Author: Cody Daniel

My girlfriend Alyssa is in love with Adam Levine.  I’ll prove it to you:

So for Christmas I thought me being the awesome, amazing, perfect boyfriend that I am I would buy her two tickets to see Maroon 5 at the Tacoma Dome.  Granted, it was 5 months away, but it was the most thoughtful thing I could think to do.

I told her the tickets were for her to bring whoever she wanted thinking she would surely bring one of her friends for a girls night.  To my utter horror…err…surprise, that other ticket was for me! Can you imagine, a rocker like me jumping up in down in the stands screaming for Adam Levine? I was … flabbergasted.  But nevertheless I told her I would go.

I’ll admit up until this point the only Maroon 5 song I liked, and I hate to admit this, is “Sugar”.  I heard it drunk at the Corner Pocket in Seattle one night and just started dancing while playing darts.  I had no idea it was Maroon 5 until afterwards.  I still love it. I genuinely love that song.  It might be the closest we can get to Prince now that he’s gone? I dunno.

Anyways, back to the story at hand.  in the months leading up to the show I started dipping my toes in the Maroon 5 pool.  There were some songs I genuinely still detested.  “Moves like Jagger” being one of them, I also HATE “She will be Loved” but I came across other, better ones I actually got into.  “Animals”, “Maps”, and “Wait” to be particular.  I’m not saying I’d run across the bar to turn these songs on, but I liked em.

Fast forward months and months and next thing you know me and the ole’ lady are driving down to the Tacoma Dome.  It only took an hour and half and we were there! We actually found the best parking spot in the world but I’m not going to share that information here.

We got into the venue pretty quickly thanks to Alyssa’s maneuvering.  I tend to just wait in the longest lines. We were in, grabbed a quick brew, and went to sit in our seats to watch the show.

First up was Julia Michaels.  Well I say first up but she was the only opener. I was totally out of touch with what she sings and what she does. Alyssa said her songs weren’t as good as recorded.  The performance did see a little off.  Some of her performers seemed super out of touch with what they were playing.  There was a cool part where she played a bunch of songs she wrote on acoustic guitar and kinda let the crowd sing along. My favorite part was the guitar player. He thought he was slash and honestly that was my favorite part, just watching him rock the hell out to these wimpy pop songs.

With all that being said Julia is an AMAZING songwriter.  She’s written hits for Justin Bieber, Pink, Christina Aguilera, Linkin Park, Halsey, etc.  Thats very respectable.  Her music is infectious but I still can’t get into it.  Much respect to her though, I hope to one day have that same, sheer talent with my own music…in my own way of course.

After her set came Alyssa’s future husband…Adam Levine and Maroon 5! They had a cool long entrance but I was a little distracted eating some pretzels and cheese. I quickly got my act together and started paying attention though. They started the set off with What Lovers Do which got the crowd in high spirits.  I’ll admit I was immediately “in the zone” paying attention to all the lights and entertainment.

Adam was great at walking around the stage and also having the appropriate amount of swagger.  Everyone up on stage definitely has the confidence that put them there.  It helps remind me what I need to do to get to that point one day. I loved the lights and background stuff going on throughout the songs.

I was surprised as the set went through the songs…”payphone”, “stereo hearts”, “cold”, and “don’t wanna know”…that I knew them all. It made the set way more enjoyable because I had accidentally and unknowingly…heard all the songs. Thats when it hit me at exactly how big Maroon 5 has grown to be.  It definitely helps Adam being on the Voice but the whole band is solid and very smart.  Their music is very smartly put together and they definitely know exactly what they’re going for.

The best part was by far the absolute shredding that Adam did on guitar.  I’m going to try to post a clip below for your viewing pleasure:

Adam Levine Solo

If you click that and it doesn’t work I’m sorry, I’m not the best at technology. Leave me a comment and I’ll fix it!

All in all it was an amazing night out.  You know how sometimes you go to concerts and by the end your ready to go? Not this one.  I have a new found respect for Maroon 5 and I think honestly anyone who went to the see them would feel the same way.

After the show we went and got some late night Mexican food to finish the night off.  I caught myself singing “Girls Like You” in my head over and over.  I’m still singing it….

Oh well, it’s a great guitar riff and I’m sticking to that! Let me know what you think of Maroon 5 in the comments!

I first heard of Kaki King through my obsession with another guitar virtuoso, John Renbourn.  After listening to John for a bit, Kaki popped up as a recommendation on Youtube. I started listening to her music one day at work and had the random idea to see if she was on tour. Lucky me, she was coming to Kirkland in a few months. I mentioned the thought of going to her show to my girlfriend and then forgot about it.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I had a terrible day at work.  Alyssa surprised me and bought 2 tickets to see Kaki.  I was thrilled to say the least.  I was apprehensive as I normally only want to go to shows where I can stand, drink, rock out, and have a good time. This show “The Neck is a Bridge to the Body” is exactly what I needed and broke me out of my shell, all while sitting down! (albeit having a drink in hand)

Kaki had the audience’s attention the entire time, and the show is truly a unique experience.  I would almost venture to say it was a once in a lifetime experience. I literally have no idea of how I could ever see anything remotely like it again.  Images are projected onto her solid white guitar while she shreds and smacks the guitar to oblivion. in the back ground is a companion projection to whats playing on the guitar.

That’s not to say this is some crazy hardcore rock music either, most of her music is actually very soothing, but thats another thing she did so well. The balance of heaviness and softness was perfect, and the show even came with a perfect humorous interlude of a “movie” about her guitar being unique and not liked by other guitars.  While the movie was playing, the guitar “spoke” through Kaki’s playing.

I realize reading back at what I wrote that that sounds very confusing but it is one of those things where you just have to be there.  I would highly recommend this show to any diehard music lovers and show goers out there. It might be too weird for the mainstream (like my conservative dad or the girl you know who only listens to Imagine Dragons) but if you genuinely appreciate music, you’ll love Kaki King.

Here’s a video of her doing her thang… what a great time!

A couple shots of whiskey.

A couple more.

A handful of friends.

That’s all it was going to be, not a big deal at all.

I swore to myself going into this concert that I would keep it to a few drinks and have a great time.  We had an awesome group of dudes heading’ out (all Queens’ fans) and I really wanted to relish what was surely to be an amazing concert. Rounding up a bunch of friends and enjoying a debaucherous night out is something to be cherished in 2018, first world America.

It started out with grabbing an Uber ride up that-a-way.  Jake wrongly told our Uber driver the way to go.  Or did he correctly tell the driver the wrong way to go? Either way this caused us to just hop out of the uber in a traffic jam and walk across Seattle center to a bar on the other side.  Jake took the liberty of peeing in public, right in front of MoPop.  Hell of a guy that Jake Flatt.

Anyways, we were obviously feeling’ pretty good. In the bar it was obvious everyone was jacked for the show. It was packed to the rim but amazingly, and luckily, drinks were cheap. (Maybe that wasn’t so lucky looking back on it?). I think it only took us a max of 15 minutes to finish 2 drinks a piece there.

We then headed to a buddies house and finished off some whiskey bottles. No, they weren’t fifths or anything, the smaller ones. Pints I guess you’d say, nothing outlandish, however on top of the previous pregaming it was enough to make my head spin. Yea yea I know it was a bad idea but hey, YOLO.

Finally we arrive to the key arena and its kind of hectic. In my drunken stupor I said hi to a few people I knew. I’m not sure all of what was said but I’m sure it was the typical drunken banter of “Hey great to see you, I’m pumped….yea gonna be awesome….can’t wait….have fun”

By the time we got to our seats I was actually surprised at how close we were…I mean for buying seats at Key Arena that is.  If you were looking directly out from the stage, we were back left but towards the floor.  This had me excited but it only last a little bit.

First on was Eagles of Death Metal.  This was my fourth time seeing them and honestly the worst time.  Out of all 4 times seeing them I’d say the 3rd time was the best, followed by the 1st time. So maybe they’re like an every other show kind of band.

Regardless I still love them, in fact they’re one of my favorite bands, but a couple things combined to make it less than stellar for me.  They were far away so I couldn’t see too clearly. For some reason the stadium had no tv screens (which would hurt the experience later too).

Boots Electric (Jesse Hughes) didn’t seem that into it, at least relative to the last show, so that sapped some of the energy out for me. Honestly maybe the blame lies more with me as I’ve seen this show 4 times before so perhaps the thrill is all ran out for me.  I mean songs and everything sounded good, just didn’t really captivate me and to be honest, most of the crowd didn’t seem too captivated either. My drunk was pretty strong too, that probably effected my time as well.  If it didn’t, it’s certainly effecting my memory.

Anyways after them came Queens of the Stone Age. This was my first time seeing them and to be honest, I was very curious to see what the fuss was about.  I’ve always liked Queens, but I’ve never been a huge fan. I figured their live performance might be amazing. I was hoping for a “Primus” experience that I think I’ve talked about in this blog before. Basically, I was looking for a live performance to blow me away and show me exactly why they were one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

WELL I gotta say I had my hopes way too high.  Granted, I was far away, they looked like stick people out there. Lights were awesome but nothing too crazy.  Songs sounded just like the CD.  Crowd was attentive but not too into it. I don’t know, it ended up just being a boring “movie theater” style concert.

Again, I want to reiterate I wasn’t in the pit. I’m thinking in the future for rock shows I should never be sitting. Its just impossible to rock out in your seat.  That being said, I just didn’t see anything crazy that made me think “wow these guys are crazy rock and roll badasses”. Alice Cooper put on one hell of a show. Primus put on a hell of a show.  Eagles of Death Metal the Showbox with the Melvins put on a hell of a show.  This show was just ehh.  It was worth my money but honestly, I now understand why I don’t love Queens.

If you’re a fan and love the cds, go and enjoy the music. However, you could also turn on some Lava lamps and laser lights and put the cd on at home and have about the same experience.

After the show I quickly Uber-ed home and went to sleep. Nothing groundbreaking and my earth wasn’t shattered.  For the final time I just want to say you can take this whole review with a grain of salt as I was drunk, which may have effected my judgement.  Point remains I wasn’t captivated though, and with them being the “Villains” they are, I would think their rock show would appeal to drunken me.

Here’s a live clip of them playing at the arena.

 

 

Way back in the golden days of my youth when I was working as a production assistant in Hollywood, I first heard Fleet Foxes and fell in love with them.  I knew and loved every song off their first album.  At the time I was broke and honestly, although I loved playing music, I wasn’t much of a show goer so I never really made it out of my way to see them live, they’d always kind of been a “on the speakers” band, not a live thing.

In September I got my chance to see them at the Paramount and I was super excited.  I felt it would be the perfect time to hear their harmonies and instrumentation and was excited to zone out to their medieval-esque music.

I’ll go ahead and summarize the show because honestly, it’s been a couple months, and even more importantly, it just wasn’t that exciting of a show.  I got to hear some favorites. White Winter Hymnal he said was about Enumclaw which I thought was crazy.  Enumclaw is a little offshoot town kind of nestled in the mountains and hills outside of Seattle. It’s also famous for the worst reason ever but I’ll let you do the research on that one.

Other than that I got to hear some other favorites off the first album, namely Mykonos and Ragged Wood, which were by and large highlights for me.  I will say though, and I didn’t predict this, but I got bored. Everything blurred together and sounded the same.  There was no diversity, it was like going to a bar full of people who don’t drink, or eating the same meal for 2 weeks straight. It just got old.

That being said the sound was good, and the harmonies were great, it just wasn’t my thing.  Was it worth the money? Yea I suppose.  But I dunno, I can’t help but think there’s some great potential for an amazing live show and I just don’t feel theres anything there to warrant it being one of the memorable shows of 2017.

Here’s a video of one o my favorite songs by them, Ragged Wood.