O/T The Music Thread

Enjoy Chi! Let us know how it went.

It was good show and the band sounded good.  The "new" singer has been in the band since 2005, so he's not so new anymore.  "Blue Morning, Blue Day" is my favorite Foreigner song too, it must be that great guitar riff that starts the song.  Sadly, they didn't play it.   They played the rest of their hits, including the sappy love songs, which I could do without but the crowd likes them.

Loverboy was OK, I was never a big fan of theirs, their sound is just too 80's for me.  And yes, the singer, Mike Reno still wears the headband!       He doesn't get around well on stage anymore but his voice is still there.

Overall a good time, because my daughter liked it and as a parent, it's a joy to see one of your kids enjoying a concert of bands that I listened to when I was 13.  

I've always like Foreigner and have most of their albums, surprisingly they don't have too many for how long they've been around.   They're just a good meat and potatoes band that doesn't try to be something they aren't.  Straight forward rock and roll.    

Thanks for sharing chi. I liked Foreigner as well, but not so much their "power ballads" although I liked some of them. Sorta like REO Speedwagon in my mind.

Journey (with Steve Perry) has to take a higher rung on the ladder for me.  Not to the level of Queen, but over REO Speedwagon and Foreigner etc.  Not many singers in the history of popular music had pipes like Steve Perry.  Also, I thought he was an introspective song writer, which made their power ballads much more resonant and palatable - less treacle and trite (e.g., "I Want To Know What Love Is").  

Also, when I lived in Hanford, California from 1992 to 2008, I learned that Steve Perry was born there.  Small town kid from Portuguese parents from the Azores (like most of the Portuguese families in that area), just like my dear Yankee friend Joe Simas.  Perry grew up living with his grandparents on their dairy farm (many of the Portuguese families in that region are or were dairy farmers).  His father co-owned the radio station KNGS (Hanford is the seat of Kings County).  I do have both albums from Journey and also from Steve Perry as a solo artist.  According to Wikipedia, Perry became interested in music after hearing Sam Cooke's "Cupid."  

Oh yeah, I meant to add that anyone inspired by Sam Cooke gets points in my book. What a voice, and how totally cool he was. He gave Lou Rawls his big break -- that's Rawls doing the bass lines and low harmonies on Cooke's "Bring It On Home To Me."

Once Sarah was diagnosed with MS in the 1990s, it was important for me to stop my "vagabond" ways, as she used to say.  Keeping insurance, having a steady income, and staying reasonably close to her neurologist in Santa Barbara became the focus.  At fortune would have it, as soon as we moved in 2008 to Hollister, California in San Benito County (as you probably know, between Santa Clara and Monterey counties), she was diagnosed with cancer for the first time.  At least, we were closer to the coast with much cooler weather as she battled another major illness.

Your memory is spot on.  Hanford is smack in the middle of the Central San Joaquin Valley.  Highway 99 is just north of Hanford on the way to Fresno.  Visalia is where my friend Joe and I had season tickets to the single A affiliate Visalia Oaks.  If you drive west to east on 198 from Hanford through Visalia, you will eventually hit the Sequoia National Forest.  Lots of walnut, almond, and stone fruit trees like peaches and plums in and around Hanford, as well as cotton, grapes, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, corn, zucchini, etc.  Once we moved to Hollister, then we had road side picks of everything from artichokes in nearby Castroville (where Marilyn Monroe was Norma Jean and was "The Artichoke Queen") and apricots to lettuce and tomatoes, to wonderful strawberries and watermelons. 

While I was a regular at In 'N' Out Burger (either a single with everything and no cheese, or a double-double animal style), I never made it the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, though I have a very good friend who lives there.  Sarah and I once had tickets for a Jerry Jeff Walker show there, but at the last minute he cancelled due to a back injury.  Bakersfield was always the last easy place for petrol before The Grapevine into Los Angeles.  I drove that path many, many times.  The first apricot I ever ate off a tree was in Hollister - one of the most wonderful flavors I'd ever encountered, like a similar experience of eating a pineapple in the fields of Hawaii - so different from the store bought or canned stuff.