So last time the roads were kind of snow-swept in Kansas, this time we dealt with a lot of fog.
We left at 0500 and got McDonalds, per our usual roadtrip tradition. At one point, though we were not able to capture any of it on camera, within the stretch of a 1/2 mile we first nearly collided with a bald eagle chasing another bird over the highway, saw a tractor with two dead pigs swinging from a pole, and saw a big TRUMP! sign, which seemed to be a pretty good summation of rural 'Merica.
Got gas and the kids got to see some cows (and maybe a donkey in there too).
Snow covered Rockies in the distance as we closed on Denver.
OK, maybe this was the real reason we wanted to go back to Denver.
Is it better in California? Yeah, probably, but POG is better in Hawaii and I still like getting a taste of it here.
Then to Meow Wolf Convergence Station.
We came out of the elevators at the rat-street-fight-game area.
I gather this is the "Numina" area. Debra, Peter and I explored it for a bit while Gretchen read through all the books in the library area.
Debra says it's her favorite of the areas.
Bow-tied sloth. You know I feel like an idiot narrating these pictures. Like, I'm just some yokel. This is like Jed Clampett giving you a tour of the Louvre. "Yep...that thar is a real purty picture of some lilies. And that one there is by a French fella I think."
I was gratified, seeing this picture later, to note how similar in framing it is to one of the two jigsaw puzzles they sell in the gift shop. (which we bought)
My reaction to most of this is generally closer to that of George W. Bush's remarks to Michelle Obama after the 2016 inauguration of President Trump, "this is some weird shit".
Ahh, bathed in the glow of a cathode ray tube display.
I looked through some of the books in the library (all bolted down, part of the installation) and the Mensa: The Genius Workbook made me laugh (Mensa, pay money to join our club for the intellectually insecure). Also, Access 2010 for Dummies! No but seriously, that's redundant, Access 2010 is ONLY for dummies!
Why are they sitting like they are in a Wes Anderson film. I mean, the Venn diagram of this place and Wes Anderson fans, not insignificant.
Had to get video of this thing which I just love.
The Eyes Have It
A mirror maze room! The only thing that kept me from walking into walls was the fingerprints.
Pete liked it enough to go through again.
Do I know what I'm looking at here? No. But it's pretty.
Why is the chair lit up. WHY???
A malfunction or something caused the weird animated tentacle thing to stop strobing, slow down and stop. At which point you could see how it worked, by spinning and strobing, it looked like it was not spinning but animated. Very very clever stuff.
The cervid of my nightmares.
Some kind of digital version of one of those coin-operated telescopes, but the thing basically blue-screened and was stuck on a very, very familiar Windows loading screen.
The Ossuary.
This whole room looked like a maintenance room that visitors should stay out of but then you look at the conduit and are like, OK guys...
Junk inside one of the electrical panel boxes. Vacuum tubes, walkie talkies, and back there, an Atari!
The big cathedral in "Eemia".
Peter made a beeline to play the organ.
The security guy told him a few notes to play that unlocked a loud audio-visual thing, the last of which I got here.
Big weird Transformery guy you can sit on.
Pete waited a long time for a kid, not with his parents, who flatly refused to yield his spot on this thing. Debra tried the tactic of subtly guilting him into letting other kids have a turn, but this kid felt zero shame. She eventually got him to comply by telling him he could get right back on again after Peter...Peter hopped on for a very short time and yielded his spot again.
On our way up towards C-Street.
In the laundromat, weird monster-headed Barbies (with drowning Barbie heads below??) (GWB quote again)
C-Street feels a lot like what I assume Tokyo is like (never having been there).
Pete was actually filled with regret for not getting to fully experience that thing in Eemia so we went back and no one was on it, so he got a bit more time to experience it. Glad we did.
Back in C-Street.
The automated music room...note the wall mounted piano.
All the books in this cabin were "Yawlp" oriented.
I told Peter he could probably fit in this cabinet, and scare people. He indeed could. Of course when he popped out he must have seen someone else other than us because he with slight embarassment says "hello!".
The music starting to ramp up.
More of C-Street.
I definitely want some of these products. Probably from the Omega Mart in Las Vegas, my guess.
Pizza Pals!
These things were whispering to each other, I shit you not.
Then a snack (just some cheese popcorn and a lemonade).
We got some stuff at the giftshop, notably the jigsaw puzzle on the right.
What's funny about this is I told Debra to take the picture, and she was zoomed in, but there was another Casa Bonita sign right behind it...the audacity to buy a second, redundant sign...for a business that hasn't even needed to open its doors to the public generally, much less advertise. Obviously we were lucky to have gone before, and would not be going this time.
A quick drive up to Boulder...with nice views from the hotel room. I told Debra Boulder was full of pot smoking hippies and she said, no, it's more like yuppies. (By the end of the trip she fully agreed with me).
We got Taco Bell (the fast food chains were, probably by some sort of hippie municipal code, kept in ghettos all together, for some reason). Took us a while but we finally found parking...it was definitely a "college town on a Friday night" feel, this area jutted right up to CU Boulder.
Show was sold out...
We weren't sure if there was going to be an opener, but there was a guy named Daniel Sunshine who used an EWI (electronic wind instrument) with a bunch of delays, reverbs, and loopers to play ambient music.
It wasn't bad, actually, kind of interesting, and ultimately sounded like the music you'd find at Meow Wolf. He's KNOWER's sound guy, and they asked him if he could do the opener for them.
Someone who will not be named had to excuse themselves as the Taco Bell was roiling them fiercely. While doing their level best to provide courtesy flushes, and bearing in mind this was a dingy, divey college town concert hall lavatory, some young girls walked in and one shouted "it smells like SHIT in here". Moral of the story, Taco Bell before a concert, may not be the most courteous choice to fellow concert-goers.
After the opener set, the long wait for it to start. We were standing at a railing but there was a spot the kids could sit down for a bit at, in the meantime. They were tired.
Then KNOWER came on! This is one of the main reasons I wanted to come to the show, Sam Wilkes playing bass. I love his resolute obstinance to wear a strap and stand up. He likes to play bass sitting down. Same, man, same. But he moves around a lot, even in a chair. They led with KNOWER RULEZ / Palmdale Cruisin to lead the band out, then started with The Abyss, Do Hot Girls Like Chords, and Around (an old one from 2011).
Then, It Will Get Real. Great bass fills here, and for whatever reason, the keyboardist (Eldar Djangirov) reminded me of...and please know I mean this in the most complimentary way possible...of Dale Gribble. Something about the hat, sunglasses, hoodie, and his almost cat-like way of moving. But he's very good.
What's In Your Heart followed, and then there was a break where some folks left the stage, leaving Louis, Genevieve, the guitarist (Thom Gill) and the other keyboardist (Chiquita Magic) on stage singing this weird high choral thing that was quite beautiful (Louis doing the insanely high part, because, of course).
That led into a duet of Louis and Genevieve on Same Smile, Different Face. And then the band comes back out for a really tight groove between Louis Cole and Sam Wilkes on Nightmare.
Another old one (Things About You) followed, and then they brough out the horn section...local Denver horn players.
Real Nice Moment and I'm the President followed from the new album, then Different Lives, and then Hanging On from the Life album. Nice fill from Wilkes here with a bonus LC stick toss.
Then Crash the Car, with horn solos!
And a big epic closer with It's All Nothing Til Its Everything, with a great key solo from the Eldar fellow:
Band went offstage in the strange ritual everyone has adopted, and waited for the requisite moments to come back out for the aptly chosen encore, Overtime:
Absolutely nothing was imbibed at this concert by us but I made fun of Debra as being at risk of second-hand smoking of Boulder's favorite vegetable product, based on her parking abilities, so I took this picture to remember (this was after she had gone over the curb and corrected it a bit).
Quickly into bed and up fairly early...nice cloudy day which was great as our eastbound morning travel would not be afflicted by the sun at the horizon. Hotel breakfast was ready at 0700.
We made good time and mostly just snacked on our way back from food we packed. Not a whole lot to say about I70 across Kansas that I haven't said a thousand times...we almost planned to stop at Fort Riley for the museums, but decided to skip.
Next morning I had church, and I took this photo in the orchestra room for the absurdity of using a pair of scissors (nearest weapon to hand) to trim off the exposed fretline marker ends on my bass. It worked fine!
After church, we went up to Worlds of Fun for opening weekend, determined to pack in as much dang fun as we could this weekend.
It is a bit of an absurdity I know, but we didn't even opt to ride any rides, just ate lunch and headed out!
Back at home we spotted a pair of coneys in the bush next to the driveway.
But our busy weekend still wasn't done...an hour later, headed up to the Kauffman Center (just Debra and I).
A condensed, 3 hour Ring Cycle! I am very much in favor of condensing Wagner's Ring because there is only so much good music in the 15 hours or so. But what is good, is amazing! If I were to let some of my minor criticisms out...they mostly have to do with my favorite of the four, Die Walkuere. It opened with a jarringly out of place Walkuerenritt, which while admittedly the most recognizable piece, should be the opening of the Third Act...the Prelude that opens the actual Walkuere is stirring, too! But I can live without it.
The Redemption Through Love theme sung by Sieglinde, also left out. A really important musical theme that ends up coming around at the very final bars of the entire cycle! So don't skip it!
Lastly, Wotan's Farewell was good, and as it is my very favorite music (including the appended Feuerzaubermusik naturally) of the whole thing, I'm going to be picky. My main gripes are twofold...first, the edits were conspicuous to me, even if not so to people who don't repeatedly listen to Hans Hotter as Wotan belting his sausage breath into Brunnhilde's face. But the second and deeper gripe had to do with the dynamics. The aforementioned Hans Hotter version at Bayreuth in 1956 had so much more power, energy, and vigor. Particularly the Feuerzaubermusik, once Wotan bellows wer meine Speeres Spitze fuerchtet, durchschreite das Feuer nie!, the orchestra had better be blowing and bowing so hard the roof is shaking. See this example:
Anyway, it was lovely, I only nitpick because I love it so much.
After Debra had been introduced to Das Rheingold, during intermission I showed her this Twitter exchange that no one responded to. And she laughed quite a bit at it! BECAUSE IT IS FUNNY, I KNEW IT WAS FUNNY!! Just needs a little background knowledge, and a willingness to take the piss out of a bunch of commie bastards.
Anyway, we had to duck out before the end of Gotterdammerung, unfortunately, but it was a great end to a busy weekend full of art, music, and most importantly, In-N-Out.