Last weekend was my favorite annual tradition – two days at the Great Minnesota Get-Together in Falcon Heights. This was the 40th year in a row for me and was the most crowded visit yet (although I guess it was not a record).

We had tickets to the Saturday night grandstand show, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock, so we decided to get there in the early afternoon. Our usual secret route to the parking lot across from the coliseum was totally backed up, but we did get a spot. Lines at all of the food booths were 10-15 deep and the streets were jammed with people.

The concert itself was entertaining. “Fake Skynyrd” was OK, the people watching was great and Kid Rock was an awesome performer. After the show, we watched the nightly dance party at the corn booth, then said hi to our friend Art, who performs every day at the Cafe Caribe stage.

Sunday was the 25th annual Milk Run 5K, which kid one and I ran together in 34:34. We saw a few neighbors out running too and my mother-in-law stopped in at the finish. It always amazes me how many people we run into at the fair each year.

The kids used up their Kidway tickets in record time and we hit most of the buildings and food stands we planned on, then left around 3PM. I spent a lot of money and ate a lot of food, but didn’t seem to gain too much weight this time. The stomach did need a few days to recover from the grease onslaught, though.

Earlier this week, Colleen and I were invited to a free blogger night at the latest Cirque du Soleil touring show to visit the Twin Cities, Kooza. If you’ve visited here in the past, you may know that Cirque shows are one of my fetishes.

I actually had purchased four tickets to see this show when it was originally scheduled to make the U.S. premier in St. Paul a year ago. After they announced the re-scheduled dates, I purchased two tickets to take my mom next week as a mother’s day gift. These free tickets were a nice bonus surprise that gave me the chance to take Colleen as well.

The Grand Chapiteau makes its first appearance on my side of the river and fit in nicely off the corner of Kellogg and Broadway, overlooking the Mississippi River. Parking was easy and inexpensive at the St. Paul Farmer’s Market lot ($5) and traffic in and out of our midweek 8PM show was almost non-existent (even with a mostly full crowd).

Reviews of this show in both main newspapers were good (although I just read the headlines to avoid spoilers), so I had high expectations going in to this one. I won’t spoil anything here either, but will say that this is one of the best Cirque shows we’ve seen and is well worth attending.

The St. Paul run has been extended through August 9 and discounted tickets can be purchased for selected shows via this link.

As I recently wrote about Robert Cray, watching masters perform their craft is one of the most rewarding experiences for me. Kooza is full of masters – catch them if you can…

Last night Colleen and I got to see something you don’t normally get to do – watch a masterful musician perform in a very small club. The Robert Cray Band was performing at the Cabooze in Minneapolis and we were up close and personal.

It only took me 40 years of living in the Twin Cities, but I finally made it to the Cabooze. It was smaller than I expected and the layout was sort of goofy for live music, but the sound was good. I thought parking was going to be a problem, but we read the sign about free parking at AIOIC and all was good.

We’ve now seen this band play at the Minnesota Zoo, the Minnesota State Fair, the Fitzgerald and maybe one or two other places. Last night’s concert included a few new songs from an album Mr. Cray said is coming in August. Two songs in particular, Chicken in the Kitchen and Love 2009, were great and fun to hear. Other highlights for me included Right Next Door (Because of Me), Back Door Slam, Time Makes Two and The One in the Middle. I don’t think he played anything from Twenty this time – sort of hoped to hear Poor Johnny.

Overall, though, it was a great show and this continues to be a group I’ll see whenever they come to town. One final note: Jim Pugh on the Hammond organ is a sight to behold. Go Jim, Go!

Last night Colleen and I went to see Morrissey at the State Theater in Minneapolis. This was our first time seeing him perform live, although we had seen him in person once before:

A few years ago, he was doing a show at the Las Vegas House of Blues that we almost attended. The next day as we were leaving town, he was in line in front of us at the airport Cinnabon! No one else was in there but us, Morrissey and his band. We sat at the table next to them and listened in until they left. We still stop at the “Morrissey Cinnabon” every time we go back to Vegas…

The show openers were the Manchester band The Courteeners, who played an entertaining, enjoyable set. I had to ask the guys behind us to please stop yelling back and forth and take their conversation out to the lobby – why does this happen at every show now? Shut the hell up, already, and listen to the music.

Damn I hate that.

As the roadies broke down the Courteeners gear, they played older videos of the New York Dolls and Shocking Blue, among others. Once the curtain was torn down, the stage opened up to a cool WWII-era photo of a sailor showing his guns and smoking a cigar. Here’s a crappy iPhone picture:

I don’t have a set list yet, but I think it was very similar to the Chicago show two nights ago:

• This Charming Man
• Something is Squeezing My Skull
• Billy Budd
• Black Cloud
• How Soon is Now
• Irish Blood, English Heart
• How Could Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
• Ask
• I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
• The World is Full of Crashing Bores
• Death of a Disco Dancer
• The Loop
• I Keep Mine Hidden
• One Day Goodbye Will be Farewell
• Seasick, Yet Still Docked
• Best Friend on the Payroll
• Let Me Kiss You
• Sorry Doesn’t Help
• When Last I Spoke to Carol
• I’m OK by Myself
• – Encore –
• First of the Gang to Die

I’m not an ultra-Morrissey fan, so I don’t know all of the song titles by heart. I’ll revise this list when I see something posted elsewhere. I do know that he dedicated a song towards the end to “our friend Jill Smith who passed away in London today” and proceeded to play Life Is A Pigsty.

A few songs I was hoping to hear (but didn’t): Glamourous Glue, Redondo Beach and I Have Forgiven Jesus (which, if you ever used to watch the old Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, holds special meaning). I knew those were all long-shots, but otherwise really loved the show. The version of How Soon is Now? was amazing and I was glad he played my favorite song from the new album – When Last I Spoke to Carol (despite the lack of a trumpet and old western sound effects).

The 49-year-old Englishman took off his shirt twice during the show and a near riot broke out during the encore as people tried to jump up on the stage. The tall, young Lurch of a security man stage left seemed to enjoy his job a little too much, violently throwing people back into the crowd. You know it’s bad when the huge bald security guy has to restrain the tall, young security guy.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of the evening, however, was the woman in the row in front of us. She really liked Morrissey and had more energy and dance moves than I’ve seen anywhere in a long time. And I’m about 95% sure she had multiple orgasms during the course of the evening.

Not a bad deal for $40, eh?

UPDATE: Here is the Minneapolis set list, according to the Star Tribune:

• This Charming Man
• Billy Budd
• Black Cloud
• How Soon Is Now?
• Irish Blood, English Heart
• When I Last Spoke to Carol
• How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
• I Keep Mine Hidden
• Let Me Kiss You
• Seasick, Yet Still Docked
• That’s How People Grow Up
• Death Of A Disco Dancer
• The Loop
• Something Is Squeezing My Skull
• The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores
• I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
• Sorry Doesn’t Help
• Ask
• Life Is A Pigsty
• I’m OK By Myself
• – Encore –
• First Of The Gang To Die

Originally scheduled to make the U.S. premiere in St. Paul, Kooza is finally re-scheduled to come back. Shows start July 3rd and are currently on sale to Cirque Club members for various dates through July 26th (no shows on Mondays or on Tuesday the 21st).

Pricing for this show is sort of complicated (see this page), but basically ranges from $60 to $215 for adults and from $42 to $150.50 for kids age 2-12. Discounts are also available for students and seniors on non-peak performances. Children under 2 years old are free, but must sit on a parent’s lap.

I believe the big top (or “Grand Chapiteau”) will be in the parking lot off of Kellogg in Lowertown overlooking the river. Capacity for each performance is 2,600 and the show is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, including a 30-minute intermission.

Even though Cirque is one of my fetishes (and I had purchased four tickets for the last time this show was supposed to be here), I’m not sure if we will be going to this one. I definitely can’t afford to take the whole family, but maybe Colleen and I can sneak away for two cheap seats.

A day after our return from Florida, Colleen and I took a two night trip out to Las Vegas to celebrate my 40th birthday. We stayed at the Bellagio and met our friends the Millers for dinner at the new BLT Burger restaurant, followed by the 9:30 showing of the Beatles Cirque show, LOVE. The American Kobe burger was great, especially with a vanilla shake. It was sort of weird eating where the white tigers used to lounge around…

We are huge fans of Cirque du Soleil and had high expectations for LOVE. Unfortunately, they were a little too high. If you take away the incredible music of the Beatles, you are left with a very average Cirque show. We’ve seen many of these acts before in other shows, but performed with more flair. One exception to this was the roller blade act, which was truly remarkable. It’s a shame so many of the other acts were just so-so (by Cirque standards). At least there weren’t any annoying clowns!

Despite the recession, Las Vegas is still an expensive town. While we found good deals on the hotel room and the show tickets, almost all of our meals were more than $50 for two people (even breakfast) and I still can’t believe places think they need to charge for refills on $4 sodas.

I was a little disappointed in two of my favorite travel companies – Sun Country Airlines and the Bellagio. Sun Country has added the luggage charge to the first checked bag, added fees for advance seat selection and most importantly, dropped the free cheeseburgers. I guess I’d rather have them stay in business, but they were one of the last “good guys” when it came to these nice customer-focused policies.

As for the Bellagio, I had emailed them ahead of time telling them we were coming out for a special event, but no one said or did anything until the last day. A casino loyalty program worker came up to us while playing video poker and offered to bring us reprinted cards (we had left ours at home). When he checked my ID, he wished me a belated birthday. I know they are a huge hotel run by a huge corporation, but that’s what databases are for, right?

Gambling was as fun as ever, although I ended up down about $25. I wish I could be like the guy in jeans and a T-shirt sitting at the $300 minimum blackjack table with his girlfriend, but I got nervous enough at the $5 table and quit after about 15 minutes. The poker room at the Bellagio was calling me too, but I chickened out – I think I need a few test runs at the local casinos first. Video poker was a nice substitute, though, and I actually enjoyed playing the slots this time too.

What a city…