Stumbling Through Adulthood

She's never had any real music instruction, though she participated in chamber choir for a year in high school. I think she sounds pretty good.

Sorry about the blank black screen! Took the video with my phone and Perry suggested the blank black screen to make it smaller, so easier to upload and share.

Hopefully a link to video.

Jeff Sessions testimony in shorter format:



I mean, really? He lied, stonewalled, and pretended not to remember. If his memory is that bad, he needs Alzheimer's care, not an AG position.

Comey is scum, who cheated to get Trump elected, but he is not a liar. Sessions, OTOH, is.

The plan yesterday was to do a major garden clean-up. Lots of work, and we ignored the children's wails and moans and told them they were being put to work.

Within about twenty minutes, a migraine hit. No aura, but the light sensitivity, the pain, the nausea. Crud. I went inside. I haven't had any migraine meds in years because they actually got infrequent enough to not warrant keeping them, the last one was over six months ago. Darkened the bedroom, took 800mg of Motrin and hoped that this wouldn't be too bad.

I dozed on and off for about 3 hours, so not awful. Of course the kids, not being recalled to task every few minutes by the slave master me (that's what Linnea calls me, sigh. I think she is lacking perspective.) had wandered off. It took me another hour beyond that to be steady enough to go back out to get some work done.

Migraines leave me with such a bizarre feeling. It's like the pain recedes, but leaves a shakiness, slight nausea, slight light sensitivity, and very strong sense of total vulnerability.

Anyhow, got some work done until it was too dark to see, not as much as I'd hoped, which means more work today, and then Perry, dh, and I headed into Seattle for a metal concert.

Yeah, migraine in the morning, metal concert in the evening. What could possibly go wrong? Heh.

It actually turned out all right. I did want to cry when I realised there were four opening bands, three awful, one mediocre (ok, that may have been the migraine speaking. Two awful, one mediocre, one not too bad).

A very jarring moment. I read on my phone that a friend's dad had died just as we were going through the pat-down line (they don't pat down women or children), and responded from there. I'm staring at the bouncer as he checks out the guy in front of me who is dressed in full pirate regalia, and trying to type on my phone to answer an email and just feeling totally 100% out of it. I never met her dad, but I think he was someone I'd have liked.

The band we went to see was Alestorm. Which is why quite a few people were dressed up as pirates and serving wenches. I need a black leather bustier, damn it! Ideally black and dark purple. I might have to go to satin if I can't find someone to custom make me a leather one.

Anyhow, Alestorm. Seriously check them out on youtube, they're great. The music is funny, loud, vulgar, and totally not appropriate for children, my kids love them, and despite our asking her not to, Linnea has introduced them to all the kids in the neighbourhood. Somehow I think the lead singer, who was sporting a kilt and more khol than he isually wears, would be horrified to know he has a fan club of 10 year olds. We had Perry with us, AC stayed home (she had read that there were four opening bands, and decided to give it a pass because of that. I'm glad she didn't tell me because considering how shaky I was feeling when we left, I might have not gone and Alestorm themselves were awesome.).

They were predictably high energy, loud, and funny last night. They played -OMG- one cover. In the Navy. Perry was upset because he didn't know it, and that after Chris, the lead singer said, "Oh come! Don't lie, admit it, you all know the words!" and poor Perry didn't. Aside from that, Perry knew most of the songs, and yes, I'm sure there is some bad parenting involved when your kid is standing next to you screaming out the words to a song called "Wenches and Mead". Oh well. He heard a lot of things that he shouldn't have... I mean, I let him listen to Gulp by Mary Roach which certainly had some things beyond the normal scope of a 12 year old.

We of course did keep Perry out of the mosh pit. We had gotten there early enough that we could have gotten spots right at the stage, but opted for the more protected "balcony" (it's about stage height), which is good because things got a bit rowdy, as people who came late tried to shove their way in close and people who'd been waiting did not want to leave spots.

However, one comment, to the guitarist from Trollfest and Alestorm's keyboardist: if I have the data to speculate on if you might have gotten a Brazilian wax job, guys, your pants are too low. I mean, really? There is low cut and sexy and low cut and "shouldn't there be pubic hair around there?" Hee. It amuses me.

The concert finished at well past midnight (remember all those opening bands!) and we were exhausted.

And in a "this is SO cool" thing, we got a picture of Perry with Chris, the lead singer, outside after.

Sonata Arctica:: a stupendous set.

Probably the best performance I've seen of any band. (Excluding TSO, this isn't the same thing).

( This is going to be long... )

Perry and AC like the same song right now: When Mountains Fall, by Stratovarius.



Linnea tolerates it, but still prefers Eagleheart, by the same group.

What amuses me to no end? Perry and AC singing together, both mostly on key. AC has a nice voice we probably should pay more attention to and Perry is still a sweet little boy voice. They sound so cute together. One of these days I'll have to get them on video. And they're trying to figure out the music for piano. Perry is becoming quite adept at that, it's something AC does pretty well, and dh is excellent at, so if they'd just write it down rather than re-inventing the first 10 notes every single time they might just get there... or at least somewhere.

I'm a sucker. If begged enough I'll put the damn song on repeat in the car and just blank it out of my mind... for at least the first five or six times. Then I have to change it, despite their protests. Heh. I have yet to find at what number of listens they can no longer tolerate it. That number may well be very very high.

Bands were Epica, which was the main attraction, preceded by Threat Signal, Blackguard, Waking Hour, and If I Were A Gladiator, at El Corazón.

Dh was frisked on the way in by the security person and had to empty his pockets. He peered suspiciously at the plastic baggie containing.... our ear plugs. Heh. I should add that, with no handbag, my wallet in hand, I was waved straight in. Gender hath its privileges if you don't carry a purse. This was a busy concert, in large part, I think, because there were five bands playing.

If I Were A Gladiator is a local band, and bad just about sums 'em up. They're a prog metal band, with a pretty slender singer. Dh's comment "She's flat", and he wasn't talking about her chest size. The guys wore their guitars waaaay too far up on their chests and instead of the usual penis extenders, it created an impression of... well, the golf pants equivalent of guitars. Also, head banging when your hair is buzzed and you look about 13 with a golf-pants guitar just makes you resemble a pigeon bobbing its head. Thumbs down.

Next up was Waking Hour. Also a local band, and we've apparently heard them before. I rather liked them. Singer is a guy and pretty good, the drummer was good, reeeeeeeeeeeeally good, and their rendition of Dio's Rainbow in the Dark was great. It was a bit odd to hear them playing something that probably came out before any of them -or a good number of people in the audience- were born. Ugh. Getting old. Dh says they were older than that, and yeah, a few of them were... well... Oh dear god. Don't tell me that the bands are now my age. I could console myself with "older" or "young whippersnappers" but... my age? No. Just... no. Weren't they supposed to grow up and get real hobbies? Oh. Wait....

Blackguard... the music was good, but what was awesome was their stage presence: this was A Show. Canadian speed metal, and yeah. Speed metal. That. Growly main singer, but he ooozed extrovert-happy-to-be-performing, and was just... peachy. Watch the hair. There are some related videos that are worth listening to. As I said, pretty good.

Temperature in the venue went up about 10 degrees. Loads of people, loads of energy, no ventilation.

And it's getting late, we've been standing for 3 hours and there was one more band before Epica. That band was Threat Signal, and maybe because I was tired, hot, and cranky, I thought they were awful, and could not muster enough enthusiasm to even flash metal horns. Dh said the only redeeming bit of the Threat Signal act is that they turned up the signal on the drums enough to shake the hairs on his arms. Blah. Whatever. Go away, I want Epica.

Ah. Here they are! Epica!.

As I said in my quick summary last night... when the drummer comes out without his shirt, you know it's gonna be good.

And it was. Last time they came to Seattle their usual singer, Simone, was ill and they had her voice trainer and their background vocals singer Amanda singing. We were both looking forward to seeing Simone, who had a damn good opera trained voice.

The setlist was a good balance between new stuff and old favourites.

They started with Sensorium.

Let's see.. They finished with Consign to Oblivion. They played The Obsessive Devotion at one point, I think.

Wait. Why am I bothering? Googled "Epica" "Design Your Universe" and "setlist" and got the setlist. It wasn't quite the same order. Any of those songs is awesome to check out. Really. Simone is a really good mezzo-soprano. Tides of Time will bring tears.

One of my favourites: Cry for the Moon.



Note handsome guitarist without his shirt. He lost it last night too, about half way through. No complaints here. Hey, eye candy is always welcome! And Simone's voice is incredible. Yeah, I know, I said that before. Seriously. Listen.

It was 1am by the time we got out, tired, but wow, what a concert! It was so worth the standing for almost 6 hours, and today's ringing ears, sore neck, and hoarse voices!

I listen to Pandora. I've been trying to train -well, dh and I work at this together!- towards heavy metal. Overall it's pretty good, I don't think I've had to turn down a song for a long time.

Today I did.

It played this:



Ummm.... No. Light rock, with a country-ish voice, but not metal. Don't listen. Really. Unless you like light rock. We don't.

As dh said: "If it doesn't have a driving base groove and double kick drums, I don't want to hear it".

Which brings up... MIL was here the other day and we had Sonata Arctica on. She was wondering what the fluttering noise was, some defect in our sound system. No, that flutter would be the double kick drums.

All this reminds me that TSO is touring, but not the West Coast -what's with that?- and so is Kamelot. They'll be in California, but not Seattle, Portland, or Vancouver. I may have to drive down to SF for that one. If my MIL will watch the kids... I mean, I'll keep AC out of school for 1/2 day for a concert, or even a day, but back and forth to SF... ummm... maybe not, huh?