Tuesday Tunes - Bruno Mars

I love music. I mean, I honestly LOVE music.  I don’t know how anyone can make it through a day without some sort of soundtrack.  I listen to music as I get ready in the morning, while I work, as I drive around town, during my workouts, and before I go to bed.

Good music can easily bring me to tears, make me dance, or put a smile on my face. 

There are artists whose music touches the very depths of my soul.  There are artists whose voices make me swoon, or lose my sense of reality.

There are songs that bring me right back to moments in my personal history.

There are songs that describe what I’m feeling THIS VERY MOMENT so exactly, I think they must have been written for me.

I celebrate with music, I mourn with music, I pray with music.

Music, to me, is nearly as essential as the air I breathe.

And I have the most eclectic taste in music…from rap to rock, from pop to jazz, from country to Christian…

So there is always some new, or new to me, music to discover, and to share with others.

Which is why I’ve decided to do just that here…each week, I’ll introduce you to just a bit of the music I’m loving at the moment…


Not so much "album reviews" although sometimes, that's exactly what it will be, but more "artist reviews" if you will...

To kick it off, this week, I’ll start with an album that’s been on constant replay on my mp3 player for a few weeks.

Bruno Mars.

It's very likely you've already heard of Bruno, or at the very least, you've heard one of his many songs on the radio.

Such as: "Just The Way You Are"

A beautiful ode to a woman, and her perfection, well...just as she is.


Or "Grenade":





A heartbreaking song of loving someone so much, you would do anything for them, even if they, in turn, seem to only abuse and under appreciate you.


And Bruno Mars has also collaborated with some great artists of today, such as, B.O.B. on "Nothin' On You"



and Travie McCoy on "Billionaire" (yes, THAT'S what you know him from).  Warning, the video below is the uncensored not for radio version and contains the F word.





All of these are great songs. But it's some of the lesser known unreleased songs from his album that I've got on constant replay..."Runaway" which is actually a GREAT running song, "The Other Side"...a little bit Michael Jackson "Thriller" a little bit "ode to Twilight", "Count on Me" a happy melody about being there for your friends, and my ultimate favorite "Talking to the Moon" a pretty ballad that showcases the range of his voice and emotion.


So there you have it...an artist I think you should check out.

Year In Review - Concerts

This year, I attended A LOT of concerts. I love live music, and try to attend a few concerts each year, but this year, I outdid myself. It was a very good year for live music!

1.I started off the year, almost immediately, by winning a pair of concert tickets on Twitter (from Livenation) to see SafetySuit and Parachute. I had just discovered Safetysuit when Livenation Tweeted the ticket giveaway, so imagine my delight when I won the tickets. I wasn’t at all familiar with parachute, though I later realized I actually knew a few of their songs. The concert, in a small club venue, was fantastic! Both groups were great, but Safetysuit really blew me away, and I became a fan.

2. Very shortly after winning the above tickets, I also won tickets to see Timbaland at the House Of Blues in Boston (another Twitter contest, I started off the year on a lucky streak). Unfortunately, I can’t really tell you these tickets were worth the price of admission (yes, they were free)…the concert was horrible. Quite easily the worst concert I’ve ever been to, and that’s saying a lot. The opening act, Honor Society, however, were pretty good.

My review of both the above concerts is here.

3. After that concert left such a bad taste in my mouth, I knew I’d have to somehow find a way to revive my love for live music. Unfortunately, I had a while to wait, but in June, I flew to Pittsburgh to meet up with a friend and spend a few days with her, and to attend the Lifehouse/Daughtry concert.

Opening up for the two bands was another band I’d never heard of before: “Cavo”…I fell in love immediately, and have since become a big fan. Lifehouse, of course, stole the show as far as I’m concerned, but my love for them knows no bounds. Daughtry were good, but I felt that the acoustics in the building or something was off…I could barely hear Chris Daughtry’s voice over the guitars and drums. I was a bit disappointed. Still, overall, the concert was totally worth the trip (as was my time with my friend, of course).

4. When the summer began, so did my rash of concert going. I found myself taking FULL advantage of LiveNation’s $10 summer and snatched up a few concert tickets for that crazy low price. In the same week in August, I attended three concerts. The first of these was Rihanna's "Last Girl On Earth" tour with Ke$ha. All I can say about this particular concert is that I'm glad I only paid $10 for the tickets, and that we arrived just in time to miss most of Ke$ha's set. I think that girl is a train wreck, and had no desire to see her perform...the little bit we did see just re-affirmed my decision.

Rihanna, on the other hand, put on a great show....when she finally decided to grace us with her presence, that is. The fact that we had to wait over an hour and a half between Ke$ha's set and when Rihanna finally took the stage was simply unacceptable to me...Still, the show itself was entertaining...

5. A few nights before Rihanna's show, however, I attended what would become one of my two favorite concerts of the year...John Mayer. I did a full review of that concert here, so I won't repeat myself, except to say that I LOVED IT!

6. And a few nights later, I attended another fantastic concert. Maroon 5:

(another $10 show, which, let me tell you, I would have paid full price for this show). The show was fantastic, full energy, and one of those concerts that make you realize what makes live music so great! Plus...Adam Levine:

Sigh...

7. And finally, in October, I attended what was to be (and I knew would be) my favorite concert of the year...Kris Allen and Lifehouse. I'd gotten a small taste of lifehouse earlier in the year at the Daughtry concert, but it only served to ignite my desire to see them headlining...so when they announced a headlining tour, I knew I would most definitely be going to see them. The first time I saw lifehouse live was back in 2006. I hardly knew who they were then, but fell immediately in love. I said then, and I say again now, that they are without question, the BEST live band out there. (Here's my review of the concert in 2006). The concert in October did not disappoint. Firstly, I must give Kris Allen props. The American Idol winner was also a great live performer...he was funny, and charismatic, and extremely talented. And when lifehouse took the stage, I was lost in their world for 90 minutes of pure talent (along with some of their own humor and charm). And also, Jason Wade?

Sigh...

So, as you can see, it was a good year in live music, with only one major, and one minor disappointment.

I'm not sure how I can top this year in concerts...but if I can finagle some tickets to the New Kids/BackStreet Boys concert in 2011, that might be a start...;-)

Concert Review - John Mayer

I’ve been a John Mayer fan for a while now. I know the guy gets a bad rap in the public eye, and I realize that people have really strong feelings about him, one way or the other, but personally, I like him. I won’t get into the why or how of all that, but I have written a post about my feelings about him, his persona, and his talent here if you are curious.

This is not that post.

This is about the concert I attended on Friday, August 6, and the fact that talent wise, this man is pure genius.

If you’re at all familiar with John Mayer’s music, then you know that with him, it’s all about his guitar, and his voice. There’s no fanfare, no light show, no costumes…he just plays his instruments and sings. It’s also, very much, about the lyrics.

Anyway, after a pretty unexciting opener by Train, John Mayer took the stage. I suppose, in all fairness, I should note that it wasn’t that Train weren’t good, I’m just not a big fan, and wasn’t overly attentive to their performance. I think they did a fairly good job, people seemed to be enjoying them and having a good time.

But I was there for John Mayer.

He took the stage and started off with "Vultures", followed by "Clarity", and then his current hit "Heartbreak Warfare".

At one point he launched into this crazy guitar solo. When he took the guitar off his torso and placed it on the floor, and continued to play, I knew we were in for a treat.

Seriously? Raw talent, right?

The rest of the Set list was as follows: Ain't No Sunshine "Bill Withers Cover", Who Says, Why Georgia, Perfectly Lonely (one of my favorites by him, and a point in the concert where he really connected with the audience and had us all laughing with him); War Of My Life, Waiting On The World To Change, Gravity, Do You Know Me, Raspberry Beret (Prince Cover) - Which was SOOOO good, Half of my Heart.

When the lights went out, we knew he'd be out for an Encore. because, after all, when does a concert not include an encore now a days? Encore: Free Fallin' (Tom Petty Cover). Your Body is a Wonderland. Edge of Desire.

The surprise here was that for his Encore, John showed up not on stage, but amidst the audience, with just his guitar, singing a cover of Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’, quite possibly my favorite moment of the evening.

He then returned to stage for a few more songs (Your Body is a Wonderland - another favorite of mine) and Edge of Desire, before signing off for the night.

In between sets, John colored the show with his easy banter with the audience. He told a few stories about his songs, he related to this particular audience reflecting back on his days in Boston, when he was attending Berklee, he talked about love, heartbreak, success and hardship. And he was humble, and sweet as he thanked his fans for supporting him and standing by him even when he stumbles on this road through fame.

He was exactly as I expected him to be on stage. Serious and joking. Giving his ALL to his performance, but not taking himself too seriously. He connected, and he delivered. And I think I’d rank this at the top of my favorite concerts attended. Yes, it was that good.

I’d definitely go see him again. Maybe not 27 times, like the lady in line in the bathroom has…but a few more times, yes.

Concert Reviews - 2 for the price of none.

Recently I posted about my lucky streak winning concert tickets on Twitter (of all places). What I haven't done yet, is tell you about the concerts themselves, so here we go:

The first concert was on Thursday, January 7th at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston. SafetySuit and Parachute were the acts. To be honest, before this concert I'd barely heard of Parachute, and knew only one song by SafetySuit, this one:

Which I loved the minute I heard it.

By the way, this is Parachute:

So, the concert: SafetySuit came out first, and right away I was glad I had the opportunity to see them live before they blow up big. They are fantastic live, they put on a great show, full of energy and interaction with the audience. The lead singer has a great voice, and I really enjoyed their performance.

Parachute's music, I'll be honest, is not really my "style", but that being said, I thought they also put on a great show. They can certainly sing, their music is good, and there were definitely really great moments in their performance as well.

Overall, it was an enjoyable evening, and both bands made the free tickets a really nice "score"!

Moving onto the next concert. Last night I attended the Timbaland Shock Value II show at the House of Blues in Boston. This concert, I was REALLY looking forward to. I'm a big fan of Timbaland's work and couldn't wait to see what he would put together for his audience. After all, how can the man behind these hits:

And so many others, not put on a great show, right? Right...

Except...

Well, let me back up and start by talking about Honor Society, the opening act. I had never heard of them prior to the show, but let me tell you, a whole bunch of little "fan girls" sure did. They had quite the following at the show. In the event that you were as unschooled as I, this is Honor Society:

And as it were, they put on a great show. Nothing spectacular, but they engaged the audience, they were having the time of their life, and overall, it was a great show.

And thank goodness for that, because after that, it all pretty much went downhill.

Once the guys cleared the stage, Timbaland's "DJ" I guess you would call him, stepped on stage to prepare the audience for the main act. He proceeded to play old and new school hip hop, while he awkwardly talked over it asking people to Tweet him so he could give them shoutouts from the stage, and then just randomly reading people's Twitter names. Awkward.

Eventually, not after a short time, he introduced "Sebastian", Timbaland's brother (I guess) a rapper (I guess) who came out to perform (I guess). Sebastian did this awkward (there's that word again) performance where he mostly talked to the audience and a first for me basically, the first rapper I've ever seen lipsyincing, he sort of karaoke'd over his own tracks. And not well at that. At some point Petey Pablo came out on stage to perform one of his songs, and finally I was excited, thinking the show was about to start.

The excitement died down quickly when they all exited the stage and left mr. DJ doing his awkward Twitter roll call for another 20 minutes or so. The show "started" at 8, finally at about 9:45 or so Timbaland hit the stage.

Although, HIT might be too strong a word. More like moseyed on in. Sat down at his equipment and sort of "mumbled" "Okay, I'm going to lay some beats down for you guys". Anyway, I figured he was just warming up. Soon enough, it appeared all the waiting had paid off when he launched into "Timothy Where Have You Been" one of the songs from his new cd. The performance was great, high energy, with an extensive light and video show. Timbaland hits the stage with a FULL band, and this honestly led to the belief that this was a show with great potential.

Unfortunately, what it turned out to be was a show full of starts and stops. After that first song, he launched into an extensive babbling conversation with the audience. After that, a few more songs, again, great showing, great potential. And then...well, then he completely lost me.

For about 25 minutes he launched into an exchange with the audience. No, let me be more specific, with particular female members of the audience. He proceeded, in the next 25 minutes, to ask specific ladies in the audience their names and age. Suddenly we were transported to Timbaland's Private/Very Public Dating Game. After an excrutiating 25 minutes of "who will Timbaland hook up with backstage tonight", he simply walked off the stage, quickly followed by his band members, leaving his "dj" to play more hip hop and shout out Twitter roll call.

No inclination as to whether or not he'd be back. no "i'll be back, I'm taking a break" he just simply walked off. Mind you that at this point it was barely 10:30 PM...considering we, the audience, had been standing (no chairs at a club show) since 7pm, he certainly did NOT need a break that badly, you think? also, a quick note, after he exited the stage, we saw him peak back around the corner with another guy and point out one of the girls in the audience...

So, for the next 30 minutes, while we waited in the audience to find out whether or not the show would continue, he was probably having a good old time backstage with said girl...or not, we'll never know, will we?

We left at that point. We'd had enough of this completely disorganized, disappointing and self-indulgent show.

Thankfully, the tickets were free.