Category Archives: Music

John Mayer Battle Studies Tour

Friday night, Sweetie and I left SuperPizzaBoy in the able hands of his Nana and went to see John Mayer at the BOK Center. He is winding up his Battle Studies Tour.

I tell you what the man and his band put on a SHOW. He rocked for hours and we loved it.

Mayer Collage One

I knew the guy could sing. What I didn’t know is that he is whiz on the guitar. I was flat amazed at his skill.

John Mayer Collage Two

His band was very able and balanced. His drummer even put on a great drum solo. I usually refer to the drum solo as the “dreaded drum solo.” The only thing worse is the “dreaded bass solo.” The drum solo was great last night, not very long either!

John Mayer Collage 3

And of course, before and after the John Mayer the audience provides a little entertainment. I’m still developing my BOK Bingo game. Anybody want to play? Here are my latest entries.

BOK Bingo Collage

Anyway, if John Mayer is coming to your town, go see him. I give his concert a 4 out of 5. It is great.

Marty Chapin Carpenter – the Age of Miracles

SuperPizzaBoy and Sweetie got me Mary Chapin Carpenter’s new cd, “the Age of Miracles” for Father’s Day. Music is always a hit with me and especially Ms. Carpenter. She is wonderful. This cd is great.  She really does a great job on this and there is not a weak song on it.

My favorite is Zephyr. Give it a listen.

I just love:

“I tried to be steady and yar
But the storms keep breaking over my head
I’m aching for blue skies instead”

Great album, I give it four stars out of four.

Michael Buble – Crazy Love Tour hits Tulsa

The other night Sweetie and I left SuperPizzaBoy in the able care of Jen the SuperBabySitter and headed downtown to the BOK Arena to see Michael Buble in his first American appearance of his Nordstroms Crazy Love Tour.

We saw him a couple years ago at the Performing Arts Center. He had a great show. Sweetie really liked it. This time it was like ok, Sweetie wants to go so lets go. I am glad we did. He really wowed me and about 14,000 other people. I loved it. He sang his old ones and his new ones and they were great.

He is really funny also. He has a kind of self deprecating cockiness too him that is very appealing.

We were sitting pretty well back so I had trouble getting good photographs.

I had never seen a performer connect with an audience like he did. He is a great singer of course but he has that something else that brings everybody together. So, anyway I’m a true believer now.

Here is a review of the concert by the Tulsa World.

The review talks about the last song was “Song for You” written by Tulsa’s own Leon Russell. What the review doesn’t say is that Buble sang the last half of the song without a microphone and without the band. You ever see anybody do that in an arena of 14,000?

If he comes to your town, scrape up the bucks for the tickets and go see him.

Rain – A Tribute to the Beatles

Saturday afternoon Sweetie saw the matinee of the “Rain” the Beatles tribute playing downtown at the Performing Arts Center.

Those guys put on a heck of a show and I recommend seeing it if it gets to your town. I don’t know, I’m not sure, I hate to say it, but Sweetie and I agreed that these guys might be better musicians than the original Fab Four. Could it be?  Their performance was dazzling.

It was a multimedia type presentation and I appreciated how it unfolded. They went roughly chronologically and spent some time on the famous performance at Shea Stadium with some video from the era. What got me was how well dressed the concert goers back then were. They were crying and screaming but they dressed better than most people did at my church’s Easter service on Sunday.

What got me about the Beatles way back when was how their music went from simple and sappy to incredibly complex. Just the way the 60’s were. The 60’s was very unsettling and the show reflected that.

I give the show four stars out of four. Go see it if you can.

Here is a segment that CBS did on Rain a couple years ago.

Norah Jones at the Brady Theater and Go SOONERS, POOH BEAR!!

Friday Night Sweetie and I had a date. Dinner and a Show!

First we went to McNellies downtown for burgers and beer. Nothing but the best for us. McNellies has dozens of beer on tap we got Chimay’s from Belgium.

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Not only are they tasty, they are beautiful to look at.

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Now, that’s what I call a perfect pairing. Sorry Sweetie, I couldn’t resist.

Then we went to the Brady Theater to see Norah Jones put on a show.

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Norah Jones Collage_Page000

I wasn’t a fan of Ms. Jones going into the show but I am now. I thought her songs lacked “oomph” they were airy and weightless and not much substance. Hey, I’m a fan now. She can really sing plus it seems that she has a nice personality and handled the drunken “I love you Norah” calls from the audience with grace and humor. She put on a wonderful show. Apparently Tulsa is the start of her nationwide tour.

The funniest thing was when she asked if there were some sort of rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma and the audience responded with the drunken “BOOMER” only it sounded like “BOOMAUGHHAH”. She just laughed and said “All I can hear is Pooh Bear. What’s that about?” I laughed and laughed. You have to live in Oklahoma to hear the drunks go “BOOMAUGHHAH.” So for the rest of my life I’ll be yelling Pooh Bear!

Sorry OU Fans, that’s the way I roll. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go to OU or OSU either one, and I love both schools (I expect SuperPizzaBoy may be attending one or the other eventually), but the Sooner Fans get a little overbearing. Hey I don’t blame them, lots to be proud of for that school. They have really worked hard building a University that the Football team can be proud of.

Go Sooners!!

POOH BEAR!!!!

Juke Boxes

One of my favorite bloggers Jen of “Are You There God, It’s Me Generation X” had a post the other day about our disappearing record stores. It made me all nostalgic about record stores and record albums and such as that and mourning the loss of record stores and the role music plays in our life. It seems like most music these days is listened on to on Ipod’s and not really shared. Everybody is doing there own thing.

SuperPizzaBoy had occasion to visit the Tulsa History Museum the other day and, guess what, they had a working juke box that one could play for free.

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So SPB picked a song and then hit the letter and the number to play. The machine gave a good solid “KATHUNK!” with each press and we heard Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” Of course SPB being himself picked the next song by playing hitting two buttons at random and so we got the Partridge Family or somethin.

When I was the age SPB is now we lived in Price, Utah. We had a favorite Mexican food restaurant in the nearby coal mining town of Helper. We used to go to the restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night and there was a always a war going on. They had a juke box and some of the local teenagers would put their quarters in to play what my Mother called “Wild hippie music.” The older’s would complain and the waitresses, who were older, would turn the volume down by some knob on the back of the machine muttering “I don’t know why them kids play there music so loud.” As soon as they went to the back, the kids would jack the volume back up. And on it would go.

Maybe that’s where I developed my love for chaos and conflict? Anyway, I thought it was great.

Anybody else out there miss juke boxes?