Venn Diagram

This is coming up in a couple of weeks. Two of my favorite artists are having a concert together!!! The Counting Crows and The Gaslight Anthem!!! The two most recent shows I've seen were Brian Fallon and The Gaslight Anthem, and prior to that I've seen the Counting crows nine times, so when this show was announced (and on a night that works for me) it was an easy sell!!!

I'm putting this post together as a way to chronicle the times I've seen both groups. I had to go through some of my previous posts to get it all together.

I've previously made mention that the first time I saw the Counting Crows was in November 16th, 1995 at the Hollywood Grand with my brother in law. It was before they came out with their Recovering the Satellites album, and it was a lot of their new songs, so it wasn't stuff that the small crowd that was there was familiar with, for the most part, but it was a great show, very intimate. I'd heard that there was a bootleg of the show entitled “Launching the Satellites”, and just recently found someone had published it on YouTube!!! I converted the audio, and have it saved. It's all as one track, and I want to break it up into the individual songs. This was the set list:

1. Catapult

2. Angels of the Silence

3. Daylight Fading

4. I'm Not Sleeping

5. Miller's Angels

6. Another Horsedreamer's Blues

7. Wiseblood

8. Rain King

9. Ghost Train

10. Chelsea

11. Margery

12. Have You Seen Me Lately?

13. Suffocate

14. Goodnight Elizabeth

15. Children in Bloom

16. Round Here

17. Good Luck

I have recordings of Chelsea and Good Luck that I'm pretty sure were from this show, and possibly others (I have a lot of live recordings of their stuff).

I fell off for a while after that, and didn't even pick up the This Desert Life album, but was getting back into them when the Hard Candy album came out, and I went to see them again on December 10th 2002 at The Gibson Amphitheater, right by Universal Studios, and I was reminded of what a great live band they are!!! Toad + The Wet Sprocket opened for them. The show started with all the lights down and went right into “Have You Seen Me Lately”, and on the third singing of the line “Have you seen me lately?”, they put on all the lights on the audience, it was very theatrical!!! At some point around halfway through the set, the drummer Ben Mize had an anxiety attack or some kind of breakdown, and was unable to continue. Adam pulled out his song book and they played a couple songs as acoustic versions, then the drummer for Toad + The Wet Sprocket took over for the rest of the show. I was hooked again!!!

I think the next time I saw them was July 17th, 2003, at the Staples Center with John Mayer. This may be the worst show I've seen, the acoustics there aren't great, and there were a bunch of really annoying John Mayer fans there. I don't beleive I'd made posts about either of these shows.

The next show I saw, I'm not 100% sure of the date, but it was December 2003 at The Wiltern. The Wiltern is a place that's general admission with no seating whatsoever, which I didn't much care for, but it was a great show, especially compared to the previous one!!! The Wallflowers were the opening act, and I enjoyed them. They opened the set with Adam and one of the other Crows with an acoustic guitar off on the side playing “Blues Run the Game”, which I'd not heard before. Later on in the show was another first for me, they played “August and Everything After”, and not long after the show I found a bootleg from the same tour, possibly from the show I was at, of that song.

The next time I saw them was October 25th, 2005 at the Disney Concert Hall with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra (I've previously had that as Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, please update my flaky brain error). Awesome show!!! I took my firstborn to this show, and made a couple of posts about it. Great show, great sound (and different from the standard versions of their songs), and we had what could have been terrible seats, but Adam turned around to be able to watch the director for most of the show, and we ended up with awesome seats because of that!!!

The next show I saw was September 12th, 2008 at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater with Augustina and Maroon 5 (I'm pretty sure it was the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater at this point, but it'll always be the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater to me!!!) I think I've seen 4 or 5 other shows at this venue, and this was unique among them (besides being the last show I've seen there) for being the only one I ever had general admission tickets on the field for.

The next time I saw them was July 24th, 2009 at the Greek Theater with Augustina and Spearhead. “The Saturday Night Rebel Rockers Traveling Circus & Medicine Show”, this was, and it was a great show. One of the main recollections I have from it is when the treacherous starter on Janice went out again!!! Oh, and Spearhead had offers to download audio from the show if you signed up with them, and I still get emails from them!!!

Next up was October 1st, 2010 at the Ford Theater for the Freeloaders screening. Great weather for seeing a movie under the stars, the first time I've been to the venue, and it's a great theater, with good acoustics for a great listening experience!!! The Ford is across the freeway from the Hollywood Bowl (another venue that I haven't been to) and Tom Petty (possibly with the Heartbreakers) was playing that night. You could hear them during some of the more quiet parts, it's the closest I ever got to seeing Tom Petty.

It almost doesn't seem possible, but the most recent time I saw them was November 24, 2012 at The Wiltern, this time with Mean Creek and Tender Mercies. Good show, I enjoyed Tender Mercies more than Mean Creek, and Counting Crows did not disappoint!!! I remember between the acts they played Black Keys' “Gold on the Ceiling”, and sure enough, I looked up, and the ceiling of the Wiltern is indeed gold!!! Another thing I remember is for both shows at The Wiltern, while we were waiting to go in, a couple of girls were going down the line and trying to drum up business for a vegetarian place down the street from there.

After that, it seemed like every time they were playing locally, it was on a day that wasn't good for me, or in one particular case, they were playing at a casino with a small theater, and the tickets were quite expensive. I would have liked to have seen them more recently, but it just didn't work out.

Not like this upcoming one, it's come together about as good as I could ask for!!!

Going Back... INSIDE!!!

After my last post, I remembered something... No, not that I had a day before the month started off, or that I got a day off during that first week back (considered doing another post entitled "Bookends")

No, I remembered that I had Jury duty that week!!! I had done the online registration, and had in my head that they're going to send me a notification... Nope. I was at work, and remembered they'd sent me the summons, I gotta check when that is... so I did when I got home... Aw crap!!! That was this week!!!

This was on Wednesday, and I supposed to be calling in all that week!!! Called in that night, and they tell me I'm up for the next day. Well, I'm always up for Jury duty!!! It was at my favorite court, so that's good. I had thought I'd done a post on the Disney Concert Hall before, but guess I'd never gotten past thinking of doing it. So finally here it is, only this time I was mostly getting pictures of the interior. See that first inside shot??? If you can't tell, it's at the end also, from another angle.

I always love the way it looks from the outside, but the inside is equally impressive, if not more so!!!

They follow the wild shapes from the outside, but with nice materials!!!

As far as jury duty went, it was a bust again, all day without even being put on a panel. Kind of good, I take Fridays as my swap day at work (because I've been on the weekend shift since the beginning of 2016) so if I'd gotten on a jury, I probably would have had to go to in on my day off. My luck, they would have had us in selection or pre-trial all day, then settled at the end or something. Seems like every year I get summoned, but a look through shows the last time I went was 2013, and that was at the wrong courthouse. Also another time I didn't get called up.

The jury pool room was better than the last times I've been there. They've got chargers built into the seats, and tables in the back and a lot of vending machines. I got a lot more pictures, I may do another post...

That first interior shot??? It's a reception desk, made out of sheets of cut glass!!!

The Overflow Pictures

As mentioned in my previous post, here's the overflow pictures!!!



I think this is my favorite shot of the Disney Concert Hall.

Parking under the Disney Concert Hall like that reminded me of the time my boy and I saw the Counting Crows with the Philharmonic there. Good times.

But It Ended All Too Soon

Day two of jury duty ended up being the last day of jury duty. Kind of a bummer, but hey what can you do???

I really liked the deal I had going, the judge wanted us there at 10:30, lunch from noon until 1:30, and wrap up by 4:00. Better than the 7:30 I had to be there yesterday. Not to mention the commute, even when fully jammed, is still a lot quicker than my normal drive. If I'd been there any longer, I was going to check into getting the court provided Metro pass.

Well, I got there today and the prosecutor finishes his questioning of the jury panelists, and picks who he doesn't like. I was the first. Bad move for his case, I feel, but his loss. Of course, I was juror #1, so I was pretty much first for everything. Anyway, JUROR DISMISSED!!!


It was for a murder one case, with a female defendant. And a claw hammer. Wow. One has to imagine that there was likely some domestic violence in the background, and from the bit they let on about that was the case. As well as there being drugs and alcohol involved.

Anyway, I was out of there less than an hour after I got there, and it seemed a shame to waste the trip, so I walked ALL OVER, taking shots whilst I walked.

I had a few shots from yesterday that I'd selected that didn't fit, and some today too. I'm thinking of an overflow post.

I'm also thinking of a post of nothing but the Disney Concert Hall.

For the first time, there was actually a lot of smoke in the skies, giving some of my shots an orange cast.

The Westin Bonaventure is another of my all time favorite downtown structures, I took several shots of it, inside and out and from the wonderful glass elevators. Possibly a post of just it, too.

The Other Side of the Bench

The last several months I've become rather familiar with going to court. Today I began a completely different experience, something new for me. I've been called in for jury duty!!!

Much of the first part of the day was taken up with orientation in a room full of probably more than 100 potential jurors. After that, I had plenty of time to read most all of the paper, do the crossword and sudoku puzzles, and listen to my MP3 player. I still have the music I loaded on it for the Florida trip, and was amused to hear that Jay-Z's "99 Problems" and The Beatles' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" were in the mix, both of which have tales of the legal system in them. Who knows, I may have Skynard's "Four Walls of Rainford" on there, too!!!

Halfway through the day I was called to be in a case screening panel. I'm under orders not to discuss any details of the case, so you'll have to wait until after for any of that (if indeed I am inclined to post about it... but it sounds fascinating, so I likely will), but there is a 1 1/2 hour lunch break, and I had my camera with me, so I got to take a bunch of pictures of downtown from a pedestrian perspective!!! Cool!!!

I took a BUNCH of the Disney Concert Hall. Only a couple are represented here.

One of the pictures had the fountains outside the DWP building. The cool thing about it is that it has a parking structure underneath it!!!



The whole downtown area seems big on fountains...

This is the first time that I've actually made it to jury service, since I now work for a real company that pays for my time while I serve!!!

Likely more to come!!!