I have been going to see so many shows lately now that we can support the arts again in person! Last night I went to see Kane Brown at Capital One Arena. I don't know a lot of his music, but I really like a few of his songs, so I wanted to see him live. As usual, I bought the tickets as soon as they were available, but since this show didn't sell out, I could have bought floor tickets for $20! Hmpf! But I was still happy with our club-level seats. We were looking at the stage from an angle, but we were close enough to see just about everything.
The first opener was Restless Road, a band we had never heard of before. I feel like lately in country music, it's been mostly just single male singers (or maybe a duo, like Dan + Shay). So it was cool to see a group! My friend joked that they were the N*Sync of country, like a boy band. I really liked their harmonizing and enjoyed the show. I'm not sure I'd be ready to see them as headliners, but I liked them as the first act! They did a medley of country songs like Should've Been a Cowboy and Check Yes or No, so their covers were good, too (they also did Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar on Me!). Here are some of the songs they performed:
The second opener was Jordan Davis. I had totally forgotten that I had seen him before when he opened for Old Dominion. I like a lot of his songs, too! But I have to admit, I was very distracted by his bad posture the entire time. His shoulders were all scrunched up; it was painful just to watch! Here's a taste of what we heard:
And then it was time for the main act! Kane Brown puts on a show as if he were a rock star or rapper, not a country star. He entered the stage in a harness from the ceiling wearing a Washington Wizards jersey! He also had a boot on his foot from an injury (He took it off for the last song and was just wearing one shoe!). There were all sorts of lights, dry ice, and even pyrotechnics! Quite the show! Check out some of his songs:
What If (I think this will forever and always be my favorite song of his!)
After not being able to fly anywhere for a while due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been looking to pick up my travel, especially since I'm vaccinated and have my booster shot. So in true jet-setting fashion, my sister and I flew to Las Vegas for ONE day to see Gwen Stefani in concert over the Halloween weekend. Her residency only lasts a few more days, so we had to see her while we could!
I arrived early in the morning, but my sister wasn't getting in until later in the afternoon. So I went straight from the airport to the Tropicana to enjoy some treatments at their Glow spa (they had a Groupon). I had a very nice facial first, read my book in the relaxation room, and then had a pedicure. I felt completely pampered by the time I left.
Then I made my way down the Strip (there are no crosswalks at intersections, only elevated walkways from casino to casino; it was quite a maze to figure out where I was going). It was a beautiful day, sunny and in the 80's, so I enjoyed lunch outside at a Mexican restaurant where my piña colada was served in a boot:
After I was done eating, I walked the rest of the way to Planet Hollywood, which is where the concert was going to be and where we were staying. But check-in wasn't until 3:00; if I wanted to check in earlier, I had to pay a $30 fee. WTF?! So I asked if I could access to the pool, which I was granted. So I changed into my bikini and laid out in the sun for just about an hour. Glorious! And I finished my book, too!
After a long check-in process (even though their kiosks claim to be "express"), my sister arrived and we could go up to the room. We relaxed a bit and then headed down to the shops in the casino. We hit up Francesca's and H&M before settling in for dinner at P.F. Chang's (one of the few Chinese restaurants I know that doesn't use MSG, since I'm allergic).
Then it was time to get ready! Although Halloween wasn't technically until Sunday, it was a Saturday night in Vegas, so we were going to dress up! My sister already had a DÍa de los Muertos outfit, but her intricate make-up was fantastic! I had brought a bunch of random things with me, since I didn't know what I wanted to dress up as. In the end, I went with slutty dominatrix ballerina. Like this:
Once we were all dressed up, we headed downstairs to the slot machines. We actually won $12 at our first slot machine, but within about 45 minutes, bouncing from machine to machine, we ended up losing around $50. But it's all for fun! After that, we made our way to the Zappos Theater for the concert. Here are some photos from the show:
Photo credit: Taylor Arion
Photo credit: Taylor Arion
Gwen on a rose-covered rising platform. Photo credit: Taylor Arion
I knew pretty much all of the songs she performed, both from her time with No Doubt and on her own. Here's a taste of what we heard:
Don't Speak (I think this must be everyone's favorite No Doubt song. SO GOOD!)
Hollaback Girl (with the backup dancers holding giant bananas, of course)
Ex-Girlfriend (She said she hates singing this song because it brings her back to the time when she wrote it; she said it makes her want to throw up! But she knows the fans love it.)
Baby Don't Lie(This song sounded familiar, but I didn't really know it well.)
This show was so much fun! The sets were beautiful and the energy was great. Gwen invited fans onto the stage throughout the show to thank them for their support and take photos with them (while trying to be socially distanced. She was continuously putting on hand sanitizer!). For "Just a Girl" she brought up several young girls, who represent the future of women's rights. Go girl power!
By the time we got back to our room and took off our make-up and costumes, it was nearly 1:00 a.m. So we slept for about four hours before heading back to the airport to head home. What a whirlwind of a trip!
I learned of Postmodern Jukebox from a guy I used to date in 2017. I didn't really know much about them, other than that they were supposed to be good (I didn't do my own research and just listened to the opinions of others). AND those other people were right! I saw them perform at the Strathmore this past weekend, and they were amazing!
Their whole thing is taking modern pop songs and turning them into jazzy, 1920's-esque songs. I felt like I was at a jazz club during the roaring 20's, like Great Gatsby or something! And they are real entertainers, true performers. They are larger-than-life, with glitzy costumes, loud wigs, and incredible stage presence. They even had a tap dancer on stage along with the singers! I was blown away and had SO much fun.
Here are some of the songs they performed when I saw them. It seems like throughout the years the singers of the group have changed, and the group may be different depending on what part of the world they are in at the time (unsure about that). So these particular singers are not the ones I saw, but these are the same songs:
I am thrilled to have entertainment venues reopen after nearly two years of not being able to support the arts in person! I have been buying up any tickets I can get my hands on, and I have been very busy this past week showing my love for the arts and the great venues here in D.C.!
I hadn't been to the Kennedy Center since the beginning of the pandemic, and I was so excited to go back! It's one of my favorite venues in D.C., and I've been a member for years now.
I'm normally not a musical person (unless it's by Disney), but when I listened to the soundtrack of Hadestown on YouTube, I knew I had to see the show. Blues music? Sign me up!
Nicholas Barasch (Orpheus) did have a baby face, but his voice wasn't the strongest. Image found here
The musical is a show that intertwines the tales of Hades and Persephone and the love story between Euridice and Orpheus. So if you were familiar with ancient myths, it was pretty easy to follow along. But that also meant you knew how it was going to end!
I was especially impressed with some of the performers. I think Levi Kreis, who played Hermes, actually sings better than the voice recorded from the original cast! And Kevyn Morrow was an excellent Hades; he had the best evil laugh!
I loved the music, and the way the characters moved across the stage really brought the set to life. For example, at one point the chorus was moving around in a circle almost as if they themselves were cogs in a wheel. I really was transformed to a different place! And most of the musicians were on stage the entire time, so it was fun to watch them, too.
Then last Friday, I went to the 9:30 Club to see the 90's cover band White Ford Bronco. I had heard of them before, but I hadn't had the chance to see them live. I love the 80's cover band The Legwarmers, so I was hoping to have a similar experience, just with different music. And they did not disappoint! It was so fun hearing the songs I grew up listening to, and it was especially cool to hear them sing songs of bands I have seen in person (like the Backstreet Boys and Alanis Morissette. Read those blog posts here and here). I liked the variety of songs they played, and their energy was great. At the end, they gave the audience the option to either hear one encore song, or hear five additional songs without an encore. Of course we went with the latter! It was such a fun time to be back at the 9:30 Club (I even wore the tank-top I bought over the pandemic to show my support) and hear live music again like in "the before times."
And then last night I went to Ford's Theatre to see "My Lord, What a Night," a play about the real life friendship between physicist Albert Einstein and the singer Marian Anderson. I had only been to this venue once before in 2018 (read that blog post here), and my boyfriend had never been, so it was fun rediscovering this venue together.
This was only a four-person show, and I liked all of the characters! Christopher Bloch played Einstein; while his accent probably wasn't as thick as it should have been, I still liked how he played the famous genius. Felicia Curry as Anderson was a little affected in the beginning (maybe trying to sound like Viola Davis?), but she grew on me as the performance went along. Michael Russotto as fellow Princeton scientist Abraham Flexner was quite strong, and Franchelle Stewart Dorn as civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell was powerful. The four actors played well off of each other and nicely expressed their opposing opinions related to standing up for civil rights or simply keeping your head down.
I appreciated the amount of comic relief in this play! Although the show focuses on issues of racism, discrimination, and prejudice, there were still light parts where you could laugh. The play ended with Curry singing as Anderson on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which really did happen in 1939:
I feel so cultured after this week! I have tickets to a few more shows throughout this fall, and I am very much looking forward to that!
One of the last things I did before everything shut down in March 2020 was see a play at the DC JCC. I am thrilled that they have re-opened and that theater is BACK!
I bought a mini-subscription to Theater J since there were several performances I want to see. The first one was Becoming Dr. Ruth, which was actually going to open in 2020 but was postponed for nearly two years because of COVID-19. I believe I had watched a documentary about Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer previously, because I already knew much about her life. I think it was good that I already had some background on her, because then I could enjoy the play as a work of art, as opposed to focusing on the plot or where the story was going.
First of all, this is a one-woman show. For 90 minutes, Naomi Jacobson is on stage, all alone, telling the story of Dr. Ruth. And she is fantastic! She truly embodies the energy and the positivity of the famous radio sex therapist, and she nails the one-of-a-kind German-Israeli-French-American accent. She actually played this role before in 2018, and since then has met Dr. Ruth in person; she said meeting the celebrity helped shape the role this time around, especially when it came to making fierce eye contact with the audience and miming the kind of connection Dr. Ruth had with anyone she spoke with.
And as usual, Theater J did not disappoint with its set. I love their use of minimal sets that make a big impact. Jacobson was surrounded by white boxes, which represented both moving boxes as Dr. Ruth packed up her apartment, but also contained her memories. Throughout the show, Jacobson would open a box to reveal a tiny doll house or replica of a place where Dr. Ruth had spent her life: the barn where she slept after the Kindertransport took her to Switzerland; the Kibbutz where she worked in Palestine; the apartment she had with her family. The boxes also secretly hid items like copies of her books and her radio switchboard. You never knew what she would unveil next!
The white boxes were also used as the backdrop for projected images. Sometimes they showed photographs of members of her family, but other times they helped set the mood for that moment of the story. When they projected images of swastikas while playing sounds of marching, chills went up my spine; when the backdrop became the Wailing Wall with melancholy singing in the background, my eyes welled up with tears. When the set alone can move someone to feel those things, that's a work of art.
My favorite part of Dr. Ruth's story is her resilience. From losing her family in the Holocaust to gaining an education as a single mother and becoming a one-name superstar: how many people can do that?! She has truly had an amazingly interesting life, and at 93, she's still going strong. You can watch her to this day on YouTube! I greatly admire her optimism and fortitude, and I will support anything related to Dr. Ruth. Movies, shows, books...sign me up!
Now that more things have opened up as the pandemic wanes (but still continues...), I can actually pack my weekends like I did in the "before times"! Here were the highlights of my busy weekend:
1. Goat yoga
I had heard of goat yoga a while back, and I knew Beth Wolfe had organized goat yoga events for some time. But I had never gone until Saturday! It's hosted inside a church, which I think is funny; I guess we were inside since the church doesn't have a fenced-in area for the animals to be outside but not run away. This event was special because there were six baby goats there who were only a few weeks old! They weren't quite used to people yet, so this was a chance for them to be around humans and see that we aren't going to hurt them. They are so adorable! I'd say in the hour I was there, five minutes were spent on yoga, and the rest of the time was watching/petting/taking pictures of goats. You can see how the goats would be distracting:
I had previously done kangaroo yoga with the same instructor. While I can't say these kinds of events are the most strenuous yoga classes, they are definitely the most fun! I want to try kitten or puppy yoga next!
My boyfriend bought tickets for this, and I was certainly curious what it was, especially since I love art by the impressionists. We were out near Ivy City, and it was this huge space that had been converted into an interactive museum for this exhibition. I really enjoyed learning more about Van Gogh; I didn't know much about his real life beforehand. I think my favorite part was when you entered a huge room where his art was projected all over the walls and even on the floor! The paintings had been digitized and then moved and morphed like animations. We were cuddled up on pillows on the floor just watching the art dance around us. If you've been to ARTECHOUSE before, then it's kind of like that. The tickets are a little expensive, so had I not been invited by someone else, I'm not sure I would have paid to see a famous artists' works be projected on walls (I'd rather see the real thing!). But it was a fun, different experience. But bring a sweater: it's cold in there (even though they aren't protecting real art...). OR you could get a taste of it from YouTube:
After the art exhibit, my boyfriend and I wanted to go out for cocktails. Right down the street from the exhibit, we found Metrobar (which he had read about). It was a fun outdoor space with lots of picnic tables (and cute dogs!) to enjoy your drinks al fresco. All of the cocktails use spirits from local distilleries, like Republic Restoratives, One Eight, and Cotton & Reed; I love all of those places, so I think that's a great idea. They also had hard seltzers from DC Brau, which I didn't try but want to at some point! It's a cool spot in an up-and-coming area of the city.
After looking at the art and having a drink at Metrobar, we went into the heart of Ivy City and had dinner at. I had never been there before, but that's because they opened during the pandemic. It was packed, so clearly it's a popular spot! Their cocktails are also good (and actually cheaper than a glass of wine?). They handmake the pasta there, and the pizza is delicious! I don't think of myself as a pizza snob by any means, but after having their pizza, I realized I hadn't had real, authentic pizza for a long time. I highly recommend checking out this place! After dinner, we briefly walked around the area. Now I want to go back there to visit Gravitas, City Winery, and a new brewery, Other Half; they all have great rooftop spaces!
Our other friend Emily took the picture. Her finger is there to represent.
I went to this event two years ago before the pandemic, and it was so much fun! So when I heard it was coming back, I had to go. Four of my girlfriends and I piled into my car and drove up to Poolesville to watching the horses. The set-up was different from last time. Previously, they had this outdoor area with picnic tables and such where you could sit and enjoy food and drinks. But this time, we had to drive to the other side of the fields, where there is no structure; you had to be prepared to tailgate. I did not realize this ahead of time, but we lucked out: someone had paid for three private tents, but we got there early, so we took over one of those and acted like we owned the place (we figured we'd move if someone asked us to). Luckily we were able to sit in the shade there in chairs (not in the grass in our lovely outfits) the entire time we were there. And each party got a free bottle of wine, so that was a nice surprise! We had so much fun enjoying the beautiful weather, chit-chatting, and watching the horses run back and forth. Anytime I get to eat and/or drink outside, I'm happy!
Although there were technically two polo matches, one is certainly enough. So we left early and drove just a little bit aways to Windridge Vineyards, a new winery that opened up during the pandemic. I was there a few weeks ago with my boyfriend for the first time, so I had already discovered it and had made reservations for my girlfriends after the polo. Thank goodness I did: the place was packed! We had a nice picnic table all to ourselves looking out over the vineyard and enjoying the sun sinking lower into the sky. I helped myself to a glass of their bubbly rose, and we had dinner from the food truck there from Bangin BBQ (very good, btw). It was the perfect way to end such a lovely girls day!
I packed a lot in this past weekend, and next weekend will be no different!
I always like to travel for long weekends, but with the pandemic still looming, I didn't want to go too far. So my dad and I went to New York City for a quick trip. We of course visited my grandma, but we had lots of other fun adventures, too! Here were the highlights of my trip:
Going to baseball games is one of my favorite summer activities, and after more than a year without sports, I want to go to as many games as possible! I'm from Maryland, so when I saw that the O's would be playing against the Yankees, I had to get tickets. Yankee Stadium is beautiful, and they actually allow you to bring your own food in so you don't have to pay $20 for some chicken tenders and fries. So we enjoyed a sub from a local deli as we watched the game. It started off slow, but in the end the Orioles won! They've had a pretty bad season, so you could hear the disappoint of the Yankees fans, since their team is so much better. I heard one guy say, "Come on, it's Baltimore!" But I was happy my team won!
We used to always go to Ben's Best on Queen's Boulevard, but that has sadly closed. So we went to this restaurant, which is a chain, but still has very good food. We enjoyed all the classics: matzoh ball soup, half-sour pickles, knishes, corned beef sandwiches...the only thing missing was the black-and-white cookie! But since Rosh Hashanah was coming up, my grandmother had a yummy coffee cake for dessert waiting at home. Such good food!
You can see the globe for the 1964 World's Fair in the background.
I had gone to the U.S. Open for the first time three years ago, also during the Labor Day holiday (how convenient that this tennis tournament always takes place over a long weekend!). I was excited to go back again, even though I didn't recognize the names of the players we would see. We arrived early so I could buy my souvenir towel (smaller than the one you get at Wimbledon), and we watched two general admission matches. The match between Aryna Sabalenka and Elise Mertens in Louis Armstrong Stadium was very good, especially knowing that they are partners in doubles and have won tournaments together! Then we saw the up-and-coming Carlos Alcaraz beat Peter Gojowczyk in the Grandstand. We finally made our way to Arthur Ashe Stadium for the evening's main event. Felix Auger-Aliassime from Canada defeated American Frances Tiafoe; I normally would root for any American, but it was getting so late I wanted Auger-Aliassime to win so we could get it over with. By the time the match was over, it was nearly 11:00 p.m., so we didn't even stay for the women's match. But we still got to watch three matches, so we certainly got our money's worth.
Such a fun weekend! I'll be heading back to NYC next month and do totally different things. Stay tuned!
