Marian Call in Concert

Bl... Blogger... eevil... *sputter*

I wrote the beginning of a draft of this post a long time ago. A loooooong time ago. Back when I was pregnant (that makes it over seven months ago at the least), and I think before some of the pregnancy real craziness started (which I couldn't link to because I haven't truly written about it yet, so that's a link to the intro). Which makes it longer ago. Maybe even not all that long after the concert itself. Which was last July.

Then, last month, I finally wrote a continuation of the draft, at 750 Words. Today (er, "today" when I was writing this part...), I copied and pasted that continuation into Blogger to join the beginning of the draft. Noticed that it wasn't formatted quite right, so hit "undo" -- I was going to go paste into Notepad and then copy and paste into Blogger. That always works, it just needs some odd formatting stripped off.

But. When I hit "undo," for some reason the whole thing disappeared instead of just the part I'd pasted in. I hit "undo" again -- there was one time, as I recall, that this happened before, but for whatever reason the main part reappeared with a second "undo." No go this time.

You'd think I would be smart at this point and "redo." Well, maybe I remembered to try somewhere in there, but also somewhere in the mess the blighter decided to automatically save itself. The empty version. I closed. I reopened. Nothing. By the time I used "Revert to draft," (which you have to close to use, it's in the screen with the list of posts, not on the editing post screen) it had decided the "draft" was post-disaster. I didn't have that original draft beginning backed up anywhere else. As you have probably surmised.

AAAaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. *HEADDESK*

The thing of it is, it wasn't even that long or much. I know I had a basic structure thought out, and a bit of intro. But because it's been SO LONG since I wrote the thing... gaaaah.

Sigh. So my crazy late post about a concert that I wasn't remembering as well anymore (I mean, I remember it well enough. Just not blog post well.) but I was going to still post up because it's still worth sharing even in a very imperfect state... That's all still true, it's just even more imperfect now.

It was something about why it's awesome to see Marian Call in concert, and not just listen to her CDs. There were multiple reasons. I think it went something like this: 1. Awesome venue. 2. Sound quality and general live music experience. 3. Meeting her in person. Maybe?? I mean, that more or less fits with the draft continuation I have -- I know the beginning of the draft had some points written down, but didn't make it far in elaborating the points, so the continuation finished the elaboration of point one and then went on to two and three. I think. And that looks like what I'm elaborating. Wish I could remember the actual headings... and the intro. *grouch grouch grouch*

Okay. I'm over it. Really, I am. Marian Call concert was awesome and all that!

I took a friend, @Joi_the_Artist, for her birthday. A selfish, selfish birthday gift. Um. We both enjoyed it.

Awesome Venue

As you can maybe kind of tell from the picture in the post where I introduced the Marian Call series, it was a garden concert. I mean, it was at a coffeehouse, but in an outdoor seating area they had. It was beautiful and small. I saw a hummingbird during one song. Lovely. I doubt I'll ever go to a concert where I can listen from that close to the performers again. Maybe even not at future Marian Call concerts, even though she likes house concerts, because I was in the front of the front row.

How can one be at the front of a front row, you ask? (No, really, you do. Hey, ask or else.)

Well, (And here's where we switch to the draft continuation... yay! Kind of... I mean, it's not a continuation I was super happy with, but... meh.) um.

As I was saying, well, we were seated around tables, and though we pulled the chairs out to make wobbly almost straight rows, they weren't quite straight. So I wasn't just in the front row, but farther forward in that front row, by dint of being seated more beside a table than behind it.

Live Music Experience (or whatever this heading was)

Of course, live music is always better, anyway. I mean, unless the musician isn't very good, and uses autotune or something, and fifty bajillion gazillion takes to get one that actually sounds decent? Um, not the case for Marian Call.

On the road Marian Call only has a guitarist instead of all the instrumentation on her CDs, but she does so much with her voice alone that that isn't really so much a liability as... different. I like having the opportunity to experience her music both ways. Check out her live album to see what I mean.

And, then, the live album shows off another thing -- her intros! It's really fun to hear her talk about the songs. She pointed out for us before "The Avocado Song," as a California audience, that it's much harder to find good citrus fruits or avocados in Alaska than in California. They're a risk -- expensive, and you cut into them not knowing what you're going to get, a bad one or a good one. In the many times I'd listened to that song, somehow, I'd never thought of that aspect of the metaphor!

The ability to tailor a show to the live audience is also a good thing. Those moments when a train whistle interrupts a song and you wait and laugh together. The requests people make, the camaraderie of it all. It's a good time.

Meeting Marian Call

Speaking of which, I had a chance to meet her in person. Shortly after the event I think I remembered every word she said to me, which maybe I should have journaled before I forgot. (Nooo, I'm not creepy...) I wouldn't have blogged it all, but at any rate, as I've said before, she's a very nice person. When I told her my twitter handle (/blog name) she remembered who I was, and the same with @Joi_the_Artist. She signed our stuff, and sang happy birthday to Joi in... I forget what language. A different language. It was cool.

Loot.

I told her which songs my baby especially seemed to enjoy, based on the kicking ("Highway Five" and... "In the Black," I think?) and she commented that it made sense for her to like the ballads, the higher and slower songs. If I'm recalling correctly.

(In retrospect, it was probably because I particularly liked those songs -- since then I read a study somewhere or other that babies will react in utero even when their mothers listen to music with headphones -- they're not always reacting to the music itself, so much as to the mothers' happiness at the music.)

Anyway, basically, a good time was had by all. She's going to be in the area again this month, and I'm going again! Check out her concert schedule, and who knows? If you go to one in Southern California, maybe I'll see you there! Meanwhile, I do believe I have some music to go listen to.

We couldn't resist. It was tricky with a camera phone and the lack of lighting to get the whole word in frame AND make me visible (let alone to get a very good picture), but Joi made a valiant attempt.