| The Night the Light Went On (In Camel Rock) |
[Sep. 16th, 2007|08:37 pm] |
This past Monday I drove 75 miles north to this place:
Why? Well, if you pull back the camera you'll see this:
Yes, I went there to get one of these:
As you can see, it's not ELO that I got the ticket for but The Orchestra which played at Camel Toe..er..ROCK! Camel ROCK Casino Wednesday night. Sure I could have bought the ticket online but the other reason I drove there Monday was to make sure the directions MapQuest gave were correct. They weren't. The directions had me drive through the center of Santa Fe - completely ignoring the bypass road. They also made me take the wrong exit. These mistakes by MapQuest extended my trip by a good thirty minutes and if I followed the directions on Wednesday, I would have been late to the show. Stupid MapQuest.
On Wednesday, I left my Linux class an hour early and drove to the concert. Got there in plenty of time. The venue was pretty small: between 500-600 seats. The good news is the place was packed and the crowd was loud and enthusiastic.
The only member of the band not present was Phil Bates (I heard he had Visa issues). That means these folks were on stage:
Kelly Groucutt
Mik Kimanski
Gordon Townsend
Eric Troyer
Louis Clark
Parthenon Huxley
The show started with Evil Woman followed up by Livin' Thing. The show lasted about 90 minutes. I can't remember the last song they played in the set but the encore was Don't Bring Me Down.
Here's a list of songs they played (that I remembered):
Opening Song: Evil Woman
Livin' Thing
Ma Ma Belle
Can't Get It Out of My Head
Standing in the Rain
Mr. Blue Sky
Do Ya
Telephone Line
Showdown
Twist and Shout
Hold On Tight to Your Dream
Wild West Hero
Rockaria!
Confusion
Turn To Stone
Xanadu
Encore song: Don't Bring Me Down
When it was all over, the crowd disbursed and most went straight to the parking lot. I decided to wait a few minutes to let the traffic clear and I went to a nearby slot machines to try out my luck. Nothing but penny slot machines all around. I put a twenty in the machine and started playing. In the end I left with $37.10. W00t! That meant the concert only cost me $3.90. That and a tank of gas.
Normally I would take Mr. Flibble with me to a concert but, alas, Mr. Flibble is not an ELO fan. Hates them, as a matter of fact. He calls it wuss rock but I pay him no mind since he's a big fan of Insane Clown Posse. He obviously has no musical taste. :)
Impressions:
- Camel Rock Casino is the smallest Casino I've ever been to. The concert area took up nearly half of the place and, like I said, it only held an audience of around 600. The other half was filled with mostly penny slot machines. They had maybe four or five poker tables. I've been to Target stores bigger than this place.
- Camel Rock has a target customer: old people. And by old people I mean people in their 60's and older: Retired folk. When I bought the tickets I saw nothing but old people at the Casino. I don't think I saw any non-employee that wasn't 35 or older.
- Camel Rock Casino is basically part of a nostalgia circuit for those old people. Before the show the announcer mentioned the upcoming shows. Herman's Hermits was one act mentioned. Those guys had, what? One hit? And aren't they like 90 years old or something?
- Most of the audience was either in their 40's, 50's or even their 60's. That includes me too. I'm old and busted. (But I still liked the music).
- Most of the crowd were not die hard ELO fans like me. They were just regular folks attending a concert. The crowd was only really excited when the band played one of their bigger hits like Telephone Line or Ma Ma Belle. When they played songs like Wild West Hero or Standing in the Rain, the crowd was not as into it as they were with the hit songs. Not me. I loved Wild West Hero and Xanadu. When Kelly asked the crowd for their favorite song, most cried out "Telephone Line!" or "Mr. Blue Sky!" I knew I wasn't the only die hard fan when I heard someone cry out: "Fire on High!". I didn't shout out a song but if I did it would most likely be Dreaming of 4000, 21st Century Man or Mr. Radio. Songs only a die hard fan would appreciate.
- They only played one Orchestra song and that was their cover of Twist and Shout. The crowd was there to hear ELO songs and the band knew it.
One last thing. Here's why it's called Camel Rock Casino:
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| Comments: |
From: (Anonymous)
2007-09-17 10:58 am (UTC)
Directions | (Link)
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Hey... sounds like a great show! Sorry about the problems with the directions. What were the start and end addresses you used for your MapQuest directions? For privacy's sake, just use someplace close to your start address if you actually started from your home. MapQuest wants users to report errors and would like to hear from you what specifically was wrong with the route (i.e., what exit did we get wrong, what exit were you supposed to take, what's the name of the bypass road, etc.). You can report the problem directly to info@mapquest.com, if you want. Take care, and avoid the Herman's Hermits show... if it's the current version of the band, I think the only original member in it is the drummer!
Start address was just: Albuquerque, NM 87123
End address was just: Camel Rock Casino.
Mapquest was smart and gave me the complete address to Camel Rock Casino
Actually I used both Google maps and Mapquest for directions and they both had problems. It was Google maps that told me to use exit 176 for the Casino when, in fact I should have used exit 175 (Camel Rock Road). Mapquest was much worse and had me take exit 172 and drive on all sorts of different roads for the final three miles.
Nevertheless I took your advice and sent an E-mail to Mapquest.
From: (Anonymous)
2007-09-23 04:51 am (UTC)
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You know, I drive by there every day.
I saw the sign and thought about going to the concert. However, without Jeff Lynne, I would have been disappointed.
BTW, Herman's Hermits had quite a few hit songs, not just the Henry VIII one. Darn it, now I've got that song running through my head. (I'm 'enry the eighth I am . . .)
Evelyn | |
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