#MontereyCA – The Boring Old Man

Road Trip: Monterey, CA

This trip marks a very special occasion, our “baby” is celebrating her 30th birthday this week! Hard to believe…

We’ve always been a “beach” family, as you might have gathered if you’ve read any of my earlier posts, but Monterey has ALWAYS been our daughter’s favorite. While my wife and I grew up haunting the Santa Cruz Soquel and Capitola areas, if we ever asked the kid where she wanted to go, it was always Monterey.

This time around we stayed at the Portola Hotel and Spa, and it was really nice. Beyond expectations even. We had booked weeks ago and much to our surprise and delight, they gave us an unexpected “upgrade” to one of the Presidential Suites. No kidding. The room was bonkers.

I haven’t stayed in a room this nice since the 90’s when I was lucky enough to be on the road crew with Dogstar in Australia and New Zealand. It was off the charts for a hotel room, certainly bigger than our apartment!!

The trip was pretty mild and rather uneventful, in a good way. Mostly, we ate really fancy foods in nice restaurants (Jack’s & Schooner’s amongst others) and just hung out. We also hit the touristy spots – Fisherman’s Wharf and the Monterey Bay Aquarium – too. They were nothing new as we’ve been to both more times than we can count, but it was a good time nonetheless. The Aquarium is truly spectacular. If you’ve never been and you enjoy wildlife, you should definitely check it out once in your life.

All in all, it was a really nice time. The forecast had called for rain, all day, every day for the time we were there, but luckily the weather people were waaay off and we had really mild weather. Very little rain and even a touch of sun. As a bonus, the weather kept the crowds down to a level that didn’t drive me out of my skin!

Still coming to grips with our daughter turning 30, but this nice, mellow weekend sure helped keep smiles on our faces! And we can’t help be feel grateful that our kid still likes to hang out with us! We must have done something right along the way…

Thanks for stopping by!

Concert Review: X at the Golden State Theater, Monterey, CA

I can vividly remember the first time I heard X. It was the summer of 1982, right before the start of my freshman year of high school. A music show on TV back in the day debuted their new song “The Hungry Wolf” and I was completely blown away – I’d never seen or heard anything like them in my life.

Back then, pre-interwebz days, it was MUCH harder to find out about bands and in the case of X, hard to find their records in shops, but I became more aware of them thanks to college radio putting them in regular rotation.

Over the next few years their first 3 albums became part of my collection and a big part of the soundtrack of my life. To this day there is nobody in music that sounds like X, they are utterly unique unto themselves. To me, they are an American treasure, wholly underrated, and there will never be another band like them.

That being said, for some reason I’d never had the chance to see them live… Part of that I’m sure is because I was all of 12 years old when their first album came out, but I digress. Anyhow, our chance finally came – an early Christmas present for the Mrs and I, and we were thrilled!

Dead Rock West was the opening act. Never heard them before, which is not all that surprising as their type of music isn’t exactly on my radar or my cup of tea. That being said, they kinda won me over! They are a duo consisting of a female vocalist who also plays tambourine and maracas and a male vocalist/guitarist. Their opening song had me settling in for a yawn-fest, but the 2nd tune snapped me right out of it. What I will say about them is this; they had voices that blended exceptionally well with each other, and the vocal arrangements were very well done. The guitar work, while simple, was solid. The songwriting was good pretty much all around. But to me, this isn’t the kind of music I go to a live show for. It’s the stuff you put on in the background when you have friends over, or that is playing in the corner of your local coffee shop… I can say honestly that I did like them – much to my surprise – but they didn’t exactly get us fired up for the main event.

When X hit the stage, they didn’t waste any time, they just let ‘er rip! Hearing John Doe and Exene harmonize for the first time in the first song brought a huge smile to my face! And finally seeing guitarist Billy Zoom in a live setting was spectacular!! He was one of my favorite guitarists of the 80’s, and let me tell you, he is still a force to be reckoned with!

The band played about an hour and fifteen minute set, covering their entire history, from the first album all the way to a brand new, unreleased song. And they were firing on all cylinders. The set would have been impressive by any band, but when you stop to consider John Doe and Billy Zoom are 70 and 75 years old, respectively?!?! That they were able to still crank out such a high energy show at this stage of their lives, gives credence to the power of music!

All in all, it was an outstanding show and frankly I’m still a bit flabbergasted by what we witnessed! My only “gripe” is they didn’t play “The Hungry Wolf”, which is STILL my favorite song by them. But hey, they played a great many other legendary songs and put on an excellent show. The Mrs. and I left grinning ear to ear and just ecstatic over the show. I don’t know if we’ll every get the chance to see them again, but I am truly grateful for catching them this time around. If you’re a fan and you get the chance, go see them, you won’t be disappointed!!!

And since I didn’t get to hear it last night, I’m going to post up my all time favorite song from these guys, enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Concert Review: Steve Vai at the Golden State Theater, Monterey CA

What can I say about Steve Vai? If you know him, you know. If you don’t know him, words will never, and I do mean never, describe him sufficiently.

There are a lot of great musicians out there, but every now and again one comes along that changes the way music is made, the way an instrument is played…the guys that inspire countless others to pick up an instrument for the first time. Or to completely change the way they play if they’ve already picked up an instrument. Steve Vai is one of those musicians. He does things with a guitar that seem humanly impossible. And he does it with a fluidity that is unmatched in my not so humble opinion. Part Wizard, part alien, I dunno…

For me personally, this was a “bucket list” show. Thankfully the Mrs. was willing to indulge me and accompany me . While she acknowledges his genius and appreciates the skill, this one was strictly for me. That’s how you know you got a great one – when they will not only be open minded about the weird stuff you want to listen to, they’ll even sit through a concert of it!

We’ve been to Monterey a hundred times (it was our daughter’s favorite place as a kid!) but this was the first time at the Golden State Theater, in fact I’d never even heard of it until I saw this show coming up. It was nice enough, though nothing particularly noteworthy. I’d take a show there over San Francisco any day though.

The show opened with an onslaught and I was mesmerized.

I’ll be honest, I’m mostly familiar with his work with Public Image Ltd. and David Lee Roth and have had only 2 of his solo albums, so I couldn’t give you a breakdown of what songs he played, from which albums. Nonetheless, it was phenomenal playing from start to finish. His band, as you might expect was really top notch. His drummer in particular was very impressive and had a great sounding kit. (The crew obviously had a part in that, so hats off to them too!)

They played for a good two hours (!!!), which at that level of complexity is almost unbelievable. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I’d have a hard time believing it! And seeing Mr. Vai play the “Hydra” – the 3-neck monstrosity pictured above – in a live setting? Worth every penny of the tickets AND the hour and a half drive, and then some!!

All in all, it was a spectacular experience and not one I’m soon to forget. And one more of my musical heros I get to cross off the list for seeing while I can. Thankfully I don’t have many left on that list – I’ve been fortunate to have seen most of them. Some I missed have sadly passed too soon (Stevie Ray, Eddy and Joe Strummer to name a few…) so now I’m taking every chance to see the greats before it’s too late and I’m very, very happy I finally got a chance to experience Steve Vai in the real world, I’ve never seen anything like it, and it was beyond exceptional!

Thanks for stopping by!