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Hollywood Bowl/Palm Springs
Sep. 16th, 2012 02:27 pmDr. Pookie took me to the Hollywood Bowl for my birthday. It was the Brian Setzer Orchestra, backed by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, so it was Brian Setzer and two orchestras. It was a great show, though for the first few songs, I think there was some sort of fight going on at the sound mixing board. They finally settled on some compromise and let things rip. I'm not really a guitar guy... except for videogames... so it's funny that now videogame familiarity lets me say, "Oh yeah, he's playing a Gretsch."
I didn't like his take on Sleep Walk, which should be ultra mellow [it's a sleep walk, fer crissakes], but Setzer turned it into a fiddly-diddly fantasia that has gotten much more fiddlier and diddlier since even this. But most everything else was great. I liked the things the Bowl Orchestra did on its own... the Hawaii 5-0 theme and Soul Bossa Nova [YouTube comments are often derided, but we'll have to concur with "Quincy Jones - the only man to have ever walked this earth who can conduct an orchestra via pelvic thrusts. Period."]
The Bowl orchestra didn't add too much to the BSO, at least not audibly except a few parts where the strings sang out, but the BSO is good enough to hold its own. Other times they stripped it down to him, an upright bassist and drummer for some nice clean rockabilly. A couple fantastic bass solos. He (probably contractually) did some Stray Cats material, and I was impressed by the Stray Cat Strut, interpolating the Pink Panther theme. And it all ended off with Rock This Town with fireworks. Some of the firework effects sent cascades of sparks showering down on the inner circle boxes, and people were flapping at their hair and evacuating [possibly in more than one sense of the word]. A good day to be part of the 99%.
Saturday, we drove up to dad's new place in La Quinta in the Palm Springs area. On the way there, we stopped for lunch at Loco Burrito. It's not haute cuisine, but it well deserves the 4.5 star rating on Yelp. Once at dad's place, we got the two cent tour of the house and the two dollar tour of the area, including a wine tasting at a place near here in the 'old town' of La Quinta:
Dad fired up the grill and made us some great filets. I helped Lois a bit with some of the vegetables, and we had a great meal. In the morning, we went out for breakfast at Louise's, and then pretty soon Dr. Pookie and I were on the road back home. I may have frightened Dr. Pookie a little, but I made it back in less than 2 hours.
I didn't like his take on Sleep Walk, which should be ultra mellow [it's a sleep walk, fer crissakes], but Setzer turned it into a fiddly-diddly fantasia that has gotten much more fiddlier and diddlier since even this. But most everything else was great. I liked the things the Bowl Orchestra did on its own... the Hawaii 5-0 theme and Soul Bossa Nova [YouTube comments are often derided, but we'll have to concur with "Quincy Jones - the only man to have ever walked this earth who can conduct an orchestra via pelvic thrusts. Period."]
The Bowl orchestra didn't add too much to the BSO, at least not audibly except a few parts where the strings sang out, but the BSO is good enough to hold its own. Other times they stripped it down to him, an upright bassist and drummer for some nice clean rockabilly. A couple fantastic bass solos. He (probably contractually) did some Stray Cats material, and I was impressed by the Stray Cat Strut, interpolating the Pink Panther theme. And it all ended off with Rock This Town with fireworks. Some of the firework effects sent cascades of sparks showering down on the inner circle boxes, and people were flapping at their hair and evacuating [possibly in more than one sense of the word]. A good day to be part of the 99%.
Saturday, we drove up to dad's new place in La Quinta in the Palm Springs area. On the way there, we stopped for lunch at Loco Burrito. It's not haute cuisine, but it well deserves the 4.5 star rating on Yelp. Once at dad's place, we got the two cent tour of the house and the two dollar tour of the area, including a wine tasting at a place near here in the 'old town' of La Quinta:
Dad fired up the grill and made us some great filets. I helped Lois a bit with some of the vegetables, and we had a great meal. In the morning, we went out for breakfast at Louise's, and then pretty soon Dr. Pookie and I were on the road back home. I may have frightened Dr. Pookie a little, but I made it back in less than 2 hours.
