We went to Django for the first time in a long time. It had a new location, so after dinner we walked down to Temple Theater.
Initially I was a bit questioning of the format, but the combination of poetry and story telling interfused with the inner thoughts of Die Hard, but by the end I had really enjoyed my time there.
So this was one of the “Oh I’m going, if you want to come that’s great” times for me. We ate out before hand, where when asked who were were going to see, we got to feel old, but in the car after we were “the headless painting guy in Harry Potter” to try to get the person some context. However, lets break this into two parts.
So if it’s just the way it’s displayed how they put thing into context, but it seemed clear to start at 6:00 PM. However on further inspection and expanding things, it appears that it was doors open at 6 show starts at 7:30 PM. So showing up early wasn’t exactly desired.
Parking was a bit absurd. We often go to shows or events downtown and it’s $5 for parking for the event. For a city like Des Moines, this does not seem crazy. For the venue it was $15 to park, in a place that is way out in Waukee and surrounded by a corn field. As of Tuesday, it still shows on Google Maps and street view as an under construction field. I don’t have a problem paying for parking, but for the area, it is way above market value, so much so it seem like it is an abuse. They’re not of how to enter the lot was confusing, it being night, and it only being a sign, that the entrance appears to be blocked off, where it is half blocked off. And why, pray tell, as someone that showed up early, should I have to park on the far side of the lot.
Generally, with the exclusion of one of the parking lot attendants, everyone was pleasant, and tried the give good service. Some were pretty slow, but that could’ve been the customers they were serving too.
The men’s bathroom smells like someone took several urinal cakes and ground it into every surface. It was a lot. I know my nose is more sensitive then some, but not near as sensitive to others and it was pushing the edge of painful scent for me.
The chairs were trash. Just trash.
A bit of comedy from Camilla Cleese, which was funny. Some about the interactions with and just joking on her father.
John Cleese was a mixture of the hits, some opinions, joke telling, the structure of jokes as a whole (tension, release) and stories. As someone who was introduces to the Pythons in my early teens (duplicates of the albums on tape, note: I now own all of them in more then 1 format)), this is certainly something that reminded me of my youth and led to what I like these days, humor wise.
After the intermission, Camilla and John came back and had a bit of a Q&A and story time and a bit of complaining about the Drive not to just make a living but to just make as much profit as possible. He may have mentioned, unknowingly, the owners of the venue that he was in.
I was happy I had gotten to see one of the icons of my humor.
I think many were expecting something closer to the movie, but this is not quite the same thing. Clearly has a lot of references to, but set in something a bit separate. Beetlejuice does play up breaking the 4th wall here and there which was often funny. Some tricks were adapted to be stage safe and presentable. Still fun, music was good and enjoyable.
The first thing about this is that it was called: Matt and Kim Present: The Matt and Kim Tour Feat. Matt and Kim with special Guest Pkew Pkew Pkew.
The show was in Minneapolis, where it has been a bit since I’ve been there. It was nice to get to hang out and park in this in between time before the Twins got out (they won) and the people came down for various shows and what not. We had a few beers and dinner at an Irish pub (corned beef). As the Twins game was letting out the bar got quite busy so we headed over to First Avenue. I’ve tried to go to this place twice before. Once, on the off chance I could get tickets to a show, and another, where the show was cancelled out from under me.
About 10.5 years ago Nathan and I saw Matt and Kim opening for Passion Pit at Hilton in Ames. It was was a fun show then, and this was a whole lot fo fun, even though we’re both and the upper side of our 40s. It quite a good time and after doing some experiments, we found a decent place to stand (not behind the glass, sound just go messed, not next to the men’s room) and just had a good ole time. Pkew Pkew Pkew sounded like trash behind the glass, but on the other side they put on an ok show for something I had never heard before. Good enough I added some of their music to my new things to rate list.
For the most part everything that was played during the Matt and Kim set was on my Matt and Kim playlist. Energetic showing, lots of fun had and just a excellent show over all.
Matt and Kim perform part of “Now”
Matt and Kim perform part of “ Go Go” with a lot of balloons bouncing about.
While there were some references that I didn’t quite understand, related to his late night show and career, it was an enjoyable, many laughs had. He certainly is a great story teller.
Her opener was quite good, and I also enjoyed the whole show, a lot of laughs, stories and audience interaction. Glad to go with Dave and Jo.
A combination of scenes, narration and performances, it was fun to watch.
We met up with part of our chosen family, The Mattas, and their daughter and our niece C to see her perform with her high school troupe. It was interesting to see what has changed over the years since I was active in high school theater. There are a number of things that the other high schools do, that we never did. I often wonder if more people are in it now, cause I remember struggling to find the money to pay for things like paint (I am still uncertain if our primary tech guy was kidding when he had a deal with a local hardware store to get “dented” paint at a discount). Anyways, performances ranged from “wow that was pretty good, with a bit of training and a few lucky breaks I can see them make it” to “I’m not sure why this person is here”. It was sure interesting to see what was judged as “best” in Iowa.
Little did we know, the legend would pass away shortly after we saw this. I will admit that in the intermission and after we were shocked with the number of hits that she had. Songs that we remember from other artists (or sampled by), were led off by her in one of her many incarnations.
Great show, large loss for the world.
Fun mix of an interactive quiz show, quiz show, and a bit of story telling and questions and answers. They also showed Armies of Darkness, and we ducked out on the movie, as we are both have seen it, and also it was pretty late. On the interactive quiz I was 134 / 787 and ranked highest in our group that went (even against Shannon).