On October 4th, Kylie Minogue plays the Hollywood Bowl. In her only Southern California appearance, I decided I am going to take opportunity to see the global megastar live in concert. This may be my only chance to see Kylie Minogue in concert on “my turf” so to speak.

While Kylie plays Europe and Australia every time she releases an album, the United States rarely gets more than a television appearance. Granted she doesn’t have the same popularity here in the United States as she does abroad. But I think it’s awesome that she’s coming to the United States and Canada (does it really count as including Canada when its just a single show in Toronto?). I have several of her concert DVDs from past tours and they’re always enjoyable to watch. Welcome to California to perform Kylie.

I wonder if she’ll incorporate an ABBA song or two as she was recently at the BBC2 concerts in London paying tribute to the music of ABBA.

If you’d like to join me, tickets are still available from TicketMaster. Click here to visit TicketMaster and let me know if you’re coming. I’m not getting fancy seats. I managed to get $30 tickets in section N1 which is pretty close to center albeit pretty far from the stage. I just bought my tickets this morning too. The show is not yet sold out.

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Arrival, the world’s best ABBA Tribute Band, brings the magic of ABBA to San Diego during the San Diego County Fair. They will be performing live on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in Del Mar with two shows, one in the afternoon at 2 pm and again at 7:30 pm. The 2 pm show is general admission for all seats (included in the price of admission to the fair) and the 7:30 pm show includes general admission seats, with premium reserved seats being sold additionally through TicketMaster by clicking here. TicketMaster seats include admission to the fair.

How good is Arrival at recreating the experience of an ABBA live concert? Well as the unofficial expert on ABBA Tribute Bands, I have actually written an article about the eight most annoying things that ABBA tribute bands get wrong. To read the article, click here. Arrival is the only ABBA tribute band I’ve seen so far that has gets everything right. I’ve seen a couple that come close to getting them all right, but Arrival is the only one hands down that gets it completely right. They are the closest thing to the real deal you’re ever going to find and I’m very happy to extend my seal of approval to Arrival.

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Australia’s Barry Humphries is bringing his legendary character, Dame Edna Everage, to San Diego the first week of June. The character with distinctive glasses and mauve hair is a self-proclaimed global megastar, and downright a comedy legend. According to legend, Dame Edna originates as once having been a simple housewife from Moonie Ponds, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.

The character of Dame Edna has taken on a remarkable life of its own doing everything from stand-up comedy shows (such as the one coming to San Diego) to hosting variety specials (such as “The Dame Edna Experience” for the BBC and more recently “The Dame Edna Treatment” for ITV) as well as hosting a peculiar game show called “Dame Edna’s Neighborhood Watch” where really the game show is a set-up for one unsuspecting woman who’s about to see her home ransacked by a tv camera crew and Dame Edna’s bridesmaid, Madge Allsop (played by the late Emily Perry).

I saw Dame Edna’s appearance in Los Angeles during her “Back With A Vengeance Tour” and I was excited to see San Diego included on this tour entitled “The First Last Tour.” I’m attending on the night of Thursday, June 4th, and would to invite others in San Diego to join me for the show. Tickets are available from TicketMaster by clicking here and leave a comment below to let me know you’re coming.

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On March 11th, I caught “The Broadway Tour” of Jonathan Larson’s Epic masterpiece, RENT, hit San Diego’s Civic Theatre. I went with my friend Louie Taylor. Part of the main reason I wanted to go see RENT was because the main draw of the tour is that it has been billed as featuring original cast members, Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal who would be reprising their roles as Mark and Roger respectively. An unadvertised bonus is that another original cast member, Gwen Stewart, is also reprising her role in the tour as one of the ensemble players as a variety of characters and featured solo vocalist during “Seasons Of Love.”

As the first tour since RENT closed on Broadway in September 2008, it seems all the more poignant to see such a high profile tour with Original cast members Rapp and Pascal on board. They’re no strangers to coming back to the roles that made them Broadway stars as they both were part of the original workshop shows, transferred the show to Broadway and then later to London, then recreated their roles in the film version of RENT in 2005, and then for a limited engagement in Summer 2007 returned to Broadway according to BroadwayWorld.com. These roles have been a part of their lives off and on for the last 15 years. In the interview in the Playbill handed out at the performance Adam Pascal suspects “when we’re done with this tour, I have a strong suspicion that this will be it for me and RENT. At some point I am going to be too old to do the part.”

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Now that 2009 is now upon us, it seems that it would be good to take a few minutes to highlight what made high points for me in 2008. Taking a quick glance at the list of items that made the list this year, it seems that the very early 1980′s seem to be related to almost all of the items that make the list for this year. The influence of the 1980′s will be readily apparent as you check out the list. And I’ll point those out along the way for those who might not quite see the influence.

Without further ado, I now present My 9 Most Incredible Things of 2008, in no particular order… (more…)

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Last night Duffy opened her US tour in San Diego at Humphrey’s By The Bay. She’s on a four week tour headlining across the US and along for the ride is her opening act, Eli “Paperboy” Reed. Personally I wish I had shown up late because I thought Eli “Paperboy” Reed was absolutely terrible. I spent most of his performance chatting with some people online via my cellphone as a way to pass the time since the music was just flat out awful.

Fortunately, Duffy more than made up for the fact her opening act should have been left at home. Like her music, which sounds like it really should be from an era long past, she came out wearing a striped white and navy blue mini-dress that certainly wouldn’t have looked out of place a few decades past (albeit a little shorter than probably would have been appropriate then). She was just so cute. Even the her pronunciation of “San Diego” was cute as she pronounced San with the a sounding as you would pronounce the word “lawn” as opposed to how San Diegans pronounce it more like the a in “fan.”

Duffy commented how beautiful the venue was with the palm trees and overlooking the bay. She even told a little story about how at the sound check she saw some ducks walking through the seating area and commented how back home in Wales, she’d be more likely to see sheep crossing through instead. (more…)

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Arrival is an ABBA Tribute Band that originates from Sweden. They are currently touring the US in a show entitled “The Music of ABBA Featuring Arrival” and I just had the pleasure of seeing them Saturday night in Austin, Texas where they performed with the Austin Symphony Orchestra. And Arrival were absolutely amazing. They definitely earn the title of best ABBA tribute band in the world that my friends at the headquarters of ABBAMAIL.com have bestowed upon this tribute band.

I was so moved by their performance that I opted to write about their show for my October column for ABBAMAIL.com and if you want to read a more in depth review of my experience, click here to read my ABBAMAIL column. If you want just a nutshell version, just keep reading here.

While there are many ABBA tribute bands out there, the one thing you’re guaranteed is a chance to see a bunch of people dress up in costumes and perform a concert of ABBA songs. However, the quality of that experience varies greatly. There are some very good ABBA tribute bands (such as Arrival and Waterloo) and some very bad ABBA tribute bands (such as Björn Again).

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