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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

ATLANTA GOT RESCHEDULED!!!!

I've had a long day and I came on here with every intention of bitching and moaning about how Barry's doing these great shows in Palm Springs and NYC but the ATL got cancelled.  It's been hard to get excited about the new series since then.

So it's a really good thing I checked barrymanilow.com before going on one of my famous rants.

There it was, in purple-and-white

Atlanta, GA – Gwinnett Center
April 27, 2013

OK, a couple of caveats are in order here.

It's the Atlanta metro area, but not the CITY of Atlanta.  Gwinnett Center is in (wait for it...) Gwinnett County - in the city of Duluth which is outside of the ATL.  But not too far.

Here's the venue website:  http://www.gwinnettcenter.com/allevents.0.html

Parking is SO much better than at Chastain!!  Easy in, easy out, no navigating itty bitty streets!

Barry's show isn't listed yet.  There are three venues within the complex.  It's impossible to tell which one is scheduled until the tickets go on sale.

Anywho - you know where I'll be at the end of February.

Without Pete.  Love him, but I've got to let my hair down once in a while.

Thanks everyone for getting on the stick and getting a new venue lined up!  See you in April!!!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

The ATL Goes to Plan B

There were so many times I planned to blog but life intervened. Like when "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" was released in the US I'm wondering why in the hell the local radio station isn't even promoting tonight's show and is anyone else out there to call in to request and at least get it on the radar? There's only so much one girl with access to four phone numbers can do to boost interest, we need more fingers dialing numbers.

As for tonight. Shit happens. And clearly, it happened today. I hope everybody's OK in Stilettoland, I'm sure you're not any more thrilled about tonight's cancellation than the fans.

Tammy arrived about 90 minutes after the announcement. I would have rather been on Mars than be the one to deliver that news.

For the record, I can name a few jazz clubs in the area that wouldn't mind one single bit if Barry dropped in for a quick set. A little too late to implement that idea.

Plan B tonight is a nice dinner, alcohol, snacks and a ton of concert videos, along with all the smartass comments we can make. To recreate the truly live experience, all of the videos may not be completely authorized. Given the emergency circumstances I don't think anyone will mind too much, just this once.

PLEASE reschedule and I hope it works out better next time.

Will be tweeting thru the evening if anything really good comes up. #ATLPlanB

UPDATE
this comment is making the rounds on the news blogs about tonight's cancellation
"His set was too big/tall for the stage. Someone at his end (probably at the booking agency) screwed up. His health is fine. Played Nashville last night and is bummed about the situation"

Who would pay a premium to watch Barry go completely postal at whoever made this goof???

Monday, April 9, 2012

Concert Dates

Notice I didn't use the word "Tour".  ;-)
So...  what's everybody doing on July 29?  Any time you boys and girls over at Stiletto want to announce a venue, don't keep it a secret....

 
April 11, 2012 Bloomington, IL U.S. Cellular Coliseum
 
April 12, 2012 Des Moines, IA Wells Fargo Arena
 
April 13, 2012 St. Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center
 
April 19, 2012 Huntington, WV Big Sandy Superstore Arena
 
April 20, 2012 Highland Heights, KY Bank of Kentucky Center
 
April 21, 2012 Columbus, OH Value City at Schottenstein Center
 
April 30, 2012 New York City, NY Radio City Music Hall
 
May 1, 2012 New York City, NY Radio City Music Hall
 
May 2, 2012 New York City, NY Radio City Music Hall  
 
May 15, 2012 London, UK O2 Arena
 
May 17, 2012 Birmingham, UK LG Arena  
 
May 19, 2012 Manchester, UK Evening News Arena
 
May 21, 2012 Glasgow, UK SECC  
 
May 23, 2012 Dublin, UK O2 Arena  
 
June 7, 2012 Wichita, KS Intrust Bank Arena
 
June 8, 2012 Tulsa, OK BOK Center
 
June 9, 2012 Oklahoma City, OK Chesapeake Energy Arena
 
June 14, 2012 Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena
 
June 15, 2012 Green Bay, WI Resch Center
 
June 17, 2012 Kansas City, KS TBA
 
July 2, 2012 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Bowl  
 
July 3, 2012 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Bowl  
 
July 4, 2012 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Bowl  
 
July 12, 2012 Chicago, IL Chicago Theater
 
July 13, 2012 Chicago, IL Chicago Theater
 
July 14, 2012 Chicago, IL Chicago Theater
 
July 28, 2012 Nashville, TN Bridgestone Arena

July 29, 2012  Atlanta, GA  ???


August 2, 2012   Cleveland, OH

August 3, 2012 Indianapolis, IN

 
August 4, 2012 Milwaukee, WI Milwaukee Theatre

August 16, 2012 Vienna, VA Wolf Trap

August 17, 2012 Vienna, VA Wolf Trap

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Ready to Take a Chance Again

OMG, what the hell happened to you????

Well...  life happened.

At the beginning of August, we come home from a visit with relatives and the first thing my husband does is rip the living shit out of his Achilles tendon.  To this day, we still don't know how.  Officially he was wrestling an alligator but all I saw him do was take suitcases out of the car.  At least it didn't happen while he was on the beach.  Pete was hobbling around for months in a walking cast, bitching every limp of the way through PT.  At least we didn't need a surgeon to go in with knitting needles to repair it.

August is also the start of school in our neck of the woods.  TOLF started Kindergarten!  She's in a private school so my minivan had to get used to a new routine.  Carpool/dropoff starts at 7 AM.  Too bad I don't wake up until 7:30, earliest.  ;-)  Lots of work helping with homework and room volunteering and other activities.

Right after Kindergarten starts, is preschool for TNLF.  Mom's taxi has overlapping routes now.  She loves it, has a wonderful time, is learning her colors and numbers, and by the time she comes home she's too tired to pee.  (To review, this was the child who was conceived right before my Vegas trip back in 2008.)

The baby is bound and determined to get by on his looks so he refuses to walk - just gives you a big smile and bats the big blue eyes and expects you to pick him up and carry him.

Just when we thought everything was under control, everyone started getting sick.  Right around Halloween through the end of the year, a week didn't go by where someone wasn't in the ER or urgent care with something.  The baby's turn was on Thanksgiving day.  I got the meal ready, turned the gravy-making over to my mom and ran the little guy down to the chidrens' ER.  Poor little guy had green stuff dripping everywhere.  Thankfully it was only a cold but easily the worst I've ever seen.

Long story short, in December an ENT decides that Pete needs his tonsils out.  Looks like he was Typhoid Mary for the family - his infection was the reason we were all sick.  First order of business after New Years' was surgery.  First time in general anesthesia.  Woke up looking like he got hit with a hammer.  Two weeks of a tough recovery but he's glad he did it.  Ever since, colds have been few, minor and last only a couple of days - for all 5 of us.

Last but certainly not least, my mom is at an age where hip breaking happens.  She fell - in a doctor's office of all places - and you could hear the crack 10 feet away.  Their rural home is closest to Bumblefuck General Hospital so IMHO, she didn't get the best care in the world.  Being made to wait a day and a half to get the bones pinned together was bad enough.  But then she woke up during the procedure.  Claims she didn't feel any pain but could describe in detail how the surgeon was installing the pin in her femur and how the retractors holding the wound open felt like a web.  She had nightmares for a couple of days.  So did I!

Mom has been having some good rehab (not at Bumblefuck but at a real PT center) and was sprung the week between Christmas and New Year's.  Yes she spent Christmas in a rehab center but she's just glad to feel better and stronger now that some hardware is holding her bones together.

This week is literally the first time in MONTHS that I've had a chance to breathe and even think for a time about anything not directly related to my job or caring for my family.

So combine that with work picking up (yea!  paychecks!) there's not much time to blog on all things Manilow.  I kept on top of things by reading on my iPhone when I could.  When I'm camped out at my desk working Radio Manilow is on.  BTW, Barry, thank you for getting rid of the abbadaba monkey song.  I was going to walk to PS and delete it from your system myself if I heard that One. More. Time!

I also listened to all the stories about the close of Barry's show at the Paris.  I understood the sense that an "era" was ending.  But since I had only made one Vegas trip, it was hard to be that nostalgic myself.  That trip was what I needed, when I needed it, but wasn't a regular part of my life.

When I first started this blog, I talked about how Barry's music was put away for a while as other priorities came up, but it was something that was always there, that you could always turn back to when you need it.  It's even more true now.  Random vignettes on Radio Manilow are always a welcome relief and 15 Minutes is permanently installed in my car CD player for those rare times when the kids aren't with me.

Barry - for the love of God, take care of yourself and give your body time to heal after surgery.  Believe me I understand how much work it is (read above).  No one is going to be impressed if you kill yourself trying to recover faster.  There's no shame in taking the time it takes.  Hold off on the scheduling until you're back to 100%, OK?  Stressing yourself out only makes it worse.

But once you are recovered, make sure you keep that Atlanta date.  I'll find a way to get down front to see the show again.  Thanks for trying to get back here.  I can't believe it's been four years already!

Oops - someone needs her homework checked and I have to finish a contract for a new job.  Maybe I'll find time to catch up with ManilowTV this weekend.