Last night I had a chance to see a guitar legend in concert 10 minutes from the house and decided to make a night of it.
Since the concert didn’t start until 8pm and the doors (were supposed to) open at 7pm I decided to get some dinner beforehand. Unfortunately, my restaurant of choice, Botto’s BBQ, which is just across the street from the Aladdin Theater where the concert was being held, was closed on Tuesdays, so I’ll have to report back at a later date about how that joint fares. Instead, I headed once again for The Original Hotcake House. Now, I’ve been there several times and have reported back on their breakfast in this blog after our visit over Labor Day weekend. As breakfasts go, it’s great food at even better prices.
But, this was dinner and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I walked in around 6pm and the place was empty. I went up to the counter and ordered the French Dip, but was told they were out of Roast Beef, so I changed my order to the Steak Sandwich. I paid my $11, took my white #75 plastic table tent and sat down. The couple behind me ordered and the gentleman wanted a salad instead of fries… Sorry, they were out of that too. Hmm.
After a short wait of about 8-10 minutes the server brought out my sandwich and fries. The spuds were obviously hand cut with the peels still on (which I actually like) but they were cold and soggy shoestring fries, three things I don’t like in a fry: cold, soggy, thin. I like my fries to be double fried thick wedges. I took a couple bites and left most on the plate.
The sandwich, on the other hand, was tasty. The steak was chopped up into bite-sized pieces, the caramelized onions and peppers complemented by the melted provolone cheese and the toasted, but chewy bread (in a good way, like when you take a bite and the bread sticks to the roof of your mouth), all came together in a very delicious sandwich. I had them bring out some A1 sauce, slathered that on as well, and I was a happy camper.
Having said that, I did break my #1 rule about restaurants, and I have a feeling I learned my lesson, and this will be the last time I do that (here). That rule is:
When you eat at a restaurant with a food item in their name, and they serve that item and are known for it, you order that item … every time.
I finished up around 635 and walked the five minutes to the theater thinking, “I’m here 20 minutes before the doors even open. It’s a Tuesday night, it’s drizzling, so I should be pretty close to the front”. I was wrong (but it could have been worse). I ended up about 30 people from the front and waited along with everyone else for about 35 minutes before they finally opened around 715.
I should stop and take a moment to talk about this particular theater. The Aladdin was built in 1927 and holds about 620 people. It has a storied past as it is most famous for being the most prolific exhibitor of the X-rated film Deep Throat during its run as a porn adult movie theater in the 70s and 80s.
On this night there were a few open seats by the time things started, with easily 550 in attendance. Most of them were in line behind me shortly after I arrived so I had a pick of most seats, but instead I opted for a front row balcony seat to gain a better vantage point and still have a clear view of the stage.
Shortly after 8pm Al and company made their way on stage. We’ll take a moment to talk about Albert Di Meola as I had never heard is name before a couple weeks ago when I saw this concert land on the schedule and started doing some research into his background. He has a long and storied background as a Grammy winner, played in Chick Corea’s band, played Carnegie Hall at 17 and on and on. I’m going to let Wikipedia educate readers more, but needless to say, this guy was jamming away on his guitar when I was still playing Red Rover in third grade so he’s seen a few things, done a few things and he’s still around to talk about it and wail some more on his guitar.
No time was wasted and the band got right to playing.
And play they did. It was incredible hearing his mid 70s stuff and I really enjoyed it (all but one of the band members have been with him from the 70s or 80s)… Here, turn up the volume to 11 and have a listen for yourself….
Good stuff, right? I mean it had everything…. except… variety (there was far more variety in my brief video than the overall concert, based on how I edited it). That one brief song with “vocals” aside, it was all instrumentals. Now, I know I risk drawing some comments with this next observation, but imagine you are eating a bowl of your favorite ice cream. Maybe its Founder’s Favorite from Cold Stone, a mixture of Blueberry Cobler and Lemon Bar from Handel’s, or closer to home something from Portland hometown favorite Salt and Straw. It has everything, vanilla bean ice cream with flecks of real vanilla, chocolate chunks, maybe some caramel, coconut, little chunks of brownie with toasted walnuts, I mean this is good stuff. You take a bite, and then another, and after 10 bites in of just pure rich fatty goodness you are full, and don’t want anymore. Even though it’s your favorite.
That’s how I felt about this concert. I absolutely enjoyed it, but after an hour I was done. If this had been playing on a speaker as background music while I was working it would be perfect (and I’ve already started building a playlist from Al’s 30 albums), or maybe as dynamic as some Santana instrumental riffs, absolutely, but sitting there watching it and concentrating on it I just became, I don’t know, numb, I guess.
Now, it didn’t help that when these seats were built the height and weight of the average male was only 5’8” and 143lbs, so an hour into the concert I was uncomfortable as hell. Even without manspreading I was lucky I was on an end seat, and nobody was to my right, because my right knee was extending to the far-right arm of that chair. Additionally, I don’t think the chairs had been reupholstered in 50+ years and the springs were digging into my backside. Finally, this place is known for its pizza, and to encourage sales during intermission they were baking up some pies, so the whole theater smelled of pepperoni, making it even more difficult to concentrate.
So, I got up and walked out.