The Run Around

ROCK ON: It has been a week. A busy, Busy, BUSY week.

I'm not going to recap it all. None of us have that kind of time. But I will hit some highlights. 

Wednesday, the four of us went to WaMu theater in Seattle's stadium district. The draw was a concert by Third Eye Blind and Jimmy Eat World, a couple of bands who were perennial favorites on the airwaves at the end of the 1990s. 

We'd never been to a concert at WaMu before, and that wasn't an accident. I've read really not-so-great reviews about the place. And now I know why. ;)

It's really just this enormous concrete cavern. They host Home Shows and Boat Shows there - that kind of thing. But they also have concerts. When it's a concert night, they hang big black drapes around the cave, and put up all sorts of cattle fences (for lack of a better term. There's a huge standing-only area in front of a not-so-big-or-high stage. There are also two full service bars within the concert area, where people are fenced off from the rest of the crowd. The floor and the bars were really packed on Wednesday night. 

I'd read repeatedly that the venue has no seating, so we were pleasantly surprised to find some seating. They were clearly portable, "accordion" style seating that rolls into itself (think retractable high school bleachers). But rather than bleachers, they were actual seats, so that was good. What was not so good is that the height differential between each row was only about 3-4 inches, so it was hard to see over people in front of you. 

We chose to sit in the back row of the seats, because that way you can stand or sit as you like, no one's kicking the back of your chair, and you don't have to listen to people behind you blathering during the show.

The concert started at 7, with Ra Ra Riot up first. They were definitely not riotous, and had only a tad bit of ra ra. 

Next up was Jimmy Ear World. They had a number of solid hits back in the day, including  "Sweetness," and "The Middle."

I've seen Jimmy Eat World before (about 17 years ago, to be exact), and I have to say, it was strange to me on Wednesday night. For most songs, they sounded more like Death Cab for Cutie or Loverboy than they did themselves. I don't really know how else to explain it. 

Third Eye Blind was up next. Their self titled albums produced multiple huge hits back at the end of the '90s. We were so looking forward to seeing them live!

I have never checked the time so many times during a concert. I even Googled their setlist from their Portland show the night before to try to figure out how long it would be until it was over. ... :(

 It's hard to put into words what when wrong, but I found a review from their Portland show that summed it up pretty well.  One line from the review notes the band "had little intensity and felt altogether disjointed." Sadly, that was the case for the Seattle show, too. The energy of their music on CD simply did not translate to the stage. 

3EB lead singer  Stephan Jenkin was way too chatty for my tastes. For instance, I really don't need to go to a rock show to have the vocalist start talking woo about the shared experience and ordering audience members to turn to a stranger next to them and share pleasantries. It was awkard.

I also for SURE don't want to go to a show to hear songs I love sung live by the singer who recorded them, only to have said singer NOT sing the songs and, instead, hold the mic out to the audience and exhort them to sing. Um, I can stay at home and listen to people sing along with the song. Don't need to pay big $ to go to a concert for that. 

Given all of the above, people were leaving in droves during the show. So, toward the end, we ventured down to the floor and worked our way pretty close to the stage during their biggest hit, "Semi Charmed Kind of Life." 

It's also worth noting the sound during the concert was very meh. No bass, no treble, all middle. And super quiet. 

All in all, a mega disappointing event. I wish we'd stayed home. 

In keeping with our rock-n-roll lifestyle (ha ha), CJ and Christian are at a concert tonight, too, Uriah Heep and Judas Priest at the Showare Center in Kent, WA.

Early reviews are already in from then and it sounds like it was a great show, so yay for that!

SWEET SEND OFF: Thursday, our day was consumed with finishing some sizable projects for an event that evening, an eight grade "graduation."

For the event, we made and decorated vanilla and vegan chocolate sugar cookies, including some alphabet cookies to spell out the following message. ...  

 We also made about three dozen school logo cookies. 

 Each one was hand-painted. Fortunately, the school has a very simple logo!

And we whipped up two dozen vegan and gluten free chocolate cupcakes, plus three dozen organic strawberry lemonade cupcakes. I forgot to take a photo of the cupcakes, darn it (they replicated the school logo, as well), but I do have a pic of the sign that went with them. 

We also produced a couple of movies for the ceremony. One was a three-minute video about the eighth graders' trip to camp, the other was a super sentimental photo album set to music about each of the 15 graduates. Annabelle spent hours and hours and hours on those presentations, and they turned out beautifully, to the point that tears were shed by multiple people in the room. 

Friday was no less busy - we were up early hitting stores and then driving to Seattle to take 7 gallons of ice cream for root beer floats to be served at field day for the school.  And then I came home and made three batches of potato salad ('regular,' vegan, and onion-free), as well as vegan, gluten free and 'regular' shortcake for strawberry shortcake we're serving at Teen Feed tomorrow night. It was nice having Kennedy here, he was a big help in the kitchen!

I bet we all sleep well tonight.