Moody Blues Concert

I hadn't been to the Greek Theater in about ten years. Most performances I attend are either at the Hollywood Bowl or the Universal Amphitheater (AKA Gibson Amphitheater). So I was uncertain about how bad a nightmare the parking situation would be. It was bad. The only paved parking, which is already sorely lacking, is designated Preferred Only parking. You register for preferred parking on the Greek's website and cannot opt to pay for it the night of the event! So off to the general parking we went, where we parked on the lawn of the adjacent park, bumper to bumper one behind the other, with new arrivals parking beside the other with room enough to slink out of one's door. When the event ended, there we sat in our cars impatiently waiting for someone - anyone - from either in front, behind or either side of us to come so that we could squeeze out of the park. I remember why I avoid the Greek Theater.

The venue itself is small and I couldn't help wonder why the Moody Blues weren't playing the Hollywood Bowl. Acoustically, the Bowl would complement their music and present it better. The house was packed and I saw many a bald head and wrinkle. Yep, Boomers dominated this concert and there's no doubt that Moody loyalists were in full force, ready to recapture their youth and let it all hang out! Steven Bishop opened the show at 7:30 p.m. and performed for thirty minutes. We then had a fifteen minute intermission while the roadies prepared for the Moody Blues. They announced that the show was being filmed for a DVD and that we would have another fifteen minute intermission later in the evening.

The Moody's took the stage at 8:15 p.m. to raucous applause, whistling and cheering. Justin Hayward thanked the audience for being there and they began performing. About two minutes into the song, Justin stopped singing, apologized for the mix up and said, "Since this is being filmed anyway, we're going to do just like the movies and do a second take!" The band walked off the stage and returned about a minute or two later to even louder applause and cheers. This go round, they simply began playing and we were off.

I busily snapped photos with my digital camera/binocular and had about 89 photos mid-concert. Spouse snapped about another 50 on the second pair as the odor of strong Mary Jane wafted in the air. It'd been years since I smelled it, but it was easily and quickly recognized! Whoever was toking was having a very fine night indeed. That was some strong shit. The first set lasted 45 minutes and the second one hour. Anyway, some of the tunes I remember are Forever Autumn, Forever Young, Nights in White Satin, December, Question, Tuesday Afternoon, Steppin' in a Slide Zone, Isn't Life Strange, I'm Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band, I Know You're out there Somewhere and the encore was Ride my See-Saw.

The filming of the concert didn't hinder our enjoyment of it. The cameras and film crew were unobtrusive and the concert progressed without a hitch. I would love to see and hear the Moody Blues perform these songs with a full, live orchestra as they did in the 90s, instead of the use of digital tracks. It's wonderful to hear that Justin and John still have their rich vocal range and enthusiasm for live performance. Graeme came to stage level and began dancing and singing and the audience took to his antics and supported his every move. BTW, the second drummer is totally awesome and deserves notice.

I downloaded the images this morning to find nothing was saved for transferring. In small print on page 10 of an eleven page booklet it read: Warning: Be sure not to remove the batteries from the camera before downloading the images. Yea, I removed the batteries last night as we sat in the car awaiting an exit. I wanted to conserve batteries.