Its been a good week for concertgoing, even if the two could not have been more different. First, last Thursday, was Nickel Creek's final (?) show at the Ryman. These are three unbelievably gifted musicians. It was one of the top two or three shows I've seen in that place. The encore, where they kept pulling musicians like Bela Fleck and Gillian Welch out onto the stage, became a collection of just stupidly talented people. The second encore, with just the three band members, no microphones, and a completely rapt audience, was beautiful. An amazing show.
The next day I flew out to Oregon to visit a friend out there, and on Saturday night, through a random sequences of events, we ended up seeing Van Halen in concert. Quite a different environment from Nickel Creek; the arena was filled with 40 and 50 year olds partying (and dressing) like it was 1985. Those expecting a sad little we-need-the-money nostalgia show were disappointed. Van Halen still knows how to rock. I had not been to a concert of that type since a Guns and Roses show back in high school. I'll confess I own none of their music, and my normal musical tastes are far from what they play. However, it was still an awesome show, well worth the hearing loss.
Fun random moment of the weekend: Earlier on Saturday, my friend J and I were walking down the sidewalk in downtown Portland, discussing whether or not to pursue tickets to the show. As we were walking a little lady passed us and overheard our conversation. Turns out that she was with the tour, and was the teacher for Wolfgang Van Halen (the 16-year-old son of Eddie Van Halen who is also the bassist on this tour). We talked about the tour, the band, and her job as a celebrity teacher (she was also on the set of Little Miss Sunshine, being the tutor of Abigail Breslin). A nice lady, however she couldn't score us free tickets to the show: Apparently the band is stingy and she had to pay for her own tickets when her family came to see the show.
My little tree might be the most generic Christmas tree in the world, but I still love it. Here are a couple of pictures so you might love it too. The top picture is from outside. In the second one, even the presents look nice. This is deceptive, since I took the picture from far enough away to hide the fact that my gift-wrapping skills remain at a 3rd grade level.
