Pete Townshend, The English Beat, and Times When I Love The Internet

Today I was watching this cute little Netflix original movie, 'Like Father' with Kelsey Grammer and Kristen Bell, and during the last scene of the movie, this familiar intro starts to play. I think, ah, 'Save it for Later' by The Beat (or rather The English Beat in the U.S.A.),  and when the singer comes in....wait! That's not the original version. That's Pete Townshend singing! Hmmm! I've never heard this cover, and I love Pete Townshend. How did I miss this back then?

So, I break out the ipad and google "Pete Townshend Save it for Later" and see that he recorded it in 1986, and said it was one of his favorite songs. So, I look it up on YouTube and give it a listen.

Gorgeous cover of a great song. 

So then, I'm sending the video to my husband and telling him about how I heard it in the movie, yadda yadda. Then, I tell him that in the comments of the above video someone mentions how Townshend called up Dave Wakeling back in the 80s, and told him he (Townshend) and David Gilmour (one of my husband's favorite artists) were trying to figure out the chords to 'Save It For Later'.

Not five minutes later, my husband sends me this video, where Dave Wakeling recounts the exact event mentioned above...

...which leads me to this video of Pete Townshend's live performance of the cover, which Dave Wakeling mentions in the video above...

And just to circle back to the beginning, and because we need more good music, here is the original "Save it For Later" video from The Beat. 

I was a child of the 80's and I always talk about how happy I am that I never grew up with the internet or social media. Being a teen was hard enough without it. But what I would give to have had google and YouTube when it comes to music. One of our favorite things to do is sit around and queue up videos on YouTube and play video DJ. We get lost in all the nostalgia of the music we grew up with, and discovering new/old music we missed, just like the above chain of events. This is when I love the internet.

Thanks for visiting!

❤

foobella.blogspot.com

Summer Time Blues... and Greens, and Reds, and Yellows

What's been happening...here and there and everywhere.

July 3rd: Yorktown has a market every Saturday morning...

Mom shopping for preserves...

I think this boy was intrigued by the sunflower. He was staring at it for quite a while.

Yorktown is part of the Historic Triangle here on the Peninsula, which also includes Jamestown and Williamsburg.  All three being places you should add to your "to do" list.

July 4th: hmmm. It seems I don't have those pictures on my computer or on my camera. I must have left them dumped on my parents's computer. We'll get those at a later date. Trust me,though, we had fun.

July 11th:  STING!!! Mom and I saw Sting play with members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Northern Virginia and it was amazing.

It's no secret that I've been mad at that man for many years now. He first broke my heart when The Police broke up. I knew at the tender age of 15 that he would never be alone what The Police were together. I still followed him, though. I did love him, you know. Really, I did. Have you ever seen "Lost in Translation"? In a nutshell, "The film centers on an aging actor (Bill Murray) and a recent college-graduate (Scarlett Johansson) who develop a unique closeness after a chance meeting in a grand Tokyo hotel."  That movie was like Sofia Coppola pulled it from my fantasy world. With me and Sting in the lead, of course. Hey. Don't knock it. It could still happen.

Anyway, the show was fantastic and I had my second semi-sort of run with the man himself. I'll fill you in on the first one at a later date. (I know. I often say I will fill you in at a later date, but I really mean it this time.)

Mom and I got to the (I really hate these corporate venues) Jiffy Lube Amphitheatre, in Bristow, Virginia, around 5pm and did a drive through the place to see where we could park. The nice attendant was going to let us park in the closest spot and he told us to be sure to be back by 6pm. After a required stop at WAWA, we made our way back and got a tasty parking spot. We're sitting there finishing up our WAWA hoagies and are just hanging out when this guy rides by on a bike and I say to myself, "Hey, that guy looks like....

....HEY! THAT'S STING!"

I thought I put my camera on video mode after I shot this picture, only to find out after he was out of view that I had actually turned the camera off. See what you do to me, Sting? It's just not right. Ah well. It was certainly a memorable moment for Mom and I.

Then, this young kid road by and I told mom, "I bet he's in the orchestra".


So, now we're in our seats and raring to go after our Sting viewing.

Nothing like the sun...

We sat for an hour holding sheets of paper up to block out that sun.

Then, it was time...

Highlights for me? Sting playing the Theremin on Moon Over Bourboun Street! The theremin is the instrument you hear in all those old spooky movies and it was a perfect addition here.

Then, there is this young lady, Jo Lawry. She was Sting's amazing back-up singer. Though, I'd give her more credit than that. She has a beautiful voice. Look her up.

Remember that kid on the bike I said was probably in the orchestra? I'm pretty sure that's him playing the french horn here. Top row, middle. What do you think?

Bad jumbrotron picture. You probably had to be there.

It was a great night and Sting has partially redeemed himself to me. Though, now that I see him solo again, I get the feeling that he was not giving his all on the Police reunion tour. What a brat.

Open The Floodgates...and May The Force Be With You

The Nor'Easter is kicking our butts here on the East Coast and our office is closed today. I am sitting in Panera as I still have no internet connection in my new condo. My new condo, which might just be under water when I return. Who knows?

I thought I'd share with you one of the most awesome experiences I've ever had. This past weekend I brought my 75 year old mother, my sister and my niece (uber fan) to see Star Wars in Concert!  What the heck is Star Wars in Concert, you ask? It's just what it sounds like, except much better. Scenes from all six Star Wars films are projected on a gigantor screen while the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, along with a full choir, performs many of the key moments in John Williams' amazing soundtrack. Plus! Anthony Daniels, who played C-3PO in all six films, narrates the entire event.

Now, I knew my niece had a Princess Leia costume, which she wore last year on a college band trip to NYC, but I didn't know if she'd want to dress up for this event. I was up for anything, and to my great surprise, my sister had a whole stash of homemade Star Wars costumes that she'd made over the years for my niece and nephew. The four of us decided to go for it, not knowing (or caring) if we'd be the only ones in the entire arena nerdy enough to suit up in Star Wars gear. So, as it turned out, my niece would be Leia, I would be her mother, Queen Amidala, Mom would be my son and Leia's brother, Luke Skywalker, and my sister would be Luke's mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who you may affectionately know as Old Ben. My niece was most excited to wear her newly purchased Princess Leia buns for the first time. I had to do a little convincing to get her to go for accuracy with the hair parted down the middle. Of course, she was glad she did it afterward.

Can I just say that we felt like actual Kings and Queens when we walked into that venue? We were a freaking hit. Everyone was asking to take our picture. Especially our Leia, who was pretty much a dead ringer, if only a bit on the tall side compared to the real Princess, played by the petite, Carrie Fisher. There were quite a few kids dressed up as mini Luke's and mini Darth Vaders, who all wanted pictures with us.

While getting swept up on all the fame and glory, the show was actually starting and we had to rush all the way around the arena to make it to our seats. And once we did, the magic of Star Wars happened. It was an amazing evening of lights and music and heartfelt narration. I was tearful at several points in the evening. Something about a live orchestra just does that to me, ever since I first saw my oldest brother playing upright bass in the high school orchestra.

If you have a chance to make it to this event, I suggest you do so. And it's best appreciated if you dress up, too. Oh, and afterward, they had a wonderful exhibit of Star Wars memorabilia that we, thankfully, quickly made our way through so as to get the requisite shots before being shooed away by the popo at closing.

Please check out all our fab pictures of us getting ready and receiving all the adulation at the event here at my niece's page and then read her own blog post about our evening: Are My Buns Straight? With a title like that, you know it has to be good.

It's Swing Time

I had to post about my evening with Mom & Dad. Great weather and great music (Mom & Dad's era).

Yes, I was sans camera but did have my cell phone.

Riverwalk at Yorktown, Virginia

Glen Boswick Sounds of Swing Orchestra were fantastic.

Mom & Dad gettin' their groove on. (Center couple, white shirt & coral shirt)

Um. Is it bad that I really love this last cell phone picture? I don't think I could have done much better with a real camera. I love the moody water color effect.

While I was watching my parents and all the other "golden" couples dancing their jitter bugs and cha cha's to the music of their era, I just had to wonder about something...

What kind of dances are couples of my generation (80's child) going to do when we are in our golden years? Bump and grind? Head banging? Moshing? Well, that would all look pretty silly, wouldn't it? Plus, we'd put our backs out at the first pelvic thrust, get dizzy and fall over trying to head bang, and think of the broken hips from moshing!

We sure didn't learn any dances that we could carry over with us into our twilight years. It really seems that true partner dancing flew out the window in the late 80's/early 90's. You either gyrated (I would say "hump" but my parents read my blog. Hi Mom & Dad!) all up and down your partner, thrashed about in your own little bubble or tried your best to knock everyone else to the ground and make them bleed.

The couple was nevermore.

Where are the steps you have to learn? Where is the (RIP Patrick Swayze) "Lock your frame"? Makes me wish I grew up back in the days of swing dancing. Shoot, I'd even take disco!

Ah well, I'll just have to find myself a man who is willing to put on his dancing shoes and cut a rug with me.

The Police, The Drummer, and The Little Flag That Could

Anyone who knows me for more than two minutes should know that my favorite band of all time is The Police. Whether they are together or not, they've always been and most likely always will be my favorite.

They were my first concert. They were my Beatles. I think you get the picture.

So, you can probably imagine my delight [read: hysteria] when a little over two years ago this little band got back together to embark on a reunion tour. Thanks to many wonderful friends, I had the opportunity to see them at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Hershey Park in Hershey, PA, Washington, D.C., and the show to [literally] end all shows, Madison Square Gardens in NYC. 

It's been almost 10 months, to the day, since the tour ended. I've wanted to blog about this for just as long. Though, I didn't know how to put it all into words. There was too much to explain with a kind of "you had to be there" feeling. 

Now, thanks to one very special lady who is an organizer extraordinaire and creator of the "little flag that could", I don't have to explain. Better words could not have been written to illustrate the experience of a few 100 or more fans of this band and more specifically, their drummer, Stewart Copeland...

"Our Little Flag Game: A strange tradition of the Police reunion tour"

By Kellie M. Walsh

On Thursday, August 7, 2008, at Madison Square Garden in New York, the Police—singer-bassist Sting, guitarist Andy Summers, and drummer Stewart Copeland—took the stage one last time to celebrate the finale of their thirtieth anniversary reunion tour [...]
In the middle of the celebration hung a small green flag.
It wasn't much to look at. Its corners were soiled, its face cracked. Its emblem, the silhouette of a horse and rider, held no significance for the Police. To tens of thousands of witnesses that night, it was a mystery.
But to a small group of fans, just a couple of hundred or so scattered around the arena and globe, it was a message [...]
The plan was a simple one: volunteers from the forum at stewartcopeland.net would show their support for the site's namesake by carrying to as many reunion concerts as possible a kelly green flag emblazoned with Copeland’s personal logo of himself on a horse in silhouette.

[click here for full story. It's the feel good story of the season. Heck the decade! And you'll never guess where the flag now resides!]

See This Film. At Least 'Once'

Netflix. My new BFF.

I never know what is in store for me when that little red envelope arrives in the mail. My queue is so full of movies that I don't bother keeping up with it’s contents anymore. Most of the time it contains something pretty good. Sometimes it’s a real stinker, and "once" in a long, long while it contains a gem that is destined to become part of my permanent collection. Last night, 'once' made it's way into the latter category.

When I first opened my netflix last night, I had no idea how, why or when this movie made it into my queue, but I'm so very glad that it did. Luckily for me, the only thing I knew about it was the little blurb written on the DVD sleeve stating something to the effect of, 'Once' is a "charming musical" about a Dublin busker who meets a girl, and their budding romance is developed through song. I didn't know who Glen Hansard was or the band he was in, The Frames, or that he was in the movie, 'The Commitments. I didn't know anything about Marketa Irglova or the fact that she and Hansard had already won an Oscar last year for their song, "Falling Slowly", from 'Once', or that they have been touring the world together as The Swell Season. I didn’t know anything. But, if I had known, would that have made any difference? Would my expectations be higher or lower for this "little film that could"? Would I have loved it as much as I do? I can’t answer that question. But I can say that this movie will stay with me forever and I feel like a better person for having seen it, experienced it. These artists and the amazingly aching and beautiful music that brought their characters and their stories to life have raised my expectations a little bit higher for all future films I watch. They’ve raised my expectations for myself, too.

Maybe I am a little late to the party in celebration of this movie, it's music and musicians, but at least I finally found it, and in one of my favorite ways...by surprise. Something that doesn't happen very often anymore in this over-saturated media world where we know the beginning, middle and end of a movie before it's even hit theaters.

This is just a simple little story about a guy and a girl, the music between them, and where that music takes them. It illustrates the fact that, for some, it takes that one person in their life to give them the push they need to move forward. I don’t want to give the whole story away, because maybe there is someone else out there who appreciates the wonder of a gently unfolding story. Someone else who will take this movie, it’s music and it’s characters with them, and they, too, will add it to their permanent collection.