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Archive for the ‘Mann Center for the Performing Arts’ Category

The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses: Master Quest (Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, PA, December 28, 2017)

Posted in C., Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, The Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Verizon Hall on December 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: December 28, 2017] The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses

legend

Last September, we all went to see Symphonic Zelda–the Symphony of the Goddesses.  Out of the blue a few months back, C. said he’d really like to see it again.  I assumed it would be a long time before it came around.  But I checked the site (it’s very rare that C. wants to go and do something) and they were playing right after Christmas.  This time at the gorgeous Verizon Hall.

The website announced that the show would be different.

Brought to Life as never before, witness as 30 years of video game history unfolds, complete with a stirring cinematic video presentation, synced with the games’ sensational, thematic and action-packed soundtracks played live by a full orchestra and choir.  In addition to Breath of the Wild music, the new program also features an all new movement from Skyward Sword, and the return of a classic that just might make some wishes come true!

(more…)

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Belle and Sebastian (The Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA, August 3, 2017)

Posted in Andrew Bird, Belle and Sebastian, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Porches, Thin Lizzy on August 3, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 3, 2017] Belle and Sebastian

Sarah and I saw Belle and Sebastian back in 2015 at Radio City Music Hall.  The show was great and we had a really fun time.  I knew we’d enjoy seeing them again, so I was surprised and pleased to see that they were playing the Mann Center (even if I said we wouldn’t go back and this was now show number three).

The venue was perfect for the band, and Stuart at least seemed to really appreciate the sound and warmth of the shell.  Astonishingly, the show was nowhere near sold out.  One of the guards told me they’d barely sold 3,000 tickets.  What the hell?   That explains how I was able to get row R or whatever we had.

So the band had no new album to promote (although they did recently release a new song).  I wondered what they’d be playing and if it would be basically the same show as last time. (more…)

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Andrew Bird (The Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA, August 3, 2017) [BELLE AND SEBASTIAN}

Posted in Andrew Bird, Belle and Sebastian, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Porches, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on August 3, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 3, 2017] Andrew Bird

My experience with Andrew Bird has been frustrating.  I often hear a song or story about him and I think, “I love this guy!”  Whether it’s a feature on his amazing whistling or his adventurous violin playing, I love the songs that they play.

But when I try to listen to more of his songs, I find them…okay.  Never bad, just okay.  Perhaps if I really devoted time to the songs I would learn to appreciate them more, but as it is I find them pleasant.

And this concert was much the same.  I really enjoyed a number of the songs he played (I don’t know the names of most of them), but by the end of the set, I was sort of drifting off a bit.

Before the show we met some friends who were also there.  One of them told me that he often plays solo, looping his violin and such.  He did loop the violin a number of times, but he played every song with his four piece.  And while I can’t compare something I haven’t seen, I feel like the band worked very well and made the show a bit more upbeat. (more…)

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Porches (The Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA, August 3, 2017) [BELLE AND SEBASTIAN}

Posted in Andrew Bird, Belle and Sebastian, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Porches on August 3, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 3, 2017] Porches

I’ve complained several times already about the trip to the Mann and while this one moved a little more smoothly, we were still pretty late.  We caught all of two songs from Porches.

I had heard of Porches when I saw that they were the opening slot for Belle & Sebastian and Andrew Bird, but I didn’t know much about them (I think I had them confused with about four other bands with similar names).

They are described as a synthpop band on Wikipedia, but as you can see from the photo, there’s more than synths. Lead Porch Aaron Maine was an amusing and engaged front man.  I enjoyed that when he introduced the final song he said, “I suppose this will be our last song,” or something else noncommittal.

(more…)

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Fleet Foxes (The Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA, July 31, 2017)

Posted in Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA on July 31, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 31, 2017] Fleet Foxes

I recently made a list of the bands that I’d like to see live.  Fleet Foxes was one of them.  So even though getting to the Mann is a hassle, it was a great venue to watch them.

Their debut album is just brilliant.  I recently listened to their second album and realized I didn’t know it that well. Their new album is, I will admit, a bit challenging to get into.  Bit the melodies and the harmonies…oh the harmonies!

I knew that they were playing pretty much the entire new album, but also a lot of the debut album, which is what I came for.  Robin Pecknold’s voice was tremendous (I guess six years off was good for the vocal chords).  And the harmonies of the rest of the band were outstanding.  With 22 songs in about 2 hours, they sounded great. (more…)

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Animal Collective (The Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA, July 31, 2017) [FLEET FOXES]

Posted in Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Sigur Rós on July 31, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 31, 2017] Animal Collective

The Mann Center is a gorgeous venue, but it’s a real hassle for us to get to–for a 7PM show it takes about 2 hours.  Which is absurd.  I swore we wouldn’t go back again, and then they announced Sigur Rós back in June and then Fleet Foxes and Belle and Sebastian this week.

So much for not going.

Well, this early show indeed meant that after two hours in the car we still missed at least one song from Animal Collective.

I’ve known about Animal Collective for a long time–they’re pretty legendary.  I’ve never really gotten into them, although they do have a few songs that I like.

They are a headlining band in their own right with their own dedicated fanbase–who were out in force, dancing everywhere during their set.  And checking recent setlists, it sounds like their shows are typically much longer than this one (about 70 minutes). (more…)

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Sigur Rós (The Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA, June 16, 2017)

Posted in Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Radio City Music Hall, Sigur Rós on June 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 16, 2017] Sigur Rós

Sarah and I saw Sigur Rós last fall. We both agreed that it was an incredible show.  So when I saw that they were coming back around and playing at the Mann Center, it was hard to pass up the chance to see them again.

It was ostensibly  the same tour, except that it was not exactly the same tour, and not exactly the same show.

It was still just the trio of jón þór birgisson (jonsi), georg holm, and orri páll dýrason and like last time, Jonsi was on vocals and (violin bowed) guitar, Georg was on bass (and more) and Orri was on drums and keyboards.  But they shifted around, with each of them playing other things during the show.

About the previous show I said

The show was perfectly orchestrated with a spectacular light show.  It was arranged into two acts with a 15 minute intermission.  I have often complained about bands who don’t change their set list from night to night but there is no way they could change this–the precision of everything, the complexity of the lights and music–this was more of a stage show than a concert.

Well, they did change things up a bit for this series of shows.  It was actually a little shorter with two fewer songs.

But the big distinction is that there were two new new songs.  In addition to the new songs they played last time, they added two more new ones.

About the previous show I also said:

As soon as the band started playing and Jonsi started singing, I was rapt–Totally caught up in the music which sounded amazing in Radio City Music Hall. It feels like they have speakers all over the room, their sound and which simply envelops the audience.  I usually like to take some pictures of exciting moments of shows but I didn’t even touch my phone during the show–I was absorbed from the first notes.

(more…)

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The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses: Master Quest (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, September 25, 2016)

Posted in C., Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Pokémon Go, Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda on September 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 25, 2016] The Legend of Zelda

legendBack in the summer we took the kids to the Mann Center to see Symphonic Pokémon.  And it was pretty great.  Well, the Mann Center closed its season with a symphonic Legend of Zelda performance.  C. has been a big Zelda fan for a couple of years (he loves the soundtrack particularly), so it seemed like an obvious show to go to.

Our one regret is that it was on a Sunday night which meant we didn’t get home until 11, which is just too late for a school night (especially since earlier in the week we took the kids to see “Weird Al” and got home even later–terrible parents, yes, but pretty cool parents).  But that was the only regret we had.

The show was fantastic.  C. even wore his Zelda Halloween costume (and brought his home-made cardboard sword–which passed security thankfully).  And he was not the only one in costume–some people were very seriously dressed for this event. (more…)

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Pokémon: Symphonic Evolutions (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, July 10, 2016)

Posted in Andrew Aversa, Chad Seiter, Jeron Moore, Junichi Masuda, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Pokemon, Red Robin, Susie Benchasil Seiter on July 10, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 10, 2016] Pokémon: Symphonic Evolutions

evolutionWe have been really enjoying the Mann Center this year.  And since Clark (whose birthday was not so long ago) has been really enjoying Pokémon this year, this seemed like a perfect evening–orchestral Pokémon music at the Mann.

A friend of ours had seen it and said it was fun, so we bought some balcony seats (never been up there before), had a meal en route at Red Robin (yum), and made it with minutes to spare.  There were no baseball cards for this event (pity), but there was plenty of people watching.

2016-07-10 19.44.48I really didn’t know who would come to this show.  I assumed it would be families with little kids.  It never occurred to me that there would be hundreds of cosplayers here too.  There were people in costume (!)–I didn’t get any good pictures–there were 20- and 30-somethings in Pokémon hats and shirts and there were plush Pikachu all over the place (including in the orchestra!).

The conductor was Susie Seiter and the music was composed by her husband, Chad Seiter and his co-worker Jeron Moore.  The original press release states:

This has been the brainchild of me [Chad] and co-creator Jeron Moore for over 7 months now…. We have all been working very closely with The Pokémon Company International to create an authentic Pokémon experience, and all the music is approved by original Pokémon composer Junichi Masuda himself.

The show is turning out awesome – we have a large 80+ piece orchestra, and I’ve been working on 80 minutes of new arrangements, putting the Pokémon music into an epic symphonic Hollywood context. The show will be conducted by my wife, and LEGEND OF ZELDA: SYMPHONY OF THE GODDESSES conductor, Susie Seiter – who has also painstakingly orchestrated all the music. It will also feature innovative percussive and electronic accompaniment by Andrew Aversa.

So we sat down and out came the conductor.  But before the show started, Chad came out and introduced the show.  He said that this was the first show they had performed since Pokémon Go came out and they took a photo of all of us holding up our login screens.  For some reason our game wasn’t connecting there, which was very disappointing since we heard everyone saying–there’s Charmander, there’s Squirtle.  There’s even a photo of someone catching a Pikachu in the audience.

I have seen a few orchestral shows before, but there was something really amazing about this one.  Perhaps it was where we sat–the angle was great–or perhaps the size of the orchestra, but it was so much fun to watch this spectacle.  And, yes, the music was pretty fantastic too.

What made the show especially fun, though, was the audience.  Typically an orchestral show is quiet and reserved.  Not here.  The crowd went nuts before each piece and went absolutely crazy when their favorite Pokémon came on screen.  I had to assume the orchestra really enjoyed getting wild cheers instead of polite applause. (more…)

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Phish (Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, June 28, 2016)

Posted in Bob Dylan, Flight of the Conchords, Hot Rize, Josh White, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Phish, Son Seals, Trey Anastasio on June 29, 2016| 1 Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 28, 2016] Phish limb

phishA friend of mine in college first got me to listen to Phish (circa 1992), but it wasn’t until the LivePhish releases starting in 2001 that I really got into them.  [Incidentally, if you bought those discs and kept them in that plastic liner thing, check your discs because those plastic things have eaten away most of the whatever is on them that allows a player to play music.  Most of my discs have sections that are totally see-through and register an error.  I don’t think anything can be done about it DIY and I’m quite sure that Elektra isn’t about to give us new copies or anything.]

I had never gone to a Phish show for a couple of reasons.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to dive into the “culture” of the shows, which seemed intimidating at best.  And, once I decided I wanted to see them, I could never actually get tickets.  Well, the Phish lottery came through and I scored a ticket to this show at the Mann Center.

A word about Phish now.  I knew that people were devoted to the band, but I never knew how much the band reciprocated.  In order to let fans have a fair shot at getting tickets to their shows, they have set up a lottery.  All ticket prices are the same and you either get tickets or you don’t (you can later by them on Ticketmaster or whatever).  If you get tickets, your seat could be front row or lawn or anywhere in between.  And the price ($49 face value for all) is quite cheap, I think.  Well, I won a lottery ticket, and my ticket came all psychedelic instead of a standard Ticketmaster type ticket.  Which is cool.  But not only that, your ticket gets you a free download of that night’s show when it becomes available on the LivePhish website.  And that’s usually within a few hours of the end of the show.  The shows are normally around $10 to download, but if you bought a ticket you get a free one.  That’s super cool.

Also, every once in a while (12 times now) the LivePhish site has released free compilations of live songs from various shows throughout the band’s history.  Most of these downloads are 3 hours or more.  That’s a ton of free music.  Nice.  So I’ve listened to these collections a lot and I know most of the songs they play very well.

Back to the Mann.  (more…)

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