Saturday snow

Friday night we had our soccer playoffs. It was a bit frosty around the pitch and cold on your throat while breathing but good for running about trying to keep warm!

Unfortunately we got beat on penalties in the semi-final.

Then we had escaped so far but the city got a few inches of snow on Saturday.

I went for a late afternoon run in Prospect Park. The lake was mostly frozen and it was great to run in the snow, I love that.

Of course we had a show that night, Queens of the Stone Age at the Barclays Centre. We can take the bus from the bottom of our road right to the venue but it meant standing in a light blizzard for 20 minutes as the bus times were way out probably due to road conditions.

Outside the Barlcays

But it was really good. I love the new album although the crowd seemed very sedate compared to our last visit there to see Pearl Jam.

Then I worked Sunday but because it is soooo busy at work on Saturday/Sunday they provided pizza, sandwiches and crisps for all the staff. Not healthy but it takes a lot of will power not to have a slice... or two.

Gig-tastic

We had the last round of concert visits for a little while.

Last Friday and Saturday we hit up the (reasonably) local Barclays Centre to see our favourites, Pearl Jam! They have been one of both Heather and my favourite bands since they came on the scene around twenty three years ago (nearly to the day) and were one of the factors in us getting together as we mentioned our shared love of them.

We entered the fan club draw for both nights of tickets and were lucky enough to "win" for both nights.
As they are well known for playing different sets each night we were lucky to hear around 66 songs over the course of Friday and Saturday night with only about 10 repeated, mainly stuff from their new album. Nearly three hours shows with no opening band starting at 8.30pm. Excellent.

The best bit was when their large lights descended form the ceiling and they started pushing a few out and then carrying on playing but dodging them as they swung back towards the stage, then Eddie got all angry and climbed up on one and started swinging on it, out over the crowd.

The fan club seats are selected in order of how long you have been in the fan club so for Friday (Heather's) we were in the floor seats and for Saturday we were in the lower bowl for mine.
We got great and different views for both nights which was neat. You could tell the surrounding crowd on the floor were a bit more old school fans than the following days!

The following week I got to visit two new venues for us, Hammerstein Ballroom for Franz Ferdinand on Tuesday and a blast form my past at the Roseland Ballroom to see Simple Minds.

Franz Ferdinand were excellent. The seats were old theatre venue so the view was good but the leg room was about half that of an economy airline! The sound was soooo loud but they were really good.

They finished the set with this amazing drum foursome. 

Simple Minds were a little disappointing if I'm honest. I think the time to see them was probably about twenty five years ago! An old pale white crowd for sure, ha ha.

So close yet so far

After the postponement of the Brooklyn Nets basketball first ever home regular season game during the week the rescheduled game went ahead on Saturday.

One of Heather's friends was coming into Brooklyn from New Jersey to see her and we went out for dinner. Her husband is French and his parents and cousin just happened to be visiting from France and they all had tickets for this game which was cheaper as it was against poorer opposition and would initially have been game two of the season so they got real lucky with that!
So we met her outside the stadium and in a funny situation I got to travel on a subway and stand outside while all the fans piled into the arena for the game.... while we met and went for a burger.

Then I got to stand outside the arena and watch the last minute of the game on the giant scoreboard which you can see from outside due the the sunken design of the court and see all the fans exit while we waited for her family to come out.

They all had their "I was there for opening night" t-shirts on and I got to see the issue No.1 Marvel comic style programme before handing it back :-(

Pretty cool but kinda disappointing to be so close to this (I'm guessing) historic action but yet to be standing literally watching from the outside!

Brooklyn's finest

In my pursuit of my work permit I was told by the USCIS that I could get back in touch 75 days after the application was received in order for them to chase it up, so to speak.
Of course, the average processing time according to their website is currently around 90 days and when I called earlier this week they gave me another code/number and said they'd look into it and to please allow up to 15 days for them to do this. Thus taking it up to the 90 days anyway!

Last night we went to one of the eight sold out Jay-Z concerts taking place at the brand new Barclays Centre. The novelty factor was for once it's under 2.5miles from us and I love sports arenas anyway!

There has been the usual controversy about the arena being built in the first place and what it has done, or was supposed to have done for the area. Lots of stories involving the developer, the Russian billionaire owner of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team that have moved from New Jersey and some good publicity from co-owner and local boy Jay-Z.

It marks the return of major league sports to Brooklyn, which has been absent since the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team to Los Angeles in 1957. Their old Ebbet's Field Stadium used to be in the same neighbourhood and the Jay-Z intro was pretty cool with a massive projection onto the stage of this and all the people that came from Brooklyn.



All the food concessions come from local Brooklyn restaurants so we shared a pulled pork sandwich from the Fatty Cue stand. I think I've said before, but that's one thing that is definitely better than back home, I don't know why they don't make a bigger deal of the food on offer at UK stadiums.
They even had a little Brooklyn Farmacy (the soda fountain place we went to a few weeks ago) cart in case you fancied a coke float!

The tickets only cost $30 and we were seated about three rows from the very very top. Plus it has those real steeply banked stands so you don't want to sit there if you suffer from vertigo!
Like flying above the clouds, we were so high we were above the lights, ha ha:

I didn't know all the songs he played, unlike probably 90% of the crowd but it was still really good. Still find it funny to see people sparking up a joint at a show like this. Heather did comment that it was probably the most mixed types and ages of people at a gig ever.