Week o’Concerts

I saw the Beautifiul Small Machines on Tuesday night. They were at Ella Lounge, in the venue’s tiny basement, which was filled with smoke (machine-made, not from cigarettes). We walked in on the tail end of the previous set, which featured a DJ on a MacBook Pro and some guy on a guitar. Pass. One couple was even playing with a light saber-ish thingie that looked cute in the smoke, but kind of made people freak when the beam landed on them. When it landed on me I waved, and the girl scowled. Who knows what that means?

BSM’s set was great. The band seemed to be having a great time, although Bree Sharp got really emotional and said that she thought it would be her last show with the band, which was also going to be getting some new members. What does this mean? She wasn’t clear, and the band’s web sites aren’t elaborating. Bummer!

On Wednesday, I saw Ingrid Michaelson. She was fabulous! I’ve gotten over my confusion from this past summer, and have decided that Jason Mraz is definitely my favorite singer; still, she’s a close second. In my mind, Ingrid Michaelson is actually the female Mraz. She’s a great singer with an amazing voice, she’s funny, she a little hippie-ish, and she talks incessantly between songs. I wasn’t in the mood to be expansive and open-minded and did not end up seeing the opening acts, but she performed for a really long time and I was more than pleased with the quality and amount of music I heard last night.

Also, funnily enough, after I said last week that I wouldn’t recognize former Project Runway contestants if I passed them in the street, who did I pass on the street but Nicholas! Granted, he’s part of the current crop of designers, so I see his mug every week, but it still cracks me up. Look at the power of my mind! Here’s another one: I wouldn’t recognize a million dollars if it landed in my bank account. Okay, universe, it’s your turn again.

Some pics

Yesterday’s concert at Mohegan Sun was awesome. Amazing, even. It was definitely in my top 5 Mraz concerts ever. Considering that I’ve been to six of his concerts in less than a year, that’s really saying something. Right now I’m exhausted, so I’m taking myself off to bed soon, but I’ll share a couple of pics.

I’ll go into more detail about the concert in general and Mohegan Sun in the near future.

Whee!

I’m on the train from New York up to Mohegan Sun. I’m excited partly because I get to see Jason Mraz again for the first time since April, but also because I’ve never been to Mohegan Sun before. I haven’t been to a casino lately, so I’m itching to be parted with my standard $20.

I still have five hours before the concert, so it’s too early to start listening to Mraz. Thankfully, my good friend Ingrid Michaelson is here to keep me company.
I’m bringing my camera, but the concert has assigned seating, so I don’t know how well any pictures will come out. If they’re not terrible, I’ll post them tomorrow.

Belfast

So I’m having a pretty good time here in the UK. Northern Ireland is lovely, and it seems that I brought with me unexpectedly good weather. Lots of people commented to me how unusual the warm sunshine was. You’re welcome, Belfast.

For the most part, the people I met were awesome. A lot of them were really interested to hear that I was from the US and genuinely wanted to know what I thought of their fair city. Many expressed admiration and apprehension that I was on my own, and I felt like I’d traveled to a city of my own relatives. The first night, I met three older guys who showed me the local bars and told me all sorts of stuff I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. One wanted to grab dinner the next night, but I figured that it would be silly to tie myself up with the same parties two nights in a row, and nicely declined. A word of advice to anybody going to Belfast: eat early. I guess I was still in New York mode and thought that leaving my hotel room after 10 would give me time to grab food and hit the pubs, but that was absolutely not the case. I struck out at all the restaurants I saw, and was lucky to make it to McDonald’s before they, too, shut down for the night.

The next night, I learned my lesson and left to find food at 8:15 (and even that was too late to get food at some of the local pubs that served meals). I had a good dinner, went back to the hotel and watched Dollhouse and the first episode of Cupid (I’ll talk about that some time later), and then went to a couple of local bars. The people in the first weren’t really as outgoing, so I left after one drink and ended up talking with Ricky and Ian, two nice guys who work at the Belfast Telegraph. We chatted for a bit outside, but they were smoking cigarettes and I was kind of freezing, so I told them to find me when they came inside the bar.

As I sat waiting for them, this old, super drunk guy who was actually sleeping when I first walked by awakened and started mumbling to me. I have discovered that it is nearly impossible for me to understand a Belfast accent when the speaker is under the influence, so I gave him a vague smile, told him I was waiting for my friends, and went back to reading on my phone. He had just asked me to join him at his table when Ian and Ricky showed up. He scowled at us and all was well until about a half hour later, when the guys went to grab more beer and I stayed at the table. Then the drunken fossil asked me how much I would charge to go back to his home with him. At first I thought that I’d misunderstood, but he said it again and I realized that he thought I was a prostitute.

I was really hurt and wondered what I’d done to give him that impression. Later, I realized that being a single foreign woman alone in a bar, who then ended up sitting at a table and talking with two local men might give somebody the wrong impression, if that person was inclined to think like a pervert. But, while I realized it wasn’t worth disabusing him of his incorrect notion, I simply said no and decided not to stick around for the pitch. I went over to the guys at the bar and told them what the old dude had said. They were touchingly offended on my behalf, and when we got back to the table, the fossil kept yelling vulgar things at use. Ian, the cute one who looked like David Wright (he’s never really done it for me, but add an accent and I can start to understand the appeal) got up, looking pretty angry, and headed toward the old guy’s table, but Ricky stopped him from going over there, and we ignored the fossil after that.

We stayed at that bar until last call, then went to another one. On the way, I somehow managed to lose one of my pretty new dangly earrings, which made me sad. I pulled out the other one so I didn’t look deranged. Even though we went to another bar afterward, we got there after last call there, too, so I helped Ricky talk to a girl he found cute. Things were going well until she told him that she was 24 and he told her that she looked 28. It was not untrue, but that lost him major points, and it took him a while to recover his lost ground, and a lot of that was due to me. I guess I haven’t lost my touch and still make a pretty awesome wingman. The guys and I parted ways in the cab back to my hotel. I got out to find my earring and had no luck, but I went back out the next morning before leaving for the airport, and found it with no problem! It was a little crushed, but I think that it can be bent back into shape.

I had heard that there wasn’t a lot going on in Belfast, and I scheduled my vacation accordingly. If I’d known before booking how awesome Belfast is, and how relatively sedate Birmingham is in comparison, I probably would have spent 4 days in Belfast and only stopped over in Birmingham for the concert. I definitely intend to go back to Belfast and spend a lot more time there!

The first Jason Mraz concert is tonight, and I’m a bit worried. I’ve heard from a person who went to a concert in Brussels, and he said it was blah, and that’s exactly how one of the free London dailies described the Mraz concerts in London over the weekend. Maybe a day off will allow him to rev up and be on his A game for Birmingham. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!