Thursday night, July 30th, Christy and I went to the Face 2 Face tour of Billy Joel and Elton John at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. This is cool for two reasons: 1) neither of us had been to Citizens Bank Park before (not being baseball fans of any caliber) and 2) we were going to see a show with arguably the two biggest and best piano men in rock and roll history. I had been worried earlier in the week, as Billy Joel had been struck with the flu, forcing the cancellation of two dates in upstate NY. Elton was well, but the design of the sets, with both men playing on each other’s songs at the front and back of the show, made it next to impossible for it just to become an Elton John show. So, I worried that Billy would not be well for Philadelphia. No cancellation notices came through, so we went.

Citizens Bank Park is nice. I don’t need to tell the rest of the MLD crew that. They already know, being Philadelphia Phillies fans. It’s so nice, I actually wondered about going to games there in the future, and sitting in the 400s (which is where our tickets were, above home plate, directly across from the stage), so that if I get bored with farming (whoops, I mean BASEBALL) I can look out on a really impressive view of Philadelphia proper, and thrill to the fact that I don’t have to be in Camden to see that view. Oh… wait, this is a concert review. Right…

Elton and Billy have done this sort of package thing before, and I attended, back in 96 when it was the Heart and Soul tour. There was fire, there was gusto, there was two men who still had full heads of hair, and a Veterans Stadium jam-packed with fans all the way to the 700 level. Fast forward to now, and only Elton still has hair (plugs/hair transplants for Reg, still going strong, and looking good!), and… well, it was sort of a repeat of that 13 years-in-the-past concert, with a few notable exceptions: Billy has no hair to speak of now, except of the facial variety, Billy’s longtime drummer, Liberty DeVitto was NOT on this tour, and Elton… just didn’t seem into it. That’s okay, most of the stadium didn’t seem really into it, either. Whether it was because it was still daylight through the entire Elton John set, or he was dreading having to play the only songs Philadelphia seems to know from his catalog (which are, for the record: Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting, Crocodile Rock, Rocket Man, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me, I’m Still Standing and, yes, Philadelphia Freedom), Elton played a solid, professional and very distant set.

Billy Joel on the other hand, started out slow, and I feared the show would suck completely. I mean, the man HAD just come off 72 hours of doctor-ordered rest from a bout with the flu. Angry Young Man felt more like Tired Old Geezer in the way Billy played it, but cripes, only one song later, during Big Shot, Billy hit his stride. His between song banter hadn’t changed too much since last I’d seen him live at the Wachovia center, though he did keep it fresh for the CBP. He also gave a shout out to his daugther, Alexa Ray Joel, who was going to be playing her own show at the Tin Angel, the night after. He looked really proud to have his daughter “continue in the family business”. Even though he seemed to be just hanging on in some of his songs, Billy kicked out the piano jams with his band. It was almost a disappointment when Elton John came back for some more dueling pianos action at the end, but lo and behold, Elton finally looked like he was ENJOYING himself at the end of the concert. Go figure!

A couple of weird notes:

• Two “ain’t gonna see the sunny side of 45” blondes behind us at the show, with their obnoxious kids, kept yakking their way through most of Elton John’s set, sending the one gal’s husband repeatedly for beers. The kids themselves gave us such eloquent food for thought as this: “This song is SOOO long!” and after only one song into Elton John’s set, “All these songs sound the same.” My favorite of these mooks, though, is this brilliant line, from the blond-headed mullet wearing kid with the Phillies shirt on: “This is SOOO not the studio version. This is DEFINITELY the live version of this song.” Really? At a concert, which is LIVE, there’s the LIVE version? You don’t say, Aristotle?!

• During the last part of the show, when EJ rejoined Billy on stage, Billy had a fly swatter in his hand, that he was beating himself with, while playing one handed, and would get up from the piano during songs and walk away for bits. Antibiotics a little strong, Billy?

• Christy and I got lost searching for our car, and walked through all the surrounding parking lots, until I remembered the movable landmark of a Winnebago, which finally led us back to our car after about 30 minutes of searching. I can only chalk this up to my training with ComedySportzPhilly, and call it a callback.

Even after all this time, I still love Billy Joel. Even after being knocked down by the flu, the man can still get up and give a rock-n-roll show worth your ticket price. Tell your grandparents to try that on for size!

End verdicts: Elton John: dislike. Billy Joel: like! Mook morons behind us: dislike! View of the city: like! Sitting at the ballpark watching rock and roll with my wife: like!

Overall: Like!

Yours truly,

Lydonlistens

The next singer guy performed Broken earlier as a duet with some girl and performed some stupid song that we think Brian Youdunno must be a big fan of… “Don’t Fall Away” or “In My Hands” or whatever it’s called. He relied on his affected voice too heavily, but so did the guy who originally sang it. Also his oooohs at the end were definitely out of key.

Karen gave him a brown two. I thought that was kind of harsh.
Angie gave him a six but switched to a four after Karen yelled “What!?!?!?”
Pete voted three for Three Doors Down who he imagines sings the song… Right or wrong.

“Hey Ya” came on for the sixth performer, but she claimed it wasn’t her song. While she waited for another song to cue up, she demanded that her mother take photos of her. That was so rock and roll. Angie gives her a one for not performing “Hey Ya.” She chose the song “The First Cut is the Deepest.” She did it fine with her smoker’s voice I guess. I too would have prefered “Hey Ya.”

Kar gives her a five she guesses.
Pete gives her a four but gives the stagemother a NINE!!!!!

This post is now sooo Matt Lyd-ian in length that it has expanded into a second post.

Why is everyone from Pittsburgh? Isn’t there anyone talented in East Stroudsburg or Wilkes Barre who could have made the trek?

The next performer had a vision of love and it was all that you’d given to her. She was pretty damn good. Too bad she didn’t do Johnny B. Goode or look like Kenny Rogers.

Karen gave her a 9 but thinks it would have been better if the mic wasn’t up so loud.
Angie gave her a ten because she wants to give a ten to someone.
Pete gave her a ten for having all the talent for American Idol but all the awkwardness of Karaoke.

My thumbs officially hurt.

The eighth performer did a song that I didn’t recognize, perhaps called “Take It Back.” Angie wonders if the tattoo on the upper back/lower neck is the new tramp stamp. This chick can sing but loses points because NO ONE has ever heard this song… Except maybe her mom. Stupid.

Kar thinks she was too young to do that song and gave her a four.
Angie gives her a three because she agrees with Kar that the song was boring but she liked the dramatic hugs the singer got after the performance.
Pete gave a five.

The mom just said, “WTF. I don’t know why the crowd didn’t respond. That was dynamite.”

The last contestant was actually from Philly and performed “Bring Me to Life” after warming up with a duet on that song by that other band that the chick who sings “Bring Me to Life” also sings on. Her voice is too weak to pull off this song. Which is too bad because I was pulling for her since she was sitting at the table next to us. (Weird. The guy who she dueted with earlier is singing the guy parts of this song along with her at his table. Angie suspects he loves her. She may be right, but apparently he can only communicate with her through song. It’s tragic really.)

Kar gives her an eight but that includes an extra point for being from Philly.
Angie gives her two points for having someone listen to her via cellphone. Two points for her secret lover sing along. Only one point for the song because it sucks. And two points for potentially being the only person from Philly for a total of Seven.
Pete gives her a nine because Uncle Bill came up from Florida to see her and Aunt Buppy was on the phone.

Woooooh. Stop the presses. A new performer has stormed the stage and demanded the opportunity to perform. He’s unscheduled. If he wins it will be an epic but controversial upset.

He’s performing “Walking in Memphis.”

Oh he sucks. Totally. Kenny Rogers is safe. How disappointing.

Walking in Memphis guy may have broken the mic. He’s so embarassingly bad yet completely earnest.

Kar gives him silence.
Angie gives him a four for chasing away the angry grannies.
Pete gives him a minus one in honor of Hulk 600. He showed no respect for competition by entering so late.

The judges chose four girls and two guys to move on to round 2.

But there’s controversy!!!!!

Only three women can move on to the next round. Joyce the chick with almost no pants on has been kicked out of the second round after being announced as a qualifier!

The crowd is stunned.

There’s utter silence.

OH MY GOD!

Walking in Memphis has now advanced in place of no-pants girl and the secret lover dude… Secret Lover dude is arguing with the judges.

This may be the most exciting moment in the history of the World Karaoke Championships.

I’m stunned.

My battery is about to die. We’re out of time folks!

Twelve finalists performed in the Karaoke World Championships Pennsylvania Finals Saturday night at Holy Smokes in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia. The top male and female performers would move on to the national championships in Ohio.

How the $&@# did we end up there? I dunno. Angie was hungry.

As the performers awaited the start of the competition, the atmosphere in the bar was electric. Many of the contestants were accompanied by their family and they were clearly ecstatic about the event.

After rehearsal performances of Boogie Woogie Ooogie Oogie, Broken, Alone and some Stevie Nicks piece of &$@#, the first contestant took the stage.

Apparently the one audience rule is do not boo, but no one is stopping me from booing them on my blog. Boooo.

The first contestant was from Pittsburgh and worked the crowd before launching into a Luther Vandross song. On his first falsetto “ooooh” his voice cracked. It was awesome. You should have been there. Five hours is a long way to drive just for your voice to crack. He also had a creepy way of singing without really opening his mouth. He should be a ventrillaquist, but his singing sounds way better now than it did at the beginning of the song. This song didn’t really have a catchy melody though… Note to self: when performing in the Karaoke World Championships perform a pop song.

Our scores:
Karen gave him a four out of ten. She thinks he picked a bad song.
Angie says six because he didn’t follow the words.
Pete gave him a five with no comments though he compared the singer’s championship potential to that of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

So we’ve heard five songs be performed (including the warm up tracks) and we know that the songs loop about ten seconds after they end and start over. Why doesn’t the guy running the machine know it yet? Dummy.

The second performer chose to go with Bobbie McGee complete with fake Janice Joplin accent. Not a bad impression, but it doesn’t show off her voice very well. I kind of forgot I like this song… But I’m still not sure it’s a good choice for the World Karaoke Championships. Her little hip dance move during the “awkwardly long for Karaoke” guitar solo was precious though.

Karen gives her a 5 or 6.
Angie gives her a 2 for doing a country song… She’s dumb…
Pete gives her a 6 as well because he realizes Janis Joplin is not a country artist and was very entertained.
Angie now knows it wasn’t a country song but stands by her score.

The third performer, also from Pittsburgh, appeared at the beginning to be wearing just a shirt with no bottoms on. It could have been awesome, but alas we discovered she is wearing short shorts they were just hidden. I didn’t recognize the song she did but she screamed way too much during it.

Karen gave her a three before she had even finished performing.
Angie gave her a 2 based on song choice.
Pete gave her a four, commenting simply, “wow.”

The fourth performer chose Johnny B. Goode, looked like Kenny Rogers, and danced like Elvis. Kar thought he might be doing his best Jagger crossed with the chicken dance. I declare him the winner though it doesn’t take much talent to sing that song.

Karen gives him a six because of the dancing but was unimpressed vocally.
Angie gives him an eight for his dance moves.
Pete told a mildly inappropriate joke that I would publish but he won’t let me.

For those that don’t know me that well, I’m an improvisational actor, among other things. I had an audition on Sunday that didn’t actually materialize, due an unforseen automobile accident with the directors. They’re okay, but I had driven in to the city, and parked in a place I need to pay 10 bucks to get out of, so I stepped round to the Wawa on 2nd street and South to get monies aforesaid. While strolling toward the Wawa, I stopped in front of the TLA, whose marquee indicated that VNV Nation was playing that night. I called my wife, asked if she was interested, and we got tickets.

Now, I never considered myself a huge techno or electro fan, but VNV Nation is good music. Nary a guitar, just drum machines, synths and keyboards, and the voice of Ronin Harris. Like I told PTB, it’s like early Ministry, sans the yelling, as Ronin’s voice is comprised of more dulcet tones than we typically hear from Alain Jourgensen. I don’t know the lyrics to any of the songs, but VNV puts on such a great show, I’m too busy dancing and shouting along with choruses I learn in the moment to care that I don’t know the words.

This from a guy who never quite gets comfortable with music lacking guitars.

But maybe life is changing. My real latest distraction right now? Autotune the News. Ever heard of T-Pain? Has the Vocoder and the Antares Auto-tuner burrowed its way into your brain through your ear in the last few years? The Brothers Gregory understand. They also understand that CNN and current events need some tarting up before the hoi polloi take notice. Thus, Autotune the News.

There are only 6 tunes at last count, but I frequently return to their YouTube account and play them all. Combine comedy with sterling beat production that Timbaland is embarassed he didn’t come up with, and gold is produced.

I can not do AtN justice by myself, so without further ado, check it.

I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but, I think I liked some of the new Dave Matthews Band music. Heard clips from their new album, Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King, on Sound Opinions on NPR, and thought, wow, is this really the Dave Matthews Band? It actually ROCKED. As soon as I felt that, I had questions. What could be further from punk rock, and the other styles of music I love so, than the Dave Matthews Band? I’ve said it in my home blog that I dislike Dave Matthews Band, and I want to keep that record unbroken, but here I am, wondering if I’ve been wrong this whole time.

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