A tale of two bands

The way the blinds are hanging at the window beyond my desk at work, I can be blinded temporarily for about 5-10 minutes at sunset each night, this time of year. (In the summer, I go home long before sunset, and in the winter, sunset's while I'm still working.) Anyway, the sky is pink with purple stripes of clouds. A bit freaky, but a change from typical blue/gray or even orange.

Last Sunday Duran Duran debuted their entire new album in a concert at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford, CT. (Yeah, yeah, it's now the Chevrolet Theatre, whatever.) Let's see....lots of forty-something overweight women in droves. The songs were so-so. Some were good, some were not, but most of all, nobody really wanted to hear them. That's the thing when old bands re-unite. People wanna hear the same 15 songs at every show. In the parking lot, some guy walked past us getting in our car and asked where Rio and Hungry Like the Wolf were. I almost yelled back at him, in your record cabinet, dickhead. But yeah, after the new songs, they did a few old ones. My wife was a full-fledged fan back in the day, and she said she only recognized 5 songs. What was good was that the arena only seats about 3000 or so, and that meant being pretty close -- 20th row, center stage.

Now, Van Halen in Boston was a different story all together. Sold out and LOUD. All old stuff, and after 20 years of Sammy Hagar, I get the feeling they were glad to be able to play this stuff live. I knew every song, and could pick out random bits and pieces from Eddie's solo -- like some of Girl Gone Bad. There was a couple in front of us engaging in doobage, but it's not like they passed it around. Anyway, isn't VH more of a being drunk band, versus a being stoned band? A buddy of mine was kinda drunk, so he starts trying to put his arm around me during songs he liked. (Apparently he tried this with my dad who I gave my Stones ticket to a couple of years ago, and my dad had to keep pulling his arm off and telling him to cut the shit.) Wolfgang, on bass instead of Michael Anthony, pretty much "knew his place" -- you're the chubby 16-year-old kid who's new, just play your lines and don't draw attention to yourself. (One exception, they put a big Red Sock over the end of his bass to appeal to the crowd.) If nothing else, he certainly looks more in place height-wise than Anthony, who always seemed on the short end amidst the other band members. I'll be curious to see if they actually do a new album themselves. (Or if Eddie kills Dave instead.)

The cool thing about being in Boston is that it was also the day of the "rolling rally" parade for the Red Sox. (speaking of doobage...) But what this did is make getting a table at a restaurant an hour-long wait on a Thursday night. All the folks in the city for the Sox, overlapped with concertgoers. (My dinner: Veal parm sandwich from Four's Grille.)

And as I finish this up, the sky is all purple (Prince reference?) with a couple of yellow streaks in the horizon.

Pats-Colts this weekend. Should be good. (I'd be amused there WERE a cheap shot on Brady with all this anti-Pats stuff....because Peyton would invariably go down on the next series, kinda like a football version of a beanball war.)