So I logged onto CBS to make sure that Cane was on tonight. Prison Break was not on last night and with the history with Comcast, I never trust that a show was not actually on if it does not record. Amazingly, I found out that CBS has posted the full episodes of Cane. YEAH! So the episode(s) that I missed, I can now watch. I could not even find them on YouTube initially.
There are a few issues with CBS player. First, the quality is choppy. I sincerely doubt it is our download issue, becuase Chris has been amazed at the speed increase that Comcast has recently made. He says it almost approaches FIOS. Second, there are also some issues if you try to skip ahead on the show. I had to pause it while I helped the kids with their homework. When I tried to resume watching, it was locked up so I closed out and started over. The episode is broken into four segments. You cannot chose which segment you want to watch like on NBC, so be prepared to sit and watch the show with limited interruptions. When I tried to forward it to the right section, it kept repeating the same segment. It is actually quite annoying.
They get a revised grade, but this has to be one of the worst options out there. Although the picture quality is better than YouTube, it does not have the functionality have half the other available players out there.
Grade: C-
So Chris and I went to the Evanescence concert on Thursday, courtesy of my mother coming to watch the kids. It was really nice to get out, considering we have had no real alone time for 8+ weeks (the last time Mom was out). There were two opening acts, which I will review below and then Evanescence. However, I am going to start with a rant about the the other attendees at the concert.
I must have a sign on me that says 'please harass me, cut in front of me, or generally run over me.' Granted, I am a petite 5'2", but I am no pushover, as my friends (and even some acquaintances that have rubbed me the wrong way) can attest. What I lack for in height, I make up for in feisty attitude. I stay on a pretty even keel and don't let too much bother me, but if things push me over that edge, then all bets are off.
I like to be as close to the stage on the floor as possible at a concert. Part of it is I am short, so it is hard for me to see, but the main part is I like the energy of the crowd right there at the front. A concert is not the same when sitting up in the stands observing. I am used to the crowd push to get to the front and I am good at wriggling my way to the front, although it is harder when Chris trails, because he is not as small or aggressive in nature (probably because he does not have someone to back him up like I do). Listening to the genre that I do, I am also used to a mosh pit forming and avoiding the hazards associated with that, while still enjoying the concert. Honestly, this concert crowd was much tamer than I expected, but ironically seemed more annoying. For example, I am standing next to a girl who is not any taller than me. This 40-year old lady starts trying to push through and gives the excuse that her daughter is up front. We are about 5 people deep from the stage. I look at this woman, not yielding my ground and just call her a liar. I was annoyed. She gets all defensive and goes, my daughter is short. So I say, Your daughter is cannot be much shorter than me, so let your daughter stand right here. Here around 11-year-old daughter is amazingly behind her (not in front as contended) and stands there. She then says, 'Mom, I can't see. I told you, I could see better back there.' I nearly busted out right there. She promptly turns around and leaves. The other annoying lady was trying to get through saying her cousin was up front. Chris made the point that no one was looking for her. He told her if you can get through go for it, but there is no room to move. I actually slightly widened my stance. When she started trying to accost me, I told her to just leave. She started saying, 'I'm an ex-cop, so don't mess (I kept it G-rated, she did not) with me.' I looked at her, rolled my eyes, and said 'Whatever.' I then turned around and ignored her. She shortly left. Chris laughed that I nearly threw down twice at the concert. I normally express annoyance, but don't actively provoke. I think that I just had not been out in so long that I decided I was not going to put up with any of this junk. There was no crowd push and most of the time, you just try to go forward, with no excuses. You want as close to the front because you do, so do I. So I guess the excuses annoyed me more.
There was also one other annoying guy, but in a completely different way. He was probably a high school student and completely in love with Amy Lee. I think he thought if he could emote enough with his hands and show that he knew the words and had appropriate hand motions to the notes, that she would pull him onto stage. Not to mention he was tall, standing in front of me, and when it started getting hot, he started pulling up his shirt and kept nearly hitting me in the face with his elbows. I warned Chris that if he did it again, I was going to elbow him in the kidneys. So Chris intervened and asked him to watch his elbows the next time it happened, before I could make good on my threat. So that is all for my rant, on to blogging the bands.
Opening Act 1: Julien K
Chris did a little history on this band and found that two of them are from a band called Orgy, which is best known for the (bad, imho) remake of the New Order song, "Blue Monday". Orgy is a synth rock band. Julien K is an outlet for the electronic music that these two members came up with and is classified as electro-pop. Their album should be out soon.
This band comes out and they have a decent energy. I don't see that the keyboardist adds any value whatsoever to the band. He adds minimal back-up vocals, a punk spiky-haired look, and it is extremely annoying the way that he bashes the keyboard to get out the 6 keys that he intermittently plays. Chris said that they would be classified as a 'downtown industrial' band. I suck at classifying bands, but I can review and critique the music effectively. The lead singer comes out clad in leather, with no shirt. He is too old to do this and does not have the body to pull it off. He basically has the body of a scrawny 14-year-old, so it is not really impressive. The guitarist looks basic rock band guitarist with long hair. The drummer looks punk, a mexican guy with a mohawk, and provides back-up vocals when he remembers. It always looks like he is forgetting that.
The first song is disparate. The music is good, but the lead singer's voice does not fit. The quality of his voice is much too good for the music. His voice and the melody had a very 80s quality (think New Order) to it, so it really did not fit. Then we start to see the NIN influence on the next song. It sounds like a mediocre interpretation/modification of a song from The Downward Spiral, down to the same rhythm and drum effects. Their music is ok, the lyrics are fair, the energy is fair. I thought that maybe they were worth checking out on Napster, but it was very much a filler band. Nothing special. I can't really remember the songs, just feelings, so they did not leave much of an impression there.
Grade: Initially they had a C, but after Sick Puppies, they moved down to a D, because they were shown up so bad.
Opening Act 2: Sick Puppies
Chris again did a little history and Sick Puppies is from Australia. Apparently they got their real kickoff from a "FreeHugs" Campaign, which was sending their drummer around with a sign hanging around his neck at the mall that said "Free Hugs" and taping people's reactions. They then uploaded it to YouTube and got a gazillion hits. They have actually done much better here than in Australia. On to the review...
They come out on stage and the lead singer has a very Australian surfer look. The drummer, I don't even really remember seeing. (It very well could have been my height coming into play here.) The thing to note though as unusual was the girl on the lead guitar. You don't see many girls in rock and even fewer playing the guitar in a band with a male lead singer. I really could not determine if she was talented or just his girlfriend that got put in the show or just some eye candy for the guys. She was attractive and dressed appropriately for the genre, but I did not see any stand-out guitar moves that said, oh yeah, she rocks. I will save judgment for a later time on her.
Their first song was called "All the Same". They really rocked this song and it had beautiful lyrics. (This is a real accomplishment for me to notice the words the first time, because I can sing the lyrics and not know what they say.) I leaned back to Chris and told him that that song would rock acoustic. When we went to download the music at home, the song was barely recognizable from the verson played at the concert, except the lyrics were the same. The studio version was much more subdued, but it still could have been stripped down more. Both versions were awesome. I love the lyrics and think that it would make a beautiful song to play at a wedding reception, especially if it were stripped down some more. The concert version really rocked though and it really set the tone that this was a band to listen to. I advise you download the record version, and then see if you can find a live version to download.
They kept the energy high and it was cute the way that he was counting down their set ('Only two more songs.'). He had a lot of enthusiasm, which was contaigious. "My World" and "Pitiful" were two other great songs that they played. Chris managed to download 4 of their songs and they were all more subdued than the concert version, but still held up. Their lyrics are good, the music is good and they perform really well live. They seriously rocked their songs out completely. They have a great future and I would go see them again and recommend that you go see them.
Grade: A
Main Act: Evanescence
Chris and I really like Evanescence, but unfortunately the shuffle on the Media Center is so lousy that it plays the same 50 songs, so I did not know a lot of the songs that they played. Chris was disappointed that the set list did not include "Everybody's Fool" and "Tourniquet", but really that was the only thing to be disappointed about. Amy Lee has an amazing energy that is probably only beaten out by Steven Tyler, and no one has as much stage energy as he does. She also emotes very well, although the absolute best emoter in the business has to be Justin in Blue October, you can read every lyric in his face and it especially takes the song "Hate Me" to a whole new level. You believe that she feels what she is singing, while she runs around the stage. Her first song was a little hard to hear the vocals, because it was in a high register and the crowd was so excited, it drowned out a lot of her singing for the first few minutes, at least in the pit. Then the whole show rocked.
My favorite song was "My Immortal". The song is so beautiful; it makes me cry when it comes on at home, much less to see it performed live with all the emotion from the crowd and Amy Lee emoting. It was awesome. They put on an excellent live show. She had the piano on almost half the songs and went smoothly from sitting at the piano to singing on stage.
They get an absolutely outstanding review and a definite recommendation. They are well worth the ticket price.
Grade: A+
In this age of information technology, it often amazes me the stupidity that companies often exhibit. Take for instance, CBS. They are trying to launch a new show, Cane. I watched the pilot and enjoyed it, but forgot to set up a series recording on my DVR and so missed the second episode. I think, no biggie, I will log onto the website and catch the full episode there. I have done that in the past with numerous Fox shows and NBC shows, mostly due to the crappy settings on the Comcast DVR. While it will dynamically record the desired show whenever it is on, it does not guarantee that you will get the whole show. It is not uncommon for the DVR to cut off the previews for next week (granted a minor, but nonetheless annoying issue) to actually not recording the final 30-45 seconds of the show (which becomes a major issue on cliffhanger shows, like Heroes). Luckily, I have been able to log on and watch the episodes or missing parts thereof when there has been a glitch. Thus I am appalled that Cane is not available, except as a written recap or a "2-minute drill" that summarizes the episode. I can see that next week when you play it, I want the real thing thank you. As for the former, I might as well have watched the previews during commercials for other programs for all the information it contains. The "comprehensive" recap is all of one paragraph. Ridiculous!
Equally annoying is the fact that I cannot find the episode on YouTube or anywhere else for that matter. Come on YouTubers, help me out! I have to say that I am really disappointed in CBS and hope that they will rectify the situation soon.
Grade: F