Yes, that is a picture of Air Supply, the band who’s been making love out of nothing at all since the mid-70’s, that Pallas is holding and shamelessly drooling over. She was too young to go to the concert in Austin this past weekend, so she had to settle for a souvenir photo. I’m sure the die-hard fan her great aunt Tammy will be so pleased. The concert was very interesting to say the least – I suppose see how it was a symphony pops concert, I was expecting something a little more subdued and utilizing the orchestra than the show they put on (which consisted of the band crammed onstage in front of the orchestra with about a 3-4 foot wide path for the two leads Graham and Russell to pace back and forth while singing/connecting with the audience (ie -Who's my special lady? -why yes, it is you - smile/wink!) while performing a show that was pretty much I gather, like their normal set complete with mood lighting, wardrobe changes, forays into the audience, etc…) but all in all it was a fun show, although I don’t think they’ll be invited back to play with the Austin symphony again anytime soon (did I mention that near the end of the show they invited the audience to “move closer” –ie rush the stage (and people did by the way, much to the horror of the little old ladies ushering for the symphony, who to their credit did their best to at least keep the fans off the steps to the stage while apologizing to symphony season ticket holders about how somewhere they seem to have lost control of both the crowd and the artists –ha ha ha.)) The music was pretty good though, Russell has a wonderful voice and a presence that makes you either love him or grudgingly like him/loath yourself for it – I really don’t think you could dislike the man if you met him in person; and Graham is fun to watch because you can tell he’s very passionate about his music (he really tries to sell the notion that it is rock, not just fluffy soft rock, the way he jumps up and down and plays those guitars of his – if you need a mental picture think air guitar competition). They performed lots of their songs that people know, I like to joke that my favorite one was the one about love (funny, because it’s pretty much all they sing about and it’s somewhere in the title of most of them; “All out of love,” “Lost in Love,” “Making love out of nothing at all,” “The one that you love,” “Faith in Love” – well, you get the idea) and there were times they wanted the audience to sing along – I did not – my policy when it comes to audience participation at concerts has always been, “Hey band, stop being lazy and sing your own songs,” after all, that’s what we paid for, and since they are the professionals we are just going to sound horrid when you start singing with us again –but then again maybe that’s the point they are trying to get across – either way, the fans in the crowd seemed to love it. I don’t know, maybe I’m just jaded, being about three months out from a reminder of what all that “love” gets a woman while the men can just keep on rockin’/singin’ about it to be a super fan of this group, but the concert was fun & annoyingly now I may have to go see a regular show by these guys to see what they could possibly do if this was their idea of what to do at a symphony pops show. To their credit, live they did seem more edgy than their CD's portray them - hum, maybe I need better speakers or a bass boost or something …So when are they playing in Vegas???
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