Marshall Crenshaw at the Troubadour

Marshall Crenshaw opened for Dave Alvin at the Troubadour.  Driving north took the usual 3.5 hours on a weekday.  Street parking seemed to have already filled up so I opted for a $10 parking lot across from the venue.  I walked in the Troubadour at 7:40, with a few minutes to spare before the 8pm start. 

I am constantly amazed that for a token ticket cost that I get to see such great acts in small venues.  And Marshall was the opening act!  I stood behind two shorter fans right at center stage.

MC mixed in a number of new songs with the classics.  Playtime was about an hour wrapping up with Some Day – a classic.

I didn’t stick around for Dave Alvin.  Typically the main act starts about 9:30-9:45 and don’t really care for the punk-rockabilly-blues.

Return drive time was the usual 2 hours.

Alan Doyle at The Hotel Café

If you check Alan’s solo tour schedule, you will come to the conclusion that The Hotel Café show is really for a select few LA friends.  His tour stops around the LA stop are in Vancouver and Penticton.  Not quite on the way.

Travel from Solana Beach took 3.25 hours.  Easy and fast travel until the final 30 miles.  Expected.  Thanks to Google map street view I knew what the nearest parking spot looked like.  I’d like to return to the area and explore: the Capitol Records building, Silver Lake, etc. are close.

Finding The Hotel Café was challenging.  The entrance was behind a building (‘walk down the empty alley’), and the venue configuration makes the best of a confusing layout.

I arrived in the middle of the opening act’s show.  Cathy-Anne McClintock said she had a beeper to notify her when Alan has finished a business meeting backstage and then to vacate the stage. 

A woman came in and spoke to a waitress.  The waitress said their seats were available in front and she would escort them to their seats.  The woman said they can wait for intermission.  I spoke to the woman, asking what does it take to get an up-front seat?  She said her husband is working with Alan and that her husband has a bad back and needs to sit.  The opening act stopped, her husband showed up, I exchanged pleasantries and they took their seats.

I talked with a petite woman who was from Pittsburgh.  She had seen GBS a number of times.  She said that while she and her dad don’t see eye-to-eye on many things they have found common ground in GBS music.  Then a tall person stepped in front of us (there was room) to talk to others already in front of us.  At 6 feet I rarely have a bad view but her view was gone.  The tall guy finished his conversation and stepped back behind us, saying he didn’t plan on staying and blocking our view but just had to say hello to the others.  I recognized him as Kevin Durand and we talked some, and I thanked Kevin for his thoughtfulness.  At 6’6”. he probably never has a bad view.  He had been talking with Scott Grimes.

 

I need a better camera

Alan and 2 musicians took the stage.  Their setlist contained mostly Alan’s solo material with some GBS sprinkled in.  Kevin, Scott, and their friends knew all the words and sang along.  At the start of a song, Scott shouted to his girlfriend, ‘we just did this!’  Alan followed that song saying that he and Scott wrote it this afternoon.  Then Scott joined them on stage for 2 songs.  There was the typical Alan banter throughout the show, with references to Alan’s porn mustache.  He was acting in a movie but not that kind of a movie.  Alan also said he had played golf and shot ‘like 130’ with the man with the bad back.  That person’s name is Mike Post and besides playing golf, Mike and Alan were working together.

The show finished, I exchanged pleasantries with Kevin and his wife (another actor) and took off.  About 2.25 hours to get home.