Boston skyline

Sometimes I don't appreciate the fact enough that this is a seaside city. Went on a late summer, sunset cruise in the harbor area and got some absolutely lovely pictures of the city and skyline

mother's day, live from boston

only that mother's day was actually mother's fortnight.

mom made the flight up from kenya for a fortnight - i'm not sure if she was trying to get away from dad, or he was glad to be away from her, but it apparently worked out both ways. i, of course, was glad to see her as we hadn't met since early '05 and i was getting quite tired of my limited repertoire of indian food.

one thing - as your parents get older, jet lag hits them harder. do not make the mistake of judging how they are doing by the first glance as they walk out in the Arrivals terminal lugging cartloads of stuff they think you might need after an eighteen hour trip. needless to say, even if you are worried how they look, do not vocalize what you feel.

this was her first trip out to the States, and she took it like a trooper. no amount of restaurants we took her to would faze her - she loved Mexican food, wasn't thrilled with Japanese sashimi, piled it on at the Chinese buffet and polished off a whole plate of homestyle Italian pasta. we walked around in Boston in the Common, and walked the two miles of the Freedom Trail.

she was never a big one for sightseeing or experimenting, but if she felt any culture shock coming here she sure didn't show it. most of my older colleagues at work thought she was 'just daaahling'. she wasn't impressed by the spring New England weather either, but who could blame her, neither am i.

anyways, by the end of the two weeks she did have the restless look in her eye, like she wanted to go back home, and back to dad, i guess! it was good to see her again, (.. cue nostalgia..) and definitely made me miss being back home.

the mighty Opeth

i'm not normally a death metal fan, so going to watch Opeth with Enslaved opening for them was a bit of a leap.

let me start way back, in 2004, when a friend of mine introduced me to Opeth - now this friend listened to a lot of alternative and stuff, so i really held no hopes for this oddly-named band.. Opeth indeed! anyways, i listened to an album called 'Damnation', which only served to confuse me more because it was nothing like what death metal should sound like! "windowpane" was the first song (and remains a personal fave to date), and it left me hungry for more. so i moved on to 'Deliverance', and now it was all making sense, because "master's apprentices" was what death metal was supposed to sound like! and thus started a long drawn out tryst with Scandinavian metal..

NB - open the youtube links and listen while you read, it's like those talking books for kids!

the show was at the House of Blues in Boston (whose praise i have sung elsewhere on this blog). Enslaved is one of the better Norwegian death metal bands around, and their set was short, loud and bone-jarring. how better to describe it?

what i really liked about Opeth's set was that they moved freely between their albums and played a tight set. lead singer Mikael Åkerfeldt seriously needs to think about a career as a stand-up comedian post-Opeth - he often had the crowd laughing into it's beers with his irreverent cracks about Yngwie Malmsteen, body odor, feline pets, roadies, topless girls and ill-fated moshpits.

but i digress, because Åkerfeldt currently is doing what he does best - he sings and he plays really good music. the band stretched out their already long songs into tantric solos and blissful harmonies interspersed with a staccato double-bass that tattooed his haunting vocals into your ears. excellent stuff. i highly recommend the live albums 'Lamentations (Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003)' and 'The Roundhouse Tapes' for your listening pleasure if you were so inclined.

i have to thank the internets for the setlist, because i don't know enough of their songs to commit to memory what their songs are called - they played nearly two hours non-stop - Heir Apparent, Ghost of Perdition, Godhead’s Lament, The Leper Affinity, Credence, Hessian Peel, Closure, The Night and the Silent Water, The Lotus Eater and for the encore was Deliverance. here's a fuzzy picture taken from the internets once again from the Boston show..

10 Years opening for Shinedown

went to watch 10 Years open for Shinedown at the newly opened House of Blues in Boston, opposite the fabled Fenway Park - home of the Boston Red Sox. some band called Halestorm curtain-raised for both, but i'm glad we missed them - i checked out their Myspace page and they sounded way too much like Flyleaf who i detest passionately.

anyways.. i must say i do like how the House of Blues have done up the Boston location.. it looks fantastic, and is very band-oriented & crowd-friendly. three levels, with the main floor being the biggest and pretty good sightlines from almost anywhere on the floor. the lower and upper balconies are smaller but have great views too. lots of bars sprinkled all over the place so that you're never more than a few yards away from an overpriced drink. the sound system is pretty good though, loved the small club feeling you get there, even though i believe it holds close to 5,000 people.

10 Years have developed quite a bit since i last saw them a few years ago. they have definitely improved their stage presence and played a nice, tight set. they could do with a little more crowd interaction, but then again, they have never been a band that needed audience participation to play their music. they focused primarily on their new album 'Division', which has some excellent tracks on it. musically they have developed from their 'Wasteland' years, and you can hear the progression on songs like "Actions & Motives", "Beautiful", "Russian Roulette" & "11:00am (Daydreamer)".

now Shinedown is one of those bands which is basically the lead singer and a procession of people filling in the other positions. fortunately, Shinedown is one of the better bands in that category, and also have had some continuity in the drummer role too. singer Brent Smith is a showman par excellence - his vocal range is stunning and it appears he has been learning about stage presence from one of the greatest showmen of all time, Ozzie Osbourne. he was full of stories and encouraged the crowd to get into it between songs

i prefer Shinedown's older songs to their newer two albums, but since they are promoting the new album 'The Sound Of Madness' one had to plow through some of the mushier stuff - yes i said mushy, since Shinedown does an equal number of ballads, a few of which are tolerable. all in all a good show, and both 10 Years and Shinedown are worth going to see.

had to leave before the end because of the vagaries of the Boston commuter rail system by which the last train home to the suburbs on a Saturday night is at 11:30pm.. go figure?!

to the opera

check off one more from the list of things to do at least once in my life even though i think i'm not really going to enjoy doing it, and add it to the list of things that i didn't think i'd like but surprisingly it was actually quite fun'. culturification can be quite entertaining too, luckily!

we'd gone to the opera a couple of weeks ago.. yes, you read right, the opera. it wasn't one of the classic ones, a la Figaro Figaro Figaro, Fi-Ga-Rooooo.. but still pretty good. this one was called 'Rusalka' by Czech writer Anton Dvorak - for synopsis and a bit of cultural background, hop on over to the Wizard's page..

it wasn't as snooty as i had feared it would be, the upper crust and cognoscenti hobnobbed freely with the rednecks and bourgeois.. enough so that i believe i will be going back again. the balcony provided an awesome view with reasonably priced tickets, though the leg room was more appropriate for a horde of first graders.. luckily no act was longer than an hour, so there was desperately-needed intermissions to stretch the appendages.

any port in a storm

the ice storm from yesterday sure caused a ruckus and a half. we only just got our power back - over a million people in the Northeast still have no power, and it might take into next week before electricity services are resumed.



an ice storm occurs when a rare combination of low pressure, moist air, and cold, powerful winds produces an ice front - yesterday night's punishing ice storm swept through the region, felling countless power lines and trees and closing hundreds of roads. the weight of the ice bows trees down, and strong winds snap branches, stems and utility poles.