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I kicked off my return to the Bay Area by going to see Muse in concert at the SF Design Center on Tuesday night. It’s rather ironic in that it was a Muse concert that signaled my complete lack of interest in school during my first quarter at UCLA. It was the night before my Italian final oral exam, and I completely blew off practicing and studying for it to go see Muse perform at the Wiltern. I can blame my not getting up the next morning on being tired from the concert, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Because of the way the venue is set up, it was quite difficult and unnecessary to get really worked up over the performance. Rather, I could stand there, watch and fully absorb the musical energy that is Muse.
This past Tuesday was an entirely different experience. The venue had a more open pit in front of the stage, and the energy the band created induced a musical frenzy in me that I haven’t experienced since I saw System of a Down in August. Matthew Bellamy and company came to play. They came to entertain. They came to captivate the San Francisco audience for one night that will remain in my memory for quite some time.
I’ve often wondered what bands from around the world who play music that has a certain level of heaviness to it think when they play for American audiences. I’ve seen videos of performances from bands such as System of a Down and Slipknot in other parts of the world, and it is only American crowds that try to reach the ceiling with each riff and collide with each other in the swirling frenzy that we like to call mosh pits. It must be such a thrill to know that their music invokes such craziness in their fans.
The headliners opened their set with Knights of Cydonia, the fast paced closer to their new album, Black Holes and Revelations, a song that in my head invokes images of sitting on a horse, bringing your torso as low to the horse as it can go, and urging that fucker to go faster, faster, faster…. Except in this case it was three Brits with instruments urging the crowd to jump higher, higher, higher…
They didn’t relent until the sixth song of the set, when they played the beautifully melodic Soldier’s Poem, also from their new release. The set was a mix of material from their last three albums, with half of it being from the latest one, and the other half being an even mix from Absolution and Origin of Symmetry. Showbiz was completely bypassed, which was unfortunate because I would have really liked to have heard Muscle Museum. I also would have liked to have heard Space Dementia, but I can’t complain, as they included Citizen Erased, my favorite Muse song, into their set that night, something they did not do the first time I saw them in LA.
I went with a good group of people, two different ones to be exact, one having come up from Long Beach that very morning just to see the show, and the other being friends of one of my fellow Fuckers. They all seemed to have positive energy, which made the concert more fun. I met someone I would definitely like to see more of and I also saw someone I have not seen in five years and got to sit down and catch up with her in a surprisingly open exchange.
The entire experience was filled with positive energy, both from the exchange between band and audience, and from the groups of people I shared it with. I can’t think of a better way to have started my new…whatever it is I’m starting.
Setlist:
Knights of Cydonia
Hysteria
Map of the Problematique
Supermassive Black Hole
Citizen Erased
Soldier’s Poem
Starlight
Plug In Baby
Invincible
Butterflies and Hurricanes
Bliss
City of Delusion
Stockholm Syndrome
- Encore:
Take a Bow
Time is Running Out
New Born
Yesterday I started my day off by purchasing tickets to go see Tool in concert on September 3rd in Oakland. I knew at that moment that nothing could ruin my day. And I was right.
The temperature in the East Bay remained throughout the high 90s, reaching 99˚F in the mid afternoon, possibly getting into the 100s even later. However, that didn’t ruin my day. I just sweated a lot.
I’m no closer to acquiring a job than I was a few days ago. That did not ruin my day. I reassured myself that with a little more effort, things will work out how they’re supposed to.
There were no suitable snacks for me at the second of our free Greek Theater concert outings last night. That did not ruin my day. I sustained myself on music, photography and conversation.
I found out I would be seeing someone who I did not really care to see due to past experiences. That did not ruin my day. I made an extra effort to let go of the past and focus on creating positive new experiences with that person.
The sound from our perch was not as good as it was from our previous perch at our first free concert outing. That did not ruin my day. We agreed to sit closer to our original spot the next time.
So you see, when you have Tool in your life, everything else just seems to slide off your shoulders.
After several years, I have finally got my hands on MacFamilyTree. MacFamilyTree is a piece of software that allows a person to create detailed family trees. The idea came to me when I was in Canada for a funeral at the end of 2003. My cousin Ravi and I were in awe over the fact that we had so many second cousins over there whom we didn’t even know about. We made several introductions, but it’s been two and a half years, and I really don’t remember any of them. I do remember that a lot of them are incredibly Westernized. It seems to be like that with a lot of Indians in Canada. But whatever. I’m not judging, just observing.
I got the idea to obtain this software and begin creation of a family tree so that we can all see how big our family really is. So far I’ve just entered a bunch of names into the database and have come to the realization that I really don’t know very much at all about my family. I only know the birthdays of two of my cousins and one of my nephews. That’s three birthdays from a list of 50 people so far. And beyond those three birthdays, I don’t really know much else. Where they went to school, what they’re doing now, the wedding dates of the married ones, if the unmarried ones are seeing anyone, etc. I think this project will be a great opportunity to learn more about my family as well as get to know more of them on a personal level. I see myself seeking many of them out for informal interviews in order to obtain the information I’d like to include in the tree. This is something I’m really looking forward to doing in the coming months. I think it will really enhance my time off from school. What better way to get to know yourself than to explore your roots and the other branches of your family tree?
I see this is as a multi-stage project. The first stage will have me exploring the family members connected through the immediate families of my parents: their parents and siblings, and the families of their siblings. In the second stage, I’ll go into the siblings of their parents and the families which they have spawned. I’m not sure what future stages will bring, as I think the first two stages will most likely take quite a while to complete. But I see trips being made to Florida, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and England in the future followed by the eventual trip to India to really find out where my ancestors came from. Wow, now I’m really getting excited.
Some of the information I’d like to include:
- Date of birth
- Date of death (if applicable)
- Wedding date (if applicable)
- Schooling info
- Brief employment history
- Divorce date (if applicable)
- Maiden names of the wives
- Physical description
- Photos of the person throughout their life
This is just a tentative list. I’m sure I’ll discover more information that I’d like to include in the creation of this family tree. I want to record the progress of the project, and that will most likely be done through the use of this blog, or I may create an entirely new one devoted strictly to the project. I’ll have to see what would be better.
Keep blogging, bitches.
