The Starting Line

Yes, this is another Keane post.  I seriously can't get enough.  One thing that I love about Keane is their lyrics . . . they mean something.  They mean a lot to me, and the more I listen to them, the more I fall in love with the band, the songs, everything.

This is a song called "The Starting Line." During the concert, Tom said that this was a song about hope, and that it is his favourite from the album. Please take five minutes of your life and enjoy this beautiful music.

The Starting Line
This town was a lovers' stage, but now you can't recognize
The street lights that are daggers to your eyes

You can't find your bearings, you're slipping into the ground
This scene has no color and no sound

You still believe in me, after the things I've done,
You fear for what we have become

The ground is uneven, we stumble from day to day
Took shelter where it's easy,
I know your feet are like lead but you've gotta underway

Drag your heart up to the starting line,
Forget the ghosts that make you old before your time
It's too easy to get left behind.
I know you've been kicked around,
But tie up your thoughts and lay them down on me

Each heart is a paper kite blown around by the breeze,
But love won't rest 'til it brings you to your knees

Some find it easy, some will never even know,
You think you've done your journey
Then you stumble and find that there's such a long way to go

Drag your heart up to the starting line
Forget the ghosts that make you old before your time
It's too easy to get left behind
I know you've been kicked around,
You wanna be lost and not be found,
But let's take the back way into town
And drink to the bad times, lay them down on me

Girl I still believe in you, you're too good to fall so low
We're gonna find a better life I know
Things will be clearer, and soon as we make a start,
We'll be that much nearer
We're too old to just stand here waiting to break apart

Drag your heart up to the starting line
Forget the ghosts that make you old before your time
It's too easy to get left behind,
I know you've been kicked around
But tie up your thoughts and lay them down on me, on me, on me


Beautiful, isn't it?  This song has made me cry more than once, as have other songs on the Strangeland album.  I know I write about music a lot, and it's pretty rare to have a post without reference to some lyrics.  I just love to share some things that speak to me, and I hope they strike a chord with you as well.  Forgive me for my obsessions; they are kindly meant.

Turn Up The Volume

The Keane concert last night (Tuesday, June 26, 2012) at the Gallivan Center in Salt Lake City was utterly fantastic.  Here's why:

I didn't have to work that day, so I was relatively well-rested, and I had time to do my hair and makeup so I felt fairly good about myself.  I was also pretty productive--filling out and delivering paperwork for Benji's school, cleaning out/vacuuming/washing Silvano, trying to vote (though I was denied because I wouldn't affiliate myself with a party . . . whatever), and picking up my friend Allison from PCMC so we could hit the concert together.  I wrote a little about Allison here, and how "Everybody's Changing" by Keane is kind-of "our song."  So when we found out Keane was coming, we knew we had to go together.

We took like 10 pictures until we decided on one she was satisfied with.  Allison is seriously gorgeous, and she looked fantastic in every pic we took, but she was okay with this one.  Whatever.  I took it with my super-crappy phone camera, which promptly died after I got one or two shots of the band.  I wish I had had my good camera to take nice pictures, but I am glad I didn't have to carry it around with me.  We were standing the whole time, and had a fantastic view of the stage (this is when I'm happy to be tall!).  Luckily, her phone's camera was pretty good.  She got lots of decent pictures.  This is the best one I've seen of them so far:

Tom Chaplin, lead singer of Keane

He's adorable.  And he sounds SO good live!  This is a nice blog post (not written by me) with some good pictures of him.  He does have a bit of a baby-face, but with his hair cut this way, he's seriously cute.  He has been added to the list, if you know what I mean.  Plus, he's almost exactly my age, so I feel some kinship.

We were standing toward the right of the stage, so we didn't get to see much of Tim Rice-Oxley, the keyboard guru and principal songwriter for the band.  From what I did see, he is beautiful as well.  I mean, look at this guy (aside from the unibrow)!  And the fact that he's super-talented doesn't hurt, either!

Tim Rice-Oxley, Keyboard Guru of Keane

The drummer is Richard Hughes.  He's not a bad-looking bloke, either, but he's stuck behind the drum set and I didn't see much of him.  He did stand up during the encore and take a picture of the crowd.  They have been posting those pictures on their website (his photoblog is here.)  If he uploads the pic at SLC, I'll put it on the blog. :o)

Richard Hughes, drummer of Keane

Jesse Quin is the newest member of Keane.  He has been playing bass guitar and added some backing vocals with them off and on for several years, and he's now an official member.  I really like his addition to the band.

Jesse Quin, bassist of Keane

Sorry I had to steal so many pictures from various websites, but I was very disappointed in my phone's camera.  When Allison sends me her pics, I'll share them.  This is a nice one from the "Cheetahman."  Apparently there was some meet & greet for a select few people (set up by my radio station, no less!), and I totally missed out.  Gah!

*sigh*

Anyway, below a setlist (thanks to setlist.fm for that!).  I have been 'doing my homework,' i.e., listening to little else for the past few weeks, and I'm glad I did.  I knew many of the songs, though there were a couple I had never heard before.  A lot of their songs sound alike, so there were some I didn't recognize right off the bat.  I was glad they played so many songs from their new album, Strangeland.  It's a fantastic CD, and I can't stop listening to it.  I highly recommend it!

Sidebar: if you go to the setlist.fm website, it will link you to youtube, where you can listen to/see videos of each song.  Good stuff.

It was such a great night.  One of the best concerts I have ever been to, hands down.  I think that Keane may have taken over second place in my list of favorite bands (if you don't know who is and always will be number one in my list, you will never, never, ever know me).  Sorry, Train--we'll see if you can earn that distinction back when I hit your concert in September.

And today, at work, my friend Adam asked me to tell him that the concert was terrible (I'm sure he was sad he wasn't able to go).  I couldn't.  It was one of the BEST. NIGHTS. EVER.

Jun26

image by last.fm

ArtistKeane Artist statistics Add setlist

VenueGallivan Center, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

TourStrangeland Tour Tour statistics Add setlist

Attendeesfarmerbb furrever (I was there)

Last editedJune 27, 2012 10:28:50 PM UTC by farmerbbEdit Setlist

6

• 1. You Are Young 
  2. Bend and Break 
  3. Day Will Come 
  4. Nothing In My Way 
  5. Strangeland 
     (snippet)
  6. On The Road 
  7. We Might As Well Be Strangers 
  8. Perfect Symmetry 
  9. Silenced By The Night 
  10. A Bad Dream 
  11. Disconnected 
  12. This Is The Last Time 
  13. The Starting Line 
  14. Everybody's Changing 
  15. Somewhere Only We Know 
  16. Is It Any Wonder? 
  17. Bedshaped 
  18. Sovereign Light Café 
  19. Encore:
  19. Sea Fog 
  20. Leaving So Soon? 
  21. Crystal Ball 
  22. Encore 2:
  22. My Shadow

Disconnected

Good grief, it's June 25th and I haven't posted anything this month?  Gads!  I'm such a slacker!

Actually, I have . . . though not here.  I started the aforementioned food blog, but I made one post and haven't made it any further than that.  Hmm . . . I think I'll do another post now and come back to this one.

* * *

So I wrote the Chicken Enchilada post, and decided to go back and edit my Banana Bread post.  It was originally in the introduction to the blog, but I wanted to make it it's own entry.  So I cut it . . . and promptly lost it.  GAH!  I spent a good hour on that, too!  (The lesson--SAVE YOUR FRICKIN' WORK!).  I will rewrite it eventually, but I'm so annoyed at myself right now that I can't be bothered.

I really was going to finish writing about the cruise, but it's too late now, and I have to work for 12 hours again tomorrow.  I have been working extra shifts almost every week (is that a good excuse for not blogging?  Didn't think so.), and I'm tired.  I worked last night (11pm-7am), slept for about 4 hours today, and now I really need to go to bed.

I will leave you with my current favorite song: "Disconnected" by Keane.  They are coming in concert on Tuesday, and I'm very excited for it, so I have been listening to a lot of their music lately.  This video is a little artsy and weird (and PG-13, if you might be offended by scary scenes).  I really didn't care for the song at first, but it has definitely grown on me.  If you have spent any amount of time reading this blog, you should understand why.




We walk in circles, the blind leading the blind.

So Much To Say

A new post!  Are you so excited?!  Yeah, I thought so.

Just kidding.

I finally finished watching "How I Met Your Mother" last night (through season 6, anyway).  Everything else pretty much fell to the wayside while I was watching.  I don't think I have gone to bed before 2am in the past three weeks.  It's usually closer to 3am, and last night was 4am, just so I could finish it.  Yes, I know I have a problem.  That's why I'm very reluctant to start watching new t.v. series or start new books--my life can't go back to normal until I have finished them!  Netflix only has through season 6, so I'm thinking I'll have to do the Hulu + thing.  But if I subscribe to that, then I'll have to watch all of this season's Grey's Anatomy, Glee, and How I Met Your Mother.  That's too much commitment at the moment, so I'll wait until a) I can't stand it anymore, b) I have some time and have mostly caught up on stuff I have let slide for the past few weeks, or c) all of the above.

There are a lot of things I have been meaning to write about (future blog fodder), like:

• I want to start a recipe and/or craft blog; nothing huge, mostly a place for me to put my favorite recipes since I'm always misplacing my cookbook(s).
• Finishing up the cruise summaries (it WILL happen!)
• Write about make-up (that one is coming . . . and it will probably be pretty underwhelming, but I want to do it just the same)
• Compare and contrast HIMYM with Scrubs (another random post important to nobody but me)
• More music/opinion posts (those will be coming too, since I have a couple of awesome concerts coming up!)
• Spiritual stuff, especially with the lessons I have been teaching in Relief Society.

And then, there are the posts I really SHOULD do, like family stuff, preschool graduation, pictures, etc.  Part of the problem is that I take so many pictures, it's a little overwhelming.  I need to let go of the compulsion to edit every picture I post, but if you haven't figured out how obsessive I am over certain things, you will never, ever, ever know me.  Oooo-ooooohh.

Until I actually get to these things, this will have to tide you over.  Here are a few pictures from this past month.

This one doesn't have much to do with Mother's Day, but it's one of very few semi-successful action-shots I have gotten.  It is entitled, "Lily Running."  Super creative, I know.

I didn't really get any pictures of my Mom on Mother's Day (I definitely did not get the "best daughter award" this year!); I just took a bunch of pictures at the backyard bbq.  It was getting dark, and the kids were running pretty fast, so I was quite happy with this one.  You're welcome, Mach.

I did want to get a decent picture of my boy to give to his preschool teachers, so I got this one of him while we were in Logan:

There may have been better photos from that mini-shoot, but I love the look in his eye.  That's my Benji.

I got some great pictures at Ella's birthday party, so it really does deserve it's own post.  But this one just cracks me up.  It is entitled "Sister Shenanigans."

Rebecca was pretending to steal Sarah's new purse, so they had to ham it up for the camera.  Sometimes we just get into other people's pictures for a laugh, and that was Mach.  That reminded me of another classic from the cruise:

And another from last year's N.F.H.P.

But I digress.  Back to this month.  After teaching R.S. a couple of weeks ago, I headed downtown to the "Living Traditions Festival" to watch Peggy do some Basque dancing.  I didn't know Jack was doing it too, so I was pretty happy to get this picture (which I edited, and Peggy uploaded to her facebook using Instagram.  I admit I was a little offended!).

And this face is just classic Peggy.  It brings a little tear of joy to my eye.  Je t'aime, ma puce, and happy 10th to you and Scott-babes.

Then we had Zekey's birthday party.  My camera battery died halfway through (way to go, Mare!), but I got this cute one of the birthday boy with Pablo.  He's such a cute poquito caballero (yes, my spanish sucks.)  Lex did such a great job with the Curious George/Circus theme.  It was lots o' fun.

From Benji's last day of preschool at Lincoln, this is a picture of him with his teacher, Miss Erica.  And she's tickling his hands.  Sweet, silly boy.

I need to finish this up, but I did want to mention a nice moment from yesterday: I really am trying to be more active, and I wanted to take Benji for a little hike.  As we were driving up to Little Cottonwood Canyon, some Air Supply came on the radio, and I cranked it up and sang along to "Every Woman In The World."  It's kinda lame, but I had a fleeting feeling that I am doing okay as a mom.  I want Benji to remember me singing, I want him to love the music I love, the music that I grew up with, and I want to take him on little adventures.  The moment didn't last long, but it was nice to feel like maybe I am doing something right.

And there's May in a nutshell.  I really will try to elaborate . . . on verra.  Bonne nuit.

Mother

No, this is not a post about Mothers, or how awesome my mom is.  Truly, she is fantastic, and I think she had a nice Mother's Day.  No, this is a post about something much more shallow.

I have been spending waaaaay too much time with these friends:



Yes, this is the cast of "How I Met Your Mother."  Suited-up.  Honestly, before I started watching it (they have it all on Netflix . . . gah!), I didn't know anything about it.  I knew Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel were in it, but that was all.  Turns out, the main character is Ted (in the middle).  It's supposed to be about him, telling his kids (in the year 2030) about how he met their mother.  Ted is adorable, Barney is freaking hilarious, and Marshall and Lily are awesome.  Sidebar: why is it that so many characters named Lily are redheads?  Coincidence?  I think not.  Anyway, it's really funny, definitely in the vein of "Friends" and not too far off from "Scrubs," although instead of fantasies, it's flashbacks.  It's set in New York, it's about their relationships with each other, etc., etc.  Ted and Robin have to end up together, right?  That's the way these shows go!  Plus, they are all supposed to be about my age.  That's always nice.  Sidebar #2: Did you know that Robin (Cobie Smulders) plays Agent Maria Hill in the Avengers?  Thank you, IMDB!  Sidebar over.

Unfortunately, I'm only on Season 2.  They are just finishing up Season 7.  Once I start something, I have a hard time stopping, but I have to work 12-hour shifts today and tomorrow.  Darn those 22-minute episodes! You can't watch just one!

(P.S.  Check out Barney's Blog.  It's killing me!)