Category Archives: Music

The Rat Pack Live at the Sands and Dinner at Sonoma Bistro & Wine Bar

Saturday night Sweetie and I left SuperPizzaBoy in the care of sitter Erica and ventured downtown to see the matinee of “The Rat Pack Live at the Sands.” at the PAC.

The show is a recreation of the shows that Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, junior gave at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas during the early 1960s. Obviously not knowing much of anything about the original shows but having seen Frank, Dean, and Sammy plenty on tv during my childhood, I loved the show. The guys, Setphen Triffitt, David Hayes, and Phil Barley as Frank, Sammy, and Dean respectively could really sing.

My favorite was David Hayes. He sang a unique version of “Mr. Bojangles” that made it actually sound like a song. I hate sloppy songs and Mr. Bojangles is the worst ever but I liked Mr. Hayes version tremendously.

The little one liners they tossed out and zingers from Frank and Dean toward Sammy were entertaining also although the audience missed the some of the jokes.

Guys, the ladies playing the Burelli Sisters did a very nice job also.

It was a very satisfying show and I recommend it highly.

Afterward, Sweetie and I had dinner in Brookside at Sonoma Bistro & Wine Bar. We were looking for something a little unique and decided on this. It is a nice little restaurant with a huge wine list many of them by the glass and a small but interesting menu. They told us that they use local and organic ingredients so they are very politically correct. But hey, is the food good, heck yeah, the food is great. I had chicken and avocado sandwich with a cup of tomato bisque , Sweetie had a cobb salad.

I splurged and spent more on the glass of wine that I had than on my meal. Something about good wine just makes it taste a lot better than the rotgut I get.

Dinner was great. I would go back.

Time to get back to reality. SuperPizzaBoy had his friend “N” over for a sleepover Saturday night.

Carrie Underwood Concert

Wednesday night we left left SuperPizzaBoy with Clara the sitter and Sweetie and I headed downtown to the BOK Arena to see Carrie Underwood.

She put on quite a show. She is even more beautiful live than on TV. She is really gorgeous. She was like #2 gorgeous woman in Oklahoma that night. She wore some really nice outfits. Her first dress was very short. As she was going down a runway into the audience bending down shaking hands she said “I’m glad I’m wearing shorts under this dress tonight.” I strained my eyes really hard, I couldn’t quite see her shorts.

She can really belt it out and sing and is really personable. It is very hard to believe that it has been just since 2005 since she won American Idol.

The production was good, the only cheesy thing was the video montage, during a costume change, of her winning multiple awards during the years. Its like, OK Carrie, we know that you are a big star. After all we bought tickets to be here girl. Also, its about time she dropped the “oh golly gosh, I can’t believe I’m a star, and I’m just from Checotah, Oklahoma and I’ve been to Nashville, and I’ve been to Hollywood, and I’ve been to New York City, and I just can’t believe that all that is happening to little ole me and everybody is being so nice to me” rap. We know that you are a star Carrie! Start acting like one.

You can tell that she had true fans there. The fans sang the hit songs right back at her word for word. We were at a Garth Brooks concert once and he said that was the highest tribute that a fan could make toward a singer, singing the song back. I think it is a little strange myself.

Carrie still has a sweetness to her. She had her 5 year old niece on stage to help sing “American Girl” and she had an infant nephew in her arms in another song until they had to cut it short because he started crying. Neither song went quite to plan but Carrie looked she didn’t mind a bit.

Another thing was that when she was done singing, she said good night, the house lights came on, and the audience hauled ass for the parking lots. No encore, no nothing. What is up with that? I’ve never been to a concert that didn’t have an encore. Is that a country concert thing. The only other country concert I’ve been to was Garth Brooks. He had an encore, he’d of sang all night I think.

Maybe she sang all her songs and didn’t have any left.

I like her and all that and am proud of her being from Oklahoma but really and truly I’m can’t help but think that if she had she just stuck it out with Tony Romo the Dallas Cowboys would be doing much better than they are. I just don’t think that Tony ever got over the breakup.

One final note on the venue. The nosebleed seats at the BOK Arena are not very satisfying. They are too high up and the video screens are occluded by some strange apparatus. The sound was kind of muddy up there compared to the Eagles where we were fortunate to sit quite a bit lower.

Anyways, it was nice to go see Ms. Underwood. She put on a good show.

I rate it a 3 stars out of 4. Great voice and performance were huge plusses. Cheesy self promotion video and no encore slight minuses. Venue problems not her fault.

Death Magnetic Review

Metallica has a new album out, “Death Magnetic.” The first album (not counting cheesy “Live Albums'” they have had in a about 8 years.

I’ve had the album about a week and a half. I’m a “friend” of theirs on myspace. I got on their page to see what their other friends have to say. Their were over 800 comments on the day the album was released. This erudite group’s opinion was basically, “Your cd kicks ass, you guys &%*#$&^ rock!”
I think that is well put so I’ll leave it at that.

Bottom lines for me is the album has 10 tracks. Two of them, “Broken, Beat, and Scarred” and “Cyanide.” are outstanding. Two of the others, “Suicide and Redemption” and “My Apocalypse”, are not all that good to me. The first is an instrumental song. I’m old school, “Wipeout” is the only decent instrumental rock song. The other song, I just didn’t care for. The rest of the songs are worth listening to.

Sweetie swiped my Eagles CD, so I have to listen to this over and over.
Metallica is coming to Tulsa in November. I’m not going. Nope, one guy I was listening to on XM Radio station “Mandatory Metallica” said that at Metallica concerts he checks his ears periodically because he could swear that he could feel them bleeding for the volume of the sound.
Not for me.
Besides they are sold out.

Long Road Out of Eden

After the Eagles Concert here last weekend, Sweetie bought me their new cd. It has been out for a while but I don’t remember hearing any tunes from it until the concert. Their new songs were actually quite good so it got us interested in their music.

The new album ( I know that dates me, but hey I’m old potbellied fat guy so I’ll call disks albums if I want to) is called “Long Road Out of Eden.” It has two disks (discs?) and has 20 songs (are they still called songs?)

They are very good. I’m not much of a Joe Walsh or Timothy Schmitt fan but even their songs are not that bad. The very best song of the group is “No More Walks in the Wood.” It is only a two minute acapella song, but it gives me goosebumps. Those guys can harmonize! Also notable are “Waiting in the Weeds”, “No More Cloudy Days”, and the title track “Long Road Out of Eden.”

I give the album a solid four stars out of four and myself a good kick in the butt for not buying it before. Sweetie wants me to give it to her so she can listen to it, but I’m not ready to part with it!

Death Magnetic is Coming


Metallica is close to releasing their next album. “Death Magnetic” available tomorrow wherever better music is sold. They have their own XM channel now, “Mandatory Metallica” channel 51.

Sweetie absolutely hates Metallica, SuperPizzaBoy, my little rocker cannnot stand them either. They obviously have better taste in music than I do.

Some people read romance novels, others read Tom Clancy novels (I like him!), some like Doris Day movies. I like Metallica and others of the their kind (Korn, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Megadeath, Bride, among others.) I love the frenetic guitar playing, the big sound, the vocals. I know that makes me real shallow, but so be it.

My favorite album of theirs was their last, “St. Anger.” Their lead singer James Hetfield went to rehab halfway through it. The whole project was put off until he came back. They put out a dvd of them rehearsing the songs with, with the cd. I only watched it once. I have to wait until I’m alone in the house before I can play it.

I’ve come to find out that your so called “true” Metallica fans hate Saint Anger. It was really my introduction to them. I got it right after we found out that SuperPizzaBoy might have autism. The song “Invisible Kid’ is, in my mind, about SPB, and other kids who our local school districts would just as soon go away.

They also put out a documentary with the same name, “Saint Anger”. It was very painful to watch. Lots of bickering and fighting. It struck me how inflated and self important these guys are except for the bass player, Robert Trujillo who looks overcome with joy when he is playing. The documentary caused a momentary disillusionment of mine with the song “Invisible Kid”. They taped a session of the band flopped out on sofas trying to write the lyrics to Invisible Kid. They picked the words mainly because of their rhyming value. I didn’t see a whole lot of soul searching going on. I finally decided that the song has meaning to me.

Anyway, I’m buying Death Magnetic the minute I can. I’m playing it in my car so if you want a ride, you will have to put up with it. I’m putting it on my ipod. You have your brain candy and I have mine.

They are coming to town in November. My employer is a presenting sponsor. I can get tickets before they go on sale to the general public. Anybody want to go? Sweetie won’t go with me, and I’m not sure that they are Cub Scout friendly.

Eagles Concert

Saturday night Sweetie and I left SuperPizzaBoy with Brandy the baby sitter and we went downtown to see the Eagles at the new BOK Center downtown.

The new Arena is very shiny and nice. A big city type facility here in Tulsa.

The Eagles played a fantastic concert. They played over 3 hours including a short break. They are looking a little old but so is their audience. They really sang well and gave Tulsa their best effort. They came back twice for encores. Their voices are still great and their musicianship playing the music was great.

They played a bunch of their old stuff and some of their new stuff. I don’t know their new stuff but Sweetie and I will probably buy their new album.

I have even forgiven them for bringing Joe Walsh into the band a long time ago. I even liked the song “Hotel California” tonight for the first time ever. I have hated that song for literally 30 years, so this is a big step for me.

I give the concert a solid 4 stars out of four. I strongly recommend seeing them when they come back to town in November.

The picture below is their set. The man in the foreground is my friend Tom. I’ve known Tom a long time. He and his wife and myself marshalled the tee box at the 17th hole during the PGA Tournament at Southern Hills last summer.