set and said it would only be two since he sold the tour as an Indiana 15th anniversary and that is what we were going to get.  When we got to the encore I knew just what songs were missing so it was no surprise when he started with Indiana.  He ended up going into another story about someone from CT who he was writing songs with who was in the crowd (he was at the VIP portion pre-show so I heard a bit about him writing) and did a song that he had written, which unfortunately I don’t remember the name of.  Then it was time for my favorite song that I had been bracing myself for all night.  “I’m surrounded by darkness. Is someone coming at me with a guitar?” (No) “We will wait. We will sit here until I get this guitar.”  Finally, to laughter, a guitar was handed to him and he came front stage without a mic to finish off the night with Beautiful Disaster.  I thought I was ready for it. I was not.

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