Paris June 18, 2008 – July 9, 2008

This year our trip to Paris was just incredible. We were able to see so many concerts, ride our bikes (two dahons – packed away in their own special suitcases), be with friends Jack and Victoria, marvel at the sites and sounds of the city, eat fabulous food, buy some great clothes, incredible weather, and espeically have time to spend alot of time together walking, riding and just enjoying the whole day and night together for 3 weeks in our favorite apartment building. Here’s some pictures of our adventure this year. Everybody asks why we go back to Paris over and over – and I think the pictures tell the story.

We were able to see so many concerts this year in Europe:
Joseph Arthur – Café de la Danse
The Bravery – La Maroquinerie
Bruce Springsteen – Parc des Prince
Radiohead – Westerpark – Amsterdam
REM – Westerpark – Amsterdam
La Moche – World Premier – Chatelet Theatre
Richie Havens, The Foals – Soidays – Le Bois de Boulogn
Bike riding in Le Bois de Boulogn was incredible especially when we got onto the bike route around the Hippodrom and found ourselves with packs of other bike riders.
We didn’t get to see any of the Tour de France this yet but for what we saw on TV once we got back to the states, but the trip was the very best.

Radiohead and REM Amsterdam

When Radiohead announced it was going to do a tour for in Rainbows David and I said – “We have to go!” and hopefully we would get to see them in Paris when we were going to be there in June/July of 2008. I got on the ticket sites and started searching. On ticketmaster for the netherlands ticketmaster.nl I found the tickets I wanted. Radiohead was going to play in a park called Westerpark. Great – it was GA and we love GA – so we bought the tickets. Last year we were supposed to go to Amsterdam and Marshall our hairdresser told us all the fun he and Douglas had in Amsterdam – so we wanted to go – but for some reason – possibly cuz i was still stressing about my Mom being gone – I just didn’t want to do anything other than just sit around Paris after we had gone to Barcelona. So we didn’t go. But this year we had to go – WE HAD TICKETS FOR RADIOHEAD.

Westerpark is a great venue for a outdoor concert. The park wasn’t too far away from the hotel we stayed at The Times Hotel (Herengracht 137 Phone: 31 20 3306030 ) – it was clean, quiet and within walking distance to the park.

Amsterdam turns out to be a bit warmer than we expected. I went out and got a sweat shirt so I wouldn’t be cold at the concert – but never had to put it on. We got to the concert area about 2 pm – David likes to go early and we sat out in front of the venue with others who hoped to get a spot close to the stage. The nice thing about the venue is there is a restaurant near the entrance, bathrooms and the ticketbooth for upcoming concerts. When we walked into the area we noticed that there were tickets still available for the next nights performance which was REM – someone we enjoyed for most of the eighties and much like Springsteen we let drift away musically, but we had recently purchased their new cd and wanted to hear them and since we were in Amsterdam and there were tickets available – why not? While sitting outside the venue we talked to people, and enjoyed the sun and listened to Radiohead doing their sound check.

When they did finally open the gates we were pretty warm – the sun had been beating down on us all day, but it was well worth it – we got into the pit area and fairly close to the stage. Unfortunately there were these three morons who decided that they should sit in front of us and smoke pot the entire show like it was going to disappear. Their annoying smoke was irritating yet the over indulgence was the most exasperating – they used so much of the stuff – they all fell to the ground at some point in the show and were oblivious to the great music that was going on in front of them.

The music was great though and I am so glad that David was able to capture some parts of the show.

The next day we came back for the REM concert and although less crowded than the night before – these guys really put on a great show and declared that if it rained they would owe everyone a kiss but it did not come to pass – instead we had a brisk evening air filled with great music from a great band.

Madonna Petco Park and Dodger Stadium

When David and I first met Madonna had just released her song Borderline. The song was great and I loved the video at the time. We didn’t buy her LP at the time – but I do remember buying the 45 of the song Borderline – i think it was one of the first purchases we made together. I love this 45 – it was such a hot concept – the cover for the 45 was a poster folded up to hold the piece of vinyl. We still have it and it is in pristine shape. Of course the type is difficult to read – it seems in the early 80’s that was a big thing typesetting wise – make everything indescribably difficult to read. I’ve scanned in some of the cover for you.

Of course she was the sensation all over the place at that time. And we thought just like everybody else she would soon just be another name, but we were all wrong. She has continued to be a great musical wonder – changing her style all the time and yet able to keep her fan base.

Our next encounter with her was with a man whom i had gone out with a number of time in the past in Seattle. Chuck Gerra “Upchuck” (by the way there is a new CD out with Chuck’s music on it if you’re interested Upchuck) called to tell me he was going to be in a Madonna film “Desperately Seeking Susan”. I remember watching the movie a couple of times just to see Chuck in the elevator with Madonna.

We have been buying her cds for sometime now and always have enjoyed her music but had never seen her. While I was looking on francebillet.com I noticed there were going to be tickets available soon for Madonna’s Sticky and Sweet tour in Nice – of course we weren’t going to be in Nice for the concert – but I wanted to see her and we had to get tickets to see her in Southern California. It was imperative. After seeing her at Coachella Fest in 2006 we couldn’t miss her. That show at Coachella Fest had been one of the most exciting experiences we had come across in the many concerts we had attended, especially great was how Paul Oakenfold played non-stop for over an hour in the big tent before she came on and the hot sticky nature of the tent filled with thousands of people just hoping to catch a glimpse of Madonna was just incredible. We had to go – so we had three computers fired up to get tickets in Los Angeles.

We wanted to get up close but when it got to purchasing the tickets for the LA show we got tickets in the first tier behind 3rd base line row M. Not bad – when we did see her at Dodger Stadium – it was a great site line to the stage, but I’m jumping ahead. David was on another desk and wanted to see if he could get seats closer to the stage – and decided since we couldn’t get tickets for Las Vegas – we might as well try to get tickets for the Petco Stadium in San Diego. I don’t know how he did it but he got us seats in the 24th row from the stage. I thought that was pretty cool. Of course our bank account didn’t like the hit – but you only live once – right? So we bought them. Oh my god they were so much better than we thought they would be. When we got into the stadium we found the seats – they were about 8 seats away from the catwalk that she was going to use during most of the performance.

The spent the morning of the concert in a line that we didn’t expect waiting to vote. It didn’t take that long but if there was a line in Las Palmas then there were going to be lines all over the country to vote. So we voted and got on our way to San Diego. Well since we had just got married and we had spent money to see Madonna we decided to stay at a hotel close to the stadium. We stayed at the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina – the room and the hotel were very nice – a bit overpriced – but it made it very easy to get to the concert and to get out of the concert. We went out and walked around the stadium, picked up our tickets at the will call and then we went out to have a nice dinner. We ended up a a restaurant called Blue Point – we had enjoyed a meal there a couple of years earlier and decided to try it again. The food was great, the wine was wonderful and we had a great time. The anticipation of seeing Madonna was getting to us – so we decided to just go over to the stadium and get to our seats. Well we didn’t rush in – instead we bought some t-shirts – which cost of fortune and then made our way to our seats. Man were we close.

We heard there was going to be a opening act but nobody knew who it was going to be. Then the dj stand appeared on the catwalk and it was our favorite DJ – Paul Oakenfold – this was an added bonus and it was great because he had played before Madonna the last time we had seen her. We took a moment and went up to the stage to give Paul the thumbs up – we really were enjoying his music. Or course everybody was involved with their phones trying to find out what was happening as far as the election was going. I had the blackberry tuned into the web and was getting updates as fast as they were coming in. I finally got an alert saying that Obama had won and that McCain was going to concede. When I told David this he just stood up and said very loudly – his hands cupped over his mouth – “Okay – listen up everybody – Obama just won!” – oh my god – the cheer from all around that heard David’s shout was very loud and exciting and I guess disturbing to Paul Oakenfold – read what he has to say on his myspace blog about that night. – His set over the crowd became anxious about Madonna coming out and we didn’t wait very long. Oh my god what a show. We didn’t get any video of the show and David’s camera went dead after we took the first couple shots before the concert. But there are plenty of postings on youtube that can give you idea what it was like that night.

Here is one of the opening song from that night – Madonna had some great visual graphics going on before she came on stage – I hope she puts it on the DVD when she does release a DVD of the concert because it was incredible.

Every song was great even the one where she forgot the words – her energy was explosive and every person in the park was up and enjoying the show. David and I both especially liked her performance of the song “Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You” – I found this one video on youTube that shows what a great performance this was even though it is not from that night.

here is one from san diego – even though it isn’t very close to the stage – it captures the feeling.

Of course one of the high points of the night was when she talked about the election and the crowd cheered and cheered – it was such an exciting feeling to be with all these people and cheering in the new and getting rid of the old. I have to say though that the most visually exciting piece of the concert was the “4 minutes” piece. The use of video and sound was just over the top – especially the four rolling stands that had videos playing on them of speakers and then became videos of Justin Timberlake dancing and Madonna dancing to the videos – it was an exciting moment of stage performance. We were pretty exhausted by the end of the concert and struggled through the sea of people to get outside of the stadium and back to the hotel.

Thursday we left Palm Springs at 5:30 pm to get to the Dodger Stadium by 9. It should have been a piece of cake and it was easy getting all the way into LA. We were at the 101 and Grand exit by 7 – and with the Dodger stadium only 1 mile away you would have thought that we had got there in plenty of time. But no – we were caught in a traffic jam the likes I haven’t seen in my life. It tooks us until 10 pm that night to get into a parking place and finally start walking to the stadium which was a good distance away. Fortunately Madonna didn’t go on until 10 and we only missed the first song and while we were taking our time getting to our seats, bathroom break was really needed and then a good stiff drink – Britney Spears came out and did a song with Madonna. Finally we made it to our seats and we had a really good time. The seats allowed us to see the show from a different perspective and it really was a solid show even from the distance of the ball field. The big moment of course was when the song “4 minutes” was played instead of the videos – Justin Timberlake – came out and did the song with Madonna. That was the topper. It was a long day especially after having sat in the traffic jam – but we really had a great time.

Springsteen Parc des Prince Paris, France 27 June, 2008

While we were visiting my Dad and Sister and her kids we stopped into a Starbucks and purchased the newest cd production from Bruce Springsteen. David and I had both been big fans of Bruce’s in the 70’s, some of the eighties but had not really followed him in the past two decades. “Magic” has been on both of our playlists since that week.

iTunes says we have played “Radio Nowhere” 59 times – that’s just on the main computer – doesn’t count the iPods and the cd turning in the car stereo. Listening to him sparked our interest and we started looking for tickets. Lucky us we were able to snag tickets for his concert in Paris when we were planning to be there – after having scored tickets to see Radiohead in Amsterdam at the Westerparc. We had seen Robbie Williams Parc des Prince two years ago and now we were going to see Springsteen. We were really stoked. Our friend Jack and his sister Victoria had decided to join us in Paris during our stay and we kept asking them if they wanted to get tickets to the Springsteen concert – and they could never decide. So we were going to go by ourselves.

The morning of the concert Jack called us and said do you think you could get tickets – I’ve decided I want to come along. Well that was a tall order, but said we would try. We walked down to Les Halles to FNAC to see if there were any GA tickets left for the concert. And guess what there were. We bought one for Jack – Victoria being on crutches wouldn’t be able to attend. So we met up with Jack and took the metro over to the Parc des Prince later than we had gone to see Robbie – it was about 2 in the afternoon. There wasn’t a huge of a line, but there were plenty of people waiting and hoping to get into the stadium early enough to get a good spot in front of the stage. When we got into the line one of the security guards put a wrist band on each of our arms. Wow – we got wrist bands that allowed us to go into the pit area of the stadium – we were only 75 feet from the stage. We sat down on the hot plastic they lay out over the field so as not to ruin the grass and waited for the show to begin.

The videos in this slideshow were captured with a Flip camera. David got alot of footage of the show until one of the security guys came over and told him he had to stop filming. The third film David caught me talking on my Blackberry to Colleen in Palm Desert – I love it that I can be in Paris, in the middle of a huge stadium and talk with a friend in the US. It is an incredible world we live in. I was able during our time spent in Paris to upload videos for the Bravery to YouTube from our Paris apartment, take phone calls from the IT department at work when the servers were down and I was out walking around the streets of Paris with David, Jack and Victoria and talk to my Dad while we were out bicycling in the Le Bois de Boulogne. The last video in this slide show is of the crowd going down into the metro after the show.

The energy level of the concert was over stimulating. When he and the band played Candy’s Room I was filled with a great deal of wonderment. He played almost all of the songs from “Darkness on the Edge of Town”. I couldn’t believe it – here we were two decades later and he was playing the songs I felt the closest to of all his music. How had we come to this point in our life – where we were able to travel so far to see someone we both truly enjoy as a music maker. Luck is all I can think of as the answer. And we are both enjoying this luck as long as it will last. Who’s to say when it will run dry, but in the mean time we will continue to follow our dreams.

I have so much more to say about Bruce Springsteen and what a big difference he made in my life. “Darkness on the Edge of Town” came into my life when I was very unsure where my life would be headed. I was married at the time to my high school sweetheart and yet my desires and wants were not fitting into that world. The music from that album spoke to me about turmoil, about yearnings, about going to the edge. I was in a great deal of denial and anger, i was distroying myself inwardly and distroying the friendship i had with this woman I had been close to for almost 10 years. Everyone of the songs filled me up with different emotional experiences and I was so twisted in my head I couldn’t see them just as music and songs at the time. When we finally were able to make the decision to make the break things had been distroyed that could never be recovered – much like the destruction in the songs – at least I thought so at that time. I put Bruce’s music away from that point on because I just couldn’t see it as part of my new world and life. I occassionally listened to the LPs that we had and they just didn’t fit anymore. But when he sang those songs there on that stage that night I felt the music come back to me – felt that the past had been wiped away from the pure essence of his music and I was just overwhelmed.

The Bravery – La Maroquinerie – Paris 26, June 2008

Saw the Bravery last night – it was a really great show. Surprised by how many people were in the concert hall as whenever we mention the Bravery to our friends they respond “Who?” – we’ve got more video and will post later.