concert time

we've been to 4 concerts in less than two weeks. and they were all wonderful. we started out with feist free in the park. and feist was good -- we like that 1234 song fromt the ipod commercials, but i thought the opening acts were at least as good. the first act was a local band called 'the good life' and they were sort of punk-emo and very engaging. then juana molina, an Argentinian folk singer, came on and she had a beautiful voice. we went to her website and got some free downloads, so now we have a free mini-album. www.juanamolina.com
then the next day we headed up toward minneapolis to the ringo starr concert (and i've blogged that trip on my website). the concert was amazing. ringo was wonderful. the all-stars were: edgar winter, billy squier, colin hay (from men at work), hamish stewart (from average white band), gary wright. ringo did some ringo solo stuff and some beatles stuff. all the all-stars did some of their own stuff. everyone played for everyone else. edgar winter did a really kick-ass 'frankenstein.' the concert was two and a half hours solid, and every minute was great, but it would have been great if it was even longer. i would have been happy for some more ringo stuff, but i wouldn't have wanted to miss any of the all-star stuff either. it was all good.
then we had tickets for Tom Petty in Omaha the next week and Steve Winwood opened for him. and Winwood was really great. after the hour opening set Gordi said he thought we got our money's worth from the tickets. but then Tom Petty came on for two hours and it was very great. he did most of his old stuff, and some new stuff (and Steve Winwood's new stuff is very good too. i think we will get his new album). there was a screaming girl sitting behind me, which was the only downside. it was sort of noisy. the show was very energetic. the light show/video show was pretty awesome too.
then i got free tickets to see neil diamond thursday. i had seen neil diamond a few year ago (also on free tickets) so i knew he was a good show. he did not have a stage back, so there were seats right behind the stage too. and he had mostly lights for his show, but they did some additional video stuff on the jumbo-trons too for a couple songs. he sang some new stuff and some old favorites. i liked the old stuff best. and this was weird -- we'd seen 4 shows in the two weeks -- one a festival in the park, three rock bands, and neil diamond -- you would have thought the park festival or the rock bands would be the rowdy crowds with security issues, but at neil diamond, a couple drunk guys came in late and sat in our row, and then in a bit a woman rushed out of the row and came back with two security officers saying that the drunk guys were being rude and obnoxious and pawing her -- but the cops didn't do anything. they looked over and said the guys looked liked they'd quieted down (sure, with the cops there) but the woman was afraid to go back to her seat, so she sat on the aisle for a while and then found an empty chair from someone who left early. and that was the other thing -- people kept coming and going from the diamond concert. no one it seemed got to the concert and stayed -- they were up and down, coming late, leaving early, going to the bathroom, going to get snacks. it was a continuous flow. it was nuts!