Wow, what a difference a little bit of music in a classroom makes! If you recall, I had a helluva time dealing with being an elementary school teacher-well practicing to be one. Last year by now I was attempting my 2nd round at my final practicum and was very worried about my partner teacher and how he would be. Well, of course a year goes by SO fast and it was a wonderful experience in the end-ALMOST tempting to take on a real job with the school board but still, my heart wasn’t in to it. Now I know why-I got to teach my first 2 groups of kids (about 7-9 in each class) the Yamaha curriculum. After that intense seminar of which I am grateful I went, I planned and listened, and learned…and did more of it-but this time, I wasn’t annoyed at having to do so much work!! (more…)

What a whirlwind of a week this has been and next week with my impending trip to Toronto, it will be another crazy week too! After about 3 weeks of planning for this intense summer camp, I walked in to the school on Monday and was ready to take on the day. Thankfully the girl who runs the place (of which will be “my boss”) helped out with the opening morning and then we split classes. The first day was a bit chaotic with kids from ages 3-13 being in the same room. Luckily the older girls were Asian which means they are natural born care takers since the Asian community is very close knit and knows how to take care of eachother…so the older gals were helping to take care of the rowdy little ones who were not listening to me. (more…)

Ok, I can’t say I was always a Meatloaf junkie and a cult follower of his, but my mom loves the guy and always loved his music. I can say that I started to enjoy his music when we saw the MEATLOAF VH 1 STORYTELLERS concert some years ago. Since then, I really enjoyed his tunes and liked the lyrics. For our Christmas present, my brother and his girl bought (or got, who knows) us tickets to see Meatloaf in concert which was yesterday.

Other than being disappointed that our seats were on the complete OTHER end of the stage, we were in the 2nd row on the 2nd tier which isn’t all that bad. The show started off with a young Swedish import playing songs from her soon to be released cd. Marian Raven played her set with just guitar and a keyboard but MAN was she ever incredibly great!! I always hate opening acts but this girl can SANG!! It is really shocking at how powerful her voice is-think of Jewel with a HUGE voice that belts out indie type songs with a slight rock edge. I wanted to buy her cd right there, that is how good she is. Her new single, Falling Away will hit the airwaves this week and her cd will be out in April. Let me tell you, THIS is one girl to watch!!!

Her set wasn’t long and before you know it, Meatloaf himself came out on the stage to Paradise By the Dashboard Light-just there, out of nowhere he showed up. It was odd seeing him, well not odd, it was HARD to see him because we were so far away and there were not any jumbotrons on…sigh. He gave a great performance and blew the place away. The dome was almost 100% packed which was great and it was neat to see the age ranges from teens (LOTS of teenagers!!) to old people.

Meat sang all of his best known songs except my ultimate favorite, Heaven Can Wait (sigh)-and then some other ones I had never heard before which I assumed were from the other Bat out of Hell cd’s that came out. The band was incredibly amazing…better than the house band on Rockstar if you can imagine-the guitar player was just out of this WORLD and the old Meat-ster himself was pretty good.

It was just odd the way he commanded the stage, he wasn’t really running around or dancing, he was just pacing back and forth with a bit of a limp and a slight hunch. After all, the man IS 61 years old!!! lol His singing was pretty on key except when he would sing solo with the piano and would be SO off that even I would cringe and feel bad for the piano player. The pitch was SOOOOOOOOOOOO off and so flat or sharp that it could be painful-however, as soon as the other voices would come in and the band, Meat was off and running. Either his pitch is bad alone or he is so scared to do solos by himself that he just warbles his way out of a paper bag.

Nonetheless, the arrangements of every song were awesome and the sound was GREAT! There were some great lighting effects though no pyrotechnics, sigh-but at one point, these blow up floating people came from out of the stage and looked like real life band members singing or playing-that was cool!! Too bad the 3 huge screens in the back didn’t have any close ups of Meat or anyone doing their thing-and one screen never worked the whole time we were there.

Oh well-the show was great and Meat had a great set of songs…he sang a lot, took an encore and then came back and sang about 4 more tunes. It was cool to see a lot of older men actually dancing and nodding their heads to the beat, that always makes me laugh because they are usually the quiet types who are just there because “my wife made me” or whatever! lol

In the end, I am glad we went and we both had a good time as well-the security wasn’t awful and I regret not bringing my camera or binoculars at least. The popcorn I had there was AWESOME too so I enjoyed that as well.

So if you ever want to go to a Meatloaf concert, I suggest you do-even if for nothing than to enjoy the HUGE music being played and the incredible talent that is on the stage…classic songs like that never go out of style, even if the old Meat-ster can be a bit rusty, he still does have the pipes that can carry those tunes regardless!!!

And who WOULDN’T be impressed with the fact that a guy old enough to be my grandpa was out rocking the stage like a 20 year old…thankfully though, he DID keep his clothes on, contrary to reports! WHEW!

Talk about having a complete night of Rock and Roll-the hard way!! Yesterday, Russ and I went to the Evanscence concert (Alicia also came down as well) and it was GREAT. Russ had been working all day and I was at school in the morning so there was a bit of a run around with going home and then meeting Russ again and then heading out to the arena. (more…)

What a concert!! I must admit that I never thought I liked the music of INXS when Rock Star was on, but then I realized that when all the old songs were being played again, I knew all of them. These were the songs I grew up with in my younger childhood and knew them perfectly. I guess I DID like INXS back in those days though I never owned a cassette tape of theirs, though I do remember watching the videos with Michael Hutchence in them. (more…)

As I type this, American Idol for the 4th season has ended. I have to say that every year is full of ups and downs and anger and happiness with this show! I am a self proclaimed American Idol junkie-that is no lie. I also love me some Canadian Idol too. When I first stumbled on American Idol, the first season, it was about half way in because it wasn’t aired on Canadian television. Once I saw Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson sing their hearts out, I knew I would be loving Idol all the time. From then onwards, I have watched EVERY show religiously for the past 4 years now! With Canadian Idol, I have been able to predict the winner for each year, there is something that I can tell right from the auditions that usually leads me to the winner. With American Idol, I always have my favorites which get near the top, at least the top 2 spots. (more…)

What on earth can I say but WOW!! One word for a totally fantastic singer who goes by the name, Josh Groban!! I have been a fan of his since the first time I ever saw him here in Calgary back in 2001. He was touring with Sarah Brightman and sang only one duet with her and finished. When I heard him sing that ONE song, my mouth dropped open-OMG WHO WAS THAT??? The next day I went to find his cd and lo and behold it was there. Self titled-released not long before. This was before Josh was becoming a HUGE success! I listened to it and it was the most incredible cd I have ever heard-it STILL remains one of my favorites! (more…)

Friday the 13th…what is so big about it?? Well that used to be the question I would ask everytime the 13th hit a Friday! That has changed this time around…today marks the anniversary of meeting Russ 5 months ago!! I never expected it to happen on that mild night in March, and nor did I expect for it to continue to this hot day in August!! I guess I was always paranoid and not having known Russ at ALL, it was hard to picture! Usually with the guys I have dated, I have known them for years first and THEN have developed a liking to them as either a close friend or more. With Russ it was different right from the start…so I took a dive in the pool without knowing how to swim, and thankfully I haven’t sunk yet!! (more…)

Well luck SURE was on my side tonight!!! Let me start back to about 2 months ago when I found out that my FAVORITE singer, Josh Groban was coming to Calgary! I remember going to a Sarah Brightman concert back in 2001 and this unknown man came out to sing only ONE duet with her. Well….when he finished singing, I remember my mom and I turning to eachother and saying OMG WHO WAS THAT???????? The next day I went out and found this mans cd…Josh Groban….self titled cd. I put it in my disc player and fell in love with the music, the voice AND the arrangements! Many of the songs were in Italian but I was lucky because I could understand the lyrics! WOW! (more…)

I just can’t say enough about theatre and musicals…always loved them as I was growing up and still do now. I just wish I was living in either London or New York so I could go and watch ALL the musicals…sometimes Calgary is so behind with the arts….it has been about 12 or 13 years since the Phantom of the Opera came I am actually surprised that Miss Saigon came to town last year and that I got a nice 3rd row ticket at the Jubilee!! Still though…I have SO many musicals I want to see…Aida, The Lion King, Rent-the list goes on and on..I have watched Evita, Phantom, Les Miz, Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat (with Donny Osmond…AMAZING) Jesus Christ Superstar…lots of that….but I wanna see MORE MORE MORE!

There is nothing better than watching live theater…especially when it is something done on a big scale AND by Andrew Lloyd Webber or Cameron Mackintosh…so many people shun the fact that I LOVE Andrew’s music-they say he stole it from Rachmaninov etc…who cares really? All of pop music today is borrowed from eachother yet nobody gets upset!

I am just so excited about this link I came across…looks like Webber and Mackintosh are going to do a revival of Evita again and I bet it will be HUGE..those 2 guys never really collaborate together so this should be nothing short of amazing!!! I wish I was in London to watch it!

link for article on revival of Evita