Tuesday, May 15, 2012
America
Hey everyone,
I don't talk politics very much, but I just wanted to share something I feel in my heart. This November please don't vote for Mitt Romney. I don't want you to vote for Barack Obama, or anyone for that matter. Just please don't vote for Mitt Romney or donate to his campaign (he can afford it on his own without you). If you hate Obama, just stay home on election day, but for the love of this country, please don't vote for Mitt Romney.
Thanks everyone =]
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Review - The Beach Boys in Concert 5/12/12
Last night I saw the Beach Boys live in concert for their 50th Anniversary tour at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. I brought with me my vinyl copy of "Friends" in the hope that they would sign my record. Ultimately, The Beach Boys never signed my record, but I did end up making a friend - which perhaps was even better than meeting the Beach Boys.
When I arrived at casino where the show was being held I went into the elevator with my "Brian Wilson Presents Pet Sounds" T-shirt on, a sharpie and my Friends record and talked to a guy in the elevator who ended up being one of the cameramen for the concert. His name was George. He told me that I had just missed the meet and greet, which was supposed to be at 7:30, but instead was done at 7. Most bands are LATE for things, but the Beach Boys are early. Weird. Anyway, George and I exchanged phone numbers and he said he would try to see if he could introduce me to the band. So I went up to my seat at the very top row of this sold out 10,000 seat arena (which equals over 1 million dollars in ticket sales) and sat down. This is where I recorded the first half of the show.
Some of the people sitting next to me were complaining about vertigo and how they couldn't see anything and some of the others were singing along and having a spectacular time. I tried my best to record the show well, but I was recording on my cellphone so it was very difficult. I apologize for the crappy quality of my videos and pictures, but I did the best I could.
When the band came out on stage the applause was pretty outrageous. Being there with 10,000 other people was very exhilarating. An announcer introduced Bruce Johnston, Al Jardine, David Marks, Mike Love and finally Brian Wilson. The audience reached a fervor when Brian was announced and cheered intensely for him, but he seemed to not notice as he sat down in front of his grand piano. Mike Love did most of the talking the entire show and Brian Wilson actually said NOTHING the entire show. He seemed like kind of a zombie, barely playing any notes on the piano and later on in the show he put a bass guitar on and lazily moved his hands to the right notes, barely accompanying the other bass player. It makes me kind of sad that Brian can't seem to muster the energy to be a real front man. He was there, but he wasn't really THERE. Anyway, the band played through all of their surf and car songs first, sounding extremely spot-on with their vocals and occasionally adding in great A Cappella sections and interesting musical changes (for example the great introduction to Be True To Your School). Later on they started playing songs like Wouldn't It Be Nice, I Just Wasn't Made For These Times and Heroes and Villains. It was great to hear those classic songs and to hear Mike Love giving so many compliments to Brian Wilson. I recoded about 15 songs from this first half of the show.
The band took an intermission after about 90 minutes and Mike Love "recommended" that everyone go to the merch stands and bring home a souvenir. I did not buy anything at the show, because I was still pretty anxious about possibly meeting the guys. When the band started playing again my friend George that I had met in the elevator grabbed me from my seat and took me down to the 5th row and let me sit in an empty seat, which ended up being the very best part of the show. I was about 10 or 15 feet from the stage and I ended up getting some fantastic photos and videos from there. I want to thank George again for letting me sit in a $500 seat without having to pay for it.
During the entire concert the audience was passing around Beach balls which can be seen in a lot of my videos and everyone was dancing too. It was a lot of fun, especially in the front rows. During the song God Only Knows the band paid tribute to Carl Wilson by playing audio of him singing from a concert in the 80s and projecting videos and images of him on the big screen behind the group. Brian Wilson looked at the pictures of his brother during the song for about a minute and then turned away and rubbed his eyes for a while. I think this was the only time during the show that he felt any real emotion. I felt really sad for him at that moment. It was very touching and sad. They also played Forever and did a tribute to Dennis that was equally beautiful. They also played some other songs that I really love but don't hear very often like This Whole World and Please Let Me Wonder.
Towards the end of the concert they played Good Vibrations, California Girls and All Summer Long. I held up my Friends record and Mike Love looked straight at me, pointed at me, made eye contact and then shook his hand as if to say "Ehhhhhh! Friends was an oooooooooooookaay record..." or perhaps to say "Well, we are kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkind of friends..." I was disappointed that they did not play any songs from the friends record or sign my record. The last song they played was Fun, Fun, Fun and then they snuck off stage as fast as they could. Security would not let me see them, so I went home. I think that perhaps its alright that I did not get to meet them, because they probably wouldn't want to see me (after what I said about Mike Love's country album and Al Jardine's Postcards From California) but it would have been nice to have a photo to frame forever. Oh well.
Here are my pictures and videos. They are not in chronological order.
I uploaded a lot more videos, but my internet is being super slow so you can just check them out here. http://www.youtube.com/user/lexingtonsband. Also, I recorded these all on my cellphone, so don't expect great sound or video. Just enjoy them the best you can.
When I arrived at casino where the show was being held I went into the elevator with my "Brian Wilson Presents Pet Sounds" T-shirt on, a sharpie and my Friends record and talked to a guy in the elevator who ended up being one of the cameramen for the concert. His name was George. He told me that I had just missed the meet and greet, which was supposed to be at 7:30, but instead was done at 7. Most bands are LATE for things, but the Beach Boys are early. Weird. Anyway, George and I exchanged phone numbers and he said he would try to see if he could introduce me to the band. So I went up to my seat at the very top row of this sold out 10,000 seat arena (which equals over 1 million dollars in ticket sales) and sat down. This is where I recorded the first half of the show.
Some of the people sitting next to me were complaining about vertigo and how they couldn't see anything and some of the others were singing along and having a spectacular time. I tried my best to record the show well, but I was recording on my cellphone so it was very difficult. I apologize for the crappy quality of my videos and pictures, but I did the best I could.
When the band came out on stage the applause was pretty outrageous. Being there with 10,000 other people was very exhilarating. An announcer introduced Bruce Johnston, Al Jardine, David Marks, Mike Love and finally Brian Wilson. The audience reached a fervor when Brian was announced and cheered intensely for him, but he seemed to not notice as he sat down in front of his grand piano. Mike Love did most of the talking the entire show and Brian Wilson actually said NOTHING the entire show. He seemed like kind of a zombie, barely playing any notes on the piano and later on in the show he put a bass guitar on and lazily moved his hands to the right notes, barely accompanying the other bass player. It makes me kind of sad that Brian can't seem to muster the energy to be a real front man. He was there, but he wasn't really THERE. Anyway, the band played through all of their surf and car songs first, sounding extremely spot-on with their vocals and occasionally adding in great A Cappella sections and interesting musical changes (for example the great introduction to Be True To Your School). Later on they started playing songs like Wouldn't It Be Nice, I Just Wasn't Made For These Times and Heroes and Villains. It was great to hear those classic songs and to hear Mike Love giving so many compliments to Brian Wilson. I recoded about 15 songs from this first half of the show.
The band took an intermission after about 90 minutes and Mike Love "recommended" that everyone go to the merch stands and bring home a souvenir. I did not buy anything at the show, because I was still pretty anxious about possibly meeting the guys. When the band started playing again my friend George that I had met in the elevator grabbed me from my seat and took me down to the 5th row and let me sit in an empty seat, which ended up being the very best part of the show. I was about 10 or 15 feet from the stage and I ended up getting some fantastic photos and videos from there. I want to thank George again for letting me sit in a $500 seat without having to pay for it.
During the entire concert the audience was passing around Beach balls which can be seen in a lot of my videos and everyone was dancing too. It was a lot of fun, especially in the front rows. During the song God Only Knows the band paid tribute to Carl Wilson by playing audio of him singing from a concert in the 80s and projecting videos and images of him on the big screen behind the group. Brian Wilson looked at the pictures of his brother during the song for about a minute and then turned away and rubbed his eyes for a while. I think this was the only time during the show that he felt any real emotion. I felt really sad for him at that moment. It was very touching and sad. They also played Forever and did a tribute to Dennis that was equally beautiful. They also played some other songs that I really love but don't hear very often like This Whole World and Please Let Me Wonder.
Towards the end of the concert they played Good Vibrations, California Girls and All Summer Long. I held up my Friends record and Mike Love looked straight at me, pointed at me, made eye contact and then shook his hand as if to say "Ehhhhhh! Friends was an oooooooooooookaay record..." or perhaps to say "Well, we are kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkind of friends..." I was disappointed that they did not play any songs from the friends record or sign my record. The last song they played was Fun, Fun, Fun and then they snuck off stage as fast as they could. Security would not let me see them, so I went home. I think that perhaps its alright that I did not get to meet them, because they probably wouldn't want to see me (after what I said about Mike Love's country album and Al Jardine's Postcards From California) but it would have been nice to have a photo to frame forever. Oh well.
Here are my pictures and videos. They are not in chronological order.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Check this blog out
One of my friends, Jakob, has made a Beach Boys blog with some very interesting bootlegs on it! Check this out. beachyard.blogspot.com
Live on Jimmy Fallon
Nbc.com videos are lousy and take too long to load. Please let me know if you have these videos hosted somewhere else so I can replace them. - Eric
CONCERT TONIGHT
Tonight I am seeing my favorite band, The Beach Boys, at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. I am going to be taking lots of video and pictures! So I will post a HUGE write up along with some videos in a couple days! I AM SO EXCITED!
Talk to you all soon!
P.s. buy some tickets!
Monday, May 7, 2012
Saturday, May 12
This Saturday I will be seeing The Beach Boys at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. Who is going to be there???
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Cassette Cover Art
Hello Everyone,
One of the reasons this blog exists is a great man called Doc Rock. He has sent me a lot of the stuff on this blog. He runs his own blog where he uploads very rare cassette artwork.
Beautiful stuff like this
If you want to see his EXTENSIVE collection of rare cassette artwork please go HERE
cassettecoverartlib.blogspot.com
One of the reasons this blog exists is a great man called Doc Rock. He has sent me a lot of the stuff on this blog. He runs his own blog where he uploads very rare cassette artwork.
Beautiful stuff like this
If you want to see his EXTENSIVE collection of rare cassette artwork please go HERE
cassettecoverartlib.blogspot.com
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Beach Boys Tour!
I got my ticket to see the Beach Boys and I continue to be super excited about their upcoming tour! The tour will kick off on April 24th in Tucson, Arizona and will continue heading east hitting Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut (where I will be seeing them May 12th at Mohegan Sun Casino). The tour will also plays parts of Europe and Asia in July and August. This is the biggest thing the Beach Boys have done in nearly 30 years.I want to be a crusader for the Beach Boys and try to get each of their shows sold out and packed. Fortunately for the Beach Boys, a lot of the shows have already sold out (and will continue to sell out), which means a lot of you might not have been able to buy tickets for the show closest to you. However, there are ticket resellers out there that buy tickets when they go on sale and then resell them at a slightly higher cost (which coincidentally still ends up being less than ticketmaster service fees...). One good site I found is called www.ticketliquidator.com. They have tickets for every show on the tour (even sold out ones) and offer a 125% money back guarantee just in case one of the Beach Boys comes down with the flu.
I would recommend checking out their page listing here. Beach Boys 50th Anniversary tour tickets
They also have tickets to pretty much every other large event or concert going on around the world.
It makes me feel happy to get back into seeing my favorite bands live again. First The Explorers Club and now the authentic Beach Boys and Brian Wilson. I really can't wait to see them on May 12th!
You should post a comment on this thread if you intend on seeing the Beach Boys and what show you will be going to! I would love to hear from as many people as possible about this. Go out there and buy some tickets and support the best pop band of all time!
- Eric
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Imagination Live on PBS
Brian Wilson and his band did a concert on PBS for a fund raising drive. This is audio of that TV performance and the interviews before the songs. The audio cuts off at the end of the songs horribly though. Whoever recorded this was an amateur. I don't have the video from this show, but here is a video from the same year.
1. California Girls
2. In My Room
3. South American
4. She Says That She Needs Me
5. Your Imagination
6. Cry
7. Lay Down Burden
8. Don't Worry Baby
9. South American (a cappella)
10. Repeat of California Girls (again, whoever recorded this was an amateur)
1. California Girls
2. In My Room
3. South American
4. She Says That She Needs Me
5. Your Imagination
6. Cry
7. Lay Down Burden
8. Don't Worry Baby
9. South American (a cappella)
10. Repeat of California Girls (again, whoever recorded this was an amateur)
Download
link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
