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Nov. 17th, 2007 12:30 pmAlthough I'm not a fan of Lenny Kravitz, I tried for and got tix to a special event where he'd be doing music. The pass was for two and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
keker (with whom I had a lovely evening on Tuesday, dining at the vegan Japanese place, Cha-Ya, in San Francisco, followed by ice cream at Bi-Rite -- still love the Salty Caramel) came along for last night's "concert." Venue: The Fillmore, where I'd been just five days before to see Suzanne Vega w/singular_girl.
(uoggb: if you lived around here I so would've asked if you wanted to see this. Would you have?)
It turned out to be tedious at times. There was recording to be done and we were asked to sign a release. We stood around inside after standing in line, having arrived a half hour before the requested time. I was a bit afraid of the large stacks of speakers to each side of the stage (possibly four times as many as for the SV concert), so was relieved as we got to the middle front, approximately two layers of people from the barrier, between the speaker stacks.
We were encouraged to be lively, clap a lot, smile, be loud as appropriate and have a good time. "Television" was mentioned several times. Our wristbands had "Wal-Mart soundcheck" and various assistants milling about had "AXE" in big letters and "Lenny Kravitz" in much smaller type on their black t-shirts.
As I said, I'm not a fan of LK. I don't dislike his music and he seems accomplished from what I have seen. Although I can appreciate that he's gone down an interesting path, career-wise, it's still one of "rock star" which, I admit, he fully brought to this show. His band had a goofy stereotype of a glam rock bassist, but the drummer was posturing in fun all over the place and was hot, too.
While we waited, I asked Christine if she knew many LK songs. Aside from his cover of "American Woman" I hadn't been able to dredge up more than a bit of melody from any, though I could give song and album titles. Christine apparently knew more bits of songs, but we pretty much, well, acted.
This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the musical interludes between the set-ups. Even though much can be done post-production, LK's performance had all the strutting, posing, and attitude one sees in such things, but he either acted well or was very much in the moment. His vocals seemed a bit muffled (we might've been too close to the stage and away from the full effect of the speakers) and his guitar-playing, though not integral to the overall sound as far as I could tell, was proficient and confident. He did a couple of songs from his new album first and then treated us to a few hits. If you see me in the "Let Love Rule" audience scenes, I really am mouthing those words, the only ones I know from that song.
There was a somewhat low IQ Q&A segment after the musical performance and people had been pre-screened to step up to the mike. However, after LK responded reasonably well to the question of the most influential female singer to him (Aretha Franklin) and there was a slight lull, I shouted out "You should do a duet with her!" and he said he'd definitely be interested, or something like that. So I had a moment w/Mr. LK - hee!
I guess I'll be on the lookout for the tv or whatever showing of this event. I understand there was a similar one several days before in L.A., so maybe scenes from both will be mixed together. Catch me on YouTube? We'll see.
keker (with whom I had a lovely evening on Tuesday, dining at the vegan Japanese place, Cha-Ya, in San Francisco, followed by ice cream at Bi-Rite -- still love the Salty Caramel) came along for last night's "concert." Venue: The Fillmore, where I'd been just five days before to see Suzanne Vega w/singular_girl. (
uoggb: if you lived around here I so would've asked if you wanted to see this. Would you have?)It turned out to be tedious at times. There was recording to be done and we were asked to sign a release. We stood around inside after standing in line, having arrived a half hour before the requested time. I was a bit afraid of the large stacks of speakers to each side of the stage (possibly four times as many as for the SV concert), so was relieved as we got to the middle front, approximately two layers of people from the barrier, between the speaker stacks.
We were encouraged to be lively, clap a lot, smile, be loud as appropriate and have a good time. "Television" was mentioned several times. Our wristbands had "Wal-Mart soundcheck" and various assistants milling about had "AXE" in big letters and "Lenny Kravitz" in much smaller type on their black t-shirts.
As I said, I'm not a fan of LK. I don't dislike his music and he seems accomplished from what I have seen. Although I can appreciate that he's gone down an interesting path, career-wise, it's still one of "rock star" which, I admit, he fully brought to this show. His band had a goofy stereotype of a glam rock bassist, but the drummer was posturing in fun all over the place and was hot, too.
While we waited, I asked Christine if she knew many LK songs. Aside from his cover of "American Woman" I hadn't been able to dredge up more than a bit of melody from any, though I could give song and album titles. Christine apparently knew more bits of songs, but we pretty much, well, acted.
This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the musical interludes between the set-ups. Even though much can be done post-production, LK's performance had all the strutting, posing, and attitude one sees in such things, but he either acted well or was very much in the moment. His vocals seemed a bit muffled (we might've been too close to the stage and away from the full effect of the speakers) and his guitar-playing, though not integral to the overall sound as far as I could tell, was proficient and confident. He did a couple of songs from his new album first and then treated us to a few hits. If you see me in the "Let Love Rule" audience scenes, I really am mouthing those words, the only ones I know from that song.
There was a somewhat low IQ Q&A segment after the musical performance and people had been pre-screened to step up to the mike. However, after LK responded reasonably well to the question of the most influential female singer to him (Aretha Franklin) and there was a slight lull, I shouted out "You should do a duet with her!" and he said he'd definitely be interested, or something like that. So I had a moment w/Mr. LK - hee!
I guess I'll be on the lookout for the tv or whatever showing of this event. I understand there was a similar one several days before in L.A., so maybe scenes from both will be mixed together. Catch me on YouTube? We'll see.
