Today is a sad day for the music world, as the news spreads that Adam Yauch, MCA of the Beastie Boys, died today at the young age of 47 after a battle with cancer over several years. There are many fine obituaries published all over the web, just hours after the news broke, so I thought I would just share a few more personal thoughts about the man, his band, and their music. [Read more…]
Omega Auctions has published their online catalogs for two upcoming sale events happening on the same day, Saturday, May 19th – ‘Vinyl, Music & Film Memorabilia’ & ‘The Porl Thompson Collection (The Cure)’. The sales will be held in the United Kingdom.
Julien’s Auctions has published the online catalog for their upcoming sale – “Property from the Estate of Les Paul”, which will be held at their Beverly Hills gallery on Friday, June 8th and Saturday, June 9th.
So I was having dinner with a friend last night, telling her about Saturday’s Coldplay concert in San Jose (see “Coldplay at the HP Pavilion | San Jose, CA | 4/28/2012”). I had mentioned that after the show, I met Jason Regler, the inventor of the “xylobands”, the wrist bands handed out to concert goers to wear during the performance, which are activated over RF signal to light up (and light up with different flashing patterns) for different songs, at different times during the concert. These were first introduced for the “American Express Unstaged” concert in Madrid, which was directed by Anton Corbijn (see “Coldplay “Unstaged” at Plaza de Toros | Madrid, Spain | 10/26/2011”). In any event, since my friend has never seen Coldplay in concert, I thought I’d send her a link to one of the videos I shot during one of those sequences, so she could see just how awesome these are when employed during a show. That’s when a very strange thing happened, which I thought I’d share with the readers of the Rock Subculture Journal… [Read more…]
Last night, April 28th, was the second in two back-to-back performances by Coldplay at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA – part of their official Mylo Xyloto world tour. This was the sixth time I’ve seen Coldplay in the past six months (having seen their AMEX Unstaged show in Madrid, Spain in October, some of the special European tour dates at the O2 in London and the Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy in December, and the special iHeartRadio charity gig at Club Nokia and the Jimmy Kimmel Live! block party in Los Angeles in February. As such, I don’t think I’m in a position to do a “normal” sort of review at this point, as I tend to subjectively compare to all of the other shows I’ve attended in the past year and beyond… but as I’ve come to expect, with last night’s gig, Coldplay put on a high energy show with a great mix of hits and new material. Watching many in the crowd seeing the show with “fresh eyes”, it was certain that the nearly 18,000 in attendance came away having shared an awesome experience with this fantastic concert.
This is a summary essay and concluding thoughts on my trip to Las Vegas this past week for a variety of shows – Garbage at the The Pearl at The Palms Casino Resort on Saturday, Elton John at The Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace on Sunday, and Mike Tyson’s “Live On Stage” event at The Hollywood Theatre at The MGM Grand on Monday. I also had a chance to check out the Hard Rock Cafe, Gold & Silver Pawn (the “Pawn Stars” shop), and had a chance run in with Penn Jillette of Pen and Teller. All in all, a busy three days or so. [Read more…]
I met up with some friends of mine who live in Las Vegas, who, like me, collect original artifacts from film, television, and music. I became acquainted with them years ago through my Original Prop Blog, and they have been huge supporters of my efforts. The History Channel series Pawn Stars has been a topic of discussion on the Original Prop Blog for years (see original article), so who could pass up the opportunity to check out the store where it all happens? So we visited Gold and Silver Pawn.
Because I do travel for some concert events, I thought it might be helpful to share my impressions and experiences staying at various hotels and resorts, and doing so will build on the “travel for concerts” theme of this website. This review is for the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, during my recent Las Vegas Trip (April 2012). [Read more…]
Because I do travel for some concert events, I thought it might be helpful to share my impressions and experiences staying at various hotels and resorts, and doing so will build on the “travel for concerts” theme of this website. This review is for the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, during my recent Las Vegas Trip (April 2012). [Read more…]
During my trip this past week to Las Vegas, I had taken an opportunity to check out the Hard Rock Cafe Las Vegas, and was treated to a lengthy private tour, so I thought I would share some photos of some of the material on display at this location, including stage and studio used instruments, wardrobe, and other rock and roll memorabilia.