Stevie Nicks and Billy Joel are such rock legends, so when I saw that they were performing together in Baltimore, I knew I wanted to see that show. They are both in their mid-70's: who knows how long they will keep doing this! I thought this could be my last chance to see either of them live. We were in the nosebleed section of M&T Stadium, and it was a chilly October night, but I was prepared with a blazer, windbreaker, and faux fur coat (I even brought a towel to sit on to keep the plastic seat warm). I wasn't going to let the cold weather stop me from enjoying this concert!
I know Nicks mostly through her music with Fleetwood Mac (which I think is true for a lot of people). She sang some of those songs, but also included music of her own. Here are my two favorites:
While Nicks only sings, Billy Joel is an excellent musician in his own right, playing the piano (of course), the guitar, and the harmonica (and maybe more!). And his band was just as talented! Crystal Taliefero, who played percussion and the saxophone, sang River Deep Mountain High, and it was great!
And his lead guitarist, Mike DelGuidice, can sing opera! He was amazing! I think this was my favorite part of the night, mainly because it was just so unexpected! The video below is from 2016, but he sang the same song and sounded just as good:
And then of course Joel has all of his huge hits. He has so many songs that he kind of did the concert in three parts: the first part, then what you thought was the encore but actually the second part, and then the encore. So it was a lot of music!
The list could go on and on! So much talent and for such a long time! I'm sure they never imagined when they first started out as performers that they would not only become so famous but stay so famous. LEGENDS! Such a great concert!
I still had some buttermilk left over (read about the buttermilk brownies I made), so I thought I'd try making a bread with the ingredient, too. I found this recipe on the Kitchn blog, and it seemed easy enough. I also liked that the recipe offered several variations; I love mixing up recipes, so this was right up my alley!
Ingredients
·2 cups all-purpose flour (10
ounces)
·1/2 cup white sugar (4 ounces)
·1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
·1/2 teaspoon baking soda
·1 teaspoon salt
·1 cup buttermilk (8 ounces)
·1 large
egg
·1/4 cup unsalted butter, olive
oil, or vegetable oil (2 ounces)
Directions
1.Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease or spray with nonstick cooking
spray a standard 9x5 loaf pan.
2.Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder,
baking soda, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Melt the butter, if using. Whisk
it in a separate bowl with the buttermilk and the egg.
3.Pour the liquid
ingredients over the dry ingredients. Gently stir and fold the ingredients
until all the flour has been incorporated and a shaggy, wet batter is formed.
Be careful not to over-mix.
4.Scrape the batter
into the prepared pan and pat it into the corners. Bake for 45-50 minutes. When
finished, the loaf should be domed and golden, and a toothpick inserted into
the center should come out clean. Let the loaf cool in the pan for 15 minutes
before removing and slicing.
Basic Variations
• Sugar can be reduced to a tablespoon for more
savory breads. • Up to half the flour can be substituted with an
alternative flour. • Replace the buttermilk with a mix of yogurt and
milk or milk and a squeeze of lemon. • Use up to 1 1/2 cups fruits, nuts, olives,
cheese, or other ingredients, added to the dry ingredients. • Use 1-3 teaspoons of herbs or spices, added to
the dry ingredient
Reading the variations was helpful to know how much of what I should use. I already planned on using blood orange olive oil, and ended up not having enough, so I used both the orange and lemon olive oil. I also added nutmeg and ground ginger, as well as a cup of dried cranberries. I feel like orange and cranberry are frequently featured together, so why not in this bread I was making?
This is an easy recipe to make, although I ran into a few minor issues. Usually in baking you mix the dry ingredients in a smaller bowl to the side, and you mix the wet ingredients with the mixer, and then add the dry to the wet. In this one, you add the wet to the dry. So I just poured the dry ingredient mixture into the mixer bowl, added the wet ingredients, and used the mixer for just a few seconds to mix everything together. There was a bit of dry mix left at the bottom that didn't incorporate well. But all in all, this was easy and came out nicely. I thought it was yummy, especially with the craisins! Highly recommend doctoring it up with your favorite flavors.
I wanted to make buttermilk biscuits last week, and I remembered I have a whole blog post of buttermilk recipes. I used a recipe there for the biscuits, but then I had lots of buttermilk left over. So I thought I's try a new recipe, this time making brownies!
1.Preheat oven to 400 °F. Line a 13×9-inch
baking dish with parchment paper. Set aside.
2.For the brownies, in a small saucepan
over medium high heat, combine butter, cocoa powder and oil. Bring to a boil
and remove from heat.
3.In a large mixing bowl, combine
granulated sugar, eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Slowly whisk in the butter
mixture. Add in flour, baking soda and salt, and stir just until combined. Fold
in chocolate chips.
4.Pour into prepared baking dish and bake
for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.
5.While brownies are cooling, begin
frosting. In a small saucepan, combine butter, buttermilk and cocoa powder.
Whisk over medium heat until mixture begins to boil. Remove.
6.In a mixing bowl, combine powdered sugar
with butter mixtures. Beat for several minutes until smooth. Pour over
brownies (they don’t need to be completely cooled. Sprinkle immediately with
chocolate chips.
7.Refrigerate for two hours, until set. Cut
and enjoy. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
I rarely make brownies from scratch, because the boxed ones are so good! So I had never mixed the cocoa powder, butter, and oil like this before. I used a blood orange flavored olive oil instead of vegetable oil for added flavor (I bought it at an olive oil/balsamic store in St Michaels, MD), and since I didn't have regular chocolate chips, I used white chocolate chips instead. The blog said the brownies taste best chilled, so I was very patient in trying these!
I did like these, although I'll admit the orange flavor overpowered everything, so if I did this again, I would add more cocoa powder. I'm not sure these are worth making if the aim is to use up buttermilk, seeing as the recipe only calls for a quarter cup of it. Still easiest to just buy a boxed brownie mix and use your special olive oil in that! You can always doctor up a mix; there are so many books that can help with that!
I thought the recipe instructions were a little out of order; the dry ingredients should have been mixed before the wet ingredients, but no biggie. And I didn't bother making icing: brownies taste good just as they are without frosting! And who needs the added calories anyway? These are worth a try, even if they are bald on top! And maybe you can try making them with my changes to the recipe :)
I grew up listening to their music, and I was looking forward to hearing some of their past hits, even though I knew most of the concert would highlight songs from their latest album, Gaslighter, which is nearly all about Natalie Maines' divorce (in specific detail). I did take the time to listen to the album before the show, so I was familiar with a lot of the material, even if it doesn't quite hit like their classics. The performance itself was great: the trio still sounds amazing, even as Natalie recovers from COVID-19 (the reason the show had to be rescheduled). I thought the graphics of the show added to the performance as well. They poked fun at Trump, Putin, and DeSantis, which at first I worried about because that normally wouldn't fly with a country music crowd, but then I figure anyone there still supports them after their 2003 comment about President George W. Bush. And leading into the protest anthem, "March March," names of cities that have experienced mass shootings and the numbers of lives lost were fading on and off the screen; names of African Americans killed by police scrolled, starting out slow and then speeding up, listing dozens and dozens of names. That was very powerful!
Goodbye Earl (I didn't stay long enough to hear this song, but I'm pretty sure it was the encore!)
Since I left early, I'm not sure if they played "Not Ready to Make Nice," but I think that's a great song! I'm so glad I was able to see this group in concert, especially since they haven't been in tour for years (this is their first album in 15 years!). I'm not sure how many more chances I'd have to see them!
Russell Dickerson
Photo by Mike Davis
Before I talk about Russell Dickerson, I want to mention his opening band, Restless Road. They are SO good! I saw them open for Kane Brown, and ever since I have wanted to see them again. They came to the Hamilton somewhat recently, but I never bought tickets. So it was a nice surprise to see them! This trio harmonizes SO well together (they remind me of Rascal Flatts or Diamond Rio), and I love their fun energy (plus, checking out their big biceps didn't hurt... *wink*). And they were pretty funny on stage, introducing each other with little poems to rhyme with their names. So cute! I was smiling and dancing the whole time!
They said they were selling signed copies of their CD for "one night only," so I definitely wanted in on that. But when I got to the merch table, I had to order the CD online and they would ship it out; "one night only" my ass! But anyway, I like their music so much that I wanted the CD, so I did it anyway.
Here are some of the songs they performed. I already want to see them in concert again!
And then it was time for Russell Dickerson! My friend reminded me that we had seen him open for Thomas Rhett (read that blog post here), but I guess from afar, I couldn't tell what a bro he is. He was sticking his tongue out all night, biting his lower lip, hip thrusting... He was like a country Guido, with his hair slicked back and wearing so much jewelry; I half expected him to pull up his shirt like the Jersey Shore's "The Situation" (although once I saw that he was wearing a shirt UNDER his cropped T-shirt, I knew he wasn't fit enough or confident enough to do that). I was NOT into his vibe, and it didn't look good from just about four rows from the stage.
BUT he has great stage presence and put on a very entertaining show, with all the lights, smoke, confetti, etc. you could ask for. He played a lot of songs I didn't know (and I was kinda "meh" about most of them), but he played some of his big hits, too, and those were great! Listen for yourself:
I Wonder (He wrote this song after breaking up with his girlfriend-now-wife. They were only broken up for a month, and then he called her on Thanksgiving to say he was thankful for her. The rest is history!)
God Gave Me a Girl (Then he wrote this song after getting back together with her!)
Blue Tacoma (This is my favorite song of his, and of course it was the encore song. If it weren't for this song, I would have left the concert early. But I had to hear it!)
I liked how he told personal stories about some of his songs, like those with his wife. And I thought it was fun how he called out his bandmates and had the crowd chanting their names. One of them was "mustache Kev," and then Dickerson called out a man in the crowd with a great Fu Manchu and we started chanting his name! He made the show different than other concerts, so I appreciated that.
Dickerson invited Restless Road back on stage to sing a song together. That was awesome, too!
PS: The group Wild Rivers from Toronto, Canada, opened for The Chicks. I didn't think they were that great, so not much to say on that. But you can check them out on YouTube and decide for yourself!
In just the past few weeks, I have been to several concerts, nearly wrapping up the summer season. I went to all of the concerts with my fiancé, and we had such a fun time!
At the end of August, we saw Train at Wolf Trap. I was excited to see them perform because I had never seen them in concert before, but I was even more excited to see Parmalee open for them. We saw Parmalee at the Grand Ole Opry when we visited Nashville (read that blog post here), and they were so good! And they did not disappoint the second time around.
And I really liked Train, too! They have so many popular hits, and we had a great time dancing along to their songs (even if we left a bit early to beat the rush).
We returned to Wolf Trap just a few days later to see Sting perform. It sounds like he regularly performs at this venue, but I had never seen him before. I was supposed to see Madonna the following night, so it was going to be a full 80's-themed weekend, but then her show was postponed to December. But Sting was still on!
His son opened for him, which was kind of cool. His son, Joe Sumner, didn't have a band; it was just him and his guitar up there. He looks and sounds a lot like his dad, which is funny. Buuuut I didn't like his music very much. He kind of reminded me of a musician who would play on a kid's show like Barney or Sesame Street and sing very literal songs about numbers or vegetables. I mean, he does have a song called Jelly Bean:
While his son's music might not have been my cup of tea, Sting was incredible. He played all the Police hits, and for the next week it seemed like every time I turned on the radio, I'd hear one of his songs! I love how diverse his set is and the mix of sounds, regions, stories, etc. that inspire his music. Have a listen:
We saw Billy Idol at the Anthem down at the Wharf on Friday night. My fiancé had seen him five or six years ago, but it had been nearly 20 years since I'd seen him at the HFStival in Baltimore (which no longer exists, unfortunately). He's a bit doughier than before, but he still insisted on taking his shirt off, so he's still doing his thing! Of course we liked his famous songs, but his newer music was pretty good, too. And this was a fun concert for people watching: there was a Billy Idol look-alike in the crowd (I legit did a double take!), and there were kids ten years younger than me who were singing along to every word like they grew up in the 80's. So fun!
One of the most entertaining parts of the night was the opening act. Alex Cameron was up there with his computer as a music machine and a bandmate who played the saxophone. It was...strange to say the least. He was wearing a leopard print blouse while the saxophonist was in an oversized suit; Cameron was very charismatic while his bandmate barely moved and seemed like he wanted to shrink into a hole and disappear. Cameron also kept playing with the microphone cord; I was expecting him to tie it into knots or fun shapes, or do a magic trick! The music itself wasn't bad, and it almost reminded me of the way Haim sounds (although I couldn't understand a WORD he sang). Such a weird opening act for one of the biggest rock stars in history!
Rzeznik sitting with his leg propped up. And then his AI friend named Tapey!
I thought there would be a smaller, less-known opener, but the show just started out with the Goo Goo Dolls! That also kind of surprised me, because I thought they would be the headliners. The lead singer, John Rzeznik, had injured his foot (he said it wasn't a good story: he just walked off stage one night and thought, "Ow!" haha), so he was sitting with his foot propped up the whole time. But he was in good spirits, and it was still a good show! I didn't realize how many of their songs I actually knew, so that was cool. Here are some of their best-known songs:
Iris (Funny story: the name of the song has nothing to do with the song itself. John just read about a singer-songwriter named Iris and thought it was a nice name!)
When it was time for O.A.R. (which stands for "Of A Revolution." Did you know that?), way more people in the audience stood up, so maybe it did make sense that they were the headliners! I didn't recognize many of their songs, but I knew a few, and I thought their cover of Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down was pretty good (I put that below, too.).
I saw Jason Aldean perform at Nats Park in 2014 (read that blog post here), and I was supposed to see him a few years before COVID, but my friend and I totally forgot and didn't go! So when I saw he was coming back to Merriweather Post Pavilion, I knew I had to buy tickets. I was going to go with my go-to country concert friend, but he couldn't make it, so I was scrambling to find someone. Then I remembered that a neighbor's daughter, who's home from college for the summer, is a country music fan. I texted her about going with me, and she responded, "OMG SHUT UP YES," so I found a new country concert buddy! So we went last week and had a blast!
Corey Kent was the show's opener. His name didn't sound familiar, but I did know a song or two of his:
Up next was Mitchell Tenpenny! I saw him perform at the Fillmore in Silver Spring early in 2019 (read that blog post here); I almost had the chance to see him backstage! I particularly love two of his songs (the first two listed below), so I was excited to see him again.
We Got History (He has experienced a lot of heartbreak, clearly!)
Bitches (He had a drawing of a hand flipping the bird with the word "bitches" on the knuckles on T-shirts, his drum set, etc. I didn't necessarily find it offensive, but just kind of impolite. I think he's a talented song writer, so is this really the best he can do?)
And he did a cover of the Goo Goo Dolls' song Iris. I thought it was a pretty good set!
During Tenpenny's set it rained a little bit, and I almost wondered if it was going to pour and we'd have to leave (since we had lawn seats). But the rain held out, so we could still see our headliner! Aldean has so many hits, so I understand that he can't sing them all. But Burnin' It Down is one of my favorite songs of his (as is Night Train), and he didn't play it! So I was bummed about that. But here are a bunch of ones he did play, from the old stuff to his newest song, and everything in between:
Try That in a Small Town (This song and its music video have gotten a lot of press, mainly because of the lyrics mentioning guns and the video includes news clips of violence particularly related to large riots/protests. I don't think the video or song are racist, but I am confused as to the message of the song. Is he promoting violence, saying that if you do something wrong in the small town, there will be hell to pay? Or is he trying to prevent violence, saying that if we all had the sense of community like one might in a small town, and you cared about your neighbors, you wouldn't commit acts of violence in the first place? The music video shows a lot of footage of police in riot gear, and again I couldn't tell if Aldean was pro-police or not; police have committed a lot of violence against innocent people, both in big cities and small towns, but police have also been attacked unnecessarily at times. So I'm mostly just confused.)
