Lenny Kravitz Concert

Posted by Ariness in Concerts, Live Entertainment | on 10 18th, 2009

I saw Lenny Kravitz at the Fillmore on Wednesday thanks to my awesome cousin. It was a fun show in an intimate venue so I had a great view and a good time. The image to the left is the sweet poster they handed out at the end of the show.

The Somali K’naan opened for Lenny. His mix of Hip-hop, rap, and reggae was refreshing. Check him out if that is your kind of thing.

After the opening set the audience was waiting for an unusually long time after the set change. I heard a rumor that Lenny Kravitz requests that the air conditioning be turned off because “Lenny likes it hot.”

He put on a good show but the audience seriously detracted from it so that was disappointing. It wasn’t until the last few songs that people finally got moving to the music. At least I had a great time. Anyway, here are some photos I snapped at the show.

At the National Equality March and Rally

Posted by Ariness in Activism, Politics | on 10 14th, 2009

On Sunday I attended the National Equality March on Washington. To the left is a photo I took at The Capital building. I arrived at just before the marchers. They left from the White House and marched through the streets to the capital.

People were holding many funny and poignant signs as they arrived on the capital lawn from the end of the march. I couldn’t get any clearly readable photos but I’ll look around the web and see if I can find photos others took at the rally to post here. There were many speakers at the rally as well.

The march was enormous. It took about an hour for everyone to get into place on the lawn. Even then there wasn’t enough room for people. The police were estimating the crowd size was between 150,000-200,000. Michael Crawford says The Advocate is reporting the official estimate is 150,000. Last night Jon Stewart had hilarious coverage of the march as expected but reported only 75,000 in attendance. Also on the Daily Show, John Oliver interviewing people at rally about the radical gay agenda.

The night before the march, Obama gave an excellent speech to the Human Right’s Campaign about LGBT issues. Here are the YouTube videos.

Lord of the Rings at Radio City Music Hall

Posted by Ariness in Live Entertainment | on 10 10th, 2009

Last night I saw The Fellowship of the Ring at Radio City Music Hall with a live orchestra and chorus. I had never been to a movie with live music like this before. Apparently they are doing them with Lord of the Rings and with Star Wars in a few select venues around the country.

I love the movie and I am very familiar with the score which made the experience more enjoyable. In 2004, my high school wind ensemble played a short arrangement of the Fellowship score that we performed alongside a video compilation I edited and arranged to match our simplified score. We played the video on a projector behind us while we performed the music as fund raiser for the music program. This event last night felt like a large professional version of the experience I helped create a few years ago. As you can imagine I identified with the concert on a personal level. Here is a review of my experience.

Overall, I was very entertained by the show. I found that it kept my attention more than a typical classical concert. The music was great but they also put the subtitles on the video so in the rare instances when the music covered up the dialog you could still easily follow the story. It was fun being able to glance down when you hear specific instruments or parts and spot the musician. All of the performers were wearing black except the solo vocalist who sang the Enya song and Elf themes who stood out in her light red dress. She sounded remarkably close to the original film score.

The audience was like the ones that go to the midnight release shows but applauded even more often. You could tell everyone was enjoying themselves but I wish people would have kept their applauses for the end of songs to praise the musicians rather than applauding for main character appearances and scene transitions.

I also have a couple minor criticisms of the way they presented the show. There was a smaller full screen on either side of the main movie screen they used to show slide advertisements before the show. They should have been hooked up to cameras in the hall and shooting video of the orchestra and chorus to provide a better look at the performers for the more distant seats. Also, the program had no information about the event at all. There should have been at least a little blurb about the conductor, orchestra, and chorus. I know the chorus usually plays in Carnige Hall because my aunt is a soprano in the group. I assume the orchestra was also a local New York City ensemble but I heard the conductor was brought in from Europe.

I would recommend live music film experiences like this to anyone who enjoys both live orchestral music and is a fan of the movie. They are performing the sequel, The Two Towers, at Radio City again in 1 year and I hear there is a show in the LA area soon as well. Maybe you can make it next time.