Pretty decent couple days here.
Thursday was Brian Wilson on the 50th anniversary Pet Sounds tour. The band was great, the harmonies were excellent, and the music, needless to say, was outstanding. Al Jardine looks like he's barely aged. His son Matt handled the falsetto vocals beautifully, and he really shares a chemistry with Brian - they switched off in mid-phrase several times, and it was seemless. The first set was a mix of hits and deeper cuts, including "In My Room", which is a favorite of mine. The set ended with a fiery version of "Sail On, Sailor", with Blondie Chaplin tearing it up on guitar. The second set was Pet Sounds, and it was gorgeous. "God Only Knows" was one of the highlights of the night, and got a rousing standing ovation that only ended when Brian said, "Okay, sit down!" The encore was a hits-fest - "Good Vibrations", "Help Me, Rhonda", "Barbara Ann" and "Fun, Fun, Fun" in rapid-fire succession, topped off with "Love & Mercy".
Friday morning, I decided to drive 90 minutes to Youngstown to see Kiss on the Freedom To Rock Tour. They're playing all smaller towns on this tour. I ended up with a seventh row seat - by far the closest I've sat at a Kiss show. Covelli Center is the second-smallest venue I've seen them at. Great show - pretty standard Kiss set. "Flaming Youth" was the only real deep cut that was added, and they hit most of the highlights that would fit into a 1:40 show (they'd have had to play at least another hour to hit all the songs I'd want to hear). Well worth the drive. On the way home, it seemed perfectly reasonable to drive two hours to Erie tonight to see the show again, but when I woke up, sanity prevailed.
My wife did get a couple chuckles at my expense tonight. We went out to dinner, and I wore my tour shirt. The cute waitress at the restaurant liked it. When we ran through the drive-thru at Chick-Fil-A, the kid at the window said, "Did you get to see them live?" I said, "Last night, in Youngstown." He said, "Oh my god! I'm so jealous! You're so lucky!" I thought my wife was going to choke before we got away from the window.