Kevin Henri

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert

November 03, 2009 // 0 Comments // Add yours »

This past friday I went to the second night of the 25th anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert at Madison Square Garden. These were free tickets and we were seated behind the stage so we weren't expecting very much of the show. However it turned out to be much better than expected. For one thing, the stage was a rotating stage so we got to see the work that went in to setting up a stage while the other band would be performing. We saw all the roadies tuning the instruments and everything. Since we could see over the stage, we could see what it was like to see the audience from the band's point of view and we could see the teleprompter being used (U2 used it the entire time. Guess Bono can't remember his own lyrics). What was really cool was that the many guest stars that would show up, sat behind the stage before they were to make an appearance, so for one or two songs before they performed, we were able to see them hanging out behind the stage. It was really cool seeing them before the audience who paid tons of money got to. Unfortunately the sound wasn't the greatest. It started with Tom Hanks giving an introduction speech and then Jerry Lee Lewis playing "Great Balls of Fire" and the sound was extremely quiet. Then Aretha Franklin performed a few of her songs and there was this annoying echo and it was still quiet. Annie Lennox performed "Chain of Fools" with her and Lenny Kravitz also came out to perform with Franklin. Overall it was not impressive at all and it set us in a bad mood expecting the whole concert to be like that.

But then the Jeff Beck Group (who was playing last notice in Eric Clapton's place because he was sick) came out and the guitar sounded fantastic. Several people came out and performed with him (makes sense since they have no singer) such as blues guitarist Buddy Guy and the singer from ZZ Top. Sting sang "People Get Ready" which I really enjoyed. I've never been a fan of the Police or Sting, but he sounded great live. One of the last songs Jeff Beck played (maybe it was the final one, I'm not too sure) was his rendition of "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles on guitar. The John Lennon part on the guitar was amazing, but once it got to the part Paul normally sings,it was a little hard to follow. It sounded too moody and downbeat compared to the actual song, but then it returned to the Lennon part again and overall, it was great to hear.

Next was my favorite part of the concert, Metallica came out to play. They started out with "For Whom the Bell Tolls", which I'm not too familiar with but then went into their song "One". Lou Reed from the Velvet Underground then came out to perform with Metallica. I didn't enjoy him that much. But then Ray Davie from the Kinks came out. I've never been a huge fan of the Kinks although I love the songs I know by them, but hearing him sing "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" live with Metallica playing heavy guitar in the background was one of my favorite parts of the entire night. Ozzy Osbourne came out after Davies, which made more sense for him to perform with Metallica, and he sang "Iron Man" and "Paranoid" by his former band Black Sabbath. It was cool to see a rock legend like him perform and sit back stage. Following that Hetfield, the lead singer of Metallica, started talking about how he owes his learning guitar and starting a band to the band Queen (which is one of my favorite bands) and then played "Stone Cold Crazy" by Queen. I was completely surprised by that and it was another one of my favorite parts of the night. Metallica ended by performing Enter Sandman, which thrilled my brother Justin because a screen came down and they showed clips of Mariano Rivera from the Yankees running out onto the field and pitching (He comes out on the field during games to that song), I'm assuming to thrill the New York City audience, and it definitely worked.

Following Metallica, was the headlining band U2. I've never liked them either, but I have to say, I went and downloaded a bunch of their songs after this concert. Before going on stage, Bono acknowledged us who were behind the stage and waved to us which really got everyone excited considering how none of the other headliners could care about us. The first song they played was "Vertigo" which everyone was excited for. His mic didn't work at first but it finally started working into the first verse. Afterwards, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith came out and performed "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out of". I personally found the song boring and was glad when it ended. However, I guess they messed up and they decided to play a second runthrough of this song which seemed like 5 or 6 minutes long, so I sat through the same song I didn't like twice. Lame. Anyway, after they left, the Black Eyes Peas showed up and performed "Where is the Love?" which is my favorite song by them. Once that song ended, the Black Eyed Peas left the stage except for Fergie who remained on stage as U2 started playing "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones and then Mick Jagger ran on stage and started singing with Fergie (we saw Jagger dancing behind the stage during "where is the love?" and it was pretty amusing). Jagger and Fergie were almost competing in their stage performance and more or less had a dance off. Fergie left after that and Jagger stayed on stage to perform either a more recent Stones song or a U2 song. I'm not sure which but either way I wasn't too fond of it. Afterwards Mick Jagger left and U2 performed a couple more songs such as "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "Beautiful Day". Overall, it was an amazing concert and the fact that we came in with such low expectations made it all the more impressive.

Performers/guest appearances:

Tom Hanks

Jerry Lee Lewis

Aretha Franklin

Annie Lennox

Lenny Kravitz

The Jeff Beck Group

Sting

Buddy Guy

Billy Gibbons

Metallica

Lou Reed

Ray Davies

Ozzy Osbourne

Bruce Springsteen

Patti Smith

Black Eyed Peas

Mick Jagger

Great great concert. I believe they are going to edit the two concerts together in an HBO special on Thanksgiving weekend.

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Eve 6

February 09, 2009 // 2 Comments // Add yours »

The 90's band Eve 6 came to UConn Saturday night so Katie and I decided to go see them since it was only 5 bucks for balcony seats and 10 for floor seats. We ended up going for the balcony seats but the view was still great. The opening band was Lights Resolve, who was pretty good, except that they played for 50 minutes. Finally, Eve 6 came out, and I'm pretty sure only the lead singer/bassist was the only original member. The guitarist was at least ten years younger than the singer, and from what I read in the review in the school newspaper today, it was the same guitarist that played in the opening band. Either way, we both enjoyed it and heard the two songs we both wanted to hear. It was Kate's first concert and she enjoyed it very much so everything worked out well.

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Another amazing drum video.

December 13, 2008 // 0 Comments // Add yours »

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Off Yer Rockers

November 09, 2008 // 0 Comments // Add yours »

On Monday, I went to the Co-Op to see the school's faculty rock band. I went because my Psychology professor from last semester plays rhythm guitar in the band and sang lead vocals for about half of the songs. According to their website, http://web2.uconn.edu/rockers/rockers.html, the band consists of

Davita Silfen Glasberg (Sociology): Vocals

Harry Frank (Chemistry): Vocals and Bass Guitar

Eric Jordan (Mechanical Engineering): Drums

David Miller ((Psychology): Vocals and Rhythm Guitar

Ernie Zirakzadeh (Political Science): Lead Guitar

They mostly cover Oldies songs but occasionally they do some newer songs. They played many songs, among them, "Gimme Some Lovin'" by The Spencer Davis Group, "Paint It Black" by the Rolling Stones, and "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay. To see a list of songs that they cover, check out their page at http://web2.uconn.edu/rockers/oyrsongs.html. I thoroughly enjoyed myself despite the fact that there were not chairs anywhere around. I would recommend seeing them to anyone who might be in the area when they play, although it only lasted for an hour. I believe they also do private events, but not often. Most importantly, they were performing as a fundraiser for the Covenant Soup Kitchen which is always in need of money. It's for a good cause, please stop by next year and leave a donation.

Check out their website.

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Windham Textile Mill and History Museum

November 09, 2008 // 3 Comments // Add yours »

The other week Katie and I travelled to the Windham Textile Mill and History Museum for a class trip for my history class. Our teacher brought us on a guided tour because he is the librarian for the museum. For those who are interested in visiting, here's the address and phone number.

Windham Textile and History Museum
411 Main Street
Willimantic, CT 06226

860-456-2178

Taken from the website http://www.millmuseum.org/index.html, here is the information about what the place is.

The Mill Museum is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the history of the textile industry, the working people of the mills and explores their home life in unique ways.

Focusing on the time period of 1870 to 1920, the present two historic buildings which were built in 1877 and situated within the massive mill complex of the former Willimantic Linen Company, located in Willimantic, CT, are a lively place of enjoyment and learning.

The town of Windham is made up of four parts: North Windham, Windham Center, South Windham and Willimantic. As with many towns with abundant river water-power, mills were a very large part of the history of the town.The Museum is located in two buildings formerly owned by the Willimantic Thread Company (1854-1898). This company was bought by British owned American Thread Company (1898-1985).

The actual mill building is now being rented out to businesses and such, so the inside is not very accurate to how it once looked. We needed to go to the museum across the street in order to find out info about the mills. Inside the museum, there are fake houses set up. If you go inside you get to see what the common worker's home looked like...how crowded it was, how cramped and tight for space, the way rooms were set up, and what kind of things they needed and used back then. We also get to see what a house of a factory manager, or accountant...someone who was middle class...looked like. Their houses were very, very nice despite the fact that they didn't have any of our modern conveniences.

Next to the museum, there is a building where they store all of the equipment that used to be in the factory. It has all the different types of machines that clean cotton, spin thread, and such. Also, there is an old whistle that used to be on top of the mill that was blown off during a storm. These whistles were installed in mills when lights were invented because electric lights allowed the mill to be open for shifts during night so the whistle was needed to let them know when shifts began and ended. I've included pictures of the trip.

The Frog on the bridge is a story for another day.

the whistle retreived from the river

Once my monthly upload limit is over, I will upload more on my Flickr page so check there in about 3 weeks. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24489179@N05/

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Finally, an update

September 03, 2008 // 0 Comments // Add yours »

Last time I posted on this page was months ago. I haven't really felt like updating at all plus whenever I go to type I forget all of the interesting things I wanted to say. This looks like it's one of those updates.

Let's see, this summer...this summer...

This summer I came home from school and I basically took it easy for two weeks. I relaxed, drove around a lot, and slept. It was excellent but uneventful. Then I began working at Mattei's again. For those who don't know, I've been working there for about 4 years (exactly four years on October 2nd), I go back there and visit every time I come home from school for the weekend. I love the place. This summer, however, I think I am finally sick of working there. I might go back and work there over winter but I think this was my last summer working at Mattei's. I just hope they'll still let me go to the company picnics even though I'll be done working there. Besides working, I basically hung out wh my girlfriend Katie every night, occasionally also hanging out with some other friends but rarely. The last few weeks I stopped working at Mattei's and decided to do a lot of stuff before I left for school. I started painting my walls in my room, although I only painted three out of four and am still undecided about the ceiling. I went hiking several times, had a bunch of campfires at my house which were all a lot of fun, drove everywhere around where I live, and went on various day trips such as the Shoreline Trolley Museum and the Thimble Islands. That's about all there was to my summer.

I'm taking Political Science, Geology, History, Statistics, and Sociology this semester. Sociology is basically one of those classes where no matter what happens, they still find something wrong with society. Not the most enjoyable class. So far school has been fun. It looks like it's going to be another good year.

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April

April 29, 2008 // 0 Comments // Add yours »

First off, it's been a good month for taking pictures.

Okay, I know I haven't posted in a while, so let's see if I can remember everything that I have done over the past month. My birthday was on the 17th, so my mom drove all the way up to UConn to visit me. We got lunch at this restaurant which was a lot better than I thought it would be. It was also nice to eat somewhere new. Afterwards, we got some ice cream at the dairy bar, which I think has some great ice cream and I believe my mom agreed. When we were done eating, we drove all over looking for a volleyball but of course no one has a volleyball, not even a sports store. Go figure. Anyway, it was really fun and I filled my mom in on how everything has been going and it was really nice that she came up and I appreciate it a lot. Umm after that, I went out and took some pictures with Katie. Only the last one is a result from that day.

The weekend before that, I went home because my dad bought us tickets to go see Young Frankenstein on broadway. So we went to NYC and walked over to the show. It was my first Broadway show so I was very excited. The show was hilarious! I loved the Producers when it came out and I think that Mel Brooks did an even better job turning this movie into a musical. I was laughing nonstop the entire show. Sure, there were plenty of dirty jokes which isn't the most comfortable thing to sit through with a parent, but what else can you expect from Mel Brooks? Anyway, everyone else in the theater loved it too. I thought it was great. After that, we walked around the city and got lunch at Pax on the corner of Bryant Park. I think Bryant Park might be one of my favorite places to go in the city. Once we finished eating lunch, we took a subway over to ground zero because my dad had not been there since 9/11. This was my third time visiting and I noticed that they have definitely made progress but it seems like they just divided the whole in the ground in half and have just neglected one half of it while building on the other side. Anyway, from there, we walked down the street where we saw St. Paul's chapel which is the oldest church in Manhattan. The cemetary of the church (which is directly across the street from ground zero) was not the slightest bit harmed from the wreckage and rubbel from 9/11. I thought that was very amazing. We proceeded to walk across the street to the park outside City Hall, which I had never been to before. It was a really nice park and the architecture of all the buildings around that area are really nice. The park had gas lit lamps which both my dad and I thought were pretty cool. After sitting there for a little while, we rushed back on the subway to Grand Central and went home.

Besides that, I can't really think of any eventful parts of the month that are worth mentioning. School is over in two weeks and then I'm coming home for the summer and probably working at Mattei's.

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The President can travel through time!

April 09, 2008 // 0 Comments // Add yours »

Not really, but I find these pictures really funny.

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Today

April 05, 2008 // 2 Comments // Add yours »

The weather today was amazing. I can only hope that it will stay that way and get warmer.

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Trip

April 02, 2008 // 0 Comments // Add yours »

The Coast of Ireland

I plan on going back to Ireland sometime in the near future. I figure, if I am able to save up enough money, two summers from now would be a good time to go.

Irish Coast

Cliffs of Moher

Ring of Kerry

Ireland is a very beautiful country and it is definitely very different from the United States. I reccommend that EVERYONE try and go to Ireland at least once. One of my favorite things about when I went there was hearing their accents. Sometimes it is pretty hard to understand them, whereas English accents are relatively easy.

There are so many places, people and other things to see in Ireland that it would take hundreds of trips to see everything worth seeing.