Saturday, June 21, 2008

Hollywood Bowl


After living in Los Angeles for a year I finally got a chance to attend the Hollywood Bowl for the first time. After work Friday I decided to see what Jessica was up to. She told me that it was the opening night for the Hollywood Bowl and she was going to go to it. Not being one to pass up a good time I decided that this would be the perfect night to experience the Hollywood Bowl for the first time.
Ruth-Ann and I met at Jessica's house and then we picked Jeff up before driving through all the mansions in Hancock Pack as we made our way there. Jeff was hungry and we were making our way to In-N-Out when we saw a McDonalds that was just right on the way and decided that would be good enough since we wanted to get there on time. I am continuously surprised by things in LA but this was something I never thought I would see. As we drove up to go through the drive-thru we realized that the drive-thru was in the parking garage. I just had to take a picture of that.
We got to the Hollywood Bowl and then had to wait in a very slow line to get tickets. But we made it in just as it was starting. It was surprisingly hot still when it started. We hoped that there would be a cool breeze but that was not the case. Ryan and Laurel joined us just as the show was starting. The LA Phil started out and then Sir James Galway, a flutist, joined them. He was amazing. I can't even imagine being able to play that fast with such clarity. Going to things makes me appreciate music so much more and wish that I had stuck to the clarinet or kept playing jazz piano. Oh well, I guess there's still time to pick it up again.
The next guest was B.B. King. I could have listened to him all night. He just has that blues voice that is so wonderful. Plus his guitar playing is not too shabby either.

Next, yes there's more, was Liza Minnelli. She was definitely the star of the show. She was singing and dancing and just having a grand old time up there. It was quite fun just to listen and watch how much fun she was having. By the way the pictures taken are from the jumbo-tron because my camera just doesn't have the zoom power to get pictures this close. But really there's no such thing as a bad seat there. You can hear the music wherever you sit and there are several screens so you can see.
At the end of the show they had fireworks which was fun as always. So all in all it was a wonderful, hot, evening at the Hollywood Bowl. I am definitely going to have to go back more than once this summer. But next time I hope that it doesn't take as long to get out of the parking lot. You have to stack park there and several people in front of us were taking their sweet time to get to their cars. The thermometer on Jessica's car said it was 100 degrees outside. I didn't believe it, but 80 would be believable and probably hotter considering we were sitting in the middle of a huge parking lot with hundreds of cars all turned on around us. But even the parking could not take away from the fun evening I had. And for anyone who's never been I would highly recommend the Hollywood Bowl.

2 comments:

Cheryl said...

Liza was there?!? Maybe I should have gone with you guys!

AMD said...

Although I don't regret being in Italy at the time of your Hollywood Bowl excursion, I was jealous! That looked like a fun night.