KPRI Presents Old 97s at The Abbey

Tuesday night was another amazing evening with KPRI for a private show with the Old 97s. The band performed a killer set in a beautiful setting and wowed all the attendees. Big thanks to Chris Cantore for hosting, KPRI for always giving their listeners amazing opportunities, and Steve Covault for saving me a seat up front. Sorry for the glare of the stray yellow light and for my jittery camera. I'll eventually go back and title all of the songs and get them in the proper order, but for now, here's the playlist. Click the right or left arrows to get to the rest of the videos.

Show Recap – 102.1 FM KPRI Holiday Show 2008 – Ingrid Michaelson, Matt Nathanson, Tristan Prettyman at The Abbey, Hillcrest, 12.11.08

The thing I love about KPRI as a local radio station is that they consistently put on free concerts with decent name artists on either a free boat ride around the bay on a nice summer evening on a Hornblower cruise, or in a beautiful former church called The Abbey in Hillcrest in the chilly winter months. This holiday season, KPRI put on a listener concert at The Abbey featuring Ingrid Michaelson, Matt Nathanson and local singer / songwriter Tristan Prettyman. The show sold out pretty quickly and the night of the show it turned into a full house.

Tristan is a home town San Diego singer who has had a great run touring in support of her album “Hello…”. Her performance was spot on with her full band and I ended up sitting next to her beaming grandmother who was very proud of her success.

Matt Nathanson did a great set with his full band using his trademark quiver of new songs, 80’s covers, and dirty jokes. His final song he did a beautiful fully unplugged cover of the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to do is Dream”.

Ingrid was a fun headliner. I always love it when female singers have girls in their band. Ingrid’s band all had serious chops and style. Matt did a duet with Ingrid. The music was all top notch and it was yet another great KPRI concert.



Photos By: Dan Chusid - http://www.pbase.com/camera0bug

Wednesday Recap: Paolo Nutini

I just totally seemed to strike out yesterday. Seriously. I was gonna skip the Paolo Nutini in-store because I had to swing by my house after work, but then I got a text from Daye that he had just started at 6:30, so I raced across town to M-Theory and arrived in time for just one song. I did buy a CD and got it signed and the photo op, so at least I've got some pics.






Afterward, Daye invited me to join him for dinner because he had been told Paolo would be playing later than the passes indicated. We went to dinner and by the time we got to the Abbey at 9, Paolo was almost done with his set. aargh. I was not happy, but made the best of the 4 or 5 songs I did get to see and snuck up front for some pics.













So the highlight of what I did catch was Paolo doing a cover of "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse. Then I realized she's not really getting airplay in SD so nobody else seemed to recognize the track. He finished and I was regretting not going with instinct and getting there earlier.

The one thing that I was stoked about was getting to see a show in The Abbey, a building normally used for private parties and banquets. This is a venue worth checking out. 300+ people, balconies, open floor space, a bar, dining tables, and just cool doors to get around the space. I guess it was a church or something and has very ornate stained glass and lighting and beautiful dark woodwork. Let's just say it got my wheels turnin a bit.



After the show, I considered my options: Elvis Perkins at the Casbah or Foreign Islands and Goes Cube at the Beauty Bar. Then it occurred to me that things had kinda not been working out for me all day, so I made the decision to go home and be responsible for once...clean house, hang out with my dog, get my shit organized. And for once, I got more than 5 hours of sleep.

It's all good today, but I am seriously ready to party this weekend. Today is my best friend Sara's birthday so we'll be doing dinner at Ken Grill and maybe I can convince her to head out to the Beauty Bar or something. This weekend is gonna be really fun and I'm unofficially inviting anyone going to Morgan's birthday at the Ken to come by my pad and pre-party on Saturday. If you don't have my address, just e-mail me and I'll hit you back. Things are gettin good.