RED

I want to talk about one concert I went to in September.  This was Taylor Swift.  I know she annoys the crap out of some people and its really mainstream and to be honest I didn’t like her until her most recent album, “red” came out. Despite what anyone thinks of her, I am 99% sure that anyone could enjoy some aspect of her live show.  We bought the tickets a full year in advance and the tickets were quite pricey.  Over the year I kind of stopped listening to her music all the time unless I just happened upon it.  My mom bought the tickets on the day of the presale and in a matter of seconds the tickets had been on sale it was a sold out show.  After a year of anticipation the day finally came.  Ed sheeran, who I liked a lot before opened and he’s awesome live too.  And its not like he had a huge crew of back up singers or a band or anything.  It was just him, his guitar and the stage.  And he just sang in his cute little British accent.  And you could tell he just was going with the flow because he decided “I want to sing this tonight” and just burst into Britney Spears’ “hit me baby one more time”. 

There’s this thing that Taylor swift does, where she has people go search for girls that are decked out in fan stuff and they pick them to go to the pit and meet her (we just cut up red t-shirts).  Don’t get your hopes up though-we didn’t get picked.  Its not like we had great seats or anything, we were up in the top level of the arena, and still the scouts came up there with TAYLOR SWIFTS MOM.  We immediately ran down (so did everyone else) and hugged her.  And let me get this straight- she made eye contact with me and SHE initiated the hug, not me.  We were all really star stuck after that (after all, that women who just hugged us created Taylor swift).   

Anyway, she opened with “state of grace” which is one of my favorite songs to belt out in the shower passionately.  She mainly sang songs from her new album, but she threw some oldies in there too like “you belong with me”, “mean” (my all time favorite tswift song), and some others.  She is just such a great performer.  She moves around the entire show and the stage set up is just perfection.  Anyone would enjoy this.  She went to a stage in the back, which I recommend trying to get your seats there if you can.  This stage raised up and down and spun around and she sand “everything has changed” with ed. She also is on a pedestal and flies around the audience with nothing but an iron crowbar holding her in.  It was great.  She’s a wonderful person, entertainer and storyteller and I loved it, even being way up in the stands.  I promise, anyone, I mean anyone, would enjoy it.

-Claire

Links

“A team” by Ed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAWcs5H-qgQ

“You need me I don’t need you” by Ed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXvzzTICvJs

“Mean” by tswift: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYa1eI1hpDE

“Love story”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xg3vE8Ie_E

“You belong with me”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw

"Red" album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8JyaNIMiSE

“Everything has changed” by Ed and Taylor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1oM3kQpXRo

Wynton?

It’s a little late but I’ll tell you how the Wynton Marsalis “concert” went.  It wasn’t really a concert at all and Wynton had a very small part in it.  It was kind of a jazz fused with gospel choir music orchestra thing.  I could appreciate the musicians and the gospel choir was great, but it’s just not my cup of tea.  I got bored after a while because it was kind of repetitive and I guess it just wasn’t as lively as I would’ve liked it to be.  Great concert for you low-key Christian-jazzies though!

-Claire

RELAX fellow people of earth

Yes, I’ve already blogged once today, but I finally have some free time. Anyway, the world is a very, very stressful and fast moving place to live.  Concerts are a great way to let it all go but if you don’t have time in your busy schedule, I wanted to attach some relaxing, instrumental music that I’ve been listening to lately when doing homework (if I listen to normal songs I have a really hard time not singing at the top of my lungs)

            By the way, I don’t really listen to jazz, (although I like it) but my friend asked me to go to a Wynton Marsalis concert, tomorrow, so I’m going to go.  It’ll be cool because I haven’t been to something like that and he seems like a pretty chill guy. It should be cool and I’ll hopefully be able to write about how it went soon. 

-Claire

The blissful, relaxing links:

“Meditational Zen” (my go-to for studying/longtime meditation): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9SCrpXN3EE

“Hindu Zen” (I'm a big fan of the sound of a sitar and India in general): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHNfR7Sey0A

“The winner is” (I love little miss sunshine, its one of my all time favorite movies)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBraHI5DwJ0

The XX’s intro: (loved the XX since 5^th grade): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhnZkNj7kAo

macklemores “BomBom” (gotta love macklmore): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNZkN7k-7qg

Wynton Marsalis’s “Carnival of Venice” (first song I found): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu2f_-01BdE

WALK THE MOON

            Freaking school man.  It’s killing me.  I’d really love to blog everyday because it makes me so happy but chemistry and all that awful high school crap is ruining my life.  So if I don’t blog, its not because I don’t feel like it or I'm lazy its because of freaking school.  It ruins everything.  But, enough about that crap it’s messing with my Zen. This is what I typed Sunday before I had to get a bunch of homework done:

Yesterday, I went to the “walk the moon” concert that was sold out. I didn’t really know any of their songs other than “Anna sun” until later this week when I looked them up on MySpace after buying tickets.  I know what your thinking… MySpace is so lame and old-timey but despite popular belief it’s pretty cool. You can listen to full albums… (That’s how much I typed)

As I was saying MySpace is pretty cool despite it’s stigma.  But do watcha want I could care less. WALK THE MOON is awesome, and I mean AWESOME in concert.  They were playing at this place we have called the cats cradle.  I’ve been to enough concerts there to know it like the back of my hand.  So, when we walked in (my parents “granted me independence” and let me go with two of my friends by ourselves for the first time) and me, being the (slightly rude) assertive person I am, I go to the left (away from the bathrooms) and push a bunch of people to get to the front (second row) all the while pissing off multiple people along the way.  On a side note, if you don’t want me to take your spot, don’t let me… this is a concert… survival of the fittest man.  If you ever go to WALK THE MOON, paint your face, we missed the memo on that (tons of people painted their faces).  Apparently the deal is, when WALK THE MOON made their “Anna sun” music video they had a giant paint fight at the end and it was amazing so now they always paint their faces for their shows.

A band called “magic man” from Boston opened.  They were pretty good.  As my friend Nikki puts it “they’re a mix of walk the moon and Michael Jackson”.  It was cute because the crowd was pretty nice to them and clapped (a lot of opening bands get booed) and the lead singer got really, really pumped. It was then time for WALK THE MOON. Eli, the guitarist was closest to us on the left and Nick, the lead singer was in the middle (its best to get in the middle) and Kevin, their bassist, in his cheetah print pants, was on the right. They opened with “Next in Line” which was a really great song to open with.  They continued with songs from their latest album “walk the moon”.  After singing “Iscariot” they called the guy who designed their set (which by the way, was really cool with these trees that look like the ones on their album cover which lit up) and he proposed to his girlfriend! Afterwards they played my personal favorite, “I can lift a car” and had everyone do the same “lifting a car” motion.  They also played a couple of new songs they were working on, the only one I remember had a chorus like “do you have a boyfriend?” so keep a look out for that song because it was great. Nick crowed-walked (I WAS SO CLOSE TO TOUCHING HIM) and they ended with the first song I heard by them, Anna sun.  They played “Jenny” for their encore and they made an awesome speech about forgetting about how your supposed to act and just feel free to express yourself here, and (excuse my language) to “drop shit” on this last song, and take it from me, we did. This was definitely a great escape from the awful stressful real world and I will definitely buy tickets to see them again in a heartbeat. This was probably one of my all time funnest concerts. 

I love you, WALK THE MOON.

-Claire

Here’s a link to the whole "WALK THE MOON" album, which you need to listen to now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL6bYdQwbEI&list=PL452F833FFBA0A412

And magic man’s “Texas” link just for kicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x51erJ7hnsM