Maize Maze

So, it's Halloween. What to do? A labmate, Paula, suggested the corn maze a few miles down the road in Dixon.

Sure. . . never been lost in corn before. . . plus, the media seems to be all over it: Guinness proclaims 40-acre Dixon corn maze world's largest.

So Stef, Paula, and I drove to Dixon after work on Monday. We arrived at around 6:30PM. We quickly 'found' ourselves lost in corn within minutes. We were lost for almost 3hours. The map we were given was so complicated and there's a picture of us consulting it quite confused. [How many PhDs and MAs does it take to...]

They were also selling pumpkins - check out the size of the one in the middle!
An aerial view of the 40 acre maze:

*insert favorite pirate joke here*

boo

Sunday, 2007 October 28

Andrew has always wanted to attend the annual Bridge School Benefit concerts which are famous for their wonderful performers who all must play an acoustic show. Leigh has always wanted to see Tom Waits. So off we went to an incredible venue, the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountainview CA.

En route, Northeast of San Francisco in Suisun Bay, we drove by an odd site, the mothball fleet:
These are US Navy and merchant reserve ships that were created around WWII. There are apparently 80 such ships at anchor in the bay.

Here is what Shoreline (with a capacity of 22K people) looks like:

The 21st Annual Bridge School Benefit Lineup (with exemplary song links):

1. Intro by Pegi Young
2. Neil Young (2 acoustic songs) He started his seconds song, and commented aloud, "All my songs sound the same", as if he just had a realization.
3. Regina Spektor (INCREDIBLE!) (a Jewish, Russian US immigrant pianist)
4. Tegan & Sara (fun to see once)
5. My Morning Jacket (eh) (replaced Eddie Vedder/Flea/JackIrons who had to cancel)
6. John Mayer (good)
7. Tom Waits with Kronos Quartet (GROUND-SHAKING AND OTHERWORLDLY, such songs as "God's Away on Business" and "Always Keep a Diamond On Your Mind" and "Way Down In the Hole". )
8. Jerry Lee Lewis (with Neil Young) (Jerry was unhealthy-looking, but smiling and joking a bit with Neil; they were very happy to be playing with each other). On stage, the kids really dug his set.
9. Neil Young (& Crazy Horse?) (quite terrific to see again, even though he insists on donning homeless-like garb - a suit covered in house paint - He sang songs from his brand-new “Chrome Dreams II” album and finished with a nice version of "Cinnamon Girl")
10 Metallica (acoustic - played all well-groomed cover tunes - Rare Earth's (I Just Want to Celebrate), Nazareth (”Please Don’t Judas Me”), Garbage (”I’m Only Happy When It Rains”) and Dire Straits (”Brothers in Arms”), Bob Seger ("Turn the Page"))


We arrived at 1:15PM and, unfortunately, left before Metallica had finished their set. With 110 miles to drive home, and work on Monday, we realized it was time to head off around 9:45PM, in time to hear that the Red Sox had just clinched the World Series in 4.

brrrruuuuce

I just returned from the San Francisco Bruce show. The CA audience is quite different from NJ/NY, but not so different from CT or RI. (Yes, I have now seen the Boss in 5 states, but who is counting?). According to fans who attended last night's show in the same place (see previous blog entry), tonight's show was far better. Who knows why - tonight's was the first to go on sale, then last night's was added later? Regardless, it was certainly fun to see the boys (and 2 girls) rocking like they were in their thirties. Much fun. The new stuff is good, not all of it is worth keeping in his live repertoire, but definitely fun to hear live.

For those of you interested in setlists (Daniela and Eric, Mike Sue and kids, Needle'rents...) :

October 26, 2007
Oakland, California
Oracle Arena

Radio Nowhere { lyrics } (good, but fast)
No Surrender { lyrics } (fast)
Lonesome Day { lyrics }
Gypsy Biker { lyrics } (eh)
Magic { lyrics } (good)
Reason To Believe { lyrics } - (fabulous version similar to Devils/Dust live version)
Two Hearts { lyrics } (Tour Premiere)
She's The One { lyrics } (awesome)
Livin' In The Future { lyrics }
The Promised Land { lyrics } (awesome)
Tunnel Of Love { lyrics } (really good version, first time i've really really liked this song)
Racing In The Street { lyrics } (Tour Premiere) (terrific)
Working On The Highway { lyrics } (Tour Premiere) (so much fun!)
Devil's Arcade { lyrics } (eh)
The Rising { lyrics } (great)
Last To Die { lyrics } (eh)
Long Walk Home { lyrics } (good)
Badlands { lyrics } (great)
---
Girls In Their Summer Clothes { lyrics } (very nice)
Thundercrack { lyrics } (fun)
Born To Run { lyrics } (going through the motions)
Dancing In The Dark { lyrics } (eh)
American Land (click for a video from the Seeger Sessions in Dublin 2006) { lyrics } (very entertaining)


A review from Backstreets.com:

October 26 / Oakland, CA / Oracle Arena
Notes: This was originally the only Bay Area show on the schedule, so it's been long-sold out, and the energy in the place was high -- even before the show started, with spontaneous cheers arising before the lights went down. As one fan puts it, "Church was back in session tonight... another great show, but this time with the appropriate feedback from the crowd!" Six songs not played the night before, including "Tunnel of Love" and the debut of "Working on the Highway," both of which were setlisted but not played on night one; plus as the tour premieres of "Two Hearts" (complete with the "It Takes Two" outro) and "Racing in the Street." "Working" was a whole lot of fun, feeling fresh and recalling more its closing slot on the '92/93 tour than its place as a semi-disappointing post-"Tenth" wildcard on the reunion tour. It's good to see Bruce remember that he's got other songs in the canon that can do the job of "Darlington" (and of course this is still just the top of the iceberg). "Racing in the Street" brought the energy level down a bit -- "I've seen 'Racing' build at the end to have crowd coming to its feet," says another fan, "but it didn't do that tonight" -- but it was still absolutely gorgeous.

The only one that didn't go over, sadly, was "Thundercrack." Bruce introduced it by mentioning The Matrix, where he played with Steel Mill when he was just 19... but since he played relatively few West Coast shows in the early '70s, there just wasn't that much familiarity with this song. After his cue to sing along at the beginning was met with bewilderment by the crowd, Bruce said, "That was terrible!" But of course after the song builds, and from there goes into "Born to Run," "Dancing in the Dark," and "American Land," any terribleness on anyone's part was soon forgotten.

last night's show...

I'm seeing Bruce tonight, here's the review from last night. . . apparently CA is far from NJ.

October 25 / Oakland, CA / Oracle Arena
Notes: The first Magic show on the West Coast, and a solid one for the Bay Area, though there was the typical drop in audience effusiveness. A thunderous performance of "Backstreets" was met with relatively little reaction, and there seemed to be less audience familiarity with the new material. The crowd behind the stage was very enthusiastic, though, and Bruce and Clarence played to them quite a bit. And of course, Bruce having to work hard to get the crowd into it ain't always a bad thing. "Adam Raised a Cain" absolutely killed, with a screaming lead from Bruce, and he eventually got everyone singing along on "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" in the encore. "Your Own Worst Enemy" came out for just the third time, and it was the only moment when the band, rather than the crowd, seemed tentative; Bruce turned up the bandleader juice, though, and it picked up as it went along. "Thunder Road" in the encore again comes across as rejuvenated, a song Springsteen wants to play. When he comes to the edge of the stage with that old battered Esquire, letting the front row bang away at it to "make it talk," you better believe "Thunder Road" has the power to move even the most reserved crowd.