Here We Go Again

It's called Hey Mami, by some idiots calling themselves Fannypack.

Since I resisted the urge to ever watch The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, this pollution has been imposed on my ears by Dance Central. Thanks for that, Harmonix. I think you erased my brain.

Showing my age as an eighties teen, I went to see the Morrissey concert last night with darthhellokitty and king_chiron. General overview - the sound department sucked, and couldn't seem to hit the right balance between singer and band so that one didn't overwhelm the other, to the extent that Morrissey stopped mid-song and bitched about it at one point. But it takes more than that level of inconvenience to kill a really good song, and damn, that guy's turned out some fantastic music over the last couple of decades.

The look that he wore in his twenties doesn't work so well with the grey, thinning hair and the middle aged waistline - so in typical Morrissey style, he ripped off his shirt as he sang, 'But then you open your eyes and see someone that you physically despise', just to overstate the case, and then bailed for the wings to return with a new one XD A really good show, though, opening with 'The Queen is Dead' and mixing up old Smiths hits with Morrissey tracks in a good balance of styles and tempo. Some nicely timed moments - one track segued into a keyboard rendition of 'Auld Lang Syne', layered so it took a while to figure out what was going on underneath, and the whole thing performed in the incredibly clear, pure bell-like tones of a percussion instrument something like a celeste. And then while Morrissey lay sprawled across the stage (few performers can work a nap into their act so in character XD) and the audience hung enraptured by the sound, the band and lights exploded into 'How Soon is Now'. Very effective.

The opening act was interesting - Kristeenyoung (yes she does spell it that way, annoyingly, all as one word). A girl in a bubble-wrap dress with her keyboard and a drummer, and a liking for odd musical dissonances. I thought musically she had some resemblance to early Sinead O'Connor tracks when she was being an Angry Young Thing. king_chiron said she reminded him of Kate Bush, and I can see that. I bought her album 'The Orphans' after the show.

Got to bed at 12.40am, and had to be up at 6.30 for my day at the wildlife centre. I'm sleepy now, and I can't miss karate tonight because I've got a grading on Wednesday....

Last night, I went to see Seattle Opera's production of Handel's Julius Caesar with imre_nico and Mr Nico. The results I think it's fair to describe as, um, mixed.

It started off rather amusingly, if perhaps not entertaining in quite the way the choreographer intended, with a dancing battle scene between Roman and Egyptian soldiers during the overture. The problem being it was a little difficult to tell from the ballet-lite style whether we were watching a battle or a slash take on opera, which induced in us inappropriate fits of the giggles.

But things really started to go wrong with the entrance of Caesar. I've been to a lot of opera and I'm used to Caesar being sung by a woman, that's standard. Of course, it helps if the woman isn't short, fat, heavily busted and wearing a gold outfit that accentuates all of the above. But little of that is precisely Ewa Podles' fault and I could have coped if it weren't for the rest of it.

Notes to the casting director:
1) Caesar should not be a contralto trying to sing a mezzo role.
2) Caesar should absolutely, definitely not, above all, look and sound exactly like a sea lion honking whenever the coloratura comes along. Because this is Handel, and the coloratura comes along quite a lot.

( More lengthy and somewhat bitchy commentary )

And now the SO and I are about to go on a ranger-led snowshoe-ing trip. We've never tried snowshoe-ing before, and we booked it 6 weeks ago, because they fill up that far in advance. And it's windy and raining - this looks like fun!