S is for Stop In The Name of Love

Posted on April 22, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Diana Ross came to the Mountain Winery a few years ago but we didn’t add her to our list at that time. When I saw she was coming again I told my hubby we really had to go. She’s one of those icons that is getting up there in age and who knows how long she’ll be able to tour. Watching her perform, it seems like she hasn’t lost much and can keep on for a while!

I actually saw Diana Ross at the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos when I was just out of high school (dare I say 40 years ago!). That was a great venue because the performers were on a circular stage which rotated so every seat was a good one. I went with a bunch of my girlfriends and we had seats pretty close to the stage. Her opening act? The Jackson Five!

We didn’t have our usual up close and personal seats this time but as I have said, the Winery is another venue where almost every seat is a good one. They started playing, “I’m Coming Out,” and then she appeared from behind a curtain on stage.

She changed clothes several times during the show and I tried to get a few pictures of each outfit. Lots of glitter and sparkle. It was a really good performance and I’m glad we went.

“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

As you can see she sang a ton of hits.

  • Date: June 15, 2023
  • Venue: The Mountain Winery
  • Artist/Tour: Diana Ross/The Music Legacy Tour 2023
  • Setlist:
  •  I’m Coming Out
  • More Today Than Yesterday
  • My World is Empty Without You
  • Baby Love
  • Stop! In the Name of Love
  • You Can’t Hurry Love
  • Love Child
  • The Boss
  • Upside Down
  • Touch Me in the Morning
  • It’s My House
  • Endless Love
  • Love Hangover/Take Me Higher/Ease on Down
  • Tomorrow
  • Why Do Fools Fall In Love
  • Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know…)
  • Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
  • I Will Survive
  • Thank You

Okay folks, we are starting the home stretch of this years A to Z. Just a week left. Can I make it?

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R is for Rock, Paper, Scissors

Posted on April 20, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

I had an issue with this show. It featured Peter Gabriel and Sting and I wanted to do Peter Gabriel for “G” and Sting for “S” but when I started writing it, everything was so intermingled that I really couldn’t break it apart neatly. I decided to put it here under “R” because it was the “Rock, Paper, Scissors” Tour. As you might imagine, it then required lots of moving around of other artists as I needed to switch 3 letters! All this AFTER the A to Z started! Good thing I had a weekend to figure it out.

Anyway, back to the business at hand, we started the night at that cute little place called the Louisiana Bistro. We have to find a new place to go before concerts at the SAP Center. There was one we were looking into recently but we couldn’t find parking and then decided just to go to the show and get something to eat there. Maybe next time.

Peter Gabriel is a little weird sometimes but it wasn’t too bad. I don’t know many of his songs except the ones from the album “So.” I don’t even know that many from when he was with Genesis since I only really became a fan when Phil Collins was in the group.

Same with Sting solo. Most of his songs I know from the Police times.

They did a kind of combination show and both performers were on the stage at the same time for the most part. They sang each other’s songs and songs from the groups they were in. There was a little banter back and forth.

  • Date: 7/14/2016
  • Venue: SAP Center, San Jose, CA
  • Artist/Tour: Peter Gabriel and Sting/Rock Paper Scissors
  • Setlist:
  •  The Rhythm of the Heat
  • If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
  • No Self Control
  • Invisible Sun
  • Games Without Frontiers
  • Shock The Monkey
  • Secret World
  • Driven to Tears
  • Fragile
  • Red Rain
  • Dancing With the Moonlit Knight
  • Message in a Bottle
  • Darkness
  • Walking in Your Footsteps
  • Kiss That Frog
  • Don’t Give Up
  • The Hounds of Winter
  • Big Time
  • Englishman in New York
  • Solsbury Hill
  • Every Little Thing She Does is Magic
  • If You Love Somebody Set Them Free
  • Roxanne
  • Love Can Heal
  • Desert Rose
  • In Your Eyes
  • Every Breath You Take
  • Sledgehammer

It proved to be a very interesting show but I don’t think I’d add it to the top 20. In reality, we were walking out to beat the crowd before Sledgehammer was finished. Another week down in this A to Z challenge. Eight letters left. Can I make it? Have a great weekend.

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Q is for One Night of Queen

Posted on April 19, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Unfortunately we never saw Freddie Mercury with Queen. We have seen Queen with Adam Lambert twice and thought they were great.

One of the offerings at the Mountain Winery was “One Night of Queen,” a tribute band. We love the music so we decided to check it out and honestly Gary Mullen and The Works do a really good job. While Gary does not 100% look like Freddie, he is almost spot on with his mannerisms and singing style. The crowd was really into it.

As I mentioned yesterday I am running out of space here so I am not including as many pictures but I wanted to add this video to show you why we love the Winery so much. A lot of the performers are like this where they go out into the crowd and sing with us. High fives are given all around and the venue is really so nice.

There was an intermission between Hammer to Fall and Flash. Gotta have time to get refreshments, right?

  • Date: 7/24/2022
  • Venue: The Mountain Winery
  • Artist/Tour: One Night of Queen
  • Setlist: – Note, there was no actual setlist printed for the date we saw them but this is from a couple of nights later and is typical of the songs they were singing on the tour.
  • One Vision
  • Tie Your Mother Down
  • Somebody to Love
  • Under Pressure
  • Now I’m Here
  • Killer Queen
  • I’m In Love With My Car
  • I Want to Break Free
  • Ay-Oh
  • You’re My Best Friend
  • Hamer to Fall
  • Flash
  • Another One Bites the Dust
  • Don’t Stop Me Now
  • Seven Seas of Rhye
  • I want it All
  • Keep Yourself Alive
  • Fat Bottomed Girls
  • Bohemian Rhapsody
  • Radio Ga Ga
  • Back in Black
  • Mony Mony
  • Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Okay. One more day to squeak through and then I have Sunday to try to figure out how to finish this A to Z without paying for more space. Also, my views are looking kind of wonky. I’m wondering if that’s part of the problem too.Hope you hang in there with me!

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P is for Pretenders

Posted on April 18, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Chrissie Hynde and her band, The Pretenders, was the opening act for Stevie Nicks. I try to see Stevie whenever she is around and we are sometimes treated to great opening acts. This was no exception.

We are back at SAP Center in San Jose this time. We stopped at the Louisiana Bistro before the show. Sadly this establishment closed down and we miss it. I’m not really into Cajun spices but this place had a little of everything. We try to get to the venue early since the traffic from our house down to San Jose can get kind of backed up.

And we had reasonable seats too. I did know a lot of her songs and she was a very personable performer, really reacting to and interacting with the crowd.

Here’s some of Brass in Pocket.

I love it when the songs sound just like they do on the radio. Makes it much easier to sing along.

  • Date: 12/14/2016
  • Venue: SAP Center, San Jose, CA
  • Artist/Tour: The Pretenders/24 Karat Gold Tour
  • Setlist:
  • Alone
  • Gotta Wait
  • Message of Love
  • Private Life
  • Down the Wrong Way
  • Hymn to Her
  • Back on the Chain Gang
  • I’ll Stand By You
  • My City was Gone
  • Holy Commotion
  • Stop Your Sobbing
  • Don’t Get Me Wrong
  • Mystery Achievement
  • Middle of the road
  • Brass In Pocket 

So now I have a real problem. As I was trying to get my next post ready I ran into a snag in that I HAVE NO MORE SPACE FOR PICTURES/VIDEOS on my WP unless I upgrade. So now do I give in and upgrade again or do I take the time to go back to some of my older posts and delete them? GRR. I have to finish this A to Z so I may have to bite the bullet. I was not ready for this.

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O is for One Woman Show

Posted on April 17, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Most of the time the shows we see are well-known artists from our 70’s and 80’s rock genre. Every once in a while my husband will read about someone in the paper and get intrigued. This is what happened with Tash Sultana.

One Woman Show is the way I describe her because she plays all the instruments for most of her show. She does have a band accompanying her but only for one or two songs. She starts playing an instrument and then sets it on a loop and moves on to another instrument, sets that on a loop and keeps going until she has the whole show in motion. She uses a lot of flashing lights too, reminiscent of ELO. In fact, there was the warning on the screen to let us know about that.

While my photos aren’t great because we were up in the balcony, here’s a review of the show that night where you can see some better ones. My hubby actually got a brief video. It doesn’t really show how much she moves around between the different instruments but you can kind of get the picture.

  • Date: 7/22/2022
  • Venue: Fox Theater, Oakland, CA
  • Artist/Tour: Tash Sultana/Terra Firma
  • Setlist:
  • Big Smoke
  • Mystik
  • Cigarettes
  • Pretty Lady
  • Greed
  • Willow Tree
  • Coma
  • Notion
  • Jungle
  • Blackbird

I think “Jungle” was the song that my husband found on YouTube that made him want to see her in the first place. In the video you can see her stepping on different pedals and then using the keyboard to add more sounds. It was very interesting to watch and she certainly is constantly in motion but not knowing any of the songs, it was kind of hard to get into. It was definitely a new experience. If we saw her again I think I would get closer seats. This was kind of a last minute thing so we had to take what we could get.

What do you think? Ever seen anything like that before?

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N is for Night Ranger

Posted on April 16, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Night Ranger was the opening act for Foreigner and Journey. That was a great show, made better by the fact that we went with some friends and had a tailgate before we went in.

No video for this one either. It was in 2011 so I probably wasn’t thinking about recording, just taking pictures. I did turn this into a mini-album for our friends. It was one of the first paper bag albums I ever made.

I think it turned out pretty good, don’t you? Once again, I only knew one song, Sister Christian.

  • Date: 10/15/2011
  • Venue: Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, CA
  • Artist/Tour: Night Ranger/Eclipse
  • Setlist:
  • Lay It On Me
  • Sing Me Away
  • Roadhouse Blues
  • High Enough
  • When You Close Your Eyes
  • Don’t Tell Me You Love Me
  • Sister Christian
  • You Can Still Rock In America

That’s it for today folks. Hope you are enjoying the show.

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M is for Mariah Carey

Posted on April 15, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

And so we begin week 3 of our A to Z challenge! Seems to be going pretty well so far. I haven’t noticed too many new visitors but I haven’t actually been very good about searching out new ones myself so…

Today we have Mariah Carey. She is definitely not someone that I would pay to see on her own but she was the opener for Lionel Richie, who I love!

She didn’t change my mind about her, still not someone I’d go see more than once. Fun fact though, just as she was starting to break out in the late 80’s early 90’s my husband was working at a local Warehouse Records and she came in to promote her album. I did like her red dress. No video today. Guess I was saving my batteries for Lionel.

  • Date: 7/21/2017
  • Venue: Oracle Arena, Oakland, CA
  • Artist/Tour: Mariah Carey/All the Hits Tour
  • Setlist:
  • Love Hangover/Heartbreaker
  • Shake It Off
  • Touch My Body
  • I Know What You Want
  • My All
  • Always Be My Baby
  • Don’t Forget About Us
  • One Sweet Day
  • All I Do
  • It’s Like That
  • Vision of Love
  • We Belong Together
  • All I Want for Christmas Is You
  • Hero

Honestly, the only song I remotely knew was Hero and the Christmas one, which she sang only a snippet of, and Love Hangover which isn’t even her song! Still, she helped me fill a letter in the A to Z so there is that! Happy Monday all.

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L is for Cyndi Lauper

Posted on April 13, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Hey there A to Zers, another week down! I’m ashamed to say I haven’t even visited the main A to Z blog myself, have you?

Once again we have an opening act that was almost as fun to see as the headliner. Almost I say because the headliner was CHER!

Cyndi Lauper was very chatty with the crowd and talked about her relationship with Cher. Their mothers were friends so they have known each other a long time. She had a lot of jokes and stories to tell but it didn’t interfere with her show.

I was happy that we had seats kind of higher up for this because at one point Cyndi stopped what she was talking about and looked down at a guy in one of the front rows and called him out for taking pictures! She said, “Are you filming me right now? You’re missing what’s happening right in front of you because you’re doing that! Put that camera away right now!” Or words to that effect. I’m sure if we had been sitting closer she might have been talking to me! Here’s how I scrapbooked that event.

The pictures aren’t that great but I do have a video. “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” right?

I should learn how to take some stills from the videos because a lot of times they are so much better than the pictures I can take. Still, they are not for publication, just for my scrapbooks so… Also, kind of proud of myself for holding the camera so steady during this song because you know I wanna dance!

  • Date: 07/02/2014
  • Venue: SAP Center, San Jose, CA
  • Artist/Tour: Cyndi Lauper/30th Anniversary: She’s So Unusual
  • Setlist:
  • She Bop
  • I’ll Kiss You
  • Witness
  • All Through the Night
  • Into the Nightlife
  • Sex is in the Heel
  • Time after Time
  • Money Changes Everything
  • Girls Just Want to Have fun
  • True Colors

Okay, did you survive the week? I’m going to try to get around to some new folks this weekend. It’s raining here so there’s not much to do outside and who wants to clean house? See you Monday with “M”.

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K is for Kool and the Gang

Posted on April 12, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Kool and the Gang were the opening act for Van Halen. This was one of those concerts that my husband wanted to see more than I did. I’m glad we went though since Eddy Van Halen is gone now.

I enjoyed Kool and the Gang more than Van Halen I think. They really had the place up and rocking. This has also made it into the scrapbook.

I mean, who can’t dance to Celebration? No video today, sorry.

  • Date: 06/03/2012
  • Venue: Oracle Arena, Oakland, CA
  • Artist/Tour: Kool and the Gang/A Different Kind of Truth
  • Setlist:
  • Fresh
  • Tonight
  • Emergency
  • Misled
  • Too Hot
  • Hollywood Swingin’
  • Jungle Boogie
  • Ladies Night
  • Get Down On It
  • Celebration

Short one for this letter but at least it’s up. One more this week and then a break on Sunday. Hope to see you tomorrow!

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J is for Journey Through Time

Posted on April 11, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

We have seen Journey at least 7 times by my counting and I did write about them in a previous A to Z challenge but this time I’m using a different iteration. Neal Schon got a few of the former band members together and did a spin-off called “Journey Through Time.” That’s who we went to see and this time we took our daughter with us! It was a fun night at a new to us venue, The Fox Theater in Oakland.

While waiting to get in I was intrigued with the old communication equipment that was still in the hallway. I am not sure what all those levers were for but it was interesting. Once inside the venue was full of great things to look at.

Neal Schon put together a group of musicians including former bandmates, Gregg Rollie and Deen Castronovo, Marco Mendoza (from Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy) and Chris Collins. They played lots of songs from all of the Journey albums, including the first three. They also played some Santana songs since both Schon and Rollie were with Santana. Deen Castronovo had been the drummer for Journey for a while but then he got into some drug-related problems. This was one of his first times back on stage and he appeared very grateful.

We had general admission tickets and thought that we were going to have to stand the whole night but there were some tables and we were early enough to be able to grab one. A couple times during the show people came up to us and offered to pay us for the seats! We could have made the money we spent on the tickets back – LOL.

They sang some songs I was not familiar with because honestly I became a Journey fan when Steve Perry joined the group and that was after the first few albums. To me, Journey is not Journey without him. Anyway…

Anyway You Want It

  • Date: February 23, 2019
  • Venue: Fox Theater, Oakland, CA
  • Artist/Tour: Journey Through Time
  • Setlist:
  • Ā I’m Gonna Leave You
  • Look Into the Future
  • Just the Same Way
  • Kohoutek
  • Daydeam
  • Walks Like a Lady
  • Feeling that Way
  • Anytime
  • Lights
  • Still They Ride
  • Separate Ways
  • Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’
  • Wheel in the Sky
  • Trial by Fire
  • Stay Awhile
  • Mystery Mountain
  • Of a Lifetime
  • La Do Da
  • Lovin’ You is Easy
  • Nickel & Dime
  • People
  • Mother, Father
  • Any Way You Want It
  • Don’t Stop Believin’
  • Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen

We were thinking they might play On a Saturday Night, since it was, but they didn’t. Guess you can’t have everything, right? Okay, A to Zers, two more letters this week. Any guesses as to who my letter K will be?

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