In crappy news, my cat, Avon, had to be put to sleep last week. Basically, it sucked (understatement) but it was the right decision. :(

Also last week, two of my best friends moved to Africa for the next year. It's super great for them and I hope to get the chance to visit them. I'm gonna miss them like crazy though (thank goodness for instant messaging/email/video chat).

lost_land and teamothers are going well-ish. The non-participants (of which there are too many for my liking) are starting to stress me out but the people who are participating in team comm/challenges are awesome! I'm having a fun time getting to know everyone and seeing the awesome stuff they make. We won our first challenge the other day which was nice. :D

I went to see Rufus Wainwright last week. It was the end of his tour and he let all of his emotions (of which there were many) loose. He sounded beautiful as ever and his sister, Martha, was great too (her Edith Piaf covers were amazing).

( A few pictures behind the cut )

Just got back from seeing the musical Young Frankenstein, which is having it's pre-Broadway run at The Paramount Theatre in Seattle. It was absolutely fantastic, I highly recommend it. The sets, costumes, and songs were all lovely and best of all it was hysterical. Roger Bart as Dr. Frankenstein, Megan Mullaly as Frankenstein's finance, Elizabeth, Sutton Foster as Inga, and Christopher Fitzgerald as Igor were all absolutely fabulous. If that wasn't enough, there were enough sex jokes to last me a lifetime which always adds to the fun.

Next Saturday is Bumbershoot (P!ATD, GCH, Head Automatic, The Shins, The Lashes, Stella, etc...). YAYAYAYA! I can't wait!

I just got back from seeing Rufus Wainwright who was ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!

He has such a fun, flamboyant personality and he sounds pretty much flawless live. He had a great band/back-up singers so he could play his songs w/the big horn sections. Though he sounded so lovely when it was just him singing and playing the piano (or guitar) that I could watch a whole concert of just him.

He played most of his new album, Release the Stars, a lot from Want One and Want Two, a few Judy Garland songs, and a song in French. I think my favorites were "Going to A Town," "Between My Legs," "14th Street," and "Gay Messiah." I was disappointed that he didn't play anything from Rufus Wainwright or Poses but I wasn't terribly surprised.

For the first part of the show Rufus wore a pinstripe suit which he managed to make look horribly tacky by affixing many sparkly pins to. It made me happy to see Rufus displaying the horrendous fashion sense that I know and love him for. For the second bit of the concert he wore his Lederhosen that he got recently and seems really proud of in interviews. During the encore he wore a fluffy white robe which he later removed to reveal a a woman's suit (I think it was just the top) and black panty hose accessorized with sparkly jewels, a nice hat, and some high heels (oh, and he applied some lipstick!). He and his band did a dance routine to "Get Happy" and he ended the show performing "Gay Messiah" in drag. He is lovely and has killer legs which I totally covet.

Rufus is quite possibly my favorite artist out right now so I'm thrilled that I got the chance to see him. He totally lived up to all my expectations. Also, Rufus' openers A Fine Frenzy and Sean Lennon were wonderful too!

( Rufus' outfits: )

And 'cause I don't show him enought love sometimes ( A Mini Rufus Picspam )

I just got back from seeing The Police in concert. It was pretty rad. There was a lot of really great rock guitar and some awesome reggaeish bass beats. I also enjoyed the percussion, with the little cymbals and bells and timpani (I believe). Plus, the drummer was silly so I liked him. Sting's voice still sounds great and he's pretty good looking for a man of advancing years (I don't actually know how old he is). They played all their big hits, a bunch of songs I vaguely recognized, and a few more besides.

Before the concert I went to Easy Street Records and bought The Matches' album E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals and the May issue of Kerrang (w/The Used as cover boys..."crazy Bert is back" according to the cover!).

So I got the chance to see The Who perform at the Key Arena tonight and it was pretty amazing. I knew that they would be good, I mean they're The Who, but I didn't know they'd be as good as they were. They played a bunch of great famous songs like Pinball Wizard, My Generation, Who Are You, You Better You Bet, Baba O'Riley (Teenage Wasteland), & Won't Get Fooled Again. They also played a bunch of songs from their new album (the first in 20+ yrs) which is coming out soon. Those songs were good to; it's hard to compare them to the older songs because those are rock & roll classics but they were certainly enjoyable.

Everything sounded great all around, the musical instruments and the vocals. Pete Townshend can really wail on his guitar and Roger Daltrey screams with the best of them. I left the concert with a pleasant fuzziness in my hearing ability!

Anyway, I still kind of can't believe that I got to see The Who. I'm still excited about it! And on Tuesday I get to see the Rolling Stones (w/special guest Dave Matthews Band)...I think I may soon go deaf.


Oh, and hearing "Won't Get Fooled Again" always makes me think of the Bushism "Fool me.....can't get fooled again" and The Daily Show making fun of it:






In other rock & roll related news, I was able to see the new John Lennon documentary "The US VS John Lennon" last weekend. I would recommend the film based solely on the fact that you get to hear tons of Beatles and Lennon's solo music which is always a treat. I also loved watching all of the protest footage from that era. It was interesting to see the unique things that John and Yoko did to non-violently protest the Vietnam war. They showed lots of footage of John and Yoko's "bed in" which they held, in lieu of a honeymoon, like a sit in protest. It was funny watching them try to explain their concept of "total communication," which consisted of them hiding themselves in a bag, to the press which just wanted pictures of them and who were baffled by what they were doing. I also loved seeing the billboards that they bought all around the world that read "War is over if you want it. Merry Christmas, John & Yoko." I've heard the song merry x-mas (war is over) but I never knew they financed a billboard campaign to go along with it.

I was also interested in the details of the plot to get John & Yoko deported because of their influence over the new younger voting bloc. But ultimately, even though the "US VS" part of the movie was interesting I think the reason it was enjoyable was because John Lennon was such an unrivaled, unique personality and it was great to see so much footage of him that I hadn't previously seen. Also, the documentary did a good job of keeping the commentary relevant to the time period instead of drawing parallels to the present (although there were one or two comments) but I was struck by how many disturbing parallels I was drawing during the movie, they didn't have to do it for me.