The Goat Pen

eCat wrote:fwIw, Stevie Wonder took the stage at 8:30 and didn't leave until Midnight. He had a 30 minute intermission.

He finished Songs in the Key of Life around 11:30 and then said "OK, Stevie Wonder is gone but DJ Chicka Boom Boom is still here and I'm gonna play all night - so he played HIgher Ground ( a teaser of it) and Superstition to close out the show

We still haven't decided if we'll see him in Brooklyn in a couple of weeks...

eCat wrote:fwIw, Stevie Wonder took the stage at 8:30 and didn't leave until Midnight. He had a 30 minute intermission.

He finished Songs in the Key of Life around 11:30 and then said "OK, Stevie Wonder is gone but DJ Chicka Boom Boom is still here and I'm gonna play all night - so he played HIgher Ground ( a teaser of it) and Superstition to close out the show

We still haven't decided if we'll see him in Brooklyn in a couple of weeks...

Bklyn wrote:

eCat wrote:fwIw, Stevie Wonder took the stage at 8:30 and didn't leave until Midnight. He had a 30 minute intermission.

He finished Songs in the Key of Life around 11:30 and then said "OK, Stevie Wonder is gone but DJ Chicka Boom Boom is still here and I'm gonna play all night - so he played HIgher Ground ( a teaser of it) and Superstition to close out the show

We still haven't decided if we'll see him in Brooklyn in a couple of weeks...

I'll say this - if you don't love Songs in the Key of Life, you're going to be a little disappointed - because after Sir Duke , Isn't She Lovely (Stevie on harmonica is amazing) and I Wish, there weren't many of the songs I really wanted to hear. But if you're part of the long list of people who think this is one of, if not the greatest album ever, then you'll love it because he does every song justice and he has about a 20 piece band with him (and he also incorporated the local orchestra which I thought was a nice touch - even had one of them do a impromptu solo). Regardless it was a helluva show . I would have paid the ticket price just to see 22K people all up our of their seats for a 10 minute version of Superstition.

You know comedians talk about don't go see a movie in a black movie theater because everyone talks to the screen? Well everyone talked to Stevie in our section - including the the blind lady with the seeing eye dog who brought that damn dog up to the nosebleed seats with us. But I had a blast with them - mainly because they brought copious amounts of weed but also because they loved..I mean really , really loved Stevie Wonder. Some dude I friended named Ceaser a row in front of us two notes into any song, immediately knew what it was, proclaimed thats HIS song and then went into a slow motion arthritic seizure that he passed off as dancing in the aisle. Then he accused his woman of farting at one point, which resulted in a brief shouting match between them until she broke out the finger ,pointed it between his eyes and shhh'd his ass back into his seat.
PLAY IT STEVIE....THAT"S MY SONG! SOMEBODY STANKS! AWW DON'T BLAME THAT DOG NOW!

Finally, I'll say that Stevie Wonder seems as genuine now as the day he started in music, whether its fake or not, I don't care because he is just a very likeable human being when he is performing.

LOL.

I do love "Key of Life." It was the height of an amazing 8 years of production for him, in my opinion. I think "As" is as perfect a lyric structure can be in its explanation of love. All that said, I've seen him a few times now and don't know if I feel like ponying up the cash for great seats (because my wife wouldn't want to do any other way) and knowing that my wife saw the same show at MSG months ago with her goofy friends.

I think I'm gonna sit it out, the more I think about it.

I'll buy the tix for you and the wife. You buy the meal for the four of us at Per Se.

Heh! I don't know how I win on that one. I haven't done Per Se yet...but (although it ain't happening) a reservation at Per Se a couple weeks out is not an easy get.

Make it Masa or Blanca, then!

I think it's best for my wallet to ignore you.

How do I flag AA's posts?

Hahaha.

Bklyn wrote:LOL.

I do love "Key of Life." It was the height of an amazing 8 years of production for him, in my opinion. I think "As" is as perfect a lyric structure can be in its explanation of love. All that said, I've seen him a few times now and don't know if I feel like ponying up the cash for great seats (because my wife wouldn't want to do any other way) and knowing that my wife saw the same show at MSG months ago with her goofy friends.

I think I'm gonna sit it out, the more I think about it.

I read the write up in Rolling Stone about the MSG show. They were impressed

Songs in the Key of Life was 5th grade for me. My sister was in 11th grade and played that album just about every day from Christmas to Easter. I looked at the liner notes and memorized the words to "I Wish." I liked that album much better than her Xmas album the next year: "Saturday Night Fever."

We ate at a sushi restaurant called Shuko the other weekend, my buddy spotted Thomas Keller eating at the counter with some buddies. I would never have recognized him, but we figured it was him b/c when he left, the chef was bowing to him and being acting humble. After he left, we asked the chef if it was Keller and he confirmed. It seemed like there was an air of relief and happiness after he left, b/c he had been very complimentary (we overheard him talking to the chef as left the restaurant). For my buddy, spotting Keller was probably more exciting than if it had been Mick Jagger or some such...

Keller is a culinary rock star.

I know, but I wouldn't have recognized him. I know he is revered in the foodie world, but that world is relatively small. At any rate, we both felt gratified that we were eating in the same restaurant at the same time as Keller. The staff was palpably excited but also a little on edge. After he left, there seemed to be a sense of relief and victory that he had enjoyed his meal. We did, too, but I doubt the staff gave a damn about our feelings, although it did seem like they were a little extra attentive to us after my buddy had recognized Keller and we had asked the chef if it was him...

Who the fuck us Keller? And when did you start craving cock?

Shuko is known as Masa Jr., the two guys who started it were the top guys under Mr. Masa in LA and NY...

None of that food is as good as people want it to be. I can be just as happy with a potted meat and mustard sandwich as anything.

Saint wrote:None of that food is as good as people want it to be. I can be just as happy with a potted meat and mustard sandwich as anything.

I tend to fall into that expensive food is overrated category too but damn...I ain't going that far
I will admit to eating sirloin steaks from Wal-Mart the other night. Wal-Mart is the only place that stocks the cereal my kids like and my wife picked up some steaks for $12 there.

I completely agree that high end food is way overpriced, esp. at nice restaurants in big cities, but that's true of anything deemed "high end" (have I told you guys my thoughts about "high end" vodka?) Look at the art world. Is any painting really "worth" $100 million? Well, yeah, anything is "worth" whatever somebody will pay for it. That said, high end restaurant food is not worth it to me except on rare occasions. My buddy loves this stuff and I enjoy the opportunity to go to New York (or wherever) a couple times a year and spend amounts of money I would never do on my own just to try it. He sets everything up, gets all the reservations, etc., all I have to do is show up, eat and pay. Most of the times the food is very good, but is it worth those prices? Not to me, but whatever, I don't mind doing it occasionally.

On this last trip, we went to Chinatown one morning to get some kind of dumplings or some such that he had read about. It was in some tiny hovel with 6 chairs lined up on both sides facing the wall with the "table" built out of the wall like sitting at a bar (except you were staring at the wall). It was crowed and nobody was speaking english. We got a couple of orders of dumplings (or whatever it was) and it was as good as anything we had the whole time we were up there. Total cost for both of us? $8. But I still enjoyed the sushi and other stuff we ate at the other places too.

The most average meal was at some joint my buddy is kind of obsessed with (Momufuko's), we basically had a bowl full of fried chicken. I guess that counts as exotic in New York, but I've had just as good down at the local barbeque joint in Wilson. That was like $100 for 4 people (with other stuff, of course), I could've gotten that for $6 here at home (plus gotten endless sweet tea), but whatever, he was excited about it, so I didn't complain...

I welcome AA into the debate as far as it relates to high end scotch. It is undoubtedly true that high end scotch is qualitatively different from cheap scotch, in a way far more profound than with, say, vodka. But the question is, is that difference really worth hundreds of dollars? Is it really that big a difference? Again, I say if somebody is willing to pay it, then it's worth it to them. Same with wines. Yes, a 1947 Petrus is going to be way different than a bottle of Boone's Farm, but is it several thousands of dollars worth of difference? Obviously it is, b/c there are people out there willing to pay it.

I know Cletus is somewhat of a foodie, he has said several times how much he enjoys going to Alinea in Chicago, which is (from what I can tell) somewhat along the lines of Per Se. I enjoyed the meal I had there, with the "courses" consisting of literally one bite (a small bite in most cases) of some magical mixture of ingredients they had created thru alchemy, but there's no way in hell I would pay that kind of money to eat that kind of food on anything approaching a regular basis. And by regular basis, I mean maybe two or three times in my life. But evidently it's worth it to Cletus and obviously to many other folks, so again, if somebody is willing to pay the price, for whatever, then by definition it's "worth it"...