Yesterday we went to the Rock the Garden event presented by the Walker Art Center and 89.3 The Current. Artists on the bill included Andrew Bird, The New Pornographers, Cloud Cult and Bon Iver.

The performances were good, but the setup was awful. They shut down Vineland Place and set up the stage across from where the old Guthrie Theater stood. It was pointed east towards downtown, but there were several problems with that: people in the street had to look right into the setting sun, most of the food vendors were also set up in that area and a large part of the crowd sat on the hill to the south, which had terrible sound.

We missed most of the Bon Iver set waiting in line - first to pay at the automated parking kiosk and then to get in to the actual performance area. Once inside, it was wall-to-wall people everywhere. This was made worse by a large fenced off VIP area that hardly had anyone in it. The only uncrowded area was the aforementioned hillside, which would have been perfect if they had any speakers pointed that way. I’m sure that was to appease the neighbors, but it would make the venue so much better.

Most interesting performance thing we saw (before we left early) were the two painters in Cloud Cult creating new artwork during the performance that they auctioned off afterward. Never seen anything like that before…

Last weekend my wife and I went to see our favorite comedic group make a triumphant return to Minneapolis. The Kids in the Hall 2008 Tour stopped Saturday night at the Orpheum Theater (after previously appearing at the State last time they were here). Watching the gang in person - Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson - is like hanging out with old friends.

The show was fairly short (maybe 90 minutes), but included one very funny NSFW video, chicken lady phone sex, Cathy tweeking, a Gavin sketch, The Salesmen, a Buddy Cole rant (”Twin Cities men - nothing mini or saintly about them!”) and an encore with the headcrusher. Those guys are such a funny and talented group - Canadian entertainment at it’s finest!

Before the show, we stopped at Ristorante Luci in St. Paul for dinner. Their food is as good as the Kids are funny. We both started out with the Insalata Cesare, followed by a shared order of housemade fettuccine with peas, chicken and prosciutto. That pasta was awesome - the first outside of Alfredo’s I’ve had that is worthy of the name. For the final course, my wife had the pork chop, while I had “American Kobe” beef with mashed potatoes. We had early reservations, but had to leave for the show before we could try the pretty mini-bundt cake desert.

Oh yeah, one last note on the show. I read about the tour on one of my newsfeeds and went to Ticketmaster to search for more info. I saw the Minnesota date listed, but general public sales hadn’t started yet. There was a link for a presale, but I didn’t know the code (or who was sponsoring the presale). On a whim, I tried “KITH” and damn if it didn’t let me in. As you can see from the ticket above, row N on the main floor was a pretty good reward for this old hacker…

Last night my wife and I went to see Mary Lucia of the Current interview Chuck D and Slug from Atmosphere and hear Brother Ali perform during their season-ending Fakebook series event at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul.

I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but it was a very entertaining evening. Brother Ali performed two songs at the start (including an awesome version of Letter from the Government with added verses at the end), followed by about an hour interview of Chuck D.

There was a short intermission, then Slug performed a few songs (including Guarantees from the new album When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold). Slug joined Chuck D on the couch and Mary interviewed both of them. Brother Ali came out again at the end and performed one song solo, followed by a free-style jam with Slug (no old school rap from Mr. Ridenhour though, dammit).

Chuck D talked about the early history of hip-hop, including stories about Rick Rubin at Def-Jam, Flavor Flav, Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys. There were a lot of great quotes and references–hopefully MPR posts the audio somewhere so I can go back and write them down. Not much talk about the future of the music business like I wanted, but it would still be great for the students at HSRA to hear the whole interview. Ironically, he said he visited my high school, St. Paul Central, earlier in the day (”Dave Winfield and Charles Schultz–how can you go wrong?”).

If the Fakebook series comes back again, check it out–great format at a decent price.

There are very few artists I will travel out of town to see, but Richard Thompson is definitely one of them. When I saw he was playing the very small Papa Charlie’s Tavern and Stage in Lutsen, I ordered my ticket and booked a room for Saturday night.

I’ve been to the Papa Charlie’s restaurant before, but had never seen a show there. The ticket said doors at 8pm and I arrived a little after 7:30. Walked right in without showing my ticket and couldn’t figure out how they were going to set up the place. I ended up talking to what I think was the venue manager and he had me turn in my ticket for a wristband and said the small area in front of the stage would be standing room only, with some bar stool chairs along the back wall.

Once I knew the lay of the land, I camped out on the edge of the stage (stage right, about four feet from the mic). The sunken area in front of the stage is barely big enough for a ping pong table (which was actually what was there when I first arrived). A crowd of between 350-400 (per the manager) filled in behind me and we were ready to go at 9pm, when the stage manager turned down the lights.

Unfortunately, they came back up a few minutes later and they announced the show would start at 9:30 instead. Once he took the stage, this is what we got to hear:

• Bathsheba Smiles
• Walking on a Wire
• Crawl Back (Under My Stone)
• Down Where the Drunkards Roll
• Dad’s Gonna Kill Me
• The Hots for the Smarts
• I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
• Sunset Song
• 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
• How Will I Ever Be Simple Again
• Cooksferry Queen
• Persuasion
• I Feel So Good
• Genesis Hall
• Johnny’s Far Away
• Pharaoh
• Valerie

First Encore:

• Beeswing
• Wall of Death

Second Encore:

• I Misunderstood

I enjoyed the show a lot and just kept staring at his hands for most of the show. Just amazing finger work, with the highlight probably being the solo towards the end of Valerie that closed out the 90-minute main set. I was happy with the song selection–Bad Monkey from the new album being the only song he didn’t play that I would have liked to hear (maybe the next electric show?).

His between song banter was in the usual Richard Thompson style, with my favorite line being “I’ve never been this far away from civilization before.” I brought a paper notebook with to record the set list (”for those of you taking notes”) and got one good shot with my iPhone (see above). The crowd was very receptive the whole night–I’d guess it was about half “true” fans and half skiers looking for some apres-ski entertainment.

Fun, fun time. Thank you Mr. Thompson!

A fan of his Daily Show appearances, I got to see Lewis Black in person this weekend at Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake. He’s even funnier live and uncensored. Every golfer needs to hear the rant he did about golfing–hopefully that will be released on a future CD or DVD.

Opener John Bowman was funny also, but he seemed to forget his lines a few times.

The new theater at Mystic was very nice, although the crowd flow after the show was awful. They also need to open up the Meadows Grille on show nights-we couldn’t get in to any of the other sit-down restaurants before the show.

After dining at the lovely Ristorante Luci, we went to see The Police concert at the Xcel Energy Center this week. Couldn’t justify the $225 tickets, but the $50 seats we had weren’t bad.

I had attended the last Twin Cities show of the band–the Synchronicity Tour at the Met Center in 1983. It was the first big concert I got to attend by myself and I remember being blown away by the energy and power of the performers and the great songs.

After reading some of the reviews of the shows from this tour, it sounded like the years had treated the band well and that they were playing with a lot of energy and passion (not just for a big payday). Unfortunately, that wasn’t the show we got to see on Tuesday night.

Two songs into the set, I was laughing at how little Sting and Andy Summers were moving around. When Sting did finally move from his mic stand, he took one leisurely stroll around the stage to wave at the people in back sections. That was about it for stage theatrics.

We watched the facial expressions of all three of them on the big screens and that provided some interesting moments. Stewart looked like he wanted to kill Sting for most of the show and Andy looked like an old English barrister who showed zero emotion–even during his excellent guitar solos. Stewart had all the old guy gear: black headband, wrist guards and what looked like braces on his feet. Sting was extremely pissed–then happy–at the sound board guys during Roxanne (which he sang the same way he’s been doing solo for 20 years).

As the locals papers mentioned in their reviews, the re-working of several songs fell flat. My biggest disappointment was Don’t Stand So Close To Me, which started off as the dark, foreboding song it was meant to be, but degraded when they got to the chorus, switched tempo and made it a happy, Calypso ditty. Bah.

I thought the show got better as it went along and I was happy they did multiple encores, but I would have been really mad if I had paid $450 for the chance to be there.

Set List (from Jon Bream’s Pop Life blog):

1. Message in a Bottle 2. Synchronicity II 3. Walking on the Moon 4. Voices in My Head/When the World Is Running Down… 5. Don’t Stand So Close to Me 6. Driven to Tears 7. Truth Hits Everybody 8. Bed’s Too Big without You 9. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic 10. Wrapped around Your Finger 11. De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da 12. Invisible Sun 13. Walking in Your Footsteps 14. Can’t Stand Losing You

Encores: 15. Roxanne 16. King of Pain 17. So Lonely 18. Every Breath You Take 19. Next to You

Last night my wife and I attended the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra performance at the Ordway Center in downtown St. Paul. The concert featured violinist Joshua Bell, a favorite of ours. We were a little confused at first by the program, which was the last of their “Jazzed-Up” offerings for the season. After the intermission, you could choose between returning to the hall to hear Beethoven’s Trio in C Minor for Violin, Viola and Cello, Op. 9 No. 3 or stay in the lobby and listen to Chris Brown and Friends play Gershwin tunes from Porgy and Bess.

We thought Mr. Bell was coming back after intermission, so we couldn’t see how anyone would stay in the lobby. I was reading from the day’s earlier concert, however, so he was done after the first two pieces. Both were sensational:

• Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 in D, K.504, “Prague”
• Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26

The second piece was my favorite. Mr. Bell was front and center, standing for all three movements. A teenage girl and her mother were sitting next to me and I was fascinated to watch the young girl follow along with the sheet music. I overheard another woman ask them if she played and she said it was a piece she has been practicing, but that it’s so hard to play. She was truly excited to hear it played by a virtuoso on a priceless instrument. That excitement was contagious.

After we figured out the Jazzed-Up options, we went into the lobby and listened to Chris Brown’s band. Prudence Johnson was the singer and we had fun listening while sampling some cheesecake. The lobby was full and my wife was tired of standing, so we decided to leave early.

When we went down the staircase, the lower level only had a dozen or so people standing around. I noticed someone sitting at a table by himself and it was Joshua Bell! The people standing were all in line to buy his CD and he was waiting to sign them after purchase. My wife bought his latest CD (again) and had it signed. I got a coveted “To DK” on my ticket (see above). A very exciting end to a fun evening…