August 25, 2015 – Nationals 8, Padres 3 – Nationals Park

http://m.nationals.mlb.com/news/article/145349540/stephen-strasburg-strong-in-nationals-win

 

Attendance: 34,199

Game Time: 3:08

Weather: 82 degrees, clear

Wind: 5 mph

Umpires: Home Plate - David Rackley, First Base - Bob Davidson, Second Base - Hunter Wendelstedt, Third Base - Marvin Hudson

Seventh-inning stretch song: It’s Not Unusual – Tom Jones

 

Section 106, Row N, Seats 10-13 (left field, just on the fair side of the foul pole)

 

Highlights – another strong post-DL start for Strasburg (6 innings, 2 runs, 2 hits, 1 walk, 7 Ks), marred only by a 2-run second-inning homer by Jedd Gyorko … 2-run homer in the bottom of the second by Ramos to tie the game … grand slam by Zim in the 6^th to pretty much ice things … great weather once again … arrived in time to get the Anthony Rendon Garden Gnomes, despite spending about 15 minutes figuring out how to get DC to take our money for parking

August 23, 2015 – Nationals 9, Brewers 5 – Nationals Park

http://m.nationals.mlb.com/news/article/144856846/nationals-win-second-straight-over-brewers

 

Attendance: 28,039

Game Time: 3:03

Weather: 81 degrees, partly cloudy

Wind: 1 mph

Umpires: Home Plate - Rob Drake, First Base - D.J. Reyburn, Second Base - Joe West, Third Base - Clint Fagan

Seventh-inning stretch song: I Got You (I Feel Good) – James Brown

 

On a perfect day for baseball, the struggling Nats desperately needed a win, coming off a disastrous 3-7 West Coast road trip and a split of the first two games of the series against the woeful Brewers. Things certainly did not start off well, as Nats-killer Scooter Gennett led off with a single to center and Jonathan Lucroy followed with a round-tripper, putting the home team in an immediate 2-0 hole off Jordan Zimmermann.

 

The Nats got one back in the bottom of the inning. Werth led off with a double, and Rendon got him to third with a grounder to second. Matt Garza then fanned Harper for the second out, but Zim picked him up with a double to center, scoring Rendon to cut the lead in half.

 

The Nats took the lead for good in the third, which started inauspiciously as Garza fanned the first two batters. He then walked Rendon with Harper on deck – generally not a good idea. Bryce doubled down the left field line, sending Rendon to third. Garza then walked Ryan Zimmerman (semi-intentionally?) on four pitches to bring up Desmond. Ian hit a high chopper to the right of the mound which Garza couldn’t handle to tie the score, and Danny Espinosa had the biggest hit of the game, just missing a home run on a double to right-center that cleared the bases.

 

The Nats extended their lead with another 4-spot in the bottom of the fifth. With one out, Ramos homered, Michael Taylor drew a walk, and Zimmermann sacrificed him to second. The Brewers’ decision to lift Garza at that point backfired, as reliever Corey Knebel walked Werth on four pitches, then served up a homer to Rendon.

 

Zimmermann wasn’t at his sharpest but managed to get the win, giving up single runs in the fifth (a Gennett homer) and sixth before being taken out with two down in the sixth. Rivero, Janssen, Storen, and Papelbon got the Nats to the finish line, with the only damage being a Khris Davis four-bagger on the first pitch Drew threw in the eighth.

 

The Clara Barton Parkway route (leaving at 11:15) again worked reasonably well; despite a bottleneck on Independence Ave. (the Kutz Bridge was down to one lane) and a wrong turn on my part which took me onto Maine Avenue, I still made it in 40 minutes.

Shuffle #67 (August 22, 2015)

Without Love – Tom Jones

Born In The U.S.A. – Bruce Springsteen

Morningtown Ride – The Seekers

Man In The Mirror – Michael Jackson

Redemption Song – Bob Marley & The Wailers

Baby, It’s You – The Shirelles

Gimme Some Lovin’ – The Spencer Davis Group

Love’s In Need Of Love Today – Stevie Wonder

Lyle Lovett & His Large Band, Wolf Trap 8/14/2015

Row D, Seats 42-43

 

Another year, another excellent show from Lyle and the crew, most of whom seem to have been with him for 10 years or longer (in some cases, much longer). The inimitable R&B singer Francine Reed was heavily featured this year, standing in the front line of performers after she entered down the left aisle while singing “Wild Women Don’t Have The Blues”, following the usual opening instrumental “The Blues Walk”. As usual, Lyle also gave longtime members Luke Bulla and Keith Sewell a chance to showcase one song each from their solo recordings. The somewhat sedate audience certainly got its moneys worth, as the band came on at 8:00 and didn’t finish until around 10:40. As usual, the musicianship was superb, with everyone getting solos at one point or another.

 

The band certainly hit most of the favorites in the Lovett songbook – “Here I Am” near the beginning, and “If I Had A Boat”, “She’s No Lady”, and “That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas)” just before the end. Personally, I was equally impressed by a number of songs that I was not especially familiar with, notably “Family Reserve” (a Twitter request he neglected to respond to in his previous show), “South Texas Girl”, “Don’t Touch My Hat”, “I Will Rise Up”, and “All Downhill”. While he frequently closes his main set with an upbeat gospel-tinged number, this year’s selection of “Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior” was slower than the usual, although with a set of superb vocal solos it brought the crowd to its feet for the first time in the show. (I later discovered it could be found on a CD called Ultimate Gospel Hits, Vol. 1, in the company of “Gonna Build A Mountain” by Sammy Davis Jr. and, even more oddly, “People Get Ready” by Lee Atwater.) Appropriately enough, the encore was “Closing Time”, the final track from Lyle’s debut CD.

Setlist

Shuffle #66 (August 15, 2015)

I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better – The Byrds

Fate’s Right Hand – Rodney Crowell

I’ve Never Found A Girl (To Love Me Like You Do) – Eddie Floyd

Slum Baby – Booker T. & The MG’s

Summerfling – k.d. lang

Walk On – U2

Tears Dry On Their Own – Amy Winehouse

No Fair At All – The Association

I’ve Got Sand In My Shoes – The Drifters

The Way – Ariana Grande

LP #6 Patti Austin – The Real Me (1988)

Although I don’t really keep track, I’m pretty sure I don’t buy as many albums as I did 20 or 25 years ago. (While I do buy singles on iTunes, my album purchases are still on CD.) One of the reasons for this decline is the disappearance of physical music stores that have enough of a selection to make browsing through the bins a worthwhile endeavor. One of the best places for browsing, of course, was Tower Records; before they opened a store just down the road from me at Congressional Plaza in Rockville, I would make special trips to their more distant stores, in quest of something that no one else would have to add to my collection.

 

Of course, Tower always had music playing over the store’s sound system. Very little of it made much of an impression on me, but one day while I was in their Foggy Bottom store in DC they put on an album that grabbed me immediately. I had never been a big Patti Austin fan, primarily because the songs of hers I’d heard on the radio always sounded pretty generic, but these songs were classics (admittedly some more of my parents’ time than mine) and the arrangements were wonderful. She even manages to surpass the Platters’ version of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” (which I didn’t think was possible) with a slightly off-the-beat rendition here.

 

Favorite tracks:

Someone Is Standing Outside

Lazy Afternoon

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

How Long Has This Been Going On?

They Can’t Take That Away From Me

Shuffle #65 (August 14, 2015)

Once In A Lifetime – Talking Heads

Havin’ A Party – Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes

Talkin’ Bout A Revolution – Tracy Chapman

Say Hey (I Love You) – Michael Franti & Spearhead

Can’t Get There From Here – R.E.M.

Rumour Has It – Adele

Come Go With Me – The Del Vikings

(He’s) The Great Imposter – The Fleetwoods

Way Over Yonder – Carole King

Shuffle #64 (August 13, 2015)

Tequila Sunrise – Eagles

Hang On To Your Love – Sade

Satellite – Guster

California Sun – Gin Blossoms

Hot Rod Heart – John Fogerty

Johnny Hold Back – Charlie

Levi Stubbs’ Tears – Billy Bragg

Rider In The Rain – Randy Newman

Culture Club, Wolf Trap, 8/10/2015

Row F, Seats 37-39

 

I liked most of Culture Club’s singles back in the 80s but was never a diehard fan, so I didn’t know quite what to expect from their reunion tour. The show – almost two full hours with no opening act or intermission – actually was very good, with an extremely enthusiastic although not sold-out crowd. The number of performers on stage rivaled the size of Lyle Lovett’s “Large Band”; I counted 3 backup singers, a 3-person horn section, 2 extra percussionists, a keyboard player and a guitar player in addition to the four core members of the band. They didn’t pull any punches from the start, getting the crowd on their feet with three of their biggest hits (“Church Of The Poison Mind”, “It’s A Miracle”, and “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya”), and keeping us there for “Like I Used To” (a strong cut from their upcoming Tribes album) and a reggaefied cover of Bread’s “Everything I Own” (which I subsequently discovered had been a #1 solo hit for Boy George in England). The rest of the show mixed familiar and more obscure older material – they eventually got to all of the 8 singles that hit the top 15 stateside, plus Boy George’s title track from The Crying Game – with some additional tracks from the new album. The other two best new tracks were the Johnny-Cash-inspired “Runaway Train” (which was the next-to-last song before the encores) and the first encore, “More Than Silence”. They closed the main set with “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” (a phrase that was also prominently featured on one of the t-shirts available for sale), on which they paused for maximum effect before kicking the song into gear. After everyone went off, Roy Hay and bassist Mikey Craig came back and led the cheers to get Boy George and the rest of the crew back on stage. After “More Than Silence” came the inevitable “Karma Chameleon”, with the crowd singing along, and finally an extended cover of T. Rex’s “Bang A Gong (Get It On)”, during which Boy George introduced everyone on stage.

 

Yes, there were Boy George costume changes; I won’t try to keep track of all of them, but he started out in a patterned red, white, yellow and orange outfit with a black jacket, wide black tie, and black fedora with a feather, and he was wearing all black during “Runaway Train”. Fortunately the changes didn’t disrupt the show, as he typically just made a quick trip offstage while someone did an end-of-song solo. If you really want more details about the costumes, check out this review of their earlier show in Bethlehem.

 

The traffic map was encouraging enough around 5:00 that we took I-270 to the Beltway rather than the usual Falls Road route, making it from Westat to the Pike 7 Plaza in a quick 30 minutes – early enough that we decided to try the Thai restaurant there (which was good) rather than checking in at Panera. I also got out of the parking lot much more quickly than usual, getting back home around 10:45.

 

Setlist

Serendipity #45

Second Chance – Peter Bjorn and John

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp3YDzkoejE

Heard 8/11/2015 around noon, at Zoe’s Kitchen (Kentlands)