Tag Archives: chicago
Handheld hunting in the darkness
, (My dearest Obu is advised not to read this one. ;-))
Photography. Greek for the words “light” and “write”. Thus, it comes as a little surprise, that it gets rather tough at night, since there generally is so little light to “write”. This becomes especially difficult if you do not have a tripod, and have to shoot those atrociously long shutter times hand-held. Still being at the honeymoon stage, I took my Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 for a walk. It did not particularly surprise me, that the cannon made it possible to shoot decent pictures at night as well.
The Bean. Famous and often visited, it was a real pain to get this shot off without people standing all around the place. :-) Sometimes the picture itself doesn’t look blurred, but merely soft. Alas, there is no recipe for sharp pictures with long shutter times, other than tedious trial-and-error, or a tripod. This shot would have been much nicer if it was sharper:
…find more of “Handheld hunting in the darkness” inside
Photographing kids
Yesterday at the ZOO, I was also able to shoot a few children as well. Those little folks make for quite cute pictures, whether it’s their playing and action, observing something, or just generally doing whatever they do. Some of these shots are not very sharp, but I like them anyway. Unfortunately, with kids, all you get is snapshots. There is no time to set stuff up properly, and think much about the picture, so luck matters, too. Kids are at their best when they don’t know about the observer, and are occupied somehow.
…find more of “Photographing kids” inside
Honeymoon with Canon
For the time being, me and my Canon are an inseparable couple. We are fond of each other very much. I go out with her regularly, touch her body everywhere, and by now know fairly well where her controls are. No need to worry, though, I didn’t get married. However, after several months of deciding and choosing, I finally ordered a digital SLR camera.
Celtic Fest Chicago
In a struggle to get things done before cold fall comes, last weekend was really stuffed with things to do. Traditional German Oktoberfest, some sort of Asian celebration, fabulous Within Temptation concert I wrote about earlier, and of course the Celtic Festival, held at the Grant Park below the fancy Chicago sky line. With free entrance, of course. :-)
A quick note about pronunciation: when I pronounced Celtic as [sel-tik], people would look at me as if I came from another planet. In Chicago, it’s pronounced [kel-tik], although the dictionary recognises both ways. Also, Chicago is pronounced [shi-kah-goh], not [chi-kay-go].
The most remarkable advantage when comparing such festivals over here and back at home is, that some really awesome artists show up here, who would never even contemplate going to some fest in central Europe, minor by comparison. Although I sort of missed our beloved sedlácká gotika. :-)
Chicago Celtic Festival was not all about music. Although I didn’t really care, I am sure that some people would find the Art Fair, sheepherding demonstration, men-in-kilts leg contest, or Gaelic football game rather appealing. For me, it was “ju
st” a music festival. There were so many great musicians, and I don’t even know some of their names, so I’ll focus on the really worthwhile stuff. Like Guinness. :-D Oh yes, that’s one of the finest beers in the world, and I found it very satisfying to take care of further undisclosed amount of this heavenly beverage over the weekend. I was worried after my last experience with this beer at the inn U hodného psa, which was negative, (hello, ZZ,) that I didn’t like Guinness anymore, that either me or it had changed. But fortunately, that is not true. Guinness is as great and as enjoyable as ever. Definitely a highlight of the festival, muhaha. ]:->
I have missed a lot of good music on Saturday, namely famous Dolores O’Riordan, former lead singer of the Cranberries, plus the Irish music group Lunasa and Welsh musician Jon Langford. Reportedly, they were all fantastic. Sunday, however, was not a wee bit less interesting.
Damien Dempsey, an Irish rocker, was not exactly my cup of Celtic, but the Canadian family band Searson was quite a different story. They are three pretty ladies playing fiddles, bass guitar, and grand piano, and two guys at drums and acoustic guitar, playing fast-paced, energetic Celtic music. Very, very neat. At times they would also use a ten string lute, or step dance.
Colleen, their violin player, (on the picture above,) was playing her fiddles like a little goddess. Overall, I was very pleased with their performance. If you wish, you can listen to them for a bit on their myspace profile. However, the song choice over there is poor, and they seem to have matured a lot since then. My impression on Sunday was much better than what I hear over there.
The biggest discovery, though, was the evening’s last band, Salsa Celtica. As the name suggests, those folks play traditional Latin-American rhythms with classic instruments like bongo, brass, and keyboards, (they had four people at percussions only!) imbued with rather nice Celtic melodies using fiddles, various whistles, and bagpipes. Unfortunately for my taste, they are significantly more Salsa, than they are Celtica, but it was really something fresh and interesting. I strongly recommend everyone to visit their myspace and listen to all the songs over there. Except maybe Grey Gallito, that one is a little weird. Unlike the Searsons, however, their myspace tracks sound fairly well and give you a good idea of what the band is up to. It is truly innovative.
As for the conclusion, I award Chicago Celtic Festival 2007 a neat sum of 70 goshu points, and do not hesitate to label it a világos. :-) Also, I got a rather nice green t-shirt from this one. Whee!
Within Temptation Világos
Although Within Temptation are often considered mainstream and pop-metal by metalheads, I have wanted to see this band for years, so when I saw their tickets on sale for $13 in House of Blues venue, 15 minutes walking distance from where I live, there was no hesitation. I got second thoughts when I was reading the Celtic Festival programme, and realised that I would miss Dolores O’Riordan, (ex-Cranberries lead singer,) because of this… but didn’t change my mind.
People at ticketmaster.com deserve to spend several eons in a torture chamber, because the tickets cost me $26.52 in the end, which is more then double of the advertised price. Of course, one has to pay various taxes, facility charges, convenience charges, online order charges, picking-your-nose fees, as well as other undisclosed general charges. Still, it was an okay price for such a show, and they promised me $25 cashback on Nightwish tickets, so they are forgiven for now.
Wow. Robert and Jeroen really look like twins. And so do Ruud and Martijn.Before I start with the “review” itself, let me fill you in on the rating system. For the good stuff, I will be giving away goshu points. If an event gets many goshu points, it basically means that it was a világos. (Pronounced velaagosh, hence goshu. :-P Syn.: ownage.) If I present something as a világos, that means it was a fantastic and extremely worthwhile event, and those who could have come, and did not, are therefore dubbed various degrees of noobs, and possibly even criminals.
An event needs at least 60 goshu points to be a minor világos, at 100 points it is a supreme világos. Very rarely it even gets above that. An example would be Therion Goes Classic in Miskolc, which with its 1.3x metal-orchestra multiplier and 1.1x front row multiplier, recieved 125 goshu points, and thus became an utter MegaVilágos, which makes it extremely difficult to surpass. Confusing, I know, but some people get it already as an inner joke, and it will grow on the rest of you, I’m sure. ;-)
They let us wait for almost three hours since the scheduled start, filled with quite pathetic gay^Wboy wannaberock bands. They were in fact so lousy, that the friend who was there with me blacked out, so that she wouldn’t have to listen to them. (It was a bit scary, I had to steer her out of the crowd, but she was alright for the rest of the night, even jumped with me a little.) Good old Astral Doors, seriously.
Most important complaint comes first: the audience sucked. I’ve never seen such pathetic crowd on a concert in Europe before. Not only was there no mosh-pit, but it was clearly above those people to decide when to clap, wave, jump, punch the air, or scream. Consequently, most of them did nothing, and the rest did any of the above in random fashion, but never all the same. I particularly disliked the emo kids. (Oh my, they really do exist!) Those boys wear thick makeup and dark lipstick, nail polish, have hoodies on their heads, and talk like sissies. Hateable at the first glance. Oh, and the biggest idiots were guess who? Polish!!
Sharon den Adel is a remarkably enchanting woman with fabulous voice. When she came to the stage and started singing, I froze. It was simply fascinating. She was wearing a dark dress with a corset, with cleverly sewn sleeves that would bare her entire arms when she wanted. Not only could Sharon sing incredibly well, she also made a hell of a show. I especially liked her mimics, and the kind of dance she did with her hands. She must be double-jointed, because some of her moves were just otherworldly. And mmm, so sweet, that alone was worth several goshu points. :o)
Although a few times she didn’t manage to reach into the uppermost octaves and her voice came out a little flat and out of tune, the overall performance was brilliant. As were her bandmates, who played tirelessly and sounded flawless. The impression was much heavier, than their studio albums. Unlike Kamelot, who did the same and screwed up big time, these guys managed to pack a lot of punch into their songs without sacrificing the melody, or quality. I have a nagging feeling to write a couple more superlatives, because they definitely deserve it, so let’s pretend that I did. ;-)
As for the tracklist, it was okay. It was really fat, I think they played 18, or 19 songs. As this was The Heart of Everything tour, most of them were, naturally, from the latest album. It is quite cool, although a wee bit more rock on expense of metal. From my favourite Mother Earth, only three songs were played. The encore was three, as usual, and the final dot was one of their most awesome pieces, Ice Queen. At that moment, any reservations I could have had regarding the choice of tracks just disappeared in a puff of smoke. :-)
Overall, I subjectively award Within Temptation 83 goshu points, which makes for a major világos, approximately on par with Blind Guardian show in Trenčín, fall 2006. :-) Thanks for the amazing experience and I’ll definitely see you later when I have the chance. To my European homies I definitely recommend to attend the show in Vienna, on 3rd of October. Get your tickets ASAP. It may not be the cheapest concert in your life, but it will be well worth it.
Finally, a taste of what it was. It’s világos multiplier is like 0.05x, and the sound is crappy, but at least to have an idea. By the way, the show over here was even better. And heavier. And Sharon was doing much more cool stuff. Yah, whatever.