Hollywood, pt 1

Hi Cindy!

Hope you get a chance to read this before you head off to the wild west. I mailed you a post card but it won't get there for a few days, it didn't get picked up until noon today.

We had a great time in Hollywood over the weekend and the concert was incredible. Here is a link to an archive where you can stream the entire concert.

Guess what else was going on while we were there. Here's a clue. We did not see it nor did we wait around for all the hoopla. It was too hot and we ended up walking around. We ate lunch (and most of our other meals) at the Hollywood and Highland Mall right next door and anytime a tour bus would pull up the crowd would cheer like it was actually some star showing up. They'd had the street blocked off since early morning. We went by at 8:30 on the way to the LA zendo for DH and they were already laying out red carpet and setting up the blockade. I guess they did a foot and wand imprint too. We took this picture about an hour or two after all festivities were over and the movie was under way. There were still tons of people milling around. Here's what it looked like at around 1 pm, about 3 hours to go. The stands were all filled as was the sidewalk.

So the Decemberists' concert at the Hollywood Bowl was incredible. The opening bands were Band of Horses (good) and Andrew Bird (incredible). We had awesome box seats, about 6 box sets back from the pool seats and pretty near the middle of the stage. We shared the box with 2 other couples, one from LA and the other from AZ too. They'd been to the same shows we'd been to: Marquee Theater in Tempe and Rialto in Tucson. We got there about 2 hours before the show with our cooler of wine, cheese and sushi and had a picnic in the box before the others showed up. I even knit for quite a while.

The highlight of the evening had to be between the opening acts when we spotted first Chris Funk (guitarist) and then Jenny Conlee (keyboards & accordianista) visiting a nearby box (friends, family?). DH was able to get out of the box and get both of them to sign the show poster I had bought shortly before. He said they were both very gracious about signing and a little surprised we'd drive from Phoenix for the concert.

Well, that's about all for now. I'm sure I could run on more about the fun we had but I'll save that for another time. Have a good time on your trip and I look forward to hearing all about it. I think tomorrow I'll talk about my knitting injury and the yarn store I got to visit (briefly, thanks to DH-never take a husband into a yarn store). Have a good flight! A