Happy New Year – Let’s See a Show L.A.

Let’s recap 2024. It was a busy year for shows with a few new artists, a few new venues and lots of old favorites.

We started the year on January 12 with Steely Dan and the Eagles for The Long Goodbye tour at the Kia Forum. It was a fantastic show, even with several missing band members from both bands. Donald Fagen was there and what else do you really need for it to be Steely Dan? Well I guess the answer to that question is Walter Becker, but still they played all the songs I remember and they sounded just the same. Many of the musicians on this tour have been playing with Donald Fagen for 25 years, so it’s no wonder they sounded great. Julie flashed back to being 19 and I flashed back to being in the back of my aunt’s station wagon. Then when the Eagles took the stage, she nudged me and said, “Is that Vince Gill???” It was indeed. Also joining was Glenn Frey’s son Deacon (who apparently left the tour for later dates). The harmonies were tight and the blend was fantastic. Eagles played a few solo project songs (Joe Walsh – Life’s Been Good To Me and Rocky Mountain Way, Don Henley’s Boys of Summer). The first encore was Desperado the second encore was Heartache Tonight, so it’s fair to say they ended the evening on a high note.

Our first theatrical production of the year was the national tour of the 50th Anniversary production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center on January 24. It was my 4th time seeing this production (so it’s been going on far longer than 50 years), but Julie’s first. Caiphus was better last time, but Judas was great and that’s what matters most. Fun fact: JCSS started as a concept album and was then turned into a musical. I don’t know why I like it so much because I’m not religious and I’m not really a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber, but I have seen this production four times, so I REALLY like it. It was my first time to Cerritos PAC and I really liked it. Plenty of free parking and only a $3 per ticket fee. We went to Polly’s Pies after and were there for “happ-pie hour” which meant a free slice of pie with every entree. What could be better than that?

On January 27 we went to the Soraya PAC on the campus of CSUN to see Herb Alpert and Lani Hall. Julie was hoping for Whipped Cream and I wanted to hear Tijuana Taxi. He played both in a medley of Tijuana Brass tunes during the first 10 minutes of the show. And then we sat through the rest of the show, which was not good. It was a lot of Herb and Lani singing showtunes and not at all what we came for. We did manage to get out before the encore started so we’d be out of the parking lot before the show ended. For the rest of the year we’d say, “There hasn’t been a bad show this year…well, except Herb Alpert.”

I scored $12 tickets on Black Friday to see Grumpy Monkey The Musical at Porticos Art Space in Pasadena on February 10th. Julie and I both have collections of monkeys and as she said, “we should go just to get the program.” When I bought the tickets, the showtime choices were 10 a.m. or 1 p.m. so I had a feeling it was a kids’ show and in the week leading up to the show we googled and found out it was best for ages 4-8. We were afraid we were going to look like creepy old ladies going to see a kids’ show. It turned out that we were not the only adults there without children and it also turned out to be a really wonderful show. It was produced by Pasadena Playhouse and the actors were all Equity – meaning they could really sing, dance and act. Even the set was top notch. The music was great. The show was based on a children’s book about a monkey who woke up grumpy and all the other animals of the forest are trying to get him to do what they do when they feel grumpy so he won’t be grumpy anymore. In the end, everyone realizes that it’s okay to be grumpy sometimes. In addition to theater seats, they had a “Jungle Floor” section where kids could sit on the floor up close. And there were little breaks in the action to keep the kids engaged. The whole thing was just really, really well done.

On February 24, I had tickets for 42nd Street at Carpenter Performing Arts Center on the campus of CSULB. I had actually seen this show at CPAC before but there’s lots of tap dancing and I do love a good tap number. You just can’t be angry while there’s tapping. The shows at CPAC are staged by Musical Theatre West and are solid regional theater. Typically the stars are Equity and the ensemble is not, as was the case with this production. If you get there early enough, you might find street parking on Atherton. Otherwise it’s $10 in the lot. You can use the Parkmobile app or the kiosks onsite. It’s also fun to get there a little early to look at the Carpenter memorabilia in the lobby.

On March 22 we saw Chicago at the Pantages. I had seen this production last year at Segerstrom and our one regret was that we didn’t have better seats, so we got good seats at the Pantages. Alas, even though it was the same production, the show wasn’t as good. Don’t get me wrong, it was still Chicago and even bad Chicago is great, it just wasn’t as good as the time before. I’m not sure why. Julie had not gone to the Segerstrom show so this was her first time, although it turned out not to be her first time because she saw Chicago at the Music Center in 1978 with Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon starring. How could anything compare to that?

I got cheap seats for Today Tix Theater Week for Funny Girl at the Ahmanson on April 14. Julie got stuck in terrible traffic (such is L.A.) and didn’t make it until intermission. I have to admit I was skeptical. How can anyone compare to Barbra? But I was sold as soon as Katerina McCrimmon walked on stage. She totally owned that role. It was fun to see Melissa Manchester on stage as well. I haven’t seen the movie in ages so it felt fresh to me, while still being nostalgically familiar.

April 28 found us at The Greek for Adam Ant and The English Beat. I guess enough time had passed since the last time we’d been there because we thought it was a good idea to park in the pony ride lot. It IS a good idea in theory. $10 to park and shuttle over to The Greek seems like a win, and it is…until the show ends and you have to wait in a very long line for a very long time to get on the shuttle back to the car. This was the second time I’d seen The English Beat and it’s now just Dave Wakeling with a band he’s put together, but he has done a great job putting that band together and they sounded exactly like they should sound. They played every song I’d hoped for and were very entertaining. I was amused that Dave has recruited his daughter into the band. And then Adam Ant took the stage. Now, I LOVED Adam and the Ants as a teenager and was super excited to FINALLY get to see him live. I had tickets a few years ago for a show he did at The Observatory in OC, but it was the storm of the century that night and even if I could have gotten there, I’m pretty sure the parking lot would have been flooded. The band was fantastic. They had 2 drum sets on stage plus the extra drums so everyone could join in when they did songs like Kings of the Wild Frontier, but Adam Ant fell a little flat. He’s bipolar and it just felt like the meds they have him on have evened him out too much – like there are no lows but there also aren’t any highs. I was so disappointed. It’s not like it was terrible, but it just could have been so much better.

On May 26, we went to YouTube Theater for Madness. I saw Madness once before yeeeaaars ago at the Universal Amphitheater (or Gibson Amphitheater – who can remember?) and knew they would be fantastic. I looked up the opener and saw it was Berlin, so when Julie said she was going to be a little late, I didn’t mind missing some of their set. I was happily surprised to get there and find The Untouchables on stage. They were as good as when I last saw them (1988?). Berlin turned out to be solid. Terri Nunn was bouncing around the stage, climbing down and wandering through the audience and singing with a still very strong voice. Madness was everything I’d hoped they would be. They had a percussionist and a three piece horn section in addition to the usual nutty cast of characters. They opened with One Step Beyond. The second encore was Night Boat To Cairo. It was only my second time to YouTube Theater as well and it’s a really nice venue. The first time had been for Rodrigo Y Gabriela and they had the balcony closed off for that show. There is a courtyard outside the theater where they have food vendors, the bars were legit and all of the staff was super friendly and helpful. Tip: stop at the info booth and pick up a pair of earplugs because their sound system is kickin’. We walked to Pollo Campero for pick up and some guy was selling Madness scarves. We don’t normally buy merch, but we each bought a scarf.

My first Hollywood Bowl concert of the year was James Taylor on May 29. I bought those tickets on a whim during concert week because I like James Taylor, but I don’t LOVE James Taylor – I think I just missed the Bowl. The person I was planning to go with backed out but the person I took instead turned out to be a James Taylor superfan and she was soooo excited! The show was very entertaining. James Taylor sounded great, the visuals were good. The band was billed as James Taylor’s “All Star Band” and while they were an incredible band, I had only ever heard of the percussionist. The back up singers’ blend was fantastic. Unfortunately, the guy sitting behind me knew every word to every song which was a little annoying, but not as annoying as him tapping the back of my seat off rhythm the whole night. Such are the perils of live music.

On May 31, I was able to get to Long Beach City College to see the LBCC Evening Big Band perform with special guest Wayne Bergeron. Lots of familiar charts in a pleasant outdoor setting (and also free – even free parking). Then dinner at Hof’s Hut. What could be better?

On June 4, I went to see Funny Girl again but this time with my cousins and this time at Segerstrom. It was still very good, but there were subs for 4 parts. My cousin turned out to be a Funny Girl aficionado and commented on a movie scene that was cut from the musical. The nice thing about Segerstrom though, is you can park at the mall for free and walk across the pedestrian bridge to the theater. Since you’re parking at the mall near the bridge, you’d might as well go to Boudin’s and grab a bite too. We were sad to see that they’d closed the See’s Candies that used to be so close to Boudin’s.

On June 6, we went to see Jelly’s Last Jam at Pasadena Playhouse. These were $25 all in tickets through Today Tix Theater Week. Man this show was good! It tells the story of Jelly Roll Morton as he has just died and is revisiting his life. It’s fairly racially charged which seemed to make the almost all white audience cringe, but there was lots of tapping, great music and top notch performers. It was my first time to Pasadena Playhouse. It’s a pretty small theater. I felt like we were really packed in. We found nearby street parking for free, but there was a $5 lot available as well.

June 23rd found us back at the Bowl for opening night, “Henry Mancini 100th Celebration” conducted by Thomas Wilkins with performances by Michael Bublé, Cynthia Erivo, Dave Koz and Monica Mancini. It was a great show and a great way to kick off the season. I bought a subscription to the Bowl this year for the first time, and bought these tickets as subsciption add-ons. You really can’t go wrong with the music of Henry Mancini and then they added clips of Julie Andrews and the Pink Panther (cartoon and movies) performing with the live orchestra. In one of the cartoon clips, the Pink Panther was conducting at the Bowl and when the music stopped there was the sound of one person clapping. The Pink Panther turned around and it was Henry Mancini sitting in the Hollywood Bowl all alone. Very cute. There was a fireworks finale for this show and I have to say it was the best fireworks I have ever seen at the Bowl. The fireworks lasted for the entirety of a medley, and then they played the final song – Peter Gunn. So good!

Julie loves Joe Jackson, so when I saw he was playing at The Orpheum, I bought the tickets full price and probably nine months in advance. We kept forgetting when the show was and having to look it up on the calendar, so by the time June 25 came around, the anticipation was high. It was the first time to The Orpheum for both of us. I scoped out parking and found a small lot behind the theater for $15. It turned out there was a much larger lot adjacent to the small lot we were in that was meant as theater parking. After the show we were glad to not be in that lot since it was totally backed up while we managed to just drive out of our small lot and be on our way. Downtown is kinda gross and sketchy. I didn’t feel unsafe since it was clear that everyone in our vicinity was there to see Joe Jackson, but probably would not have wanted to walk a block in either direction by myself after the show. The theater is beautiful. The show opened with Joe and a keyboard. He played his hits starting with his most recent album and working backwards and ending with a cover of a Ray Davies song. He explained that he’d gotten interested in Music Hall music and then the band came out one by one to join him on stage to play the Max Champion songbook. They were all dressed in 1910’s clothing (the drummer was wearing an old-timey swimsuit). There was a pianist who also played ukulele, plus a violin, viola, upright bass, drummer, flute and piccolo, clarinet and bass clarinet, trumpet, tuba and trombone. It was campy and fun and the songs were delightful.

I mentioned that this was the first year I’d bought a subscription to the Hollywood Bowl and the reason for that was the opportunity to purchase Beck tickets before they went on sale to the general public. We bought the best tickets available (we’d waited to decide on the subscription, so the better seats were already gone) and had nice box seats just in front of Haley Joel Osment (I could see my blurry head in his Instagram story). Was it worth it? Absolutely. I have never been disappointed by Beck. He just puts on a great show every time. We went full Beck for this show on July 6th with a dinner of Zankou Chicken – Julie got a wine pairing, I brought Beck’s beer. The opener, Jessica Pratt looked terrified. Her whole band looked terrified. We were joking that he probably saw her at a dive bar somewhere and went up to her after her set to ask if she wanted to open for him at the Hollywood Bowl. We tossed around the idea of seeing her at her next show at The Bellasco to see how she was when she wasn’t scared out of her mind. Sophia saw this show in Philly and the opener there was a whistler – literally a whistler! No idea where Beck finds these people, but Sophia said the whistler was wonderful. After Jessica Pratt’s set, the orchestra came out and it was the full LA Phil Orchestra. Beck’s regular band set up on the side. The conductor came out and led the orchestra through Cycle. It ended with a strum of Beck’s guitar as he walked onto stage and launched into Golden Age. Just perfect! There were points in the evening where the orchestra was playing where Beck just walked to the side of the stage and listened to them doing their thing and you could tell it was magical for him too. They ended the evening with Where It’s At. It was fun to see the conductor so into it. Then the orchestra left the stage and Beck did some banter about how their contract is only for 90 minutes while he walked around sitting in various orchestra seats (he was bummed that the timpanist took his mallets). Then he grabbed a guitar and he and his band launched into Devil’s Haircut. There’s a curfew for the Hollywood Bowl, so they ended with Loser and called it a night. I’m pretty sure they would have kept playing if they could have though.

And here we go with the subscription tickets. Gershwin night was on July 11, conducted by Lionel Bringuier. Jean-Yves Thibaudet on piano and vocalists Isabel Leonard and Tony Yazbeck. The setlist was Cuban Overture, Variations on “I Got Rhythm”, Song Selections, Rhapsody in Blue and An American In Paris. I always enjoy Gershwin night, but this one was made extra special with tap numbers. So much tapping this year! The Cuban Overture was wonderful with lots of great latin percussion.

July 17 was our next night at the Bowl for Big Band night with Maria Schneider, the Count Basie Orchestra and the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. The first half was pretty standard big band material, as you would expect from Clayton Hamilton and Basie (side note: my daughter once performed with Jeff Hamilton, so that’s kind of a fun connection). Maria Schneider was pretty spacy and not necessarily in a good way. I liked it a little more than Julie, but it sometimes got too spacy for me too. There was a jazz accordion, so at least there’s that.

Two nights in a row at the Bowl for me, but this time in the $1 seats with Ballet Folklorico de Mexico with the LA Phil on July 18. The first half of the show was just the orchestra. They played some cool pieces – both modern and classical. There was even a timpani solo! Set list was Chaves – Symphony No. 2, “Sinfonia India”, Contreras – Mariachitlan, Ortiz – Antropolos. The dancers came out for the second half. They were fantastic. This show was recommended to me by a friend who’d seen this dance troupe twice in Mexico City. They came out in masks and leotards for some of it, while they donned the traditional circle skirts and sombreros for other pieces. Music for the second half was Revueltas – Sensemaya, Marquez – Danzón No. 2, Lara – Danzones de Lara, Moncayo – “Huapango. One of the composers was in the audience, which is always fun.

We traded our subscription tickets to another night so we could go see Dwight Yoakam and The Mavericks at The Greek on July 25. The opener was Waylon Wyatt, a 17 year old from a small town in Arkansas. He was pretty okay. I think he’ll come into his own once he gets a few more years under his belt. I’d seen Dwight Yoakam once before at the Palladium and knew he was going to be good, but I was unprepared for how great the Mavericks were going to be! Their music is an awesome blend of ranchero and country and yes, there’s an accordion. He was amazing! And damn that singer could SING! Dwight Yoakam was great, but probably should not have tried to follow the Mavericks. He gave a solid performance and the band was wearing their sparkly outfits. After an hour or so, someone came out to join Dwight on stage and it turned out to be Post Malone. Julie had been talking about him earlier in the evening, so we were joking that she conjured him. There were several other shows coming to the greek that we had our eyes on, but after the long wait to get back to the pony lot, we decided we will not be going back to the Greek for a while.

On July 30 we were back at the Bowl for Stravinsky and Khachaturian. Kevin John Edusei conducted with Martin Chalifour on violin. The program was Khachaturian – Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 46, Khachaturian – Spartacus Suite No. 2, Stravinsky – The Firebird Suite (1919 version). What we learned about the subscription seats, is that when you are sitting close enough to the stage, the ushers won’t let people up to their seats until the piece ends. It was great to not have people milling around trying to find their seats while you are trying to listen to the music. For this show, there were also a lot of Russians in our section and one of them was not holding back when people were rude.

We saw Clue at the Ahmanson on August 4 with $35 TodayTix Theater Week seats. The show was good. Lots of gags. We were laughing the entire time. It was really short though. It had a 6:30 start time (which in theater speak means 6:35) and was over by 7:50. I guess I can’t complain with $35 tickets.

Symphonic Tango & Flamenco was August 8 at the Bowl. It was conducted by Francois López-Ferrer with Blake Pouliot on violin, Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana and choreographed by Emilio Ochando. The program was Falla – The Three-Cornered Hat, Suite No. 2, Pazzolla – Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, Debussy – Ibéria, Ravel – Boléro. The dancing was superb. I loved the costumes as well. I have to admit it was a little weird to see them dancing to Boléro at first.

Back to YouTube Theater on August 13 for Jane’s Addiction and Love and Rockets. We missed the opener, The Crawlers, despite the fact that Julie left super early so we’d have time for dinner first. Traffic was just awful that night, such is life in L.A. We were seated and ready when Love and Rockets started their set. I was hoping for Kundalini express and it was their second song. They were great, even though the bass player’s voice is shot. The guitarist’s voice was still strong as ever. The lighting director, however, should be fired. His idea of good lighting was to put the brightest light known to man behind the drummer so it just shined into our eyes for the entire set. I was super excited for Jane’s Addiction. Eric Avery stopped touring with Garbage to rejoin so they had the entire original band back together. The band sounded great. The weakest link was definitely Perry Farrell. He was reading lyrics off of an iPad on stage so it felt like he was just doing karaoke instead of performing. His voice is still pretty good and recognizable as Perry Farrell, but he had a bottle of wine on stage and the more he drank the worse he sounded. I wish I could say I was surprised when the tour came to an abrupt halt a few months later after an altercation on stage, but the writing was pretty much on the wall.

On August 18, I was back at YouTube Theater for Live and Stone Temple Pilots. These were $25 Concert Week tickets, but I probably would have paid full price to see Stone Temple Pilots. The opener was Our Lady Peace. I didn’t know any of their songs and I was expecting Soul Asylum, but when I mentioned it to a co-worker, he knew a couple of their songs. Live was good and sounded just like their album (which you would expect from a band named Live). The singer had a lot of confidence in the audience knowing lyrics and we did not. I knew most of the songs and most of the choruses, but dude – sing it yourself, don’t keep holding the mic out to us when we clearly don’t know all the verses! But STP!! Damn!!!! They killed it. They played Purple in its entirety for the 30th anniversary of the album. The singer who replaced Scott Weiland totally did those songs justice. They wheeled out hand percussion for Pretty Penny and it sounded so good. When they were done with Purple, they played Plush, Dead and Bloated and Sex Type Thing and as we were walking out, they put the bonus song from the end of Purple on the loudspeaker (“The second album….twelve gracious melodies…”). And now for the only downside of the night. It took FOREVER to get home. I parked onsite (which cost more than my ticket) as I had for Jane’s Addiction, which was fine, but on this night there was a show at the Forum and a show at Intuit Dome. They directed cars from YouTube Theater down Pincay to Crenshaw and then west down Manchester in front of the Forum. It took 45 minutes to get home when it should take 10 minutes. They sent me a survey, and I recommended they not let out three venues at the same time and also that they direct traffic in three different directions rather than funneling us all onto the same streets. We’ll see if they fix it. In the meantime, I think I’ll just walk to Vons for pick up next time I have a show at YouTube, like I always do when I have a show at the Forum.

Still more subscription tickets at the Bowl, so up next was Rite of Spring on August 22. It turned out to be an all Stravinsky evening including a Stravinsky arrangement of the Star Spangled Banner, which was fun. Teddy Abrams conducted. Leila Josefowicz on violin for the violin concerto. The program was Star Spangled Banner, Circus Polka, Violin Concerto, Rite of Spring. Rite of Spring requires two timpanists and one was a woman. Represent!

Back to the Bowl on September 5 for Carmen and Carnival. Great show! Carnival of the Animals was interspersed with animations of folk tales narrated by Dudamel’s son Martin. I had rewatched the video that explains all the musical jokes in Carnival so I was amused as I listened. The mezzo singing Carmen was so fantastic that Julie turned to me and said, “She must not be from LA Opera.” We have yet to be impressed by anything LA Opera does, but they’re getting a new director, so maybe there’s hope. There were two additional pieces performed by composer Roberto Sierra, who was in the audience that night. It was also the hottest night I have ever had at the Bowl. I welcomed the blaring AC on the bus on the ride back.

September 6 found me in the air conditioned comfort of the Kia Forum for Chicago and Earth Wind and Fire. These were more $25 concert week tickets. When I told my daughter I had them, much to my surprise she wanted to go. Julie doesn’t like Earth Wind an Fire, so my daughter got to go. She didn’t know any of the Chicago songs, which even though I know I played them in the car throughout her childhood. The bone was fantastic. He looked like he was having a really great time. And Peter Cetera was there, so it felt like we were seeing Chicago. I have been waiting so long to see Earth Wind and Fire and they did not disappoint. Phillip Bailey still sounded great. And the bass player for EW&F looked like he was having as much fun as the trombone player in Chicago. For the encore, both bands came back on stage and traded songs: Sing a Song, then Does Anybody Know What Time It Is, then Into the Stone, then finishing with 25 or 6 to 4. And there are like 11 guys in each band so there were a LOT of people on stage. What a great show! Would definitely go see it again. Maybe even with full price tickets.

We commemorated 9/11 with Jazz on Tap at the Hollywood Bowl. I really wanted to like this show but it just fell flat. Ben Vereen and Christian McBride cohosted. Ben Vereen was the highlight of the show with his charm and witty banter. The first half was three jazz singers: Freda Payne, Paula Cole and Judith Hill with the LA Phil and Christian McBride’s combo. The second half was the combo with the same singers and four different tap dancers. The tappers were all very competent but it wasn’t dancing so much as it was another rhythm instrument. Savion Glover was up first and performed a very spacy piece with the combo. He is one of the greats, but this was not so great. Freda Payne was wonderful. Without her and Ben Vereen, the night would have been a total bust.

On September 18th, we were back in the cheap seats for Rodrigo Y Gabriela at the Bowl. As I told Julie, “It doesn’t matter where you sit, they will cast their spell and you will be drawn in.” The opener was the Afro Cuban All Stars. They were great, but didn’t necessarily belong in a Rodrigo Y Gabriela show. There were 4 singers who also danced, played percussion, etc., congas, timbales, and a horn section. I do love some good salsa music, so I was not unhappy. I have seen Rodrigo Y Gabriela several times and they are always great with their amazing blend of classical-flamenco guitar and heavy metal. I never tire of watching Gabriela’s hands fly over her guitar. Their new stuff is more metal than their older stuff which is not necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, even though our section was mostly empty, the people who were there (which included a group of unsupervised kids) were truly obnoxious to the point that we eventually got up and moved. If your kids cannot handle a concert, please do not take them to a concert! This night was the first night of the new Culver City bus location as well and it was not good. They’ve moved the Bowl bus to West LA College and parking is in a structure at the top of the hill, while the bus picks up at the bottom of the hill. I’m not sure how they are handling ADA with this set up. When I asked the Bowl employee, he said the best they could do was to let people drop off near the bus then drive up the hill to park, which is not ideal but also not likely ADA compliant since if the person with the disability is driving, they can’t very well drop themself off and then drive up the hill to park. To compound matters, when we returned after the show, all of the lights on campus had been shut off, so you couldn’t see to walk back to your car, and all the gates except one were closed and locked, forcing us to drive all the way around campus to exit. I have been to a few shows since, and they have fixed the problem with the lights, but not the problems with the gate or ADA compliance.

On October 13, we attended a chamber concert at Beckman Auditorium on the campus of Cal Tech as part of their “Sundays With Coleman” series. The musicians were a French group called Le Consort consisting of two violins, a cello and a harpsichord. The program was called “From Naples To London” so it was mostly Italian composers in London or London composers in the style of Italians. It was very baroque. The music was good, but the real fun was watching the facial expressions of the musicicians. For the first two pieces they looked like they were going to burst into tears, then they played a happy piece and smiled. It was my first time at Beckman Auditorium and I think my first time at Cal Tech. It was a great little circular theater with a beautiful ceiling. Parking was free in one of two structures across from the campus.

I won the lottery to see Kimberly Akimbo on October 25 at the Pantages. My $35/ticket got me Row T Center Orchestra. Not bad. There were traffic warnings issued everywhere for this day because there was a Dodger playoff, Laker game, USC game, and events at LA Live, the Forum, SoFi, YouTube Theater and Intuit Dome. I figured I’d be fine going to Hollywood and I was. I was even there early enough to drive around and look for a meter. The car in front of me got one on Argyle between Hollywood and Yucca (missed it by THAT much!) but I didn’t find anything. It didn’t help that it was the Friday before Halloween. All the crazies were out. I finally gave up and found a lot at Hollywood and Cahuenga that wasn’t $40. Julie took the train. There was a delay for police activity and then she missed her stop and had to backtrack from Hollywood and Highland. I was happy to see they had some chairs out near the box office so I was able to sit while I waited for Julie and we made it in plenty of time for the show. This show was good. I was skeptical after learning the premise: a girl has a disease that makes her age super fast. She’s approaching her 16th birthday and is not expected to live to age 16. Her family is totally dysfunctional. Dad is a drunk, Mom is a pregnant narcissist. Kim doesn’t really have any friends but is befriended by a super geeky kid. The rest of the cast is show choir students. There’s some character development and hints about why the family has moved to New Jersey from Lodi, and then the aunt shows up. Aunt Deborah has spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the law. She brought a lot of comic relief to the show. Aunt Deborah ends up luring all the kids into a mail fraud scheme and of course things go wrong. There was enough humor to keep it from being sappy, but the show definitely gave off Dear Evan Hansen vibes.

As sometimes happens for me, I ended up with tickets for shows two days in a row. The way it happened with Ain’t Misbehavin’ on October 26, was that I’d bought $35 tickets during Today Tix Theater Week and then bought tickets for Danny Elfman at the Bowl the same day (gotta check that calendar before buying the tickets!), so I ended up selling those tickets and getting Ain’t Misbehavin’ on October 26 so I could go see Danny Elfman. Ain’t Misbehavin’ wasn’t a show so much as a musical revue of Fats Waller’s music. I was hoping for more storytelling about Fats Waller’s life, like Jelly’s Last Jam. There was a band onstage, a piano downstage from them (for Fats Waller) and 5 singers. Their harmonies were really tight. Julie thought they were a little week with their solo numbers, but I thought they were fine. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Would I see it again? No.

The second big band concert I was able to attend this year in Long Beach was the Tom Kubis Big Band at the Gaslamp on October 28. Man, Tom Kubis packs the house! I had made a reservation and they put us at at table way off to the side. I asked if we could move and they said it was a full house, but they had a table available behind the bar. That table turned out to be great. It was two steps up so we could see perfectly over the bar we had a perfect line of sight. The Tom Kubis band was great, and as I mentioned they packed the house! We couldn’t believe how many people came to see big band on a Monday night. This is a regular Monday gig for the Tom Kubis band, so they must pack the house enough to keep doing this. The Gaslamp was very nice. Julie took the train down from South Pas and I picked her up at the train station and drove from there. The train took forever, but we still managed to get there a little early for our reservation. The food was good – way better than Catalina, the drinks were good. We even sprung for tea and dessert. I would definitely do that again.