Tag Archives: PhotoOps

Michael Franti at Reggae on the River

6 August 2006

Reggae on the River…is in a new location. I had bought tickets for Reggae and Bruce knowing I would miss one or the other. Reggae lost, I was there briefly on Friday before going to the city to see Bruce Cockburn. I didn’t really like the new layout or space, more on that at a later time.

I was fried from the week end and drive home on Sunday, but determined to go see Michael Franti at Reggae. I got to the site about 45 minutes before he came on and stood about 20 feet back from the stage (in the pit) waiting. Although I have been at shows where he has performed in the past, I have never actually ‘seen’ him in daylight… what a treat.

Michael Franti at Reggae on the River 2006

(this photo from newspaper so not too good)

The pit filled up with thousands of people, but I still had a good view. Michael is a power-house of energy, jumping, jumping jumping.. and engaging the audience constantly. Spearhead, his backup band is awesome as well. His new cd, Yell Fire has many great songs on it and he performed most of them. I was jumping and grooving and dancing and singing and was surprised I could keep going. But it was so good to see him so close.

And to see my 2 favorite music-poet men in the same weekend was just superb 🙂

Bruce Cockburn in San Francisco-GAMH

5 August 2006:

Lucky for me, I asked friend Cristin, who loves to drive and likes the city, to go with me. We had a blast going down to see Bruce! We stayed at a motel on Lombard and took a taxi (what a ride that was!) to the venue. The Great American Music Hall is an ornate old building in a rather ‘seedy’ part of town. The line for will call / and with tickets had already started to form. We arrived right behind my friend Paul from Fremont… how’s that for timing! He had been to the Saratoga show the night before, but was ready to see Bruce in this venue.

We met some great people while standing in line, hi to you Leon and Sherrie! Hope you are enjoying the BC_Live group. And Marsha and Steve… I will be looking for you at the Mystic Theater in Petaluma on November 9!!! I got my tickets in the mail yesterday!!

While standing in line I got a brief hug and kiss from Julie Wolf, love this womans energy and what she brings to the show with Bruce. The show was awesome ..read more details at CockburnProject.net and on the gigs page.

A very special thing happened at this show. Again while waiting in line, someone walking by catches my eye… and low and behold it’s Mark Squire my very old friend and one time boss from the days at the Good Earth Natural Food Store in Fairfax, CA.

I can’t quite describe how glad I was to make connection with him again. It has been several years since we even talked to each other, for no other reason than time and distance and life. Any way, I owe him an email and as soon as all this updating for the Project and blog is done that is what I will be doing. He said, “Of all the places to run into you at, I’m not surprised for it to be a Bruce Cockburn concert”. He claims I turned him onto Bruce and maybe it is so. I worked at the store in the eightys, and played cassettes of Bruce’s all the time.

Bruce Cockburn - Paradise photo by Layne Russell

(Photo by Layne Russel taken at Paradise show, 6 August 2006)

So for the whole show, I was just glowing on the inside. I didn’t take my camera as I wanted to be able to just enjoy the show. Bruce was happy and having a great time the audience was with him and active and that makes for a great performance. It really was one of the best shows I have seen him do in a long time, energy wise. It ended to quickly for me….

Bruce Cockburn at Kate Wolf Festival-2006

I wrote a review of the Kate Wolf festival for the CockburnProject.net Most of what I had to say is printed there. (scroll down for the Kate Wolf show report at the bottom of the page).

Pushing Bruce’s set back by an hour or more didn’t help things. I feel he was put off by that, but maybe I am wrong.. who knows? I didn’t get to ask him. I wish he had talked to us more, the crowd was also more subdued… or just wasted from 3 days in the 110 + degrees! I couldn’t holler as usual either as my throat was taking a beating from the heat, dust and talking.
[I found out much much later that the reason the set was pushed back was because Bruce’s tour bus was having problems, probably overheating as it was just too hot.]

It was great seeing Doug Stacey and meeting his friends. Talking to others sitting around us at the site.

I took pictures during sound check:

Bruce Cockburn at Kate Wolf 2006 soundcheck

Unfortunately Bruce is trying to be incognito. And succeeded for awhile. My camera was soo hot in my hands that I stopped.. the battery doesn’t want to be over 86 degrees!

Bruce Cockburn at Kate Wolf 2006 soundcheck-Photo Margriet Seinen

Bruce at Kate Wolf photo by Margriet Seinen.

I did manage to give to Leslie, Bruce’s stage manager (don’t know what title to give him?!), a cd I had created with pictures going back to the 80’s of him and me and of shots from some more recent shows.

I always want to give him something, and it gets harder and harder to know what he would appreciate. I just want to give back to him.

His words and music have been a constant soundtrack in my heart and mind since the first time I heard him. No matter what was going on in my life, Bruce has been there with me. From the way some of the songs on the new album, Life Short Call Now, sound, it seems as if we, as fans, really need to be with him now. And I don’t know how to do that, short of just telling him that he is in my heart.

The night shots weren’t very good. I really need to learn how to take better night shots, and well a better zoom would help too!

Bruce Cockburn at Kate Wolf — tomorrow

HOT!!
Right now it is 102.9 and rising in the shade!! (make that 103.3 !!!)
Yikes.. and it’s been like this for a few days with more to come..
yea right – there is no global warming. It is quite scarey though..fire danger just from walking on the parched earth!!

The heat will keep me from going to Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival early in the day… just won’t be able to handle the heat.

We will get there later in the day… it still will be hot, but coming down.. Bruce doesn’t come on until 8:30.

Bruce Cockburn ticket for Kate Wolf festival

CockburnProject in anticipation of the new cd release to happen in a couple of weeks. The tour has already started, I will be writing a review of the show, if I get it together. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new CD –
Life Short Call Now, which should be here any day, to write a review and well just to hear it!!

Still not operating at 100%, but getting better, the tonsillectomy kicked my ass for sure.

Russel went to the bay area for a few days for Aikido, he really needed to do that, as he missed his annual Aikido retreat here with his teacher Frank Doran Sensei, while I was recovering from the surgery.

We have full week ahead of different projects to do here. And I need to focus back in on www.seinensilk.com.

And life moves on…

So after 2 weeks of being totally down, I could finally do a little work, not much.

The site I had been working on really wanted to go live by June 3 and we made that date! There is still much work to do on the site, but it was together enough for her to start telling people at the annual Summer Arts and Music Festival.

Go visit Seinensilk.com and see what I have been up too! (check out her gallery!)
This is Margriet at Summer Arts Fair:

As part of the moving from the town house to the land full time, it meant selling my 1971 VW bus. Well, selling is the wrong word, I practically gave this one away to another lover the VW bus world:

It was a end to an era, sort of sad. I used to live in my bus, travel, go places …but once I got here, that life style seem to end for me. Even leaving the town house after 16 years was also an end… lots of new beginnings though, and no regrets.

I will miss the town garden though, it takes care of itself now, and I can’t really have that type of planting here. All we have going now is the veggie garden with a few poppies and a few plants in pots I brought out. The sun here is like a blast furnace lots of days, so lush we won’t ever be, especially with having to pump our own water.

So this is where we are now.. made all the dead lines we had, and now we are unpacking, sorting, storing, and moving stuff from the shed to the house and back to the shed.. lots going to thrift store. Many things have been packed for many years, and we need to make room in the stoage shed for the stuff from town that we want to keep.

I have a feeling this type of thing will be on-going all summer, making this place really home. Getting some art up and textiles on the walls. We will get satellite TV soon and satellite internet by fall. I am still overwhelmed, not fully healed, and antsy to be done with it all, but hey living in paradise makes up for it.

Buck just outside our bathroom window. He had his whole crew with him that day..5 of ’em just laying around chewing their cuds. 🙂

More Julie Wolf at the Mateel

I can gush a bit more here than I can over at the CockburnProject.net where I just updated the front page.

So gush I will..

What can I say about her — she is a beautiful light, she is funny, honest, real and present. She does not make me feel uncomfortable, quite the opposite, I feel so relaxed around her. It’s a heart thing I guess. She gives (and gets) great hugs. I would love to get to know her. In her busy life, don’t know if there is time or room for that, but I hope so.

And she stole the show! The Mateel was buzzing with “Hey, I’ve seen her before, she is awesome! Wasn’t she here with Bruce Cockburn? Didn’t she used to play with Ani deFranco? She is so beautiful. She is so hot! ” You get the drift.

I hope she tours with Bruce and band later in the year. I really hope they play here at the Mateel Community Center.
I hope I get the chance to see her again. I hope we email each other.

Ok, done gushing now.

Winter Wonderland in March

So a month later again and more on the weather.. last Thursday and Friday it snowed here. That’s unusual.. it hasn’t done that since 1992, not this much snow. And this Thursday it started again, and has been snowing or hailing or sleeting since then.

Yesterday driving home it was coming down in huge (half dollar size) flakes..it was really beautiful. I didn’t have my camera then, but later I did.

Standing on our porch looking toward the driveway:

Then looking toward the house from the top of the driveway:

And then the sun came back!

And things are starting to dry up a bit. The road is holding its own for now, but here are a couple of pictures, which really don’t do it justice:

China Creek Road-Blue Slide Creek Road front slide 2006

The road is now only half that width, this was taken in the beginning of the storms.

Over the side into the creek a river of mud. This is still moving slowly.

In a brief break ( a few hours) of the rains last month, I boxed up my computer and brought it out to our house. Finally… no more trying to commute to town to work. The road being what it was last month was really the deciding factor. I needed to have access.

I am working on several of my sites right now,
and also a new Flickr account. This will be an ongoing project as I want to move many of the photos I have on my other sites to this account. [ related post ]

Tuesday I have appointments in Eureka, and so we will make the day of it there. It’s been a long time since we went up, and I know we won’t get all the way through our lists.

I have an appointment later in month for the ‘trigger thumb’ problems I am having. The right thumb really hurts in the night and morning. Must get it fixed. Mousing isn’t really good for it and neither is typing. Also have an appointment with and ENT guy because my tonsils and throat are just plain messed up.

Doing the Blockbuster online thing.. it’s ok, their site is very very slow on this dial up. But it’s the only way to get movies now. I hope to get satellite tv and internet this summer and maybe then I will cancel the BB thing.

Been trading a lot of live Bruce Cockburn shows at BC_Live lately. Finally being able to use the computer whenever I want has made that possible. If you are a Bruce fan, go check it out.

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt