I was interested in seeing Ellie Goulding (thanks to Pandora), so when I saw she was coming to town I wrote it down* and then I even happened to win tickets to the concert (from the Detroit Free Press). But I was absolutely exhausted yesterday so I was going to skip it, then (in a process too complicated to explain) I sort of got talked into it last minute. We got good parking (which was great since it was now raining), and we got there just a few minutes before she started.

She was excellent! Very energetic and I liked the way that she engaged the crowd during and in-between the songs. I don’t think she ever introduced the band or mentioned the opening act (which I didn’t see, so NBD).

She was bugging me with her hair,get this girl son hair ties! Sometimes it gets way in her eyes (so you can barely even see her nose), sometimes she brushes it out of the way but other times she puts it in the way on purpose (you can see a little in the video but it’s not as obvious). Strange…

She did a bunch of her music and a few covers. Some of her songs make me think of Kate Bush, but the rest of her music is a little more rock/pop than Kate’s sound, but I’d like to hear her cover a Kate Bush song.

And I’ll be using one of these as my 31 photos in 31 days photo for day 3. (Later) In hindsight, I guess these are from yesterday, but I’d already posted one for yesterday when I took them.

You can listen to her (and others) on my Ellie Goulding Station on Pandora or at iTunes. And here’s a direct link to the YouTube video in case it doesn’t embed properly.

* Most times when I see an event (especially with general admission) that interests me, I’ll put it in my calendar to consider later. Even if it’s got seats, I’ve gotten great ones by calling last minute.

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We had a nice ride on the ferry as the sun set and we had some impromptu music from some of the passengers.

It was such a nice ride with lots of room, it was SO packed when I was there at Christmas time…

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So I saw Aimee Mann in concert last week in Ann Arbor at The Ark. If you don’t know who she is, you might remember her from the 1980s when she was part of ‘Til Tuesday and did the popular song Voices Carry; that video is a little bit old, here’s the current Aimee Mann site. I’ve seen Aimee Mann twice before, once on the pre-Lilith Fair tour (when they were trying to prove that people would go to a all women concert festival) and a few years ago in Ann Arbor.

The show was general admission so I had picked up a ticket while I was there for some other show. I didn’t get anyone else to come* it turned out there was a empty seat right in the middle of the front row! It was awesome! She’s great and does one of my favorite things, she talks

She’s actually writing a musical based on The Forgotten Arm that was a concept album she did a few years ago, she actually did some of the narration and played some of the songs for us, it was pretty fun. It’s kind of a dark story with drugs, debt and relationships (and boxing).

If you haven’t been to The Ark, it’s a great little theater, about 700 seats, and I’ve seen a lot of shows there. It’s general admission so if you get there earlier you get a better seat, tickets are generally pretty cheap generally (although I think Aimee was $40, much more than I usually pay there) but those on-line fees get the prices up there fast.

*Most of the time it doesn’t bother me to go to concerts alone (it’s that ride and the wait that I don’t like). So if concerts are general admission and I know I want to go, I’ll pick up a ticket and mention it to a few friends; some times there’s a few of us and sometime it’s just me.

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Jewel dresses up as a regular person and sings her own songs! It’s a little long, but pretty funny, especially if you’re a fan…

Click for a larger version.

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Here’s a free download to the soundtrack of Disney’s and Pixar’s Up be sure to use the code latimesdisney when it asks for it.

The soundtrack was nominated for “Best Original Score” but I’m not sure which award (Oscar, Grammy, Academy?). It was done by Michael Giacchino who did Ratatouille, Lost, The Incredibles, Star Trek, Alias, Fringe and more.

This offer is only supposed to be good until the end of Thursday.

Please let me know in the comments if this works for you (or more importantly, when it stops working)…

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Amazon is offering one free Christmas song download each day for twenty-five days.

Of course for offering the free music to you, they’d like you to check out their other Christmas album sales, considering buying an Amazon Gift card or some of the best music of 2009.

These are all affiliate links, so if you do buy anything from Amazon, please consider following these links before any kind of purchase at Amazon.com and I’ll get credit. Thank you!

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One of the best parts of How I Met Your Mother is when they mention a web site in the show, such as
“It was the best night ever dot com“, they’ve actually gone and got the site ItWasTheBestNightEver.com

And the site actually has some photos and a video of Marshall singing the song with Nuno Bettencourt.

It’s just one of those silly things that I enjoy when TV shows go the extra mile.

(Although, I thought the episode was a little slow otherwise)

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Speaking of A Fine Frenzy, here’s an 18 minute video/concert with four songs. Also, it’s available in 480p!

A Fine Frenzy performs songs from their new album in the renowned John Drew Theater at Guild Hall in East Hampton, New York.

The few times I’ve seen her has been in a really small venue, so it really evokes memories of the few times of when I’ve seen her in concert. I think the one place I saw her might have been only a little bigger than the stage.

The video has a few (very) small bits of her talking too…

Here’s the Hulu direct link to A Fine Frenzy – Live from the Artists Den.

UPDATE: Speaking of video. There is a video podcast calledBomb in a Birdcage – Track by Track that’s got a little behind the scenes video for all 11 tracks (30-90 seconds each) and it’s free.

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The new A Fine Frenzy album Bomb In A Birdcage has been released today. I’ve mentioned A Fine Frenzy many times and seen Alison in concert several times.

Here’s the great thing the MP3 album from Amazon is only $3.99, that might only be a today only offer (but sometimes these deals last for days). That’s 12 tracks if you get it from Amazon (I think one is a bonus track but it’s a different bonus track than the $9.99 iTunes version). I actually don’t know how long this offer will last, but I picked it up a copy. FYI, the Amazon songs are 256 kbps and will play on your iPod/iPhone and the Amazon downloader will put them right into your iTunes for you!

UPDATE: You can can purchase just the iTunes bonus track of Coming Around for 99 cents. That gets you a deluxe (nonexistent) version of the album!

Personally, I like buying the actual CD verses the digital media, but I figure there’s a good chance I’ll see here in concert and get the CD autographed so I’ll pick it up from her then. Here’s a link to the actual 11-track Bomb in a Birdcage CD at Amazon.

FYI – These are affiliate links above. I get a small kickback if you follow these links and buy anything.

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Tori always has interesting lighting at her concerts. Lots of changes during the show with more to do with the set and lighting (no actual physical changes). I always enjoy it.

The concert was awesome (as Tori always is), had a great seat, row G (on the right side) so it was perfect. As people cleared out I was able to move up front for the last few songs).

Below I’ve got a few low quality photos (my iPhone is great, but in the dark it’s not so great) and a video to illustrate the lighting.

The video is just a few quick clips so you can see the lighting (I think it’s four clips about seven seconds each).

I’ve never seen this before but if you follow the direct link to YouTube and click on the HQ button at the bottom it makes the movie bigger (like the HD button does). Give it a try.

But I haven’t figured out a way to directly link it to make it the bigger HQ automatically (you can append &fmt22 to force into large HD or &fmt=18 to force into normal HQ but I’m looking for the large HQ answer, anyone?).

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Abnormally Attracted To Sin is only $2.99 (it’s now up to $949 [7/22]) right now at Amazon for the 17 track album. I can’t say how long this offer is going to last but I just picked up my copy!

iTunes wants $11.99 for Abnormally Attracted To Sin with one (1) bonus track (Oscar’s Theme), probably not worth $9.00 for that much more.

What iTunes does offer is an Abnormally Attracted To Sin deluxe edition with with fifteen (15) videos for $13.99 (which also includes the 18 songs!), that might be worth it for the big fan. Personally, I don’t watch the videos enough to make it worth it.

Obviously these prices will change eventually, but I’m sure the the $2.99 price probably wont last long.

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Forty-four minutes of video of Tori Amos playing at KCRW this morning.

Below is just the audio of the show.

Here’s a direct link for video and audio.

She plays new and old music (lots of old!). I found it really enjoyable! There is some interviews in the middle of there too (starts about 15 minutes in and last for 12-14 minutes).

PS – You can get CitiBank $5 lawn tickets for Tori Amos in Indianapolis, IN on 8/7/09 and Miami Beach, FL on 7/29/09 (sort by event and look on pages 3 and 4). There might be some other fees, but it’s still got to be a deal. I’m sure this offer won’t last long, if you check and they’re gone, please leave a comment and I’ll cross it off. If you get the deal leave a comment too!

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It’s a shame to become so popular after someone dies. I guess in Michael’s case so extra popular (since he was so much more famous in the past and not so much lately).

And it’s always shame for someone to die so young.

Rest in Peace Michael!

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Last Saturday night I went downtown to see the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Project Bandaloop. Here’s the description (from the web site):

A late-night outdoor concert held on the lawn adjacent to The Ellington parking structure, across from Orchestra Hall. San Francisco’s extraordinary aerial dance troupe, Project Bandaloop, will add their beautiful, gravity-defying vertical choreography, performing to the dulcet sounds of the celebrated hometown orchestra.

Here’s a photo of them with the garage (the lighting wasn’t the best for photos).

So here’s several clips I shot with my pocket digital camera, my Canon 1100, it worked way better than I thought it would have.

A really short clip of showing the grace of Project Bandaloop as they “dance” on the side of a building accompanied by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Forgive the quality of the middle of this clip, I zoom in on one of the Project Bandaloop performers as she dances on the side of a building accompanied by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

It’s noisy as the baby plays with it’s rattle (not my baby, but he was adorable).

A 23 second clip of showing six of the Project Bandaloop crew “dance” on the side of a building accompanied by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. There were probably 12 people going at the same time.

This is a long clip, almost 2 minutes, but I wanted you to see a chunk of the act instead of the little snippits I posted separately. You can really hear the baby play along with the music, I’d pretty much tuned it out by then.

After a while you sort of turn everything 90-degrees in your head and can see what they’re doing as if on a dance floor (in low gravity).

Here’s a blurry zoomed in shot of a group of four Project Bandaloop members.

This was great, I wish I could have been on top of the parking garage to have shot straight down at them so it would have looked like they were on a flat surface.

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At WordCamp Chicago last weekend Darryl Markette kicked off the day playing a song called BlogStar, it was based on a song called RockStar. He finally recorded it as a video, so here I am sharing it with you!

Here’s the direct link to the HD video of BlogStar.

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Why doesn’t anyone have a bike rack any more? It’s a pain in the ass when I need to park it somewhere. I’m being healthy and ecological and have to climb in the bushes to find a place to lock it up. The only thing around with one is the library. Although I guess since I’m at McDonald’s, healthy isn’t the first thought in my head.

I’ve got these stupid songs from Glee (that link goes to a free HD download of the pilot), running through my head. The two songs in particular are You’re the one that I want from Grease and Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. Kind of a cute show, most of the adult characters are pretty lame though (the women especially). I just noticed they’ve got the cast doing Don’t Stop Believin’ at iTunes.

I think I need to go see Night at the Museum II and/or Terminator Salvation some time this weekend.

It’s another awesomely sunny day out too!

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Here’s a free Christmas Album sponsored by Oprah. This is the same album from a few weeks ago.

Don’t miss the cover art links too!

Once again – It says it’s only available for 48 hours, but I don’t know when the clock started ticking…

• Faith Hill, “Joy to the World” from the album Joy to the World
• Tony Bennett, “I’ll be Home for Christmas” from the album A Swingin’ Christmas
• Il Divo, “O Holy Night” from the album The Christmas Collection
• Josh Groban, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” from the album Noel
• Brian McKnight, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” from the album I’ll Be Home for Christmas
• Amy Grant, “O Come All Ye Faithful” from the album The Christms Collection
• Harry Connick Jr., “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” from the album What a Night! A Christmas Album
• Aretha Franklin, “Silent Night” from the album This Christmas

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Here’s a free Christmas Album sponsored by Oprah.