Holy shit! I'm going to the Hague, by way of Amsterdam!
My friend Frans talked me into this crazy trip where we're flying to Amsterdam, taking the train to the Hague and spending a week at his brothers' place. We'll be seeing Nik Kershaw and Marillion on two different days and probably seeing what other kind of trouble we can get into while we're there.
Go me!
I promised to write about my adventure yesterday and so I am…
A few days ago my brother, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ragnorokt, was invited to attend a housewarming for a fellow home brewer in Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island. He asked if I would like to come along and having no objections I agreed. If you haven’t been lucky enough to have home brewers for friends or family let me tell you it’s a wonderful thing. They always brew more than they can drink and it’s up to folks like me to help them drink it all. Being a fan of beer I figured I would get to try some great brews and get some food.
We, my brother and I, are planning a trip to Germany and we thought it would be a good idea to stop by Rick Steves' travel store. After all it’s not far from the ferry terminal in Edmonds, so after a bit of shopping we could hop on the ferry and make our way to the island. Those of you who live in the Pacific Northwest might have noticed a slight flaw in my plan already, but hold for the fullness of my tale and don’t give it away to the others.
The travel store did not disappoint and while I didn’t learn much about Germany, the staff helped me get an idea of what sort of questions I need to answer for the trip. As we left I noticed we had a few minutes to make the ferry in Edmonds. So we rushed a bit and zipped aboard the boat with about a minute to spare. We weren’t the last car on the the ferry but it was close. I was actually feeling pretty good about myself as we made the crossing. It was a beautiful sunny day as we drove along the road and I was having a good time until we passed a sign for Port Townsend. Port Townsend? I don’t remember PT being on Whidbey Island. Nope, it is on the Olympic Peninsula and we had neatly made the wrong ferry. Gah! So much for being smug and ahead of the game.
This required a bit of consideration so ragnorokt and I pulled over and checked our maps. We could turn around, take the ferry back to Edmonds, drive up to Mukilteo, take the ferry there to Whidbey and continue on our journey. Our other option was to continue on to Port Townsend and take another ferry there across to Keystone, which is on the island, and make our way to the party. As I mentioned it was a nice day so we chose the second option and drove on. From prior experience I knew that the Port Townsend/Keystone ferry is small and it can fill up. My brother got on his phone and tried to make us a reservation, but the web page wasn’t working. So he got on the phone and worked on getting a reservation. He was told that if we could make the next ferry there was plenty of room and we wouldn’t have a problem. As we pulled in to the terminal I asked the woman taking the fares if this boat actually went to Whidbey. She said yes, and then mentioned we took the wrong boat earlier. “You must have taken the Edmonds/Kingston ferry,” she said. I replied that we had to which she replied, “You want the Mukilteo/Clinton ferry.” Thanks, this was information I could have used an hour ago… We had a pleasant crossing and then drove up to Oak Harbor without further incident.
Arriving at the housewarming a bit behind our planned time we joined the festivities in progress. M & J have a nice home and there was plenty of homebrew to sample. I wasted no time doing my part to relieve M of his overabundance of full bottles and replace them with empties so he would be able to pursue his hobby and fill them again. I’m nice like that you know.
Drinking and conversing with the other guests was going well and I was in a good place. Then I met J & T, a couple who are realtors on Whidbey Island. We were talking about music and they mentioned going to a shanty concert the night before. They were trying to tell me about a band they heard and I realized it was Pint and Dale, a local group. We kept talking about music and were hitting it off when T asked me if I would like to go with them to the second night of the concerts. Checking with my brother, who gave the ok to leave him at the party, I left with J & T and headed out to the show.
Riding along in the back of their car I realized that I had stepped into a classic horror movie setup. I’m on an island, it’s dark outside and I’m riding along with a couple of people I met not an hour earlier. It was quite a thrilling ride. Was I going to listen to music or was I going to be cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and sealed in a treble milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose before being fed to Constable Parrot. As you can see I ended up listening to music as I am still here to tell this tale.
The show started off with the Shifty Sailors, a Whidbey Island group. They sang songs about whales and whaling. They were good and very entertaining. I really liked a couple of the songs and I hope they were on one of the CDs I bought. During their performance T leaned over to me and asked “What are the odds that you would go to a party and end up at a concert with a couple of strangers?” Pretty high I guess, as I was sitting next to her at the show. The next performer was a gentleman named J.W. Sparrow. There was one great song he sang about a Japanese fishing vessel that had drifted around the ocean for a couple of years before being recovered here. I will have to find a CD of his with the song so I can research the story more. Next was the previously mentioned Pint & Dale, a favorite of mine for a few years now. They did not disappoint in concert and I’m very happy to have seen them. Finally we had Broadside & Cabin Boys a fun group that I enjoyed. For some reason they had to shut down the venue at 10pm so all of the groups got back up and performed one last song together. Then everyone put up their chairs to lend a hand with the cleanup.
J, T and I headed back to the car to head back to the party. I had left my coat at the party because it wasn’t cold but coming out of the concert it was chilly. Let me say that finding out that the back seats were also heated was a nice thing. A nice thing that I enjoyed quite a bit on the drive back. Back at the party I met up with my brother who had messaged me a few times, but the show was outside of the service area so I wasn’t receiving his messages until then. It was now about 11pm and I had missed most of the food and the mead tasting, but I didn’t mind. I scrounged a bit of dinner from the leftovers and talked with other folks at the party while making sure I was sober to drive.
We finally left Oak Harbor about midnight and instead of taking our chances with the Washington State Ferry System again we drove through Deception Pass and made our way back south on I-5. We finally got home around 2:30am where I thankfully sank into bed and tried to sleep with memories of this day, ferry boats, shanty songs and good beer in my head. It was… Quite an evening.
The Old Gods of Asgard songs in the game are performed by Poets of the Fall. A band I hadn't heard of before but I'm glad I looked into them. In particular I want to share their video for Carnival of Rust. You can check it out below.
He's off again! I just bought tickets to see Dream Theater in Portland Oregon at the Roseland. My plan is to drive down early on Monday. Spend some time at Powell's and hopefully meet a friend or two for lunch and dinner before the show. What's still unsure is finding a place to crash or driving home after the show. The show is Monday June 21st and the doors open at 6:30pm. WAAAA!!!!!
And now on the urging of a friend I also have tickets to see Rush at the White River Amphitheater this August. It's been a long time since I've seen Rush so it will be good to see them again.
I don't know if I mentioned it but at the start of 2010 I wanted to increase the number of live shows I saw. I certainly have done that. Go me!
Flew to San Francisco yesterday. Attended most awesome concert by Transatlantic. Three hours of their music. Scored a ride back to the airport. Missed getting through the security gate by a few minutes. "Slept" on an airport floor for the first time in a long time. (SFO has no benches that don't have arms.) Returned to Seattle. Still jazzed from the show but I go thud now. See you all tomorrow...
I was sent the link for this last night, but thanks to being busy with the Ten Revolutions celebration on The Dividing Line I didn't watch it until this morning. This is a good thing because I can't imagine what my dreams would have been like if I had watched it before going to bed.
If there was any doubt that Vanilla Ice ripped off Queen it's gone now. Embedding is disallowed so you'll have to click the shiny link to see the proof for yourself.
Still ABBA is getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so there is hope...
I’ve wanted to get back into seeing live music again. I used to go to concerts all the time but life got in the way. So I resolved to get out and see more shows even though it would involve travelling as the people I wanted to see don’t seem to come to my area*. I’ll easily go see someone who performs in Portland or Vancouver BC. A three hour drive for a good show is a minor problem I’m willing to overcome.
The big problem is I don’t deal well when I'm alone in crowds of unknown people. If I have a friend with me I still suffer the anxiety but at a lower level I can handle. Flying off to an unfamiliar city, finding my way alone to a concert venue, attending a show with a huge unknown crowd and making my way back home again is something I never thought I would do. I feel a bit anxious just thinking about it. But Fortes fortuna adiuvat.
I’ve purchased plane tickets and this morning I bought my concert ticket. On the 18th of April I’m going to see Transatlantic at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco!!!
Now to start figuring out how to get around SF and where to have some food. I'm not going to book a hotel as my return flight leaves at 7am and I don't think it's worth it for a few hours I'd get to spend there. That does mean that I'll be travelling light. Good thing I have my Coat of Many Pockets.
*: Sylvan and Porcupine Tree did come and I went to see them both! Thanks guys!
While listening to the Rogues’ Gallery on the Dividing Line last night I was joking with a few folks about the Jethro Tull Christmas Album. However after hearing some of the music on it I think I’m going to have to buy myself a copy. Scratch that... I will have to buy a copy. I’ll just have to wait until I save up a bit more. I resubscribed to a few magazines and my fun budget is a bit empty at the moment.
In other news ABBA is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. I think the deserve it. As hollyqueen said, their music makes me happy and want to dance. That’s a good thing in my view and something we can always use more of in the world.
Transatlantic is playing in San Francisco at the Palace of Fine Arts. Any of you music fans interested in going? I could swing part of it if someone would share the driving and hotel expenses with me.
hollyqueen and I went to see .38 Special, REO Speedwagon and Styx. It was an awesome show! Here's a picture of us with the members of REO Speedwagon.One of the problems turning people on to progressive rock is a lot of the information you find on the internet is about bands from 25 years ago or longer. If you're not a fan you're probably not interested in tracking down old out of print albums. Also progressive rock isn't stuck in the past. There is a lot of new great music being released all the time. The problem is that the radio stations never play progressive rock so how will you discover any of it? Frans at The Dividing Line understands that and gives us 4 hours of great new music every week. To give you an example here's the playlist and a link to download last night's show.
A band's debut. Music from an upcoming album. Easy to download an play on your computer or portable music player. I will warn you that my wallet screams every time I listen because one or two more albums end up on my wishlist... ;)
Debut of Aeon Zen "A Mind's Eye." Learn more at http://www.aeonzen.com
Rogues' Gallery - Thursdays 8PM-12AM Pacific (11PM-3AM Eastern) on The Dividing Line (countdown clock on playlist page)
Playlist: http://www.thedividingline.com/rg.html
Download MP3 (show #296): http://progressiverockpodcast.com/stream.090423.0.mp3
RSS (weekly subscribe): http://progressiverockpodcast.com/roguesgallery.xml
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=41904173340&ref=ts
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