This story starts at 5 A.M. on Tuesday, the 16th of June.  We make it to the Parking Spot by 5:20.  My gf and I sit in row 11a in car (as we are told) with the lights on because it is raining.  One shuttle comes down row 12 a few moments later but keeps going.  Then the next shuttle goes by, then the next one, then a fourth.  Finally D calls the front desk and gets a rude a-hole that just responds, “They are coming! Hold on!”  A few minutes later another shuttle zooms by in row 12.  Finally the rain stops and D calls again half yelling, half crying because we have waited patiently for over a half hour and now we are verging on missing our flight since it takes off at 7.

Luckily we got their attention because the next shuttle came directly to our car so we loaded up and had a direct path to the Southwest gate. I had hoped this wasn’t the start of a bad trip and more bad karma headed our way.Thankfully everything else on the way there and getting to our Hotel, the Flamingo, was without issue.  It was a smooth flight to boot with lots of  eye candy as I bent my head at awkward angles to see Manhattan once again.  The window seat also gives me the urge to pull out a mouse and try to move the countryside around like I’m using google maps.

Once we were checked in at the main desk, we dragged the luggage upstairs to the room.  One thing is for sure…it’s a damn good thing that you go to Vegas to do things outside of your room because this room was nothing special.  I quickly compared it to something of Motel 8 standards.  We had the option to take the ‘upgrade option’ for an additional $25 dollars a night but screw that non-sense….we only stay in the room a few hours a night anyways.  Who goes to Vegas to sleep?   On a side note, the other hallway was freshly remodeled.  I didn’t see inside any of the rooms but I had heard someone else mentioning how they were stuck in the old side as well.  Your mileage may vary at the Flamingo, just keep that in mind.  I’m not trying to write the place off for anyone else in the future.  It is a place that was fairly cheap and in the middle of the strip.  You can’t beat that deal.

I’m going to skip most of the stuff like going to all the malls and checking out 80% of the casinos with-in a couple miles of the Flamingo.  That just mostly deals with a lot of window shopping and walking around…lots of walking around.  We ended the first night at Bill’s Gambling Hall & Casino (because we like it alot).  They have cheap Hold ‘EM and cheap BJ there for both of us to enjoy.

I entered a poker tournament at midnight that night at O’Shea’s.  I got 10th out of 45 or so.  Not bad, but no money and I don’t remember how I got beat.  That might have something to do with the free Guiness I was getting (w/$1 tip) every 20 minutes.

Wednesday we headed to the Miracle Mile (Planet Hollywood) – ate at some mexican joint that I can’t remember and did some more walking.  About 1 P.M. that day, I took the shuttle over to the Rio to check out the WSOP which was currently running three or four events at the time.  D went south to a Coach outlet mall and spent all of that gift certificate she had and then some.

After playing rail-bird (taking a lot of pics) for an hour or so, I signed up for the $330 tournament that starts at 3 A.M.  It was pretty amazing to see all these poker players throwing around chips.  They are willing to put 10k, 5k and 2.5k on the line for their respective tournament…something I wish I could do myself.  I’d love to go toe to toe with some of these guys, proving that I belong in poker’s elite club of very few.  Thus, playing small ball, I am hoping to play my way into the main event where I could compete with 5k other folks for the big prize, ~$5 million and the coveted WSOP bracelet.

So here I am, in my seat along with nine others with a field of 65.  All I need to do is out last 63 others to get my free ride to the main event.  Everyone plays pretty tight poker at first because they don’t want to get all their money in on a mediocre hand this early.  I usually try to take advantage of this and make a few semi-bluffs in the first hour of poker because people are less likely to call.

Shortly after the first blind raise, 30 minutes into the game, I am looking at AJ in early position and I decided to call in the big blind because I wanted to see who else was in the pot.  The guy to my left raised to 200, blinds were 50/100.  Then the next lady raised to 400.  I call, other guy calls.  Flop comes As 7h 4h, two hearts showing.  I had two hearts and pushed all in.  Dude folds but the lady calls me down with the other two bullets.  Oops..I put one of them on KK the other on AK, AQ.  It was a bad move for me to push in first position and I realized that but I was trying to make a push for more chips early in the tournament.  Most of the battle to tournaments is laying down a lot of hands and outlasting the blinds.  You have to win a battle once in a while, but it was not this time.  No heart came down for me and the bullets knocked me out.  $330 gone in 45 minutes.

I mope back to the rail, take a few more pics, then I head back to the strip with my head hung low.  Bummer.  D and I meet at the hotel room, then proceed walking north, checking out other casinos like Venician, Wynn, etc.  I ended up winning 80 dollars off my 20 dollars on the first spin of some Monopoly game, so I “invested” my 80 dollars in another tournament – this time at the Imperial Palace.  It was a cool tournament because this was a “bounty” tournament.  That means if you knock someone out, you get their bounty chip which you can turn in for $10 dollars later on.  I think 13 people played…I took 4th and knocked one guy out.  So I got $10 dollars and nothing else since they only pay top 2. bah!

I head back to Bill’s, say hello to D and back to the poker table for me.  I throw down a hundy and walk away with about 160 a few hours later (about 3 A.M.).

On to Thursday- we head to chipotle for lunch which is just north of Harrah’s.  After lunch we split again so I can go back to the Rio.  I believe she went shopping again and maybe back to Bill’s.  On this day, I’m just another rail-bird taking pictures. With his break nearly over from one of the poker games, Daniel Negraneau comes over to the edge of the tape and says “Hi” to everyone that is standing around yelling his name.  He takes several pictures with several ladies and signs a bunch of stuff, too.  The guy is seriously one of the nicest dudes on the poker scene, bar none.

One of the most surreal pieces of this trip was about ten minutes after the started playing again.  I’m standing by the rail taking several pics of the players and various tables.  All of the sudden Daniel throws his hand away, looks at me and says, “Hey!” pointing in my direction.  I turn around and look at some old dude that is smiling from ear to ear thinking he is talking about him.  He points at me again and looks around the table.  “Doesn’t that guy look like David Oppenheim?”  Another guy on the table speaks up, “I have no idea, how is that?”  Daniel says, “He is a good poker player from Hungary.”  “You guys don’t know who Oppenheim is?” “I can’t believe it!”  Just then Daniel folds another hand, then jumps out of his seat, runs over to the table behind him where John Juanda is sitting and pulls him out of his chair.  Then he runs him over to his chair and points and me and says it again.  “Doesn’t that guy look like David Oppenheim?”  John nods his head and says, “Yeah, the goatee really makes it.”  John starts laughing as he runs back to catch his next hand.  Daniel checks his next hand, tosses that one away, then runs over to the next table against the rail with Barry Greenstein.  He starts hopping around like a little kid waiting for the bathroom since Barry was currently in a hand.  He kept hoping until he saw the next hand being dealt to his seat, then ran back and decided to play this one.

I wasn’t even sure he was talking about me until I looked the guy up today.  Here is a picture of him…keep in mind I had my powercat hat and glasses on since I was using my phone to take pics.  Let me know what you think.

A bit later, I decided I’m going to try my hand again and join a second satellite tournament.  The one rule in poker like many other sports, “go strong or don’t go at all.”  I was all about making the main event and that wasn’t going to happen with my camera taking pictures like a tourist.

The tournament starts at 3 P.M. once again.  To my amazement, only four people were there on time, one of which showed up right at 3 when we started dealing.  We have eight stacks on the table and 4 of them don’t even show up.  Are you kidding me?  Why don’t you just hand me your money if you don’t care about the tournament?

Anyways…this time I played for quite a while and tried to play a bit more conservative to keep more chips in front of me.  I was able to set up someone two hands in a row to take all of his chips.  Early in the blinds I was clearly in control of this table with the most chips and power but then the cards turned on me.  I got a run of crap cards and I mean crap.  I was getting 8/3 and 7/2 more than my fair share for about the next hour. After an hour and a half of play we were forced to leave the play area for a break.  They even shut the doors behind us.  I thought it was pretty weird but they were probably being cautious and counting everyone’s chip stack to verify nobody had slipped in extras….or maybe they were yelling at the dealers.  They had some dumb ass rules like if a guy shows up late and buy’s in late, he can’t get in until he pays big blind, which could mean waiting for eight hands.  One poor guy had to wait through the entire first 30 minutes of blinds because it was taking so long.

Side story- apparently they start out with something like 8k dealers and they get a bonus of 30k if they still have a job at the end of the two months of WSOP action.  At this point in mid-June, someone said they were down to 6k and they were having problems with people quitting all the time.  The dealer I had on the first day was trying to get out of working for Harrah’s and had recently put in on an application at Ameristar up here in KC.  He had a bunch of questions for me which I answered all before we played the first hand.  He told me all kinds of stories about where he had been a dealer and all this and that.  It was an interesting conversation.

Back to the main story- After break, we started playing 100/200 with 25$ ante per hand.  I was doing OK at best but no where I wanted to be.   I need more chips, now!  I went card dead for a few more hands until I found AJ suited again.  I tried to play them slow but I didn’t want anyone in the hand playing trash so when it came to me, in last position, I raised to 500 w/3 others in the hand.  I got two callers again and the flop came down A J 6, sound familiar?  It should.  It was almost exactly like the last one.  Check around and I pushed.  The guy across the table had bullets again and I didn’t catch on the last two so I go walking out the door….  He played it well and got lucky.  If he raises pre-flop, I put on the brakes.  If anything but an ace comes out, he could get run out by a set considering I raised it 500.  Ah well.. at least I didn’t get rivered to end my run.

From that point, I ran back to Harrah’s where I met up with D and we headed back to Bill’s for one final night of Poker/BJ.  It was a good run for me but not so good for D.  She lost her hundy and I gained only about $50 on the night.

The next morning (Friday), we started packing up all our junk including the additional bag we now carry due to the stuff we had bought.  We took our bags down to the bellhop to check them in and then ran over to Bellagio.  I hadn’t been in there since I was 17 so I thought I’d check it out again since we don’t spend that much time on the west side of the strip.  Once that was complete though, back to Bill’s for one last hurrah!  She lost all her money again while I put away another $25 or so.  Then we wasted a bit of time in Flamingo playing the “ducks.”  I forget the name of the slot machine but you are supposed to match up three ducks to get the bonus.  I played some other quarter machine and hit the bonus on there, winning a few more bucks.

About 4 we started our trek back to the airport, even though our flight didn’t leave until 7.  We wanted to make sure we had plenty of time but it wasn’t an issue.  There wasn’t too many people in the area and got through checking relatively fast so I could waste more money in their slot machines near the terminal.  I never have any luck in the airport for whatever reason but hit quite a bit in Flamingo.

We had quite a bumpy ride home with a spoiled crazy kid a couple seats back.  Luckily as the engines turned on and we were up in the air you, it covered most of the whiney baby noise.  Unfortunately we ran into turbulence at five different elevations.  I think the captain said they settled on 30k? and it was mostly OK, but in one spot I had to check my pants to make sure they were still clean.

We rolled into MCI at midnight and headed out to the Parking Spot where they bent us over for $31 dollars (after coupon) for 3 nights of parking.  Lame, especially after their crap earlier in the trip.  Come to find out Economy parking is only $5.50 a night…meh.  I had no idea Parking Spot was so damn expensive ($8.50 a night).

All in all, I went with 1K, came back with almost 300 and spent 660 on WSOP so I don’t feel I am that bad off after giving away a bunch of singles for tips everywhere.  I believe D is pretty close to even as well, even after the couple bad nights.  We had a great time and even though I didn’t make the Main Event this year, you can bet I will try again and try often until I’m in it.  Maybe next year…

Here are a bunch of pics from the trip that came off my phone.  Some are good quality but my phone doesn’t like movement.  The shutter delay smears people all over the place.  Enjoy.

Today started in great fashion because I had a bunch of server upgrades this morning for a client from midnight to 7 A.M.  I was up around 2, went out, got some lunch and by the time I got back, the marmot mobile was in my driveway, ready to head to the K.

We meet in Lot G with Matt, Brian and Company.  We hung out, boozed and bullshitted for a few hours with a bunch of guys that I have seen/heard about from Brian in the past.  I couldn’t tell you half of their names now but I know I have hung out with most all of them at one point or another at T’s with Book.  Plenty of beers and brats were had here…so much so that I was #22023 and missed out on the beach towel give-a-way.

Once we made it to our seats, the first thing you realize is that all of these guys are going to be loud and rowdy.  Unfortunately for them, two grannies sat in front of our row of belligerent drunks.  As our first move of class, Dave spills a little beer on one of the ladies as he sits down.  It was totally unintentional of course, but a sure sign of things that will happen over the next three hours of ball.

A few moments later, we have a game of side-bet baseball going on to my right and these guys jawing about the Reds players getting called out with two Reds fans right in front of them.  It was all in fun though as they were laughing and having a good time.  Then, to every one’s surprise, one of the grannies pulls out a whole Tupperware dish of brownies and gives them all away to us.  It was pretty strange considering they must of been highly annoyed at this point.  Hell, one of the gal’s had her old school scoring sheet out.  She must be hardcore!  Maybe it was an attempt to make us all feel guilty and settle down a bit?  Who knows…

Somewhere around the 6th inning, some of us had decided to hit the concession stand for another beer.  I, somehow, got in a short and fast line (first time for everything!) and Dave got in a long/slow line at the neighboring concession stand.  I grab my beer and go over to where he is standing and BS with him for a bit while he waits.  When it comes time for him to step up and order, I step back and lean up against a concrete support.  For a few seconds I just stare off into space straight ahead while I feel this young lady’s eyes on me from the side.  I turned toward her to figure out what the hell she was staring at and the conversation went something like this…

N: “uh hi”

Girl: <sheepishly> “Are….are you married?”

N: “no…”

G: “uh..do you want to help me with something?”

N: “uh…what is this about?”

G: “….well…I go to school <stops listening>….few more seconds…..<starts listening>…do you want to exchange a piece of clothing?” <Dave finishes getting his beer, stands next to me>

N: <looks at my shirt and then thinks “I don’t think I can wear her underwear or shorts”> “…no”

G: <seriously confused> “REALLY??”

N: “Sorry, I like my shirt.”

G: “Ok, how about you?” <points to Dave>

D: “nah, I kinda like my shirt….it covers up my heroin tracks”

G: <completely confused and gives an expression of WTF, then turns back to face the line>

N/D: <laugh as we walk away>

It was a hilarious, completely random story that was told many times over the course of the night.

A half inning later, Book, I and some of the other guys headed out to Rivals to check out the new outfield bar.  It was crazy busy and we had to stand outside for 15 minutes before we could get inside for another beer.  The view was great but the highlight of that place was some dude that apparently thought he was some 80s big time actor/rockstar.  I couldn’t get a good pic of the d-bag, but it’s in there if you can make out the blonde hair/sports jacket/Oakley Frog-eyes…LOL

We ran back to our seats to make the middle of the 8th inning where the camera man promised he would get Book’s bachelor party sign on the big screen.  Matt tried the sign under sign move so that everyone could see we ‘need more strippers’ but the cameraman had seen that plenty times before and panned off the sign as soon as Matt dropped the first sign.  There is some video of this on my phone but it’s in a strange extension right now and will need to convert it.  I just haven’t had the time yet to do that.  Once that happens it will be on youtube.

The rest of the game was tame as the Royals won this game, 7-4.  We walked back to the cars and met down at Ragland Road about an hour or so later.  There was a couple nice bottles of scotch that was half empty when we left but I have no idea what their name is now.  All I know is that some of it was damn smooth and DAMN expensive.  I probably won’t buy a bottle for myself any time soon.

The rest of the story…well, that is for Book to tell you, that is if he remembers it.

Take a few beers, a nice night, a great venue, excellent sound balance, and two big time, named bands and what do you get… If you hadn’t guessed already…. a damn fine show.

I was lucky enough to go to the show in Columbia last winter with a friend from work.  NIN rocked the stage and I probably saw the best lights and technology show, bar none.  However this wasn’t that kind of show.  NIN decided that they were announcing this as the final tour and with that annoucement came a smaller light set and smaller set list, too.

Another point to be made was that NIN played first, then Jane’s Addiction.  This surprised most people after they showed up since they expected NIN to be the headliner.  This also meant that NIN would be playing an outside show while the sun was still on the horizon.  I think this might be another reason for the smaller stage setup as well.Either way though, you had to like a show that was less about lights and more about music.  NIN does not fail to disappoint.

One other band I should note is the opener for these two bands, Street Sweeper Social Club featuring Tom Morello as the guitarist and some guy who wishes he was Lenny Kravitz.  Keeping it short on this band, I will sum it up as this…Tom Morello can play and make some crazy ass sounds on his guitar.  I cannot refute his ability there, but the song quality is less than stellar.  There is a reason that Chris Cornell was quoted saying “…writing like I was in High School…”  The songs that SSSC were basically built to show off Tom’s crazy guitar noises and that was about as deep as it gets.  There was one song in there where the lyrics were two words (don’t remember which words) but it was some basic bass line and Tom’s squeaks, while Lenny look-a-like just jumped around and said ‘hey!’ all the time.

Moving on to Nine Inch Nails now…For the opener, they went into to ‘Now I’m Nothing/Terrible Lie’ which they have used for most of their set lists so far on this tour.  The crowd was pretty pumped and you were able to hear quite a few people singing the “Terrible Lie” portion of the song.  NIN played a wide variety of music, hitting at least one tune on all their major studio albums.  There were quite a few songs that they had just finished playing for the “Lights in the Sky” tour, but I can’t complain although everyone wishes that they would just keep playing.  Everyone has their favorites and they won’t hit them all.

The highlights for me were “Now I’m Nothing/Terrible Lie”,  “Hand that Feeds”, “Head Like a Hole”, and “Hurt”.  As you can tell, I am more of an old school NIN fan, but I do listen to some of the newer stuff as well.  I wish Trent nothing but the best on this farewell tour and I anticipate the next project that he will make in a couple years when he gets bored.

At this point, there should be a note that a small percent of the crowd left the concert.  Obviously they were here to watch Trent and then leave.  It worked out for the best though because I should of been able to get out of the parking lot faster…oh wait, I think my car was the last one out…moving on.

After a thirty minute intersession, a screen drops down at the front of the stage, the lights go down, and a movie is played on that screen.  Everyone waiting in anticipation as we all thought that Jane’s was coming on the stage.  Instead we were treated to a five-to-six minute strange adult film with women taking their tops off and walking some kind of runway.  Everyone was looking around going “WTF?”…but in Jane’s like fashion, they roll up the screen and hit  you with ‘3 Days’ while you were still left wondering what the hell just happened.

The first thing you notice though is the red lights in the very top left and right corners of the stage, lighting up pictures of the same gal with her top off.  Strange…but not that strange if you consider Perry Farrell is the guy running this show.  Perry is one strange guy after all and hates to be out of the spot light.  In numerous occasions you can see the spotlight on Dave Navaro, while Perry walks toward him with limbs just flying around saying ‘Look at me, everybody!’

However, if you take away that minor discretion, you can tell how good this band is and was, back in the day.  They crank it and play it fast and most of the crowd that stayed for Jane’s was loving every minute of it.

Some highlights from this show was the piece during “Ted, Just Admit It” where he was getting very close to the audience and touching/talking to all the women in the front row, telling them how they would get f’d all the way to chicago…LOL Go Perry.  I had a friend who was sitting up front in that area and I’m pretty sure he was uncomfortable with the wierdness that is Perry.

Later on in the show, Perry’s karma comes back around while they are playing ‘Summertime Rolls.’  It had been giving us a little bit of mist for a while now and since the stage is covered, it isn’t a big deal.  Except when you jump out near the front of the stage on the monitors that have mist on them.  Perry jumps up on one and he goes flying, feet straight out, and hits the top of the monitor with his ass, HARD.  You could hear the bump through his mic he was carrying.   For a second, I thought he was just going to throw in the towel right there since Perry is all ego and for show, but the band kept playing the same eight bars for about 30 seconds while Perry picked himself up, got hiself back on stage and finished the song.  I will give props to Perry for this.  He could of easily just stopped playing and bailed.

As soon as the song was over, he took off for the left side of the stage, even before the band had stopped playing.  As soon as Navaro finished, he tossed his guitar to a roady, then gave us the peace sign and right off the right side of the stage.  I had told my gf at this point…OK, this is over…Perry is done since he embarrassed himself.

Once again, he proves me wrong and gets on a mic from the side of the stage, saying “Perry went to the hospital, please exit to the left or right of your seats.”  It wasn’t too hard to figure out he was joking and that it was him on the mic, so everyone was just laughing and a couple seconds later, Perry comes running out from the curtains and said, “I have to admit, that f’ing hurt.”

The foursome finished up with ‘Stop!” and then they hauled in the steel drums for ‘Jane’s Says’ while their bassist and Navaro both played acoustically.   It was a great ending to a great night.

Nine Inch Nails Set List for Starlight Theater, Kansas City, MO - 5/27/09

Now I'm Nothing
Terrible Lie
Discipline
March of the Pigs
The Frail
The Wretched
Piggy(Nothing Can Stop Me Now)
The Becoming
Burn
Gave Up
Echoplex
The Fragile
The Way Out is Through
Wish
Survivalism
Physical
Hand that Feeds
Head Like a Hole
Hurt

Jane's Addiction Set List for Starlight Theater, Kansas City, MO - 5/27/09

3 days
whores
Ain't no right
Pigs in Zen
Then She Did
Mountain Song
Had a Dad
Been Caught Stealing
Ted, Just Admit It
Ocean Size
Summertime Rolls
Stop!
Jane Says

I love me some CAKE (band).  I got into CAKE early in my high school career when the Lazer (105.9) would play “Rock & Roll Lifestyle,” along with tunes like “The Distance” and “Frank Sinatra.”  Shortly there after, I picked up both the  “Motorcade of Generosity” and “Fashion Nugget” albums.  My reaction to CAKE was that it sounded kind-of crazy, but I liked hearing this new music that just sounded so different from every other band.  As a matter of fact, John (lead singer), had mentioned between songs that the mid-90s music turned sour because “nobody would play 3/4 time any longer…they were scared.”

So to go on with the rest of the story – I know pretty much everything CAKE has released front-to-back including lyrics, all the trumpet lines, guitar lines, drum lines…you name it.  If you wanted to pick a band that I knew the most about, CAKE IS THAT BAND.  Ok..here we go…fear my rambling…uh, it’s already started…

It was a brisk evening with cloud cover and a pretty stout wind from the east.  My plan was always to take my place as nearest to the stage as possible so I was able to stay fairly warm thanks to all of my wind-blocking new friends.  Drink alcohol you say?  Yes, but that requires me leaving my spot and fighting people to get my spot back…I hate that.

The night started when I parked my car a few blocks south and came around the corner.  Holy crap!  This line is a million miles long already and we haven’t even let people in yet!  Literally…the line when from the north-side of the block to the south-side of the block, then to the west-side of the block and made it’s way back north.  Lucky for me the line had just started moving north at the time and was able to beat half of the crowd.  The line went fairly quick though for being so long as it was..though the stage guy announced there was still a line outside an hour plus later, a few minutes before Cake took the stage.

Stage prior to show time

Cake comes out, doesn’t say a word, John cues the trumpet to come in, picks up the Vibraslap and the bass comes in with that well know intro to Short Skirt/Long Jacket.  The crowd erupts.  From that point on, you knew it was going to be a CAKE fans dream come true.

Some of the highlights were the massive sing-a-longs for most songs, the tree give-a-way, hearing the crowd sing all the lyrics to each song from near the stage and the quirky wit provided by John between songs.

Things of note:  CAKE doesn’t use a set list so they spent a few seconds making democratic decisions on what song to play next between tunes.

The Grinders/Crossroads Station place is pretty great.  It almost feels like you are watching a concert at Ren-Fest though.  LOL  There are wood chips all over the ground and little shacks on the side that sell beers/food w/ Johnny on the Spots lined on the side the rest of the way.

John /w redbud tree

I should also give a big “thank you” for the provided (free!) parking SE of the location.  It is huge…but they didn’t have it labeled as such so I parked on the street with a million other people.  I will keep this in mind for the next show though!

The mix was perfect from what I can tell…I have been to plenty of shows and almost all of them are off which distracts from the music.  This was not the case.  Mix was spot on so props to the sound guys.

The vibe was also cool at the end because it was such a nice day and everyone was having a good time that you could just stand around and drink for another few hours after the concert.  They didn’t seem to be stopping the beer sales from what I could recall so you could just end up drinking there the rest of the night.  However, if you are going to stand for another three hours then you must have better shoes than I…my feet start to hurt after an hour of standing.

CAKE – Setlist for Kansas City, MO – 5/2/09 – as close as I remember – feel free to add comments about corrections.

• Short Skirt/Long Jacket
• Comfort Eagle
• Frank Sinatra
• Stickshifts & Safetybelts
• Wheels
• Shadow Stabbing
• Love You Madly
• <new song on their possible upcoming album>
• Satan is My Motor
• Jolene
• <10 minute intermission>
• Arco Arena <awesome instrumental only song>
• <can’t remember the song>
• Italian Leather Sofa
• Mexico
• Opera Singer
• Rock & Roll Lifestyle
• <tree give-a-way> Trisha was the lucky winner.
• Daria
• Guitar
• Never There

Encore:

• War Pigs
• Fly Away (?)
• The Distance

Total play time was around two hours.  The intermission was probably ten minutes long and the break before encore was less than five.  My only complaint about the whole thing was that they didn’t play the rest of their catalogue.

What exactly does turning 30 mean, anyways…Does it mean cheaper car insurance?  Not really.  More wisdom or experience?  Maybe..depends on what you call wisdom or experience.  Or does it just mean I’m officially old…. I don’t exactly feel old, but I certainly don’t feel like I did five years ago either.  Once upon a time, I could run many miles, could scoop many shovels of sand and dirt from a car wash pit, and was able to handle three hours in an attic without much concern or tire.  Now…that isn’t the case.

I certainly couldn’t run five miles without dying or passing out.  As a matter of fact, I’m not sure which would come first, that would be a tight race on it’s own merit.

If there is one thing I have learned in 30 years it is that “You can’t do it all and you can’t have it all, either.”  This is something I met with a little bit of failure in places.  Spend too much time doing something and you lose something else.  This is just a simple metaphor after all.  It reflects on my life and it probably reflects on your life as well.   While I’m not going to dive into all of my failures right here, I am going to make a decision to help myself and to get going in the right direction in certain areas.

My goals for the year – which I believe will make me a better person

1. Start eating better food/cooking more often.  I eat more than my fair share of fast food and I’m sure it isn’t doing my body any favors.  I need to cut this down.
2. Stop spending so much time on message boards….these damn things are pretty stupid.  I waste a lot of time reading a lot of nonsensical, worthless shat.

It might not seem like much since I only listed two things, but in reality, it will provide many layers of much needed repair to my life style.  First of all, I need to drop some L-B’s.  Probably like 25 pounds.  Eating better foods will help this along with exercise, obviously.  Diet and exercise can go a long way.  I could keep going but I think you get the idea.

Lastly, spending less time on message boards will allow me to focus more of my energy on stuff that actually matters.  Watching movies, doing more stuff with the girlfriend/friend and learning more computer “stuff” should be my priorities.  I know I can put that focus toward learning more Citrix/WAS stuff, which should pay off at work.

One of the things I had always wanted to do is learn C++ but I haven’t ever had a real reason.  It is pretty hard to learn something and sustain it (much like learning a language) if you aren’t using it everyday…you are going to lose it.  I feel like I’d have to make a pretty big change in my IT career if I was to change at this point so it probably won’t happen.    Change is good, but in these times, I’m not putting the job I have now at risk for something different.

Carry on, everyone…I’m done for the night.

As per usual, the Sprint Center gets an epic fail for their security issues.  They just cannot get people in the door fast enough.  Blame the people all you want for waiting so long to enter but let’s be honest, a majority of these folks had not been in the Sprint Center and probably had not heard of all the issues they have getting people in on time.  Just open more doors people!  Every single time I go there, ten minutes till the game starts the doors swing open and the security goes into panic mode.  Why can’t we do this 20 minutes earlier?  Anyways, I digress.  That is my only consistent complaint about the Sprint Center and the rest of the post will be shown in a positive light.

The first game of the tournament started March 19th at 11:30 A.M.  Since I’ve been down to the Sprint Center for other events, I was fortunate enough to know where to park and to not bother driving around the mess of people looking for spots.  11th Street parking is my friend and it is only a short 4-5 diagonal blocks from the Center.   I ended up taking the day off from work and I had PLANNED to sleep in till about 10 A.M.  This was not the case, however.  I was able to snag two tickets so I invited my pops, since he is a big OU fan and I was fairly certain that OU would play here in KC.

My dad shows up, beating on the door, claiming to have called my cell three or four times…I never heard any of them.  I was conked out!  I stayed up way too late thinking I was going to get to sleep until 10 A.M. or so.  Eventually I was woken to a constant little pip squeak dog.  He was downstairs in the window going crazy like he always is doing for strangers in his small view out into the real world.  At first I looked out the window and didn’t see any extra cars, so I just assumed it was someone walking by but right as I am about to hop back into bed, I hear a pounding on my door.  I check the window again…pops was parked on the road camoflaged by my tree who has seen better days.  I look at the clock…it’s like 830….LOL

What the hell?! I answer the door and he is ready to go to the casino.  Crazy old man…he wins, I lose…it is generally the same old story.  We head back to my house at 1030 and I get a quick shower/change in and off we go to the fun.

We made it inside right about the time that Memphis tipped off while I was chowing down on some McD’s on the walk to the glass dome.  Here is a list of the times for all of the games that took place.  I’m not going to try and attempt and recall everything that happened but I do remember a few key things.

1) Clemson guy was ejected for throwing an elbow into/under the chin of some Michigan guy.

2) Morgan State’s band was frickin’ awesome.  They totally blew away everyone else that played.  Their trumpets were bad-asses going way, way high and loud.

3) Some Morgan State guy flipped Griffin, getting an immediate ejection.  It was quite a site to even seen Griffin lifted off the ground like that…the whole crowd was stunned for a second.

4) Once that guy was ejected, the entire game mood went from ‘oh little brother Morgan State’ to ‘You suck and die, Morgan State’ from most of the crowd.  Hell even the Morgan State band was shunned once the guy was ejected.  People were almost ready to give them a standing ovation five minutes earlier, every time they played.

5) In between games we (pops and I, four other guys) decided to for-go P&L and find some place where we could actually get a drink in short order.  We found a nice little hole in the wall called, Dolcé on Grand.  We downed five beers in about an hour, had some tacos, and headed back to the big dance.  I love finding little hole in the wall drinking places.  They rock.

On Friday–

6) Memphis pwns Maryland and it wasn’t even close. One of Maryland’s guards earlier in the week whined to the media about how Memphis plays in a terrible conference and if they played in the ACC that they wouldn’t be so good.  So knowing this, toward the end of the game when it was getting out of hand, Memphis fans started cheering, “ACC! ACC! ACC!” Calipari (Memphis Coach) made some motions to quiet down the crowd.  Then Maryland fans responded with “Rock Chalk Jayhawk” in that oh-so-aggravating and annoying chant.  This stopped after a couple seconds and was pretty mild in relation to the “ACC” chant.  I think the reason it stopped was because either a) they didn’t know how to do it or b) forgot what the next word was after stretching out the word, Rock.  A minute later, they broke out ‘let’s go jayhawks’ – something that might be more their speed.  Of course, all the homer Jayhawk fans jumped in on that one for a couple minutes until they were bored.

7) Speaking of homer KU fans….almost every KU fan that was there was wearing a national championship shirt from last year.  Talk about a kick to the nuts.  Stay classy, KU fans.

Something I forgot to mention earlier..on almost every timeout or half time of Thursday’s games was brought to you by KU or Mizzou.  I can’t believe how many times they had to rub it into Memphis fans by showing the national title game highlights or from some other KU or Moo highlight package.  /puke   ed:[hey it's my blog, if you don't like it, too bad ]

9) Oklahoma did not have a real easy time with Michigan.  It wasn’t till about five minutes left in the game where I felt OU actually had control of the game.

10) Griffin is a man beast.  God help them if someone actually beats the hell out of him and knocks him unconscious though.  OU struggled at times to get anything going on the outside.  These two days were a showcase of why Griffin is getting player of the year award and why they have done so well this season.  Can they make it all the way?  I doubt it, but you never know…that is what makes March Madness so great!  [personally, I can't wait for Griffin to go pro ]

I have included pics and video (scroll to the bottom of the blog) of the contests from Saturday’s games only.  Unfortunately the camera I had also ran out of juice shortly after half time of the OU game, so not many pics of the later part of that game.   It was a great time and would take me forever to try and put everything in this post so I’ll just say this….I’d do it again, given the chance.  Hopefully the Cats are playing here though.    Questions/Comments?

Thursday’s games in Kansas City

•Memphis (31-3) vs. Cal State Northridge (17-13), 11:25 a.m.

•California (22-10) vs. Maryland (20-13), about 1:55 p.m.

•Clemson (23-8) vs. Michigan (20-13), 6:10 p.m.

•Oklahoma (27-5) vs. Morgan State (23-11), about 8:40 p.m.

Saturday’s games in Kansas City

•Memphis vs. Maryland, 2:20 p.m.

•Oklahoma vs. Michigan,  4:50 p.m.

Videos
OU/Michigan tipoff

B. Griffin shoots a freethrow/misses and makes a dumb foul

A view of the Sprint Center from my seats

Unfortunately my plans changed and we (gf and I) were only able to get there around 4:30.  This just happened to be when Silversun Pickups came on stage …and were they prompt…maybe too prompt.  They were already playing when I rolled in past the security check at 4:27 P.M.  This was a breath of fresh air considering all of the bands I have seen in the last 10 years that are constantly late, sometimes by up to an hour or more.

The mood was great with a lot of people just having a good time, except for one couple.

There was a couple arrested not more than 10 feet to center stage, apparently having a domestic dispute, right there in front of everyone.  The security jumped in and on top of the guy who was swinging around, resisting arrest.  This all started just ten second before “Lazy Eye” was performed.  They continued to wrestle around while the song played and pretty soon, about a minute into the song, Brian Aubert (Singer/Guitar player) called for the all stop.  He went on to make comments about douchebags and how there are “no douchebags allowed” as he struggled to fill the void while they waited for the couple and security guards to clear out.  So not only did we get to hear “Lazy Eye,” but we got to hear it one and a half times!  Take that SSP fans!

During the rest of the show, they played a lot of cuts from the old album (now about three years old) and also announced that they were playing some song (didn’t catch the name) for the very first time in a live environment.  I would probably say there were 3-5 songs from the new album.  I can’t remember to be honest, I’m writing this up almost a week late because I have been so busy with St. Patty’s and the NCAA tournament, so please forgive me.

SSP also apologized for not stopping by KC on their last tour.  They were sorry that they had only made it to Lawrence last year and mentioned that the tour was very long and they were tired.  They were unable to get to KC before it was all over.  They specifically mentioned this was the reason that they were playing the free show for us at P & L.

The lady and I didn’t stick around too much longer after the show but did have time to enjoy some Chipotle across the street.  Yum!  Thanks to the Buzz and P & L for putting on a great show.  The lady and I certainly had a good time.

The cats had a hell of a time scoring, which is also not a surprise.  These last few conference games, Kansas State has averaged a whooping 29%  field goal percentage.  That is horrible, folks.  At the same time, our opponents usually shoot 50% , give or take 5%.  The good news is that Kansas State is good at both offensive rebounds and defense.

Unfortunately tonight was not the night for Clemente when he went a bone-jarring 0-7 from 3-pt lan in the first half.  I feel like if we could of just hit some points here and there this game wouldn’t of even been a contest.  Kansas State really needed to win this game to make a push for the NCAA.  Since we didn’t win, it is pretty much a guaranteed ride into the NIT now.

I plan to make my way to Manhattan for at least one NIT game and hopefully more.  Good luck cats!

In other news, I received an email from the sprint center today.  Apparently some people are not buying/picking up their tickets for the NCAA tournament (1st and 2nd round).  I was able to scoop up two decent seats in the upper deck and will be attending with my father.  He is a huge OU fan, so I will have to put up with that crap…but otherwise, it will be a good time.

-Nick

At approximately 8:15 pm, the show was kick started with the Japanese Motors playing a fairly short set..probably clocking in under a half hour.  I have seen many different opinions on this band, most of which were positive.  Myself…I didn’t really dig it too much.  It wasn’t that it was terrible though, to me it just seemed like the same old rhetoric.  General rock playing quarter notes on the bass, ad nauseum.  It is really a personal preference.  If you like the band, great for you.  I’m just tired of hearing the same old thing over and over…which is part of the reason that I love Modest Mouse.

After about twenty or more minutes, Mimicking Birds took the stage.  Again, with the other reviews I have read, these guys probably got the worst of the review for everyone, except for me.  I thought that they were pretty great and I look forward to hearing more of their stuff in the future.  The start out with a six string electric, six string acoustic, and a small drum set.  My first impression was instantly – Band of Horses – who coincidentally opened for Modest Mouse last summer.  As the set progressed though, these guys would tune down and up their guitars as they went, providing much more roving guitar lines and technicality than most music from Band of Horses.  They also had a single singer who used a voice delay box which was pretty neat to see that live and how it worked in to the music.  I definitely recommend you at least check them out when you get a chance.  If it isn’t your thing, no big deal, but it doesn’t hurt to go outside your musical comfort zone once in a while.

Then the wait, and wait, and wait, and wait….and pretty soon we are going on 45 minutes to an hour of sound check.  This didn’t really surprise me though.  They have a lot of stuff when you consider two drum kits, probably 4-5 guitar per person (x3), the keyboard, the stand-up bass…it goes on.  They also had about an hour sound check at the City Market last year.  Unfortunately it was boiling outside at the City Market and unfortunately for us, it was starting to boil inside the uptown.  To boot, all the high school kids were beginning to aggrevate.  All those turds who try to push up in front of you and then get in your way…ahhh the life of live music.  I feel bad for small girls..they can’t see anything, ever.

The opening song was a rip-roaring ‘Bury Me With It’ for a ravenous crowd.  This was a great song to start off with because the song was familiar to everyone and it allowed Isaac to warm up his “shout fit”.   I really don’t know how to explain it if you aren’t familiar with Modest Mouse and never seen anything live/music videos.  It is very commanding and definitely brings the crowd into the song, every time.  If there is something that Modest Mouse would be known by forever, that “shout fit” would be it.

After ‘Bury Me,’ they went right into a long version of “Never Ending Math.”  At the end of the song, the band stopped, Isaac said “hello” and what not, meanwhile some tard from front side of the stage shouts, “Play some old shit!”  Isaac fired back, “Old shit! Are you kidding me?  That song is probably older than you are!”  Then Issac goes on to say that he was now grumpy and that he was going to play some old shit but then had changed his mind because of this guy.  Obviously he was kidding as Modest Mouse then proceeds to play six of nine songs that are as old or older than their “Antartica and the Moon” album.

Some of my favorites on the night were “Wild Pack of Family Dogs,” “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” and “Custom Concern.”  The concert overall was a real treat.  It was hot as hell, we were packed in there like sardines with people dropping like flies from exhaustion, but I wouldn’t miss any of it and I will definitely go to their next concert when they roll through town again.

I apologize to the little kids who went home disappointed because they only played two songs you know.  LOL

Setlist: Bury Me With It, Never Ending Math, The View, Dramamine, Wild Packs of Family Dogs,Tiny Cities Made of Ashes, Custom Concern, Float On, Bukowski, Interstate 8, All Nite Diner, Parting of the Sensory. Encore: Third Planet, Satellite Skin, Dashboard, Baby Blue Sedan, Black Cadillacs.

The flyer for the event

Republic Tigers was the next band on the bill.  They had a fairly short intermission so that was a bonus for the night.  I get grumpy when the stage is set, the sound is done, and it sits empty for five more songs.  I’m too impatient, I guess.

I was pretty jazzed to see Rep Tigers because I really, really like their song, “Buildings and Mountains.”  Personally, I think this is one of the top 10 songs of last year.  Unfortunately the song was not nearly as good live as it as it is on the CD.  Frankly, I was pretty disappointed in the sound of Rep Tigers live all together.  In most of their pictures, I have found that they have six members.  Now, I don’t know if something had recently happened, maybe someone was sick, maybe the band kicked him out, who knows, but there was only five people on the stage.  A singer/part time guitarist/ 2 reg guitarists, bassist and drummer who played part time DJ.

Let me sum up my disappointment very quickly.  I listen to your CD, your song, your piece of airwaves for an average of 3:30 seconds.  I end up really liking said song.  I go to the concerts, maybe not expecting it to be perfect, maybe not expecting it to be the same, but I expect greatness in some form or fashion.  Tonight I did not see greatness.  In fact, I saw something that made me go into a sudden deep depression.  The drummer set up a Mac and was running the synth/piano/extras from it for each song.  This makes me very sad.

Republic Tigers on stage

No, not because of my lack of love for Mac- in fact I have no problem with you if you want to record music on it.  It has some decent apps for that…BUT….the synth is probably what I would say makes Rep Tiger different, makes them sound unique and gives them a flavor that attracts my ears.  To see this piece just played over the top of all the various parts that the actual persons were playing was sheer sacrilege.

I seriously felt like I was kicked in the junk.  To boot, I was fairly close to the stage for the first half of their set and the mix was awful..completely drowning out the vocals from all mics.  I moved back, closer to the sound board and things cleared up and sounded much, much better, however I was already done.  I’m not sure if I have expressed this enough…but having someone play those parts live, on synth or whatever it takes, could of made this an epic concert…could of been something that just knocked me off my feet.  Instead, I got to see a Mac play it all and a bunch of dudes stand around playing chords as whole notes.  LAME!

UFB sign w/ lead singer, Bill, on the right side.

Moving on to the enjoyable part of the night.  Ultimate Fakebook!  I had seen these guys live many, many years ago while attending KSU.  Hell it was so long, I have no idea where I saw them.  Perhaps it was Silverados, maybe Bombers?  Who knows…it doesn’t really matter at this point.  Regardless, they were a high fun, high energy band and they brought that again same feeling again tonight.

The first thing the band does is pull a curtain down and reveal a giant UFB, which was later on revealed that it was made out of cardboard, lights, and duct tape, but the thing worked great! The other thing you notice about these guys is how much fun they are having up there on the stage.  I love the standard trio power rock band as well.  You can call them punk, call them alt rock, call them indie…whatever.  In my book, it is power rock w/ a punk attitude.  These guys are going crazy and doing everything to get the crowd into it.

Before getting into the set, the stage hand brought out a six inch riser, which was probably 3′ x 3′.  This was placed in the middle of the stage for solos.  Both mics were on either side of the riser so either one could run up there if they want to show off a little bit.

Going into the show, they played “Far, Far away” early, perhaps the second song.  Moving in the third song was very interesting though.  The third song brought a lady onto the stage, on her own power (no security for small events), who decided to start dancing and singing, “She Don’t Even Know My Name.”  The band was a complete pro about it and just let her dance up there for a little while before one of the stage hands tapped her on the foot and told her to come with him to the side.  That got a bit of a laugh from everyone, including the band.  A little later in the set some guy started through cigs at the bassist/drummer, I’m not sure which, but after the song the drummer, Eric, came to the mic and thanked the guy for paying attention or something.  I assume this was a bit of an inside joke from their old shows.

There was also a problem with the lead amp at some point.  I’m not sure if part of the head burnt up or what, but the lead went half the song without playing guitar and it was only bass and drums.  These guys hadn’t played together for years since the lead singer guy lives in LA, but it was just like jumping back on the horse for them.  It was great.  A few songs later, the dancing lady gets back up there and starts singing and dancing again on the riser.  LOL – This time a stage person grabbed her right away and I don’t think she came back.

One of the last songs started the vertical columns of vanilla going off all over the stage and then some confetti machine going crazy, spitting out confetti all over the front half of the stage and about 30 feet into the crowd.  By the time that song was over, the lead singer had about 10 pieces of confetti stuck to his face because of his sweat from playing.  With all of these things going on, they were still pros, never wavering and getting through the songs, even leaving all those pieces stuck to his face with one even hanging over his glasses.

The encore was pretty cool starting off with the song, “Real Drums.”  The concert ended with an invitation to get a ton of people up on stage.  It was FULL.  I’m not even sure how they expect to play with a bunch of people banging thier arms/bodies/instruments but they did it.

All in all, it was a great concert because of UFB.  They came in and had a ton of fun which isn’t something you see a lot of from any other band.  I was and still am pretty disappointed in Republic Tigers though.  I just keep from thinking how epic “Buildings and Mountains” would of been with someone on a real keyboard going crazy.  Congrats to UFB.  I hope they get a chance to do more shows like this in the future.