Upcoming Concerts

Even though we should probably be saving the money, my wife and I are going to a few shows I'm pretty excited about. In November, it's Madonna and Springsteen, about a week apart. Madonna is my wife's all-time favorite.  Bruce is mine (alternating with Paul McCartney, depending on what day it is). I've seen Bruce five times previously, and this will be my wife's first time. And like a virgin, or two virgins, the Madonna show will be a first for both of us.

I know and like Madonna's music well enough to enjoy the show.  I hope it's not too much about the choreography, like the Janet Jackson show we saw last year. That one was basically 4 or 5 medleys with a lot of dancing.  Upbeat and energetic for sure, but just not something I get terribly into. I'm guessing it will largely be about all that, but I expect there will be a bigger production with more costume changes and whatnot, so it will be worth it.

Bruce will be Bruce. 'Nuff said.  No Big Man, sadly, and that's really too bad for my wife's sake. I'm quite anxious to see how she responds to her first Bruce show.

We've also got our Pink tickets already.  As with the Madonna show, we were able to purchase four tickets early enough to be good seats (fantastic, in fact, for Pink), and thus were able to sell two of them to help offset the cost of ours. Pink will be fun.  I like her stuff better than Madonna's and I think I will like her even better as a performer.

I keep checking online to see if McCartney is going to announce a tour stop in or fairly near the Twin Cities. At 70, he's lost some of the high end of his voice, but I'd like to see him for a third time. One thing I wish Paul would do, and I realize it's only a wish, is to pick some more obscure songs from his catalog.  His aging pipes might even be a good excuse to pull out some of those - ones he doesn't have to strain to reach the high notes on (like Band On the Run, for example).

I also wish he wouldn't croon so much, but that's his ham-it-up personality coming out. I like the many different things he's done with his voice on record over the years, but he pretty much does the hammy-crooner on all of them live.

Here are some songs I'd like him to do live, and that I think he could still pull off quite well.

Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (some high spots near the end, though)
Little Lamb Dragonfly (some high spots again)
Press
Wanderlust (pretty sure he'd have to tune it down at least a couple steps, but I'd be cool with that)
Waterfalls (hmm, see Wanderlust)
Listen To What the Man Said

Now that I think of it, he's got a lot of songs that would really push his high-end. It seems he doesn't like to tune them down to hit the notes, but many, many aging stars do. I'd rather they do that then end up like Eddie Money and some casino ballroom (Youtube it if you don't know what I mean). But maybe if singers didn't think they always had to sing so many songs at the top end of their range, this wouldn't be necessary.

I doubt Leon Redbone ever has that problem.