Make a Joyful Noise

Tonight’s concert with Ronan Tynan and the BPO was abso-fucking-lutely amazing. The only way it would have been more abso-fucking-lutely amazing if Katebits had been playing in the BPO tonight.

It was a great mix of Irish music, pop music (Springsteen!), show tunes and holiday music. He sang some of my favorite songs:

Hallelujah – he made it upbeat, which I didn’t think was possible with this song.

Smile – which, believe it or not, was written by Charlie Chaplin. I’m just familiar with the Nat King Cole version, which is heartbreaking.

Ave Maria – which always reminds me of the first West Wing Big Block of Cheese episode, Josh asks CJ if she knows the piece, and her response is a simple “I’m Catholic,” with a smirk. I’m not doing it justice, but it leads into a great scene with Bradley Whitford and Allison Janney.

Danny Boy – I can’t hear Danny Boy without thinking of that stupid Saved By The Bell episode where Slater’s lizard Artie dies, and they have a funeral for it. They bastardize Danny Boy as “oh artie boy, the ponds, the ponds are calling, there’s gnats and ants, mosquitoes on the fly.” I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night, but this stupid moment sticks in my head.

The BPO provided the Christmas music, with Greensleeves, Sleigh Ride and Pachelbel’s Canon.

Now onto the important stuff: the performances of Miller and Stafford. Both came out in jeans and boots. Staffy wore a simple black button-down shirt untucked and Miller wore a green striped button down shirt (tucked in, which…NO!) and what was either a grey or brown jacket. Staffy definitely looked more comfortable in his own skin, on the guitar and on the stage. He moved around the stage really well, and was in complete control of his instrument (hee!). Miller seemed rooted to one spot and was carefully going through the songs. I don’t know if Staffy’s got more experience with the guitar or a better ear for music, but he’s got a stage presence. He really was smoking hot. (Side note, I checked the team roster, and Miller and Staffy are the same height, but Staffy has almost 35 pounds on Miller. Can someone please feed our goalie a sammich or something? Poor boy looks like he’s wasting away.)

Tynan admonished Staffy that he needs to take better care of himself, since we need him around for this season and next. Stafford sheepishly took Tynan’s advice. Tynan also brought the two of them souvenirs from his recent USO tour to Bagram, Afghanistan. While Staffy and Miller were setting up their guitars, some yahoo in the crowd started a “Let’s Go Buffalo” chant, which Tynan then proceeded to lead from the stage, and Staffy accompanied on the guitar.

After that ruckus, they were on stage for two songs by U2: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and All I Want is You. Tynan did change the lyrics so that we were looking for Stanley and all I Want Is Stanley. He wants to make this into a yearly event, saying how much fun this would be next year with Stanley in the middle of the stage. Miller and Stafford just laughed at that one.

Spotted in the crowd were: Larry Quinn (I was sending him “sign Soupy now and cheap” vibes), former Rep. Jack Quinn, Ed Kilgore of WGRZ (who surprisingly was not working the room on the intermission), the Sabres goalie coach and the Sabres PR guy. I did not see Lindy or Darcy, but they could have been there for all I know.

It was a great show. I really would recommend going to see him if you ever have the opportunity.

“I Like The Kind That’s Good, Dude!”

In anticipation of Staffy and Miller’s debut with the BPO tonight, Buffalo News music critic Jeff Miers profiled these two players’ musical tastes and talents. I’m really amused by the fact that Staffy and Lydman can only play their Scandinavian heavy metal music when they’re the only two players at the rink. I had no idea Scandinavia was such a source of heavy metal music.

The below just sounds really adorable:

During a photo shoot at HSBC Arena, Miller and Stafford play a bit while posing with their guitars, and the personality of each comes through, even in this off-the-cuff manner. Miller plays a supportive role with sparse chords; Stafford can clearly play fast runs, and hilariously assumes the rock “power-stance,” or adopts the Van Halen-esque “both hands on the neck” finger-tapping technique while making “guitar faces,” much to Miller’s amusement.

What in the hell is a guitar face? Is that like an O face?

The article in the printed edition of the paper also includes a look at what bands these two are listening to. Crunchy likes the White Stripes and Led Zepplin (can he play Stairway to Heaven?), while Staffy likes a bunch of metal bands. The title quote of this entry is from Staffy, eloquent as always.

Does Crunchy own an entire closet full of hoodies or other zip top jacket/sweater combos? And holy hairy forearms, Staffy. However, the both of them can just carry on with how they look in this photo.

Stay tuned for a review of tonight’s Tynan / BPO / Sabres concert.

Trans-Siberian Musings

Last night I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert at HSBC. As someone who wasn’t too familiar with their music outside of that one Christmas song that seems to get played to death, I was pleasantly surprised by the show. The music was outstanding, including some great interpretations of Flight of the Bumblebee, The Charlie Brown Music, Joy to the World and Angels We Have Heard on High. I could have done without some of the narrative bits, but it was definitely a great concert.

However, based on last night’s show, I would like to make it mandatory for all Buffalonians to be given a lesson on how to get in and out of HSBC Arena with a minimum of fuss and bother. It took 15 minutes to get the car from the corner of Swan and Washington to the parking ramp next to Dunn Tire Park, which is all of half a block. And this was 45 minutes before the concert!

Then, inside the arena was like lemmings to a cliff. People had no idea where they were going. Its not that hard to find seats in the arena. I don’t understand what the difficulty was. It also took 15 minutes to get out of the arena after the show. It doesn’t take that long to get out of the arena after the hockey game, and there’s 6,000 more people at the game! And hockey fans are more lubricated after a game than concert fans.

Moving back to hockey, Brian Campbell has a radio show on Star102.5. Since I’m never listening to the radio when his show is on, I usually catch the podcasts on the Star website (once I figured out how to download them, that is). Soupy revealed that MacArthur’s nickname on the team is Griswold (as in Clark W). While that’s a great nickname in and of itself, the Star DJ was trying to get Campbell to push “Screech” as a nickname for C-Mac in the locker room. While C-Mac does look like Dustin Diamond, I wouldn’t want to be known as Screech. Number 1, because its Screech, and #2 because Dustin Diamond is creepy as all get out now. Not exactly a great connotation for a rookie player.

The Buffalo.com photo galleries are usually a great source of that great random photo (yes, I do say random a lot. It dates back to high school). The site has up a gallery of the WGR Whiner Awards / Thurman Thomas roast. While some of the photos are of unknown people, there are a few good ones…

Why does Roy look like a deer in headlights here?

So did Petey and Goose call each other and coordinate the striped shirts?

I can’t figure out the connection between Petey, Goose, Soupy, Roysie and Thurman Thomas at this event. Suggestions are welcome.

Musical Musings

You know how some song titles have absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the song? Well, here’s the latest batch I’ve discovered. I’m not sure what this says about my musical tastes or things that I come up with to amuse myself in the car on a road trip.

• Whipping Post / The Allman Brothers – what Max Afinogenov is going to find himself tied to, if he continues his current level of play. Oh lord, he feels like he’s dying.

• A Foggy Day in London Town / Michael Buble – what the Ducks are still trying to recover from.

• Air on a G String / Bach – what happens at the Canadian ballet (c’mon we all know our boys have been to the ballet).

• Backwards / Rascal Flatts – an ode to poor, misunderstood defensemen

• I’ll Cover You / Jesse L Martin – what every good defenseman should be doing for their goalie.

• I’m Too Sexy / Right Said Fred – Derek Roy’s theme music as he primps for an evening out on the Chip Strip.

• Beautiful Noise / Neil Diamond – the sound of 18,000 fans chanting Let’s Go Buffalo in unison.

• Fortunate Son / John Fogerty – Jordan Parise’s lament about his younger, more spoiled brother, Zach.

• Catch My Disease / Ben Lee – what happens in NHL locker rooms, as each team battles its semi-annual case of the creeping crud. Or, the topic of every team’s VD discussion.

• Chasing Cars / Snow Patrol – what Crunchy tries to keep the Pommerdoodle from doing.

• Devil with the Blue Dress / Mitch Ryder – an ode to Martin Brodeur’s Halloween costume last year.

• Domestic, Light and Cold / Dierks Bentley – arena beer. The end.

• Fix You / Coldplay – the saga of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, putting Timmy Connolly together again

• Heartbreak Town / Dixie Chicks – Buffalo, on 7/1/07.

• My Way / Frank Sinatra – Lindy Ruff’s coaching philosophy, punctuated by “You can’t [expletive] do that. “You turn the puck over there, we’re [expletive]. We’re [expletive]. We’re [expletive]. I can’t be any clearer than that.” And field trips to football games and curling centers.

And, this is where my iPod battery died. I may have to try this again sometime.