It was a fun 2 weeks with my Dad, we managed 3 innings of a Dust Devils game before rare Eastern Washington rain delayed the rest of the game to the next day, when I was seeing Brandi Carlile in concert. She and her opening acts Lucius and Sarah McLachlan were amazing, she brought out her daughters and imitated her wife shopping for RVs (apparently Catherine is British) and her performance rearranged my Pride Month playlist for the year. One highlight not in the playlist was when she and Lucius covered "Alone" by Heart, it reminded me of when Heart invited Carrie Underwood on stage in Atlantic City to sing that song, another was her singing "Over the Rainbow," which reminded me of the Billy Ray Cyrus and Ariana Grande versions.
I got to spend a lot of time with my family, playing card games, board games, watching old episodes of NCIS (Abby or no deal!) and playing my Spotify playlists for my Dad, Paul McCartney, Ann Wilson, my sister-in-law and African-Americans since Juneteenth was during the trip. We went to Mt. Rainier during the last few days (I took a lot of pictures, I need to decide which are best before posting them to here or Twitter) and since I had limited-to-no service, I tended to use music downloaded to my phone. I need to repair/replace my microSD card on the phone, as it isn't working and the phone itself is getting full. I dealt with some stress related to my current living situation and the state of the United States during the trip, but Dad and his wife offered some good wisdom.
I tried to keep up with music, but I still have some to catch up on. I can say what my favorite music of the last two weeks was, though. Two weeks ago, Carrie Underwood released her third album in three years and it is a contender for my favorite so far alongside Miley Cyrus' live album, Envy of None's debut album, Kaiju Crescendo and Ann Wilson's Fierce Bliss. Demi Lovato also had a kick-butt single, Kelly Clarkson had a version of Whitney Houston's "Queen of the Night," Journey had the best single yet for their upcoming album, Switchfoot had another strong single with "youth of the young" and Generation Radio (a supergroup involving members of Journey, Rascal Flatts and Chicago (?!)) had a strong debut single.
Last week's best release so far was Iconic, though Michael Sweet seems a bit oblivious to the fact his political choices are causing a lot of the problems he wants to stop, which is something that bothered me six years ago and still bothers me now. I guess some people are just like that, but I've ultimately found the Apostle James was right; anyone, even a demon, can SAY they're a Christian, a Christian is shown through acts of kindness, compassion, caring and protection. Some of the most Christ-like people I've met weren't in Church, others were. Grey Daze had a good song with guitarist Dave Navarro, the Nova Twins did well with Choose Your Fighter (and since there's a whole album there, I'll need to check it out in the coming week), and Halocene with First to Eleven did a cover of Evanescence's Everybody's Fool.
This week has a live album from Black Stone Cherry, who I listed as one of my top 3 American Bands on Twitter twice over vacation alongside Ronnie Van Zant era Lynyrd Skynyrd and Geoff Tate era Queensryche. This album has Godzilla selling ice cream on the cover, I'm not sure why, but I love it. Christine McVie (of Fleetwood Mac and Jimmie Allen (an African-American Country Singer and the opening act for Carrie Underwood's next tour) both have album releases tonight as well, as well as a new Noah Cyrus single. I am considering buying tickets to a 1990s-early 2000s Alternative Rock Tribute Band that will play in Bellingham on August 6th since they are cheap and I want to see if I can hear Soundgarden, Nirvana and Pearl Jam music live. I know from their Facebook page they do "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. If I can't, the next concert will be August 31st at T-Mobile Park. The next baseball game will also be there on July 9th. I'm looking forward to it.
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