Diana in Los Angeles...

[jazzanddianafan]

Just reserving the space for my Friday evening concert at the newly restored Greek Theatre here in LA.... this will be my 6th live show with DK...

Is anyone else out there in 'DK Land' going to either Friday or Saturday's performance ????

[JUSTADKFAN]

I'm gonna be at the Greek Theater next Saturday. I'm taking my wife with me to enjoy what will be my first DK concert. I've been waiting for this moment for long time. I'm driving around 700 miles from Arizona to see Diana... no closer concert was available for me, so this is the time...

Best regards for everyone

Armando

[Grampy]

We will be there Friday. This is a great birthday treat for me (57) thursday. We saw Diana at the OC Fair last year. We had the pleasure of sitting next to Fore15. We also saw Diana in San Diego the year before. Yes, we are spoiled.
Have a great time.
Thanks for the presale tickets. Sec A WOO HOO!

[fore15]

I will be attending the Friday (7/16) concert at the Greek!!..I just got my tickets today(i was getting worried because it was getting close to concert date and i had no tickets...bought off of ebay) but i can now say for sure I WILL BE THERE & I'M EXCITED!!!....its going to be great!!

[jazzanddianafan]

Fore15 and Grampy:

Where are you sitting.... I am in Sec A, Row S, seat 42 & 44....

We are getting there early and eating one of the prepared 'picnic' basket dinners over in the patio area...

Hope to see you there !!!!...... tomorrow night !!!!!

[Coda]

Welcome to the board, JUSTADKFAN and Grampy!

[Grampy]

Hi jazzanddianafan,
We are in Sec A row P seats 22-24. I missed a few minutes getting logged in for tickets but we are very happy with these. We are very excited. Diana has been playing in the background nonstop for days now.

[Grampy]

Welcome to the board, JUSTADKFAN and Grampy!

Hi Coda,
Thanks for the nice welcome. I was a member on the old forum (Laker Lover). I lurk here a few times a week. I 'm on a few other boards posting so it is hard to take on new friends. This week is just too exciting to not share with everyone. My main board is Body For Lifers. I've lost 44 pounds since the first of the year. I went from 220 down to 176 now. Only 6 pounds to go and then maintain. Thanks again for the welcome.

[fore15]

I will be in sec. A row H seats 38 & 40!!..it is going to ROCK!!

[harpfingers]

Hi Mike- Welcome to the board, and congrats on doing BFL. I did it last year and am in maintenance mode now. I dropped 25 lbs. and took my bodyfat from 24% down to 14%. The eating is the hardest part...

Hope you have a great concert experience, can't wait to hear the details from everyone.

[fore15]

Here's my review...(it might not be too good because i tend to forget things like song order and what tid bits she said during the concert but i will do my best!)
First of all...Ollabelle was alright, not my type of music but not horrible!..then came intermission. During intermission i happened to have spotted Al Schmitt!!..I was soooo excited that i saw him especially since im into recording engineering. I decided to go and meet him so i went over to meet him but a man and woman were chatting with him at that moment so i decided to just wait. As i was waiting i overheard him ask the man, "where is steve?", for some reason steve macklam came into my head and i thought...who is this guy speaking to Al. So i position myself to get a good look at the man and i realize that it is Sam Feldman! I was like "Wow! two of the main guys right here" so then they end their chat and i was lucky enough to catch Al Schmitt but was not in time to catch Sam Feldman and the lady(who i found out later was DK's sister!!)anyway...I chatted with Al Schmitt and he was very very nice! He was shocked that I knew who he was and he told me to stick with recording engineering and that eventually i will get it (cause i told him that it was more complicated than i thought)! It was GREAT meeting him! I just wish that i would have met Sam Feldman and DK's sis!
Concert time:
Dk comes out wearing a dress and brown boots!..she plays her song which she said has no title....I thought it was a great song!
other songs she did (not in any particular order):
all or nothing at all
stop this world
temptation
almost blue
i'll string along with you
east of the sun
devil may care
the girl in the other room
abandoned masquerade
black crow
let's face the music and dance
some blues song but i don't know the title...she started with love me like a man but she was soloing off into other songs and even made a comment that she was not showing off just deciding what song she is going to play....
okay im forgetting the rest of the songs...im horrible at recalling everything and it has only been a couple of hours since but anyway....she came out for 2 encores but played 4 songs...first she played Narrow Daylight..then she came out again and played S'wonderful, Frim Fram Sauce, and Departure Bay!
Some comments she made were:
a guy in the audience yelled that he wanted her to do "just the way you are" but she said "no..what do you think you pay to hear what you want?" which was funny...then said "im angry he's happy" and then "you'll like this better..i hope". She was very funny and even did some cussing when she didn't hit what she wanted...she was like "damn" and then said "i mean s**t" it was funny!...i also enjoyed her messing with the piano strings inside the piano...thought it was very cool!
Loved the concert!!..

[jazzanddianafan]

What a night !!!!!.....Diana was relaxed, playfull, and beautiful !!!!... As I have said before on other concert posts, I don't really keep track of the songs, I am too into the moment to get that specific. Fore15 listed most of what I remember as far as the playlist goes...

First, the dress..... a long black, low cut dress with the trademark killer heeled boots to match !.... Diana's hair was maybe a little shorter than I remember, and straighter that most styles I have seen on her recently. Not wild and wavy like the cover of TGITOR, more like the cover of LIP. She looked beautiful !!!... The venue is nice, but I think, too large for the kind of DK evening I enjoy... my seats were at the rear of the first section looking at her face.... One thing I do like about the place is they have 2 large screens on both sides of the stage and they have some well placed cameras to catch a lot of the stuff you can't see well from even the first section back... They had a couple of great camera angles trained on her hands hitting the piano keys, which I love to watch !!!.... in a smaller setting, I try to sit behind her so that I can watch her hands, so I very much enjoyed seeing that even though I was so far away...

I was struck by how much the band was different from the Wilson/Hamilton/Clayton group that I have always seen her with. Even with Anthony Wilson's trademark guitar - a sound that, when you hear it, you know is Anthony !!...the change at bass and on "the red sparkel drums" (as Diana put it) makes a big difference... I was also interested in the transistions between her past and her present music... the entire feel of a song like Narrow Daylight or Girl in the Other Room is so vastly different from the long list of her great covers of the standards that drew me to Diana in the first place. I found the switch between the two styles to be definite but not disruptive to the flow of the set... it is still amazing to me that she can pour as much of herself into some of those very painful songs night after night and do Frim Fram Sauce in the same set and with the same energy.

For me, the highlight song was "I'll string Along with You", which along with "Maybe You'll Be There" (which she did not play) is maybe my personal favorite DK song.... her encore with just herself at her piano doing 'S'Wonderful', 'Frim Fram Sauce' & 'Departure Bay' was also a big highlight.... as was the playful little 'blues' intro where she was trying to deciede between 'Love me Like a Man' and her eventual choice, which at this moment I can't for the life of me remember the name of (somebody help me !)... oh yeah, and her little playful romp with 'Don't Fence Me In' - now that is something I have never heard her play before !!!....

Let's just say the entire evening was fantastic !!!... how can you pick a favorite moment from a perfect evening ???....

Thank you again, Diana, for a wonderful evening of great music !!!!!

[harpfingers]

Great Reviews you guys! It sounds like you had an awesome experience. I am soo excited for her concert next Friday evening up in Portland, Oregon. It received my tickets today in the mail. WOOHOO. I will take a little piece of paper and a small pencil so I can write down the song order. I am afraid I would forget.

Fore: Congrats on meeting Al Schmitt! That sounds exciting!

[fore15]

Thanks harpfingers!!...

[JUSTADKFAN]

Welcome to the board, JUSTADKFAN and Grampy!

Thank you for the welcome. I just returned from LA. I saw Diana on Saturday. This was my first DK concert. I really enjoyed it, she's amazing, a woderful pianist, an excellent singer and a beautiful lady. The night was perfect and the show was great. My only complaint would be that I was too far from her, so I could not see her clearly, but it was my fault. I made the decision to go to LA very late, so I could not get good seats for me and my wife. Anyway, I hope next time I can have better seats.

Regards

Armando