Switchfoot Hello Hurricane Tour

I just got back from seeing Switchfoot play Irving Plaza in NYC, and boy do I have some positive feedback to share. The show was part of their Hello Hurricane tour, which coincides with the release of their new album by the same name. I have to admit I have not listened to the album in its entirety before tonight (although this will change ASAP). Having said that, it was still an enjoyable performance to say the least. They played the new album in order from first song to last as the first half of their set. The second half consisted of fan favorites from the past three albums. The set list for the second half was as follows:

Meant To Live
Stars
Shadow Proves The Sunshine
Oh Gravity
Lucky Man (Verve cover)
24
Dare you To Move
Encore:
This Is Your Life
Awakening
Pictures should go up before New Years. I apologize to those who think I am a liar when I said I would post Amanda Palmer photos, but life happened that day and continued happening for the next few weeks. Once this poor college student wraps up the semester things should go back to their regularly scheduled happenings.

Muse Tours America

Muse has announced 6 shows of what will be their 2010 tour. For those who have been reading this blog since it’s conception, you may recall I have mentioned this band before. When they released their latest album (The Resistance), toured with U2, and had a special performance at the VMAs, I predicted they would slowly gain more exposure from this that would hopefully create enough buzz to bring them to the U.S. and it would seem I was right. The date for New York City is March 5th at Madison Square Garden. I hoped they would get big enough to play this venue, but I never imagined it would happen this quickly. Silversun Pickups is set to open for them. The show is brought to us by RXP and Bowery Presents. Thank you both for making the dreams of American Muse fans come true.

2010 World Cup

For anyone who is interested, here is a quick post announcing the draw for the 2010 World Cup. My predictions/hopefuls are as follows:

Group A: South Africa
Group B: Argentina (Second choice, Greece)
Group C: If not the U.S. then England
Group D: Germany
Group E: Denmark (or maybe the Netherlands, not sure about this one)
Group F: Italy
Group G: Brazil
Group H: Spain (although Switzerland would make me happy if they proved me wrong here)

Who do you think is going to come out on top? Or maybe the better question is who you WANT to end up the winner.

Party Crashers

Many of the posts on this blog are inspired by either a link or news story I find that intrigues me enough that I want to comment on it. Today’s link is one of the many pieces in response to the party crashers at President Obama’s State Dinner. It is a letter to the president from Tom Foreman, a correspondent with CNN who can be seen occasionally on Anderson Copper 360. In his letter he points out that we are lucky these people were only trying to climb the social ladder and weren’t actually dangerous. While this is true I have to ask: Why are we giving them so much press time then? It seems to me that we could report how serious this is without giving them the recognition they were obviously looking for. This just gives them validation. Where’s the punishment? If these people have gotten everything they wanted out of this experience, then what tells them it was wrong and they shouldn’t do it again or else? Obviously this story is still ongoing so punishment of some kind could still be in the works. If not, I may have to put America on notice, Colbert style.

My Black Friday Experience

Traditionally Black Friday marks the start of the Christmas season and is the day most stores finally start to see a profit after a year of being “in the red”. Yesterday I ventured out into the scary world of shopping to purchase a new computer (MacBook Pro, for those who are curious). It was early afternoon, but already many people had gone back into their secure bubbles of non-spending. After hearing stories of people camping overnight for the best early bird specials, it seems most of these did their shopping early in the morning while I was still fast asleep and were now safely back home. Don’t get me wrong, the Apple store was still crowded, but then again it usually is. It wasn’t the scary level of crowded I had expected though. It would seem many are still scared to open their wallets for anything that is not a necessity just yet. We will have to wait and see if this continues through the Christmas season. Will we see a rise on homemade gifts this year? Only time will tell…

Thanksgiving Survival Guide

Thanksgiving, a time spent sitting around the table sharing what we are thankful for in between helpings of turkey and stuffing… and trying not to kill any of our relations in the process. That’s why the link for today shares a few tips on how to survive Thanksgiving with the family. So grab a drumstick and a glass of wine and try to remember what is really important about today… the pumpkin pie.

just kidding ^_^

Glee Gone Until April

According to my sources (see above) Glee will be going on hiatus until April. When it comes back it will be moved to Tuesday night at 9pm… the same time as Lost. If Fox was trying to make their biggest hit come crashing down then congratulations, you have done your job. With Lost wrapping up its last season I highly doubt many viewers will be choosing to DVR it for their Glee-full guilty pleasure. Hopefully this doesn’t hurt the rating too much and it is able to continue after it loses Lost as competition.

Hooked On Technology

I recently had a conversation with someone about how prominent technology is today and thought it would make for an interesting discussion. I argued that technology (specifically computers and cell phones) was both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it helps makes our daily lives much easier, but it is also a curse because we are never sure what to do when it stops working. We are too dependent on it at this point to be able to function without it. He countered by saying that it is not that we are too dependent on technology; it is that everyone else uses it, so therefor we must do so as well. If we do not follow the rest of the world, we will have trouble keeping up. It was an interesting argument, but I wonder if this doesn’t still translate to the same end result. We may not need technology to get by in our own lives, but without it we will not be able to keep in contact to the same degree the rest of the world is able to.

Discussion on this matter is welcome, whether you follow the blog regularly or are just passing by. I look forward to seeing what others have to say on the matter.

Amanda Palmer Slays Music Hall of Williamsburg

Last night Amanda Palmer played to a sold out (and energized) Music Hall of Williamsburg. The crowd loved her from the moment she marched on stage. Nervous Cabaret (the opening act) played the beginning and end of the set with her, including marching with her from the back of the venue to the stage. Other guests for the evening included Sxip Shirey and Franz Nicolay, both of whom joined Amanda during the encore. The set consisted of the usual combination of Dresden Dolls songs, selections from the solo album, and a few covers. There was also the Ask Amanda segment, which is usually both amusing and informative. Something that was added for this tour, however, was an artist is selected for each show to complete a drawing which will be auctioned at the end of the night. This show there were actually two artists, so two pieces were auctioned towards the end of the set. The entire night played out almost like a theater production (solidified by the addition of Franz to the final songs). Amanda has always been a pleasure for me to see live, and this time was no exception. Words can’t fully describe the experience, so pictures will be added to this post by the end of the day.