Tonight I had the opportunity to see The Ting Tings in concert at The Fillmore in San Francisco. This is my first time seeing the band, and they were absolutely fantastic, which is all the more astonishing given that Katie White (vocals, guitar, bass drum, keyboards, and even cow bell) had an emergency appendectomy last Friday. The way she performed and danced all over the stage, and even into the audience (more on that later), you would never imagine that she had surgery just about a week ago. Jule de Martino is the other half of the band, on drums, guitar, bass guitar, vocals, and keyboards. [Read more…]
And Now For Something Completely Different… Part Deux: The London/Paris/Liverpool Journal (+ Summer/Fall Concert Review: The Pixies, Billy Idol, Hall & Oates, Coldplay)
About a year ago, I published a series of uncharacteristically informal, personal, and in many cases off topic articles to close out 2010 (see London Journal 2010). If doing it again to close out 2011 makes it a tradition, well, I can hope that is the case, but cannot predict if I’ll be making a similar trip next year. In any event, I will be traveling to three major cities this year – London, Paris, and Liverpool (having visited both UK destinations last year; this will be the first visit to France). As with last year, much of the journey will be adventures related to various rock/pop music concerts, but will again be meeting up with many of my friends in the television and movie prop collecting field, and visits to prop-related venues. [Read more…]
Original Prop Blog in England: Short Video Tour of Prop Store of London
England Journal: Prop Store of London Video Tour. Interview with Stephen Lane. This is in supplement to Journal Day Two, when we made a visit to Prop Store in England. Stephen was kind enough to play host and give us a tour of the Prop Store, which was unfortunately abbreviated due to the adverse weather conditions hitting England. [Read more…]
Original Prop Blog in England: Journal Day Six, Seven, Eight
England Journal: Day Six. Today was the first day of the trip I didn’t need to be somewhere by a certain time, so that was a relief. I used the opportunity to have a halfway decent night’s sleep (over three hours!). Both Oz and Carrie left late night/early morning to catch their respective flights out. Unfortunately, around the time I was planning to check out of the house, I received a text from Carrie that powerlines related to the train system had come down, and her train was stalled on the tracks. [Read more…]
Original Prop Blog in England: Journal Day Five (Concert Photojournal: Coldplay “Hidden Gig” at Journal Tyne Theater / Newcastle, England / 12/20/2010)
England Journal: Day Five. So today was the big day. After the thrilling night of the first concert in Liverpool at the Royal Court Theater, we needed to make our way to Newcastle Upon Tyne for the second and last show of the Crisis charity concert series, announced as held at the Journal Tyne Theater. [Read more…]
Original Prop Blog in England: Journal Day Four (Concert Photojournal: Coldplay “Hidden Gig” at Royal Court Theater / Liverpool, England / 12/19/2010)
England Journal: Day Four. This was our second day in Liverpool, where the first of the two Coldplay “Hidden Gig” shows benefiting Crisis were held tonight. As noted in the prior journal entry, the “Hidden Gig” venue was not revealed until 24 hours before the show, and the venue announced was the Royal Court Theater. [Read more…]
Original Prop Blog in England: Journal Day Three
England Journal: Day Three. This was the first day that was all about Coldplay. Oz and I met another Coldplay fan from the United States, Carrie, at Paddington Station. This was where we began our journey to the two “Hidden Gig” shows benefiting Crisis. [Read more…]
Original Prop Blog in England: Journal Day Two
England Journal: Day Two. This was a very busy day. Mario, Oz and I took the train to Prop Store, which was a first visit for me. While the weather was not terribly bad at our arrival, it soon began snowing and actually made a sharp turn for the worst. We cut our visit short so as to not get trapped out at the store (admittedly not the worst place in the world to be stuck). [Read more…]