NinS Posted July 21 #376 Share Posted July 21 How'd you like Abducted by the 80s, HB? I saw the Totally Tubular festival this week for a whopping seven bucks. I actually thought Men Without Hats and Bow Wow Wow stole the show. Wang Chung, Tommy Tutone, and Modern English were ok. I'm not really a Thompson Twins fan, and my cheap ticket was in the standing room section, so having gotten more than my money's worth I skipped Tom Bailey and Thomas Dolby. My friends stayed and said that Dolby was excellent, so if I can see this tour next year for another seven bucks I'll stay until the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Honolulu Blue Posted July 21 Author #377 Share Posted July 21 7 hours ago, NinS said: How'd you like Abducted by the 80s, HB? I saw the Totally Tubular festival this week for a whopping seven bucks. I actually thought Men Without Hats and Bow Wow Wow stole the show. Wang Chung, Tommy Tutone, and Modern English were ok. I'm not really a Thompson Twins fan, and my cheap ticket was in the standing room section, so having gotten more than my money's worth I skipped Tom Bailey and Thomas Dolby. My friends stayed and said that Dolby was excellent, so if I can see this tour next year for another seven bucks I'll stay until the end. Thanks for the notes on Totally Tubular. I'm glad you had a thrifty good time! I wish I could do more of it, but interesting bands don't come to my area very often. ☹️ I did my review of Abducted in my other thread, which I'll link below. TL,DR: I liked Naked Eyes, The Motels, and Wang Chung. I even liked MWH even though I didn't expect to. Meeting Martha and the Chungers was a hoot. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Honolulu Blue Posted August 4 Author #378 Share Posted August 4 I'm in Boston today. In a few hour I will be boarding a regular, non-music-themed cruise. Boston is the hometown of the band of the same name- of whom one of their former members will be performing next year on Rock & Romance. Boston is also home to the second best rock band in the known universe, The Cars. I miss them terribly. ☹️ And Boston is the nearest big city for one of America's biggest rock bands, Aerosmith. You may have heard the news that they will no longer be touring due to Steven Tyler's vocal cord issues. Sad. 😪 The were popular in the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s, and I'll be going on separate music themed cruises for each of those decades next year. 😎 Finally, Boston is near the home of @NinS, fan of music themed cruises of many kinds. I'm sorry I won't be here long enough to get together, but maybe we'll end up on the same cruise together sometime. 🙏 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Honolulu Blue Posted August 5 Author #379 Share Posted August 5 Interesting article about touring bands without any original members at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/bands-without-original-members-lynyrd-skynyrd-foreigner-1235071467/foreigner-3-1235071470/. The biggest names on this list were Foreigner (who I saw on this years Rock & Romance Cruise) and The Spinners (who I saw on the 2022 UDC and will see on the 2025 edition). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
watcher_62 Posted August 6 #380 Share Posted August 6 Does anyone know if casino royale status is recognized on the 80's cruise? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Honolulu Blue Posted August 6 Author #381 Share Posted August 6 1 hour ago, watcher_62 said: Does anyone know if casino royale status is recognized on the 80's cruise? I don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Honolulu Blue Posted August 8 Author #382 Share Posted August 8 (edited) I'm on a cruise RIGHT NOW and they had an 80s music trivia session. I like to think I know a little about the subject, but the lounge was crowded with teams that thought the same. I didn't win, but they played clips from songs from artists that have been on my music cruises. First was Little Lies. Bella Donna the Fleetwood Mac tribute band didn't play this one on Rock & Romance this year. ☹️ Next was When Doves Cry. Prince tribute band Red Corvette played this on my 80s themed Princess cruise last year. Next was Tainted Love. Soft Cell was on this year's edition of The 80s Cruise and I had the choice to see these guys or Animotion. I thought ot was an easy choice. Last was Another One Bites the Dust. Queen Nation probably plays this at every concert, but this is from last year's UDC. Edited August 8 by Honolulu Blue 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George C Posted August 19 #383 Share Posted August 19 We saw Christopher Cross last night fantastic concert, noticed he is on a 80’s cruise in March on rccl ? Really prefer 60’s or 70’s music. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Honolulu Blue Posted August 19 Author #384 Share Posted August 19 12 minutes ago, George C said: We saw Christopher Cross last night fantastic concert, noticed he is on a 80’s cruise in March on rccl ? Really prefer 60’s or 70’s music. I'm glad you enjoyed Mr. Cross's performance. That's a good sign as he is on The 80s Cruise next March on Royal's Explorer of the Seas. I plan to be there. 😎 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George C Posted August 19 #385 Share Posted August 19 15 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said: I'm glad you enjoyed Mr. Cross's performance. That's a good sign as he is on The 80s Cruise next March on Royal's Explorer of the Seas. I plan to be there. 😎 I believe he was also on the first rock and romance cruise which is the only one we missed , I am sure you will like his show . 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Honolulu Blue Posted August 21 Author #386 Share Posted August 21 WARNING: Excessive fangirl crushing alert ahead. I got my final instructions for my VIP session with Paula Abdul by e-mail a few hours ago. There are just a couple of days to go until that concert. I admire and respect the many careers Ms. Abdul has had - from Laker Girl to famous dance instructor to pop singer to singer/dance judge to whatever she's doing now... I guess it's a hybrid. I like her chirpy little singing voice, now that I've gotten used to it. It may surprise you that I didn't much care for her first two big hits, and still don't. But once "Cold Hearted" dropped, I fell in love with it and Paula. I was sad that her third studio album and its singles did almost nothing on the charts, but happy for what she gave me through the years. And now I get to meet her. And I'm a little nervous about it. Forgive me. 😍 Swooning over, I promise. Let's get to the facts about my VIP session: Check in starts at 4:30 and ends at 4:45. I think it's a different entrance than the GA entrance for the concert The meet & greet session starts at 5 Concert doors open at 6 Show starts at 7; I think Paula is in the middle between DJ Jazzy Jeff and NKOTB The photographer will take one Polaroid picture and one professional photograph. The latter will be available on a separate site 5-7 days after the show. I assume the Polaroid will be available instantly, sort of. No cell phone selfies on my phone; I'm not certain they're allowed in the VIP session One autographed item. It looks like I'll be taking my "Forever Your Girl" CD sleeve, cliche as I'm sure it is. Us VIP concierges get a special number to text for any day-of problems I have a hotel in Columbus near the arena. I used a bunch of my Southwest points to pay for it. Parking is tight, so I'll have to pay to valet my car. This all sounds like fun. I can't wait for Friday! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Honolulu Blue Posted August 24 Author #387 Share Posted August 24 Here's a trip report of sorts for my trip down to Columbus, Ohio to see DJ Jazzy Jeff, Paula Abdul, and New Kids on the Block (NKOTB) in concert last night. I left town about 11 and got to the hotel about 3:30. There was one fuel stop in there. I averaged about 35 MPG both ways, which I suppose is telling of what kind of car I ended up with. The Courtyard by Marriott I chose was very centrally located. It was about a quarter to half a mile away from the Nationwide Center, depending on which entrance I used. It was also near the Nationwide Building, which I assume is the corporate headquarters for the insurance company. I haven't heard much from them lately; I assume they're still doing well. I arrived at my VIP meetup point right at 4:30. I was near the back of the line. After I went inside, I was given my items and instructions to go into the meet & greet area. No photographs were allowed of this area. Indeed, we were asked to drop off our personal items onto one of two tables. This was more secure than it sounds since there was security nearby.\\ Just before we dropped off our personal items, our VIP leader Mitch collected the personal items that we wanted signed from Paula. As I announced here a couple of days ago, I offered my CD cover of "Forever Your Girl" for signing. No personalization was available, but I was happy with what she did to it. Thanks Paula. Curiously, none of my fellow VIPs brought this to be autographed. They all had other items autographed. About half of them had the lanyard autographed. It was a nice lanyard. I had fun wearing it around the arena. The reverse side lists the tour dates. Since this post is going to be picture heavy as it is, I'll spare you the snap of it. About 5:15, the girl herself showed up. She gave a brief introduction thanking all of us for being here and hoping we all had a good time. There was a mini stage where we all posed for pictures with Paula. First, we got a Polaroid photo, then a professional digital camera photo that would be available for download later. About that Polaroid. It was a modern Polaroid "instant" camera, not some SX-70 that was dragged out from the 1970s. I now understand why it was offered to us - since we couldn't take our own photos with our own equipment or indeed have anyone else do so, this photo was the first and only that would be available with Ms. Abdul for as long as a week. But in fact, the pro photo was available for download this afternoon, a day later. I'm in possession of it. Also, that Polaroid took a long time to process. I estimate it took about 10 minutes for it to develop, which seemed to disappoint some of us in the crowd (we hung around in the same room to watch everyone get their meet & greets, pick up our stuff, and wait for photo processing). And the photo itself? Well, there's a reason we mostly moved on from Polaroids some decades ago - quality. The Polaroid of Paula and me was just OK; the digital snap was much better with basically the same pose. I'm still camera shy, but one thing our fearless leader Mitch disclosed is that after this tour, Paula will be heading up to Canada (mostly) for a tour with Taylor Dayne and Tiffany. I knew about the tour, but didn't know about who was joining her. Taylor I saw on the UDC in 2023. Tiffany has been on a couple of 80s Cruises, though they were both before my time. It's unlikely I can find time for this, but Paula's company makes it more likely that I'll do so. We'll see. Have I mentioned that Paula likes her hugs? She hugged us all coming and going to the stage. Basically, she greeted us all like we were actually BFFs and VIPs at the same time. And that made the VIP session totally worth it for me. Thanks again Paula! After the meet and greets were all done, Paula left us for who knows where with a jaunty wave. We were led up to the concourse area where many food outlets and some merchandise tables were available. Some of the food smelled really good and I was tempted, but resisted. I also successfully resisted the siren's song of the Magic Summer and Forever Your Girl tees. I didn't think that $45 for either was a good value. We'll see. During this time was a good amount of waiting around and walking around. One story I'll highlight before I forget. I was asked by a couple of lady Blockheads to join them while they drank their drinks. One of them was impressed by my Paula Abdul VIP lanyard and impressed the desire to attend if she had known about it. They both seemed very nice. They even took a picture with me and my shirt (they liked it). Eventually they let in the rest of the riffraff and some time after that they allowed us to take our seats. My seat turned out to be better than I expected. It was behind the floor, center, and elevated. I generally had good views. First up was DJ Jazzy Jeff. The way his show was organized was he played some songs with help from a rapper/singer (not Mr. Smith, of course) and occasionally us. Jeff didn't do any singing but he did occasionally talk to us. He didn't do any Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince songs except for the theme from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". That was a little disappointing. Other than that, it was a half hour of revving up the crowd for the other acts. After about 15 minutes, our girl Paula came out. She was accompanied by half a dozen or so dancers. "Straight Up" was her first song and "Forever Your Girl" was her last of this set. In between she played her biggest hits and some that weren't such big hits, like "Vibeology". She confessed that she loved her costumes and there was a costume rack or two within easy reach during most of her songs. Let's see if you can guess these two songs. One more photo because Paula is so awesome. I really liked the show, but I have two criticisms. First, this was a very short show - only about 35 minutes. Some of the songs were truncated because of this, and I never like that. And second, I really like the music playing behind Paula's songs. I'm unusual in that way because I'm sure Paula and most of her fans appreciate her dancing and others dancing. But if there were musicians playing, they were well hidden and certainly never acknowledged. I'm going to assume there was a backing musical track that was pre-recorded and played for us. I will further assume that Paula sang live for us. There's no reason for me to think that she didn't. With Paula off the stage, it's time for a couple of comments. First, I've never been to a concert with such a female skew. Our Paula Abdul VIPs were about evenly split between male and female, but during the show, it was a different story. My best guess is women outnumbered men at least 3 to 1. I think we can blame New Kids for this. They always had a fanbase that heavily skewed toward the fairer sex. I could have had some fun with this, and maybe in another place or time I would have. Second, the average age looked to be in the mid-to-late 40s. This was younger than I expected. There were actually a few kids around that i spotted. After a half hour of prep, NKOTB took the stage about 8:50. They did a great job of getting their audience excited and out of their chairs. No one can say they don't know their audience. The guys did play my favorite song from them. They did it relatively early. On and on they went with the songs - some old, some not so old, and some new. The crowd ate it up. They brought back DJ Jazzy Jeff and they all did a version of Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince's "Summertime". An hour and 40 minutes later they played their last song, "Hangin' Tough". This came complete with our fourth confetti shower. I'm sure the arena's maintenance crew appreciated it. Overall I found the New Kids On the Block's show in line with my expectations. They didn't have a backing band either, being five guys who sing and dance (and sometimes other stuff, but never mind 😛). And at nearly two hours, I found the show exhausted me. I assume it's because I'm not within their traditional demographic group and that I liked them, but I never liked them all that much. I doubt I'd pay to see them if they weren't linked to someone I wanted to see much more. And that was that. Paula was great - both in the M&G and in concert. DJ Jazzy Jeff and NKOTB were both good. I'm glad I did this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinS Posted August 27 #388 Share Posted August 27 Wow, what a great report, HB! Reading it was the next best thing to getting an actual hug from Paula. As a Bostonian I'm happy and a bit bemused to see that our native sons are still doing their thing (and of course repping the Celtics). I grew up fairly close to where one of the New Kids were living at the height of their popularity -- you could often see a fan or two hanging outside just in case! Still, they should hire some real musicians. En Vogue also used backing tracks when it did this kind of package tour last year. The main programmer for StarVista once told me that he really tries to avoid backing track shows whenever possible (and indeed photos/videos of En Vogue on the Soul Train Cruise show that they used a real band). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Honolulu Blue Posted Thursday at 09:11 AM Author #389 Share Posted Thursday at 09:11 AM (edited) On 8/27/2024 at 4:32 PM, NinS said: Wow, what a great report, HB! Reading it was the next best thing to getting an actual hug from Paula. As a Bostonian I'm happy and a bit bemused to see that our native sons are still doing their thing (and of course repping the Celtics). I grew up fairly close to where one of the New Kids were living at the height of their popularity -- you could often see a fan or two hanging outside just in case! Still, they should hire some real musicians. En Vogue also used backing tracks when it did this kind of package tour last year. The main programmer for StarVista once told me that he really tries to avoid backing track shows whenever possible (and indeed photos/videos of En Vogue on the Soul Train Cruise show that they used a real band). Thanks for sharing all of this! I'm sorry it took me so long to reply. I'm glad you enjoyed my report, but I'll take my hugs from Paula in lieu of anyone's report. 🙂 More about her later in this post. Yeah, New Kids have still got it - The Right Stuff, as they would say. How about another photo because why not? I don't see a lot of room for a band the way this stage was designed, but I'm sure they could have had one if they really wanted one. I'm hoping against hope for En Vogue to come to one of my chosen music themed cruises sometimes. They're actually coming to one of our local Native American casino-hotels next month. Ticket prices are affordable. I wouldn't have to stay overnight. I don't know if they have VIP opportunities and I don't know if I'd be interested if they had one. I might pull the trigger on this; stay tuned for details. And now, back to Paula. I found an article on Deadline.com (Paula Abdul Cancels Canada Tour Over Recent Injuries (deadline.com) ) about her upcoming tour to Canada. It's now not going to happen due to some injuries and the surgery and recovery time to follow. ☹️ Get well soon. I swear! It wasn't my hugs that caused her to get hurt!! 😁 Edited Thursday at 09:12 AM by Honolulu Blue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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