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Showing posts from August, 2016

boogie wonderland depot

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Glancing around the interwebs Saturday morning, thinking about what there might be to do around town that evening, we stumbled across Boogie Wonderland, set to appear at Depot #9 at Ameristar Casino.  It turned out to be fun little flashback. The usual YouTube search yielded a couple of covers by the band that were solid, and we were immediately intrigued.  This was throwback material.  House music before it was House music.  It seemed like it might be a little cheesy.  Sometimes cheesy is good though. There was nothing else going on. I suppose I should qualify that.  There were other dance music events happening, if you wanted to wait around until 11 pm. We prefer an early agenda.  Many other folks do as well, but nobody seems to get that.  They get it in Miami, New York, Chicago, San Diego.  Why not here?  It would be great to see some late afternoon, early evening events, especially in the summer. This show started at 830, but we didn't make it down until about 9

hot country nights w/ dwight yoakam

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I will admit that I am not much of a Modern Country music fan.  It is too reminiscent of bad 50s pop, electrified a bit, with a few twangs added for good measure.  Give me a good dose of Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams, or Willie Nelson over that stuff any day.  And now, you could probably add Dwight Yoakam to that list. My partner is a little partial to the stuff though, so we headed down with a couple of friends to catch Dwight Yoakam at Kansas City Power & Light District.  It was free, so what the heck, right? The others that went along, did so for much the same reason, and the people-watching, of which there was plenty. The crowd did not tend towards the typical Wanna-Be Cowboys, which was a bit of a surprise.  There were plenty of those to go around though.  I often wonder if these guys know how easy there are to identify.  Real cowboys, otherwise known as farmers/ranchers, generally stand in stark contrast, lacking a big shiny belt buckle, fashion boots, and a brand-s

millennium park summer music series

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While visiting Chicago, I enjoyed the opportunity to catch some live music at one of my most favorite venues in the entire US, Millennium Park.  Along with a couple of thousand others lounging about the lawn Thursday night, it was a great evening of music at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, as part of the 2016 Millennium Park Summer Music Series. It was a near perfect evening for the event.  Temperatures got up around 33 C earlier in the day, but relief from the sun comes early in the park, thanks to the skyscrapers to the west.  As with everyone else, we made a stop at the grocery for a few essentials first, and arrived just as the sun was beginning to fall behind Fornelli Tower, casting one long wide shadow across the lawn near the stage. Solo recording artist Sinkane started the evening off about 630 pm, with a blend of free jazz and funk rock with a Sudanese twist.  It had a little bit of reggae / jam-band feel, and was definitely something everyone seemed to really l