End of an Era

Thursday night I went down to Boulder to see the last Newcomers Home show ever. I've been following these guys and have been a huge fan ever since I saw them open up for Seven Nations three years ago on Valentines Day. Since then, I've seen them play a ton of shows and have a ton of great memories. Small acoustic shows in Nederland, Boulder, Fort Collins, shows with the full band at Octoberfests, Irish Fest in Denver, and of course a ton of great shows at the Boulder Theatre.
Thursday's show topped them all. You could tell they were having a great time up there and got pretty emotional during several songs knowing that this was an end of an era for them. They played from 8:00 to 11:30 and played a lot of their older songs off of their first two CDs that I had never heard live, so that was a special treat for me. Looking throughout the crowd you could see several people dancing a singing along to all of the songs that they all knew.


It'll be sad not to see the band as a whole again, but I wish all the best of luck to Katie on her solo work in Nashville, Tim & Laurie with The Blackthorn Project, Andrew with his concentration on session work where ever that may take him, and Scott & Brian with all of their side projects.
Thanks to all of you for several great years - I'll always be a fan.

"The Graduate" movie review

Man, it seems like I've been incredibly busy recently and haven't been able to write that many movie reviews. This past week has been fairly crazy and lacking in sleep - so much so that I think I'll retire after finishing up this entry. But anyway for the first time in awhile (I always feel like I'm not getting the most I can from Netflix if I let my three DVDs sit on the table for more than a week) I had a couple free hours and wanted to watch a movie. The movie for tonight was The Graduate.

Now, I know what all of you are thinking - especially those of you who know how much of a movie buff I am - "You haven't seen The Graduate"??? Nope. Never got around to it. So now that I have finally gotten around to it, here's my review:

I give it a 6 out of 10. As it happens, being an old movie, its a bit slow. Not that I'm saying all old movies are slow and need to have crazy action, explosions, chases and what not to make them good. 12 Angry Men is one of my favorite movies of all time, and that stands alone with a solid script and great acting. The Graduate was just a little slow. The acting was great. Dustin Hoffman especially. Loved his nervous portrayal of the character in the first half of the movie, and then the change over his character in the second half.

The music - and this is coming from a person who thinks that the soundtrack and the music in the movie is one of the most important things (i.e. Garden State, any Wes Anderson movie) - was good, but my expectations had been built up so completely by this unforgettable Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack that I was expecting a little more. "The Sound of Silence" was played three different times in the movie! "Scarborough Fair" was played at least four times! So I thought it was kind of weird that they chose to use a few songs several different times.

But above all, my favorite thing about the movie, was finally seeing the original of what so many movies in our day and age have been quoting from. Seeing the original just made me laugh so much harder and appreciate those movies that quote it. I didn't realize that Old School is mimicking The Graduate when Will Farrell falls into the pool. And in Wayne's World at the wedding in the church, its a complete reference to the end of The Graduate. And although I've always been a fan of both of those more recent movies, seeing those scenes in The Graduate made me appreciate it even more.

Check it out if you've got the time. As everybody says "It's a classic".

Live at Lunch KRFC!

So yesterday the Michael Waido Band did Live at Lunch on KRFC, Fort Collins local grassroots radio station. It was a great time and was the first time that I'd been in the KRFC studio. It was even, at least for me, the first time that I'd played music live on the radio. I was a DJ at KCSU for about a week three or so years ago, but the only thing I got to say was announcements about concerts and goings on, so that wasn't anything big. About half a year ago Waido and I made a trip down to Greeley for one of their local AM stations and did about a 10 minute interview promoting our show later that week at the Greeley Rio. We didn't play any songs but the interview was a lot of fun, and afterwards we thought we should have had it recorded because we were just going back and forth with some great stuff that had the hosts cracking up.

This time on the radio was much more all about the music. We were able to play a couple songs cued up from the CD, more songs that can be found on the CD live, but more importantly we were able to showcase most of the new stuff that we've been working on and got a recording of it.

The studio itself is a great room, and they've got a lot of really nice equipment for a local radio station. Phillip, our interviewer, was a great guy and it was a nice relaxing hour that seemed to fly by. For those of you who caught it, hope you really liked our new stuff, and for those of you who weren't able to catch the set, come on out to our shows and you'll definitely be able to hear them then!

Thanks once again to KRFC! That's it for now,
Dave :)

New computer!

Fan-freakin-tastic!

So for the first time in my life I actually have a job that pays pretty well, so I have money to spend on things!

My first major purchase has been a much needed computer. It's great. I just got it shipped last weekend, so I've spent the little time that I've had this week setting it up and getting all of the settings just right. Flat screen, fairly large monitor, whole bunch of memory, Intel Pentium 4, huge difference from my roommates 10 year old laptop that he's been nice enough to let me use for the past four years.

Anyway, I'm quite happy with my purchase so I feel I should give a shout out to Dell. I'm a content customer.

Trip to Omaha

So a couple weeks ago my family and I drove to Omaha, NE to see our relatives, do a belated Christmas and drop my little sister off for her second semester of her sophomore year at NU. Not counting this year, I have spent Christmas with all of our family in Omaha every year of my life. This was the first year that we spent Christmas here in Fort Collins just with my immediate family. It was a really nice relaxing time, especially considering the gorgeous weather we had over the weekend.

Then a couple weeks later we left for Omaha to see everybody that we didn't get to see for Christmas. It was great seeing everybody and was nice to have just a relaxing setting where we really didn't have to do anything, and our sole purpose was just to see the family. We even got to celebrate Christmas again at my Grandpas place because he postponed his Christmas until we came out there.

We got to Omaha on a Thursday, and then Sunday drove down to Lincoln to help my sister move back into her apartment. That was a lot of fun, especially helping your little sister move into an apartment for her sophomore year in college! Crazy how time flys. When we got to her place (it's not exactly dorms, more like an apartment building on campus) we found out her roommate was moving out and transferring schools (without telling my sister at all...). But apparently that didn't work out so well because she was back the next night....


Overall the trip was a lot of fun, got to bring my CD to a bunch of my relatives so they could finally hear the band, got to see where my sister is living, and got to take a few relaxing days off of work.

(The pic is my sister and I in her kitchen while she was putting new Christmas gifts away.)

New Years with Newcomers Home

Amazing night last night. The best way I can think of to ring in the new year. One of my favorite bands (and every time I see them live they're easily my favorite band for the next couple weeks at least) Newcomers Home played their second to last show ever at the Redfish Brewery in Boulder to bring in the new year.

First of all, I went down with a bunch of really good friends from Fort Collins and then met up with some good friends down in Boulder. A great group of people to celebrate New Year's Eve with. Then we had reservations for dinner at the Redfish Brewery, which has incredible food. I ordered the seared sashimi grade Ahi Tuna steak with a crab and avocado risotto. Absolutely amazing. It's an expensive restaurant, but it was New Years, so we splurged, and it was delicious. Highly recommended.

Then Newcomers Home came on around 9:30 and played a fantastic first set. Really tight and you could tell that they were loving every minute of it. Their second set started around 11:10 and I got right up in the front to dance. It was a great set and they started with one of my favorite songs "Walls". They also played one of their older songs "Texas", but a much more rockin version of it. It was great.

For New Years the brewery passed out champagne and the band did an improve jam over the ball drop coverage from Times Square with Tim (the mandolin player) doing his own announcing. It was the perfect way to ring in the New Year. After the countdown was over and we had yelled "Happy New Year" the band started up again with the end of the song "Drewgrass", a fast jamming song that they had ended on just before the New Year's coverage. One of the best shows of theirs I had ever been to, and I've been to a ton of them.

It's too bad they're splitting up as a band, and that they're quickly approaching their last show, but I wish them all the luck on their other projects and thank them for all good memories.