Mashed Thoughts of dPotato http://dpotato.posterous.com My online journal of my amazingly boring life. Don't expect anything juicy. I write those in my real journal at home safe away from prying eyes. Except for maybe my sister. posterous.com Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:39:00 -0700 NKOTBSB at Metropolis Hot Seats at Rogers Arena http://dpotato.posterous.com/nkotbsb-at-metropolis-hot-seats-at-rogers-are http://dpotato.posterous.com/nkotbsb-at-metropolis-hot-seats-at-rogers-are

K won Metropolis Hot Seat tickets and she invited me Sunday night to watch the NKOTBSB concert from the Metropolis at Metrotown suite at Rogers Arena. The suite was on the 5th floor and it's the first time I've ever been so high up in that building. There were about ten people there including the Metrotown social media team. We were treated to yummy food as soon as we arrived. There was a cheese platter, veggie platter, fruit platter, popcorn, chips and drinks. We pigged out on snacks while watching Matthew Morrison sing and dance the opening act. He borrowed a lot from Glee. Even his intro had Sue Sylvester in it. Later the hot foods arrived - there was BBQ chicken wings, breaded prawns and mini-burgers. SO GOOD.

But enough about the delicious food. NKOTBSB were amazing!  Rogers Arena was packed with screaming fangirls (and fanboys). I recognized quite a few songs - more from the Backstreet Boys than from NKOTB. It certainly brings back a lot of memories. They had great audience interaction. At one point the singers pulled four lucky girls onto stage, gave them roses and sang to them! They also walked around crowd. Everyone wanted to touch them! One girl lunged at one of singers and had to be pushed back forcefully by security! Yikes! But other than that there were no other incidences. I loved the atmosphere, the energy and the excitement that permeated Rogers Arena on Sunday. It was an awesome concert and I had an amazing time. Thanks Metropolis at Metrotown!

For your chance to win tickets to the suite, visit the Customer Service booth at the mall and enter at the contest kiosk. Also follow @MetropolisMet on twitter and tweet with the hashtag #MetropolisHotSeats or like them on Facebook.

Here was the opening sequence on Sunday night:

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Thu, 14 Apr 2011 01:22:00 -0700 Video Games Live takes the Cake! http://dpotato.posterous.com/49517588 http://dpotato.posterous.com/49517588

I had the amazing opportunity to go see Video Games Live at the Vancouver Centre of Performing Arts tonight courtesy of Futureshop. VGL is an awesome concert performed by a live orchestra and choir and featuring music from popular video games. Every night is different as they have many songs to chose from a vast collection of games. Tonight they started off with mashup of old classic games including Pong, Space Invaders, Frogger, Duck Hunt, Street Fighter II and Tetris then moved to more modern games including songs from Final Fantasy, Halo: Reach, Castlevania, Silent Hill 2, Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, God of War, World of Warcraft, Uncharted 2, Chronos Trigger and a bunch of others.

Performances featured Tommy Tallarico, the creator of VGL, who was playing guitar, flutist and vocalist Laura Intravia and piano soloist Martin Leung. Intravia's first appearance on stage involved opera version of Tetris! Who ever thought Tetris could sound so opera-like! "Flute Link" also made an appearance with Intravia playing a solo from Legend of Zelda dressed as Link with Ciela on her shoulder that she arranged herself! It was very amusing to watch as Ciela had her own "flute" and kept interrupting Intravia and the whole piece was basically a flute playing war between them. Martin Leung played the theme from Super Mario Brothers and blindfolded at that! His fingers just fly across the keys; it is very mesmerizing to watch. I am really amazed at all the talented people that performed tonight. In fact both Intravia and Leung were recruited because Tallarico saw them playing on Youtube! I guess it is a breeding ground for stars! It's also the conductor, Emmanuel Fratianni's first time in Canada. If you look at the photos I took you will see that his conductor stand is actually a joystick!

Throughout the performance they also gave away prizes. There was also a contest which involved two audience members playing Frogger while the orchestra played the sound reacting to what was happening on screen. A Guitar Hero contest was also held prior to the concert and the top scorer was invited on stage to play "Emotion" by Aerosmith on Guitar Hero while Tommy Tallarico played real guitar. He only needed to get 125,000 points in Hard to win a prize but he choose to play it on EXPERT and hardly missed any notes! The audience went wild cheering him on. He took home the prize of a Kinect for XBox360 courtesy of Futureshop! Some lucky person walked away with a PS3 AND PSP courtesy of Sony from a random draw! I'm so jealous!

After the show, they held a meet and greet with Tallarico, Intravia, Leung, Fratianni and Chris Mair (?) and I got to meet them and get their autographs. Unfortunately Flute Link accidentally smudged her signature. ='(

Anyways I had an awesome time and will definitely go again next year! My favourite part must have been when they sang "Still Alive" (from Portal). (Oh my gosh! I found it on iTunes!) The lyrics are so funny and the images that accompanied the song in the background were hilarious! I wish I had taken a clip it. Here's one I found on youtube:

Video Games Live is only in Vancouver for one more night, April 14th, so get your tickets now! And in honour of the Canucks win tonight they released the discount code: CANUCKS for 50% off any balcony seat ticket! Don't miss this opportunity to see them! Any one who enjoys music should go see Video Games Live, gamers and non-gamers alike!

 

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Sun, 20 Mar 2011 23:29:00 -0700 Elise Estrada Concert at Metrotown http://dpotato.posterous.com/elise-estrada-concert-at-metrotown http://dpotato.posterous.com/elise-estrada-concert-at-metrotown

I went to Metrotown today because I heard on the Beat 94.3 that they were giving away two BlackBerrys. Little did I know that there was actually a Elise Estrada Concert going on! The mall was so crowded; on every level there were people looking down onto the stage. I managed to squeeze in between two people on the third floor. Good thing I had brought my camera along!

Times Telecom was the sponsor who flew Elise down from LA. The Beat and Times Telecom held draws and played games for the BlackBerrys. The first girl managed to score cash, accessories AND a BlackBerry Torch! The second guy wasn't so lucky but he did manage to take home at least 40 dollars in cash. There was also a contest for a $10,000 shopping spree with Elise in LA! I wasn't so lucky but it was a nice concert and I recognized a few songs of hers from the radio. I like the song "Your Love is Like Poison" the most.

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Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:06:18 -0800 Sara Bareilles at the Commodore http://dpotato.posterous.com/sara-bareilles-at-the-commondore http://dpotato.posterous.com/sara-bareilles-at-the-commondore

I went to the Sara Bareilles Concert at the Commodore Ballroom on Monday. Holly Conlan and Cary Brothers opened. During one of Cary Brother's songs, Bareilles actually come out and sang with him!. And there would be more of this later on when she performs her own songs. She would invited Holly Conlan and Cary Brothers and their band members to participate in her songs and even asked the crowd to sing along! In her famous "Love Song", she let the crowd sing first chorus. "It's all about interactivity" she said. Her performance was spectacular. Bareilles was very funny and down-to-earth. I loved her stories about her songs. There were times where she did the unexpected though - like climbing on top of the piano to sing! Crazy!

Bareilles and her openers liked to close their eyes when they sing so most of the pictures I took are with closed eyes. LOL

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Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:06:00 -0700 Samsung Mobile presents Faber Drive http://dpotato.posterous.com/samsung-mobile-presents-faber-drive http://dpotato.posterous.com/samsung-mobile-presents-faber-drive

I was lucky enough to be invited to this event presented by Samsung Mobile today. There was an open bar and and Faber Drive was gave us a private show!  Samsung Mobile was promoting the new Galaxy Tab and Samsung Captivate phone and I got a chance to take a look at both. Unfortunately they didn't give one to me. =( I took some photos of them but the lighting was dark so the photos may not show them at their best. You can see the screens are very bright though. These devices look awesome and I hope to get one of them soon in the future.

Faber Drive gave an awesome performance. I loved their song "When I'm With You" most of all. There was a lot of energy in the room. It wasn't very crowded so I got to stand at the front. I even got a Faber Drive t-shirt! Woo! =D

 

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Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:53:00 -0700 Hanson at the Commodore http://dpotato.posterous.com/hanson-at-the-commodore http://dpotato.posterous.com/hanson-at-the-commodore

I was lucky to win a pair of tickets to see the Hanson concert at the Commodore last Saturday. Invited some of my friends too. One already had tickets because she's a die-hard fan! I have to confess. I have never listened to a single Handson song in my life or not that I could remember so I REALLY did not know what to expect. The floor was already packed with fan girls by the time we got in. We were near the back of the crowd at first but it grew more crowded as time went on. There was a lot of pushing and shoving. >=(

The Hansons had two opening acts. The first was Andrew Allen. He is another artist that I never knew I liked! I always like him on the radio! He sang his hit, Loving You Tonight, and a few other ones that I didn't recognize.

The second act was A Rocket to the Moon, a group I've never heard of. The lead singer of the group looks exactly like a younger version of Justin Timberlake! Their songs were ok but my friend says they sucked. They played a long time too. By this time it was 10:30pm (music started at 9) and the fangirls were getting REALLY IMPATIENT! Especially my friend who was booing at them! And other people were chanting Hanson! Hanson!

The Hansons finally came on stage at 11pm. >=( The girls didn't care they had their idols. They are not little boys anymore! Lots of energy in their songs.

The crowd was going crazy! The screaming and jumping!Many caused the crowd to jump up and down in unison which had me alarmed because I could feel the floor depressing and I was afraid of it collapsing. (Hey! it happened before! http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/04/25/bc-abbotsford-chur... They were also jumping up and down too!) My only favourite was Mmmbop. The others...well let's just say I won't be getting their CD anytime soon. I had an awesome time though!

We took a lot of Taylor pics because he is the most good-looking of the brothers. lol There was also a lot of hair flippage. lol

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Sun, 19 Sep 2010 23:24:00 -0700 Train at the Commodore http://dpotato.posterous.com/train-at-the-commodore http://dpotato.posterous.com/train-at-the-commodore

I'm trying out Posterous so I don't know how this post will turn out. Sorry if the pictures looks funny.

I went to the Train concert yesterday at the Commodore Ballroom in downtown Vancouver. I was fortunate enough to win tickets and I really had no idea what to expect because I didn't know who they were except that they sang "Hey, Soul Sister" - a song which I like. They did not disappoint. The concert was awesome. Pat Monahan was awesome. Turns out I am familiar with a lot of their songs! And most of them I already like! I'm so getting the CDs!

We ended up standing near the center front since all the seats were taken already. The opening act was Ryan Star. He wasn't bad but he was no Train! Pat Monahan has an amazing voice. He also dances around a lot and had four t-shirt changes! He threw away two of them into the audience and SIGNED the Canada one too! The girl who got it was so lucky! He said she was wearing a San Fransisco shirt and she should be wearing a Canada one so he gave it to her! The girl behind us got his white t-shirt. He also went crowd surfing and went around the audience when during the "Marry Me" number. And he also threw away his guitar picks. I was lucky enough to get one! At the end of the show, the drummer threw away his sticks too! Hey, Soul Sister was the thrid last song and the whole audience participated in singing it. I'll admit I joined in too. It was an amazing concert experience.

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