audblog audio post
Update: Well, tonight Carol & I drove into the city to go to the United Center to go to... a Dixie Chicks concert!

OK, first of all, please understand that though I may have liked a few of their songs, I can't say I'm a fan. I don't follow the country music scene at all, even though I know they're definitely not "mainstream". So, let's say the "tipping point" for going to the show was that Buffy's company has a suite, and the tickets were available (as no one in the company wanted to go). The suite is a "Penthouse" suite - which is at the top of the stadium. Ever go to a Bulls or Hawks game and have to sit all the way upstairs? This is above that. The suite is on the south side, right in the middle of the stadium (like, at the center line if you were at a hockey game). The opening act was Joan Osborne (of One of Us fame). The audience was respectful and polite even though they weren't there for her. The stage is really unusual - it's built in the center of the stadium, and there's a large center section of the stage, but there's also a "snaky" walkway that wraps all around the main stage, taking up most of the main floor. When Joan was done, the lights came up and they reset the stage.

By now, many of you knew about the little "uproar" over Natalie Maines' statements about being embarrassed to be from Texas, the same state as George Bush, that caused a furor throughout the country music community and actually throughout the U.S. (mostly by those that just understand 1) The First Amendment and what freedom really means, and 2) that "being embarrassed" about your President does not mean you don't support troops that are deployed). Anyway, the songs that were played during the set change were really interesting, and actually comment on the "situation":

• "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" - Tears for Fears
• "Our Lips are Sealed" - The Go-Go's
• "Band on the Run" - Paul McCartney & Wings
• "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" - Tammy Wynette
• "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" - R.E.M.
• "Born in the U.S.A." - Bruce Springsteen

While the music was playing, two things happened. the first was the entrance of lots of fans being escorted into the stage area, filing-in the area between the main stage and the snaky walkway. I have no idea how they got those tickets. It occurred to us that, with the stage in the center of the main floor, how were the Dixie Chicks going to get to the stage securely and safely? Why, Boxes o' Chicks! During Born in the U.S.A, stage hands came out of a tunnel, each pushing one of three large "Star" cases - you know the ones - the crates that are usually used to move and ship equipment. Well, these boxes were like 2' x 2' and at least 5' tall. They pushed them down the side aisle and into the stage area, under the stage. Within a minute, the stage hands pushed the boxes back, a little more quickly as you can now tell that the boxes were now empty. Weird, eh?

They open the show with Goodbye Earl, which gets the crowd going. (I love that song - it's just twisted). The thing that really got me (being the geek that I am and I still have an entertainment streak in me, not to mention a stage crew streak as well) was that snaky walkway. It turns out that it's made out of bright LED displays that accept video feeds! By using colors, animation, and video, it added a ton to each song. I was really impressed. The 8pm show, with Joan and the Chicks, ended at 11pm. Carol & I stuck around and watched the crew strike the set (since we didn't have to vacate the suite for an hour after the show, though we eventually wandered out and on our way home.

The show was good and entertaining. Two complaints: 1) being in a Penthouse suite really takes you away from the crowd and you feel a little "disconnected" instead of being part of the experience. 2) being in a Penthouse suite also means there are no speakers pointed your way, so you get a lot of reflection and echoes.

OK, now here's a little something extra and I'm praying I don't get into trouble...

I brought my Canon PowerShot S230 Digital Elph to the concert (they weren't allowing "pro" (SLR) cameras, and for some reason, when security "wanded" me, it never picked-up the camera in the pocket). Anyway, it's only got a 2x zoom, trying to get a tight shot on any of the performers was impossible. Now, I've "experimented" with a poor-man's telephoto lens that "sort-of" works under the correct circumstances. A low light situation like a concert is not one of those.

What I do is take the camera, zoom in all the way, and place a pair of binoculars in front of the lens. There's a lot of issues with this. First of all, alignment is critical - being off a fraction of a degree and the image drops off, both in sharpness and brightness, not to mention actually being off-line enough and lose the image either partially or completely. Trying to keep the alignment - holding the binoculars in one hand and the camera in the other is damn near impossible. In low light situations, you'll only get blurred images due to the decrease in light hitting the lens (going through the additional optics) as well as the "jiggling" between both devices by hand.

Now, the other thing that the S230 does is video. I can get 320x240 pixel image at 15 frames per second, with (poor) audio. The camera only shoots for 3 minutes in that setting ( I have no idea why). The resulting AVI files are over 20Mb for the 3 minutes.

So here's where me getting into trouble probably comes in... To show you an example of the positives/negatives that the binoculars have... I have two video samples for you!

Joan Osborne - One of Us - 3 minutes - 320x240 - 15fps - 22.9 Megabytes
Dixie Chicks - Goodbye Earl - 3 minutes - 320x240 - 15fps - 25.31 Megabytes

Now be quiet and don't get me in trouble!