Summerfest's first weekend in the books

One thing that will always be a great past-time, and certainly one of my favorite things to do, at Summerfest (or any festival for that matter) is people watching. It usually starts with observing fashion, or lack there of. Some of the outfits and things people decide to wear are often quite questionable. Some examples... Scantily clad women.  Head to toe in a monotone color (often a neon). Wearing American flag pants when it's not July 4th, though why would you anyways. Then there are the couples who, for whatever reason, don't look right together. So you start to wonder how they met and then maybe make up a story for them. Always a good time. Fashion trends noticed of the teenagers this year are high-wasted pants/shorts and headbands for the gals and long sleeve button down shirts and loafers for the guys. The 80's have come back. The girls are looking like Pat Benatar and the guys remind me of the douchy, rich characters from the classic 80's movies like Some Kind of Wonderful. So far this year, the most epic of people watching was last Tuesday when Lady Gaga was playing. Oh my word! So many people dressed for the show and put on a show for us at the same time. We are talking about older ladies (grandma age) wearing long silver wigs and dresses. People dressed up as characters from Lady Gaga videos, like with Diet Coke cans in their hair. A couple of the best dressed came from guys though. One guy had makeup, wig, short shorts, and these high heels that had no heals. He was pretty much walking on his toes all night.  The other guy was a very tall, skinny guy with makeup, short shorts, fishnet stockings, and rocking six-inch stiletto heels. He's obviously worn them before. Here's a picture from Lady Gaga night...

Cheeky Fest Goers

Wednesday I saw Arctic Monkeys. Thursday was Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Friday I went to see Five Finger Death Punch. Three nights, three different genres of music. One of the many things I love about Summerfest. I've seen FFDP several times already and pretty much knew what to expect, an in your face heavy metal show. Judging by the expansive crowd, which reached back all the way to the concessions, everyone else was expecting the same thing. Well, to be completely honest, I was disappointed. Sure they played a solid setlist of their songs, including Under and Over It, Burn It Down, Never Enough, and The Bleeding, but singer Ivan Moody spent way too much time talking about what was happening at the next stage over (Atmosphere was killing it) and making comments about Lady Gaga. They could have played another song or two. As it was, they only played for just over an hour. Good show, but not long enough. Finished well before any of the other stages. My highlight was their cover of LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out...pretty freakin' cool! Again, while I was slightly disappointed, you can't beat seeing a band like Five Finger Death Punch for the $18 daily admission fee. Maybe I'm just spoiled from seeing so many concerts. First World problems.

I picked up my brother at the airport on Saturday. He's been coming out the last couple of years to experience Summerfest with me. It's great to have him here. We always have a blast. We didn't go to Summerfest Saturday, choosing instead to relax at home. Though I did take him to Sugar Maple for a couple of tasty beverages. He's still learning about craft beer, but already knows that fresh, flavorful, local beer is by far and way better than any of that stuff brewed by the big guys.

We did go to Summerfest on Sunday. Boy, it was a hot one too. The weather has been so erratic. On Wednesday and Thursday it was nearly teeth-chattering cold. I wore jeans and a sweatshirt both nights. Friday was a little bit warmer. Sunday was melty. Once we arrived at the grounds, we headed over to the box office and picked up free, reserved, blue seat tickets for 38 Special. 38 Special is a band I enjoyed growing up and figured, why not. Turned out to be a fantastic show too! At 62 years young, these guys can still bring it. Hammering away on hits like Rockin' Into the Night, Caught Up In You, Back Where You Belong, and Hold On Loosely, the show was full of energy and great music. A great time!

Summerfest is closed today, but we'll be back at it on Tuesday to see Ed Kowalczyk, lead singer of the band Live. Probably stick around for Switchfoot? Who knows?  Good times lie ahead!

Blue on Black

Tears on a river. 

Push on a shove. 

It don't mean much.

Day 2 of Summerfest took me to see Kenny Wayne Shepherd, who, at this point in my music fan career, is quite possibly the best guitarist I have seen live since Eddie Van Halen. So amazing! The night started with Evan Christian, hailing from Milwaukee, who serenaded the crowd with bluesy rhythm and classy vocals. No backing band, just himself, his guitar, and his voice. Great bluesy cover of Stone Temple Pilots' Plush too. Kenny Wayne Shepherd and his band of all starts - Noah Hunt on vocals, Chris Layton (drums) and Reese Wynans (keyboards) from Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble band, and Tony Franklin (bass) who played in The Firm with legendary guitar player Jimmy Page and vocalist Paul Rogers. A show that surprised me, as I'm not very familiar with Kenny, but it far exceeded any of my expectations. Blue on Black was the one song I really knew. Everything else was great downhome blues with amazing guitar playing. Absolutely loved the finishing song of Jimi Hendrix' Voo Doo Child. 

Two nights of Summerfest. Two different genres of music. First with indie rock from the Arctic Monkeys. Then straight up blues rock with Kenny Wayne Shepherd. We'll have to see what's up next!

Summerfest 2014: Opening Day in the books!

Opening Day of Summerfest 2014 is in the books. It was a fairly uneventful opener though. Fireworks were postponed until tonight. Judging by the crowds, it was well attended. Of course, opening day usually is. Hell, we've been waiting 365 days for Summerfest to come back. Definitely one of the colder nights that I've experienced, but, unlike previous years where I didn't dress appropriately and was forced to buy a sweatshirt, I was prepared last night. People watching was, and is, always epic. Took notice of teenage fashion, or lack there of. I mean, seriously, some of the things these young kids choose to wear. Head bands and high waisted pants on the girls reminded me of Pat Benatar in the early 80s. The guys were like the douchy rich kids from Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful...long sleeve, button down shirts with shorts and loafers. I guess fashion is cyclical. I'm not buying it though.

Anyways, I saw Arctic Monkeys last night. Not necessarily a huge fan, but it was one of the better options. Heck, if Metallica invites them to their Orion festival, they are worth checking out, right? Not a bad show. I've certainly seen worse. Bit of a snoozer midway through. You can hear influences of The Beatles and early 70s Aerosmith in their sound. Ahh any night at Summerfest is a better night than at home. Tonight I think it may be Kenny Wayne Shepherd.  Stay tuned and Rock on!

Summer is finally here!

After a long, brutal Winter consisting of record streaks of temperatures under zero degrees and countless inches of snow, Summer is finally here! My apologies for conjuring up nightmarish memories of a long, cold season that didn't seem to want to go away. Here in Wisconsin, one thing is certain. When the weather finally breaks and Old Man Winter finally packs his bags for his vacation, the people here in Wisconsin definitely embrace the warmer months and do it in style. We only have a few short months to enjoy the warm weather before the old guy returns and we don't waste any time. That is one thing I love about living here in Milwaukee. As soon as the sun shines and the temps rise just above 50, everybody heads outside to enjoy it. We didn't hit above 50 until some time in May and, even though you may still have needed a jacket, you were outside. Summer in Wisconsin means many fantastic things. One of those is the beginning of festival season. Beginning in June with PrideFest and then Polish Fest, nearly every week of the Summer there are ethnic and music festivals happening in and around this great city. There is always something to do and a great time to be had doing it. I seem to always discover something new each year that I hadn't done before. Yes, I'm excited that Summer is here! Why? Because Summer in Milwaukee means my absolute favorite festival all year...SUMMERFEST!

In just three short days, the gates will open for this magnificent music festival - 11 days, 11 stages, over 800 acts, and nearly 1 Million of my closest friends! I've got two tickets to the entire thing...

...well, almost the entire thing. These Power Passes give me admission to all 11 days. They just don't get me into the Marcus Amphitheater, where the main headliners play each night. Those tickets cost extra. I've gone to main headliners in the past, but you don't necessarily need to buy those tickets to see some great bands. I will admit that the main headliner lineup is pretty solid, including the likes of Bruno Mars, Lady GaGa, Outkast, Usher, Motley Crue, and Zac Brown Band, but there isn't any of those bands that make me want to spend the extra cash. Maybe I'll score free tickets, like I did last year to Pitbull. You never know.

So who will I see?  That's a great question and one that my friends and I have discussed. This year's lineup is a bit better than last year, but overall it's still not on par with previous years. Let me explain. The last couple of years' lineups has lacked bands in the hard rock and metal genre. That's not the only genre of music I like, which you'd know if you've read my other Summerfest posts. Don't get me wrong...the lack of hard rock and metal bands doesn't take away from the total awesomeness of Summerfest. It just means that I get to see bands that I would not normally get to see. Also doesn't mean that there aren't any hard rock bands. There just aren't any that I haven't seen before.  That's what I'm trying to say. I'm spoiled some because of Summerfest and the other great music venues in town. I've seen so many bands the last ten years alone that there just aren't many newer bands that come through. First World problems, right?! So I digressed a little here and haven't told you who I'm going to see yet.  I don't have a solid plan. I am going to wing it mostly. Hell, I have plenty of options. Some of those options are: Arctic Monkeys, Neon Trees, Crystal Method, Joan Jett, George Thorogood, and Kansas. How about DJ Pauly D? Maybe. Five Finger Death Punch? Absolutely! Rise Against? Definitely! Maybe a new band like Kongos. Rap artists Ludacris or Nas? You just never know.

Summerfest encompasses a few of my favorite Summer things...live music, great beer, people watching, and friends (old and new). Feel free to check back here later as I'll be writing about this year's adventures. Summerfest 2014 starts in three days!

From Yesterday

Went down to Chicago yesterday for a concert, The Night We Stole Christmas show with 30 Seconds to Mars, Queens of the Stone Age, Foals, Alt-J, and Grouplove. It's been a little while since I've been to a show. I do believe it was Halloween in fact. Spent the better part of the afternoon at Shoeless Joe's Ale House, which is only a short walk from the arena. Pretty solid craft beer selection, though I did notice that they only had two stouts, and one of those was Guinness. The beer list was comprised mostly of IPAs. Not a problem for me as I enjoy IPAs greatly.

The show was at the Allstate Arena. This was my first time at this location. It's very similar to the BMO Harris Bank Center (Formerly known as the Bradley Center) with general admission floor (no seats) and seating around the sides. Not a bad place for a concert, but I'm not a huge fan of arena shows. Coming into this show, I was excited to see Queens of the Stone Age and 30 Seconds to Mars. I was not that familiar with the other bands, though I would discover that I knew some of there songs from radio play.

Grouplove was the opening act. A young five-piece band, they have a really good pop sound. The one female in the group is a spaz. She certainly danced like no one was watching. It turned out I knew their last three songs, Tongue Tied. Ways to Go, and Colours. The next band was Alt-J, another young pop band, but these guys have more of a Celtic sound and style and reminded me of Mumford & Sons. I've mentioned before how I like to watch the drummers. Both of these bands had solid drummers and were much better live than their songs would indicate. I really enjoyed them.

The night was off to a pretty good start, but it was not to last. Foals was the third band up. I'm not impressed at all. Not only did I not connect with their music, but I felt their performance was lackluster. Perhaps they should have been the opening act. If I had to describe Foals...I might say if the Cure and Oingo Boingo had a musical love child, it would be Foals. That's a shame too, because I like the Cure.

Up next was a band I had yet to see live, Queens of the Stone Age. I love it when bands come right out and start jamming right away. Just straight up, kick you in the face rock n roll. That is exactly what Queens did. They played a nice ten song set that included favorites like No One Knows, If I Had a Tail, Go With The Flow, and Song For the Dead. A great live band!

Headlining the evening was 30 Seconds to Mars. This is the third time I have seen them. First time was at Summerfest. Second was at The Rave with Breaking Benjamin. Each time, the show has gotten better and better. You have to hand it to Jared Leto, he knows how to perform. Maybe it's the acting experience that helps with that, but it works. The music rocks too. I was a little disappointed that he didn't play From Yesterday, but he made up for it with tons of energy and fan interaction. He performed an acoustic version of The Kill, which was really good, and a cover of Rihanna's Stay. Finished the night up with Kings and Queens and Up In the Air, during which he go about 30 people up on stage with him. A really great show! I hope they come back to Summerfest! The lighting wasn't the greatest for picture taking, but I managed to get a few decent shots.

In case you missed it

It's been a hell of a month. Went to a book signing for Eddie Trunk, host of VH1 Classic's That Metal Show, on October 1st. That guy lives the rock fan's dream. Really cool too. Real busy at work, but we aren't talking about work here. I watched my Boston Red Sox battle their way to become the 2013 World Series Champions. It was such an awesome series!

Last week, Halloween night, I went to a rock show. I got free tickets to see Filter. They were there with Fight or Flight, We as Human, and Emperors & Elephants. When the show was announced, I was undecided on whether to go or not. But when presented with free tickets, the decision was easy...absolutely! I really wanted to see Fight or Flight and Filter usually puts on a good show.

There was only about 150 people there. I suppose with it being Halloween and all, most are at parties or trick or treating with their kids. Fine with me as I was able to saddle right up to the stage. The first band was Emperors & Elephants. They weren't bad at all. An interesting collections of musicians. Not sure if you do, but sometimes I look at a band and wonder how they met or how they got together. Some bands look like people from separate, distinct lifestyles, yet are drawn together in a band. It's an interesting phenomenon. The drummer was a big guy, almost too big for the drumset. One of the guitarist was probably his brother. The bass player looked like a cast off from a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band. The singer seemed several years younger than everyone else. Most notable though, was the lead guitarist, who looked like he was straight out of the 80's with the cliche long, crimped hair blowing from the fan that he was playing in front of. I can't believe I wrote this much about the first band of the night. They were good though. I've certainly seen worse opening acts.

Next up was We As Human. Not a whole lot to say about these guys. Solid band. I liked them better than Emperors & Elephants. The lead singer appeared to be the happiest guy in the club, smiling and laughing. Normally rockers tend to be more serious...tougher. During the set, I noticed Dan Chandler standing in the back of the room. Of course, I had to meet him again. He seemed a little surprised that I recognized him, but was very cool.

Third band up is the band that I most wanted to see, Fight or Flight. The band is a side project of Disturbed guitarist, Dan Donegan, and includes fellow Disturbed bandmate, drummer Mike Wengren, Ra bass player, Sean Corcoran, Bellevue Suite guitarist, Jeremy Jayson, and Evans Blue frontman, Dan Chandler. I'm a big fan of Disturbed and Evans Blue, so I was looking forward to this night. Their debut album, A Life by Design?, is really good. I recommend you check it. Take a listen here.

While waiting for Filter to take the stage, Richard Patrick happened to walk right past. So we shook his hand. I've seen Filter several times over the years and this night's show just might be my favorite of them all. One thing you can count on is Richard giving 100% every time. No disappointment here. Right after the third song or so, the bass player's bass broke. So while he and the tech were working diligently to fix it, Richard proceeded to fill the gap in music with stories and talking to the crowd. He was quite funny and entertaining. Apparently one guy from the tour put cheese or something on his microphone. It was a great show. I like the new album. Here's a song from it.

Did I mention it was Halloween? There were a few costumes in the crowd. I thought one guy was dressed as Ace Frehley, until I got closer and realized he was a green Power Ranger. There were a few other costumes, but the winner was the "person" dressed in a full leather, dominatrix outfit. Wasn't really sure the gender, but think we did see an Adam's apple. Even Richard enjoyed the costumer and asked the person to get closer to the stage.  All in all, it was a fun evening with great music.  I look forward to the next show.  

It's the end of the Summer

 Summers don't last long here in Wisconsin, so you have to squeeze as much as you can out of the warmer weather as you can before the cold freeze sets in. That's exactly what I've been doing since I last wrote. I hadn't even realized that it's been nearly two months since my last post. I need to be better at this. Let's catch up...

I've continued staying active, working out and running. Played on a volleyball team with coworkers. We were the best last-place team in the league. We had a lot of fun though. Another coworker coerced me into playing ultimate frisbee. I hadn't played that since high school gym class. I really wasn't sure what I was getting into, but I was up for it. Pretty much all sprinting, which took a toll on my old legs. Great time though! One thing you can count on during the Summer months is drinks on patios throughout the city. Gorgeous views of the river or the lake with tasty, cool beverages.

Once again, I went to the Milwaukee Firkin Craft Beer Festival for my third straight year. It's such a great festival with over 100 beers to sample from some of the finest craft breweries in the Midwest and elsewhere.

I took my friends on Beer Snob Tour 3.0, the third installment of a creation of mine that takes us on a road trip to visit some of Wisconsin's fine craft breweries. Normally we visit three, but this time we hit five - Grumpy Troll Brew Pub, Vintage Brewing Company, Karben4 Brewery, Ale Asylum, and Delafield Brewhaus. Who knows where 4.0 will take us?

On my way out of the Rave after Gigantour, I was given a couple of free tickets to see Godsmack on August 4th. FREE tickets to see Godsmack? Of course I went! Always an awesome show!

For my birthday weekend, I bought VIP tickets to WIIL Rock Fest, an all day rock festival featuring Volbeat, All That Remains, Nonpoint, Trapt, Smile Empty Soul, Hurt, Red Line Chemistry, Art of Dying, SOiL, Wayland, and several local bands. Amazing day, though I probably should have used sunscreen. When we got to the car to leave, there were free tickets to see Nonpoint at the Rave.  Why not?!

Well, before that show, I broke up the string of hard rock shows to see Mumford & Sons. What an outstanding show they put on too. Such fantastic musicianship.

The last weekend of August was Harley-Davidson's 110th Anniversary party here in WI. I went to a couple of the street parties and had the pleasure of seeing two great free shows...Sick Puppies and P.O.D.

This past weekend was Doors Open Milwaukee, where dozens of historical buildings open their doors to the public and provide free tours to parts of the buildings that normally aren't accessible. I visited a couple of places, including one of six Frank Lloyd Wright American System-Built homes. Designed in 1915 with the intent of making architect-designed homes available to all Americans, these homes never really took off due to World War I. The architecture, and the concept, were certainly ahead of the times. It was quite interesting.

So while it is the end of the Summer, that certainly doesn't mean it's the end of good times and fun things to do. It just means the weather is getting colder and I may have to find things to do indoors. One thing is for sure, there is always something fun and interesting happening here in Milwaukee. Stay tuned for more adventures.