September 28th, 2009

Kings of Leon & White Lies Concert Pics

While I was up on the farm in Minnesota I had the opportunity to go see White Lies and Kings of Leon in concert.   One of the best concerts I’ve ever been too [besides Tool and Hybrid]!   It really feels like KOL and White Lies have both ‘come into their own’ this past year with sounds that could knock any ones socks off. If you have the chance – SEE them in concert. Both their cd’s are amazing, but concert will blow your face off!

White Lies has that clean and classic UK vocal sound with that yummy UK drum and bass that can carry you away and make your body move whether you wish to or not.  They could clearly be their own headlining act and rock out an entire arena.   The drummer Jack Lawrence Brown is nothing short of inspirational to watch on stage and really feels like the heartbeat of the band.

Kings of Leon are my very favorite band.  Not since Nirvana have I felt such joy over hearing a sound.  KOL gives me the clean, full and dance musical feeling of Coldplay mixed with the soul, grunge and rock out sound of Nirvana … just dreamy!  Kings of Leon had more success overseas before the US caught on, even though they are from Tennessee.   The night of the concert their song ‘Use Somebody’ went to the top of the US charts … the first time they have topped charts in the US.  When they announced it on stage they seemed both happy and pleasantly amused that it was ‘Use Somebody’.

October 1st, 2006

The North Side of Minneapolis

Ok, so the drive up to the house in Minneapolis was fantastic.  The house was great, the street looked gorgeous BUT…

Little did we know we had moved to the wrong side of Minneapolis aka ghetto!  1 street over from projects ghetto!  Day by day we were realizing just how bad the area was and then one night gun shots, but no cops came after.  We found a new place to live the next day.  By Halloween, after moving all our shit cross country we packed up everything again and moved our asses to a nice little 1 bedroom apartment in Eden Prarie, voted one of the top ten places to live in the US.  SCORE!

September 3rd, 2006

The Hostel

So, the day after we decided to leave Los Angeles Babe immediately received a job offer from a company in Minneapolis.  Minneapolis?  Umm, ok, sure, why not?  Neither of us had ever been there but it sounded pretty and it was far away from Los Angeles, not to mention the cost of living seemed like a dream.  We flew out a few days later to go to what looked like a sure fire interview and look for a place to live.  For some reason we had very little time for this and had maybe 2  days there.  With a limited budget and the idea of move cross country on the horizon we thought a hostel was the way to go.

The Minneapolis International Hostel… well the photos looked nice [see below] and it sounded like a practical slightly adventurous route.  Their pictures make it look historic and cozy, let’s just say someone did a real nice job taking those pictures.  On their website there are no pictures of the rooms … let’s just say it had more of the ambiance of what I believe a halfway  or crack house might look and feel like.   The excitement of moving combined with the uncomfortable atmosphere of the hostel lead to NO SLEEP … maybe an hour.

Before flying out we tried to map out a good chunk of houses to look at while there.  However once arriving in MN almost every single house fell through.  People either couldn’t meet with us or the house was already rented.   Babe got the job so this was a serious hicup we NEEDED TO FIND A PLACE to live.  This is pre-lap top & smart phone for us so we speant most of our sleepless night on the laptop looking on craigslist for a house to meet with and hopefully rent the next day.    We drove all over looking at all areas half awake while trying to figure out the Minneapolis roads on a map….Hah!  We did fill out an application for one house that we thought was going to be great!  Minneapolis was beautiful and green and looked heavenly compaired to LA.

We did all that we could and we were back on our way to the airport.    At this point it had been about 3 days with almost no sleep, I’d say we slightly resembled traveling zombies in the airport.  While waiting for the plane we both stretched out across those oh so comfortable not meant to be slept on airport seats and rested.  I think we both slept on the plane back as well.

Upon return  we found out we didn’t get the house, but we were moving to Minnesota in about 3 weeks.  So no place to move to, needed to get all the aderesses and bills changed to somewhere and yah know, PACK up an entire house!  We were back on craigslist and found what looked to be fantastic 4 bedroom house, we were able to do the application and everything online and it seemed like everything was going to be great ;)

What a shame there are no images available from this trip, lost with my hard drive, my hard drive that is sitting next to my desk waiting for those few precious images to be rescued.   Although the only image I really remember taking is of Babe sleeping in the airport.