May 02 2020

The last concert

Category: Music — Iuliana @ 12:31

On the 19th of February I left my house in a hurry. It was dark and it was raining, but I had to get to Glasgow. I’ve sang at least one of thier songs more times than I can count. I’ve even translated the chorus to Iris to a very nice Romanian version.
The song Iris is so famous that the Youtube search algorithm knows exactly what you are looking for without typing the name of the band.

So, there was never a question is I should go or not to see and hear The Goo Goo Dolls live.

The Goo Goo Dolls have been singing since 1987 and they have released 13 albums. Their most famous song is Iris. This song is a gem from the Dizzy Up the Girl album that was included in the City of Angels soundtrack. For some reason, when I was in highschool I used to associate this song with The Crow series because I saw an alternate video for it with scenes from the series. Also, if you’ve seen The Crow movies and series you know that the chorus of this song fits them so well.
This song is the peak of their career. No other song they have created has ever raised to the hype that Iris had produced. This song is a masterpiece, is probably the best they would ever produce, and this song was born in the 11’th year of thier career. Still they continued singing another 22 years after that and they are still going strong. Most bands are not able to go on after having a song or an album with such traction that defines them so much that they doubt they will ever create something as good. But not The Goo Goo Dolls, they are enjoying the music and they are still writing great songs. And I really hope they will end up producing another song that becomes more famous than Iris.

How do I know they are still good? Because I have been actually following their career (I love the internet for allowing me to do this so easily).

What else can I say, the venue was great, full of people of all ages, which is a testament that this band’s talent is one of the most evelasting in the industry. I had a very good time, I enjoyed it. As always when it comes to concerts, it feels like time goes by so fast, although these guys sang for almost 3 hours. It was an amazing experience and it would have been perfect if not for the two cunts gossiping next to me. Who the hell goes to a concert to gossip and shout at each other for three hours straight? If there is any reason to shout at a concert is to sing with the band you love. I would have loved to get away from them but there was no place to go unfortunately. Also, I happen to be short and that was a place that provided a decent view of the scene.

This being said, I filmed them singing Iris with my phone. It is not the best quality, but you have to admit thier performace is magnificent. There is a whole huge room of people singing the lyrics which can only be considered yet another proof of how marvellous this song really is.
Enjoy!

I took me so long to post this because a lot of things have happened since then. Most of us are most locked in our houses during a pandemic that is taking its tool on every level of our society and while organizing my pictures I’ve realized I did not write about this concert. And it hit me that this is the last concert I’ve been to and it will be the last  for a long while. Unless this thing blows over and I can safely go in November to Birmingham for Elton John’s retiring concert.

Stay safe, stay happy and stay inside!

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Apr 28 2020

Worst kind of dystopia

Category: Music — Iuliana @ 12:48

I haven’t thought about you in a while, but I woke up this morning with your face fresh in your mind because I just had the weirdest dream.

—–

We were living in a dystopian world where talent for art was really rare and artists were owned like cattle and used to entertain the masses. They were owned by powerful people and they were just transported from place to place to entertain.

You are the greatest guitarist of this century and lately you have become quite a good lyricist too. In my dream you were a prized possession. You had a monitoring chip under your skin and some vile politician decided where and when you would perform.

After an event all artists were allowed to spend the rest of the night as they wanted to, then they were loaded in their touring trucks and transported to the next location.

Somehow we knew each other. You had such sad look in your eyes, but you smiled when you saw me waiting for you after the event. We drove over to my house and we had dinner and we talked about how hard was to write lyrics that hid your desire for freedom and how your fingers hurt sometimes from playing your guitar, but you still had to do it otherwise you lost your “after-event-freedom” privilege.

Although I loved your voice and loved to hear you sing, I understood your need for silence and your need to be anything else but an artist when you were with me. I hated that you were not a normal person, without this talent that made you a … slave. But I also wondered if I would love you if you were as plain and boring as I was. I fell asleep in your arms. I woke up in the morning and drove you back to that horrid truck. A security guy scanned your chip and welcomed you back in. I watched you go and felt my heart hurt in my chest, because I did not know when I would see you and hear you again. Yeah, I so wished for you to have been born normal, even if that would  mean that we would have never met or known each other.

In this world recording artists for distribution was a crime nobody dared to commit. So when you left, it felt as if there was no more music in the world for me.

—–

I woke up so grateful that I do not live in that kind of world. There is a lot of room for improvement for this one for sure, but we’ll get there in due time. Now I’ll just go and listen some John Mayer for a while and be grateful that this world is not so bad after all. Because how can this world be so bad when music is a resource easily accessible? I can’t even imagine a world where access to music would be as restricted as it was in my dream.

Enjoy some John Mayer with me.

Stay safe, stay happy and stay inside!

Mar 06 2020

Kudos for The Man

Category: Music — Iuliana @ 14:18

So, a while ago Taylor Swift decided to finally open up and show the world she is a real person that has real opinions about the world around her and that she is willing to stand by them even if this would affect her career.

When I was a young girl I had the tendency to be a rebel and opinionated. My favourite question was “why?”. Because I started speaking before the communist regime was out, my mother tried to shut that down by telling me that “the mouth gets the ass beaten” so I should be careful about what I say. Which annoyed the hell out of me, because if it was the truth why did it have to be hidden, right? I guess it was difficult raising and educating a stubborn child under a communist regime; you want your child to be truthful, but what about truths that are inconvenient to the regime? How do you educate a child to be truthful always, but except a few cases?

Thus, although Taylor Swift is not one of my favourite celebrities, it’s a question of my taste in music really, I truly understand what she went through and the risk she took by speaking out loud and deciding to own her “inconvenient” opinions.

You might be wondering at this point, what is this blog entry about and why am I mentioning Taylor Swift so much? Because the video for a very powerful song is out.

This is the first song she has produced that I like, and the reason for that is because I finally empathize with her.

I couldn’t empathize with with the young girl born into money and with supportive parents. I couldn’t empathize with the perfect beautiful innocent in-love girl getting her heart broken. I couldn’t empathize with the powerful woman turned confident sex symbol that was finally accepting that her long streak of failed relationships were a normal occurrence and nothing to be ashamed about. But this Taylor Swift, the one that asks if her road to success wouldn’t have been easier if she were a man, this is finally a version of her that I can empathize with.

And now let’s talk about me, because it’s my blog so it’s kinda expected.
Continue reading “Kudos for The Man“

Jan 04 2020

Theory Of A Deadman concert

Category: Music — Iuliana @ 22:06

On the 20th of November 2019 I’ve participated to yet another rock concert. The band was called Theory Of A Deadman and apparently starting last year are trying to chnage thier name to Theory. This not a famous band, but was formed in 2001 and I started listening to them shortly after. This was just another band in my alternative bands collection, they had no faces, they just had an angry sound that felt just right for me. Over they years I’ve listened to them from time to time and when ticketmaster send me an email that they were performing in Glasgow I jumped at the opportunity to listen to them live.

To prepare for the concert, I copied the whole discography on my phone and I’ve listened to them for a while. Their music has changed a little through the years, but their latest album is  quite… different. It’s not really rock anymore, it’s a little pop towards hip-hop and the lyrics are quite meaningful and related to social problems that affect the US quite seriously in the current day and age. Medicate is about the opioid crisys and History of Violence is about the effects of domestic violence. I was reluctant about this new album, and how it would sound live, but damn I was in for a surprise.

The show was opened by a band named Dead Posey. I never heard of them until that moment and they did not really sound great live. Or maybe it’s just not my style. But then again, you don’t really want the opening band to be too good, right?:D

Theory Of A Deadman were amazing, they sang for two hours and the room was spacey enough that a lot of head banging was possible. There’s not much I can say about this concert. The crowd was just the right size and I had a lot of fun.

This band does not have the level of celebrity that Taylof Swift has(just a very random example), this means all their income comes from thier music and thier merch. Listening their music on Spotify doesn’t do much for them, since artists receive about 0.006$ per listen. Don’t even get me started on Apple or Google music, where you can buy one song with 0.9$. If you truly want to support artists that do not have multi-billion marketing business behind them, going to their concerts and maybe buying thier merch are the only two ways to do it. Plus, you will never forget the experience. Bands that are not absurdly famous can’t afford to rent huge and expensive venues for thier concerts, which allows you thier fans to be closer to them providing a more authentic experience and usually means the sound is very high quality too.

Even if you are not a fan, if you ever get the opportunity to go to a concert of a not-so-famous band, don’t miss it. You will probably have a lot of fun and it will mean a lot to the members.

Stay safe, stay happy!

Oct 11 2018

Back to my old shenanigans

Category: Music — Iuliana @ 1:53

Some time ago when finances became stable, I started fulfilling some of my childhood dreams. Might seem ridiculous, but as an adult, I’ve felt quite frustrated that I did not know how to ride a bike or swim. So as soon the opportunity showed itself, I started “fixing” those frustrations one by one. There is the TODO list on this blog of course, but there are more small things that I never got to do that feel so fulfilling when I get to do them. I learnt to swim when I was 27, learn to ride a bike when I was 28 and about the same time I got my driving license. The first two were denied to me because of lack of money and lack of opportunity when I was a child. The third – is one of those things I never even dared to dream about because well, I never expected to own a car. You have no idea how good it felt the first time I went to work on my bike. You have no idea how awesome it feels to swim confidently in the sea after yearning for the experience for so long. And my vacation during which I drove 2000 miles across US, is still the best one so far.

Anyway, my biggest passion is music. Unfortunately, because my parents never thought I was worth the investment, my only experience with music was the 18 years of the church choir. I used to be a soprano then, no idea if I still am. I now own a piano and a guitar and plan to learn to play them both by the time I am dead. Because I cannot create music myself, I am an avid music consumer. For me, music is rarely background noise. I like to analyze the sounds, identify the instruments, change in rhythm, voice inflections. I get lost in good music. And yes, when I reproduce I get creative too.

My tastes in music vary, the only two genres that I don’t really enjoy are Latino and Oriental. Otherwise, I have favorite singers and bands, based on the in instruments they have, voices or the lyrics they sing. For example, Darren Hayes is one of my favorite singers because of the perfect combination between meaningful lyrics and beautiful music. I love all his songs and probably know the lyrics by heart for each of them, and yes probably I could sing them as well. I like B.B. King, Santana and John Mayer, because of the wonders they can do with a guitar. I love Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Seth MacFarlane because of the jazz/blues sound, multiple instruments, very diverse voice inflections. I love Akua Naru for the voice and meaningful lyrics. And I love Rock music because it is the music that sets me free. Rock music is to music, as Linux is to operating systems. There are so many styles that I couldn’t list them all. But the one I love the most is alternative. I fell in love with this genre because, a long, long time ago, in a country far far away in East Europe, where good media could only be procured by not so legitimate ways, I found a list of MP3s sets named Alternative Collection. There were hundreds of them, and while I was a student I had them all written to CDs and listened to them a lot. There were a lot of American and Canadian bands, the rest of the world didn’t even know existed, but they were amazing.

The last Rock experience that I had was in 2015, when I went to Wacken with my dearest friends. Nothing compares to that, but the concert from two days ago reminded me how good for the psyche is a proper headbanging and scream singing. Well, proper and responsible adult headbanging, that does not leave you with destroyed neck muscles for two days, because as an adult I still have to work the job that provided the resources used to purchase the ticket. :D

Three Days Grace, Glasgow, 2018

This is the first concert I went to since moving to Scotland, and the taste for this kind of experience is back. Expect some more entries about concerts form now on. And if you are curious how they sond live, I prepared a little mash-up for now. I don’t really like to take pictures at concerts or record too much, because I really want to enjoy the moment, to get lost in the music, sing out loud and dance. Enjoy!

Stay safe, stay happy!

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