First impressions, second chances

Former Iowa State basketball player Paul Shirley writes a fun blog for ESPN.com. The subject is often music. A few weeks back, he wrote about how he decided to listen to a CD several times (seems it was seven) before making a final determination on the CD's worthiness.

It's a great idea, though unrealistic for the average person who can't spare the time (or effort) to re-listen to a CD that initially doesn't seem all that great.

I thought about Shirley's blog while listening to the latest albums by Bruce Springsteen and U2. Each of them seemed, at best, average on the first listen. But I stayed with them, thinking surely I was missing something. Turns out I was. Now that I've spent some time with each CD, I really enjoy them both.

Springsteen's "Working On A Dream" follows last year's "Magic." He hasn't made consecutive records this quickly in a long time, leading many people to feel The Boss sacrificed quality for speed. WOAD certainly is a departure from Springsteen's recent work. "The Rising" was heavily influenced by 9/11, while "Magic" is Springsteen's response to the George W. Bush presidency. WOAD isn't quite as deep as either of those. Songs like "Surprise, Surprise," "Kingdom of Days," "My Lucky Day" and "This Life" find The Boss in a celebratory mood, which I found to be a nice departure from the tone of his previous two albums.

That's not to say WOAD doesn't have some meat to it. "The Last Carnival" is a moving tribute to Danny Federici, the E Street Band member who died of complications from melanoma last year. And "The Wrestler," which won a Golden Globe, but somehow didn't get an Oscar nomination, is a great tune as well.

While Springsteen has been producing work at a rapid pace, U2's "No Line On The Horizon" is their first album in nearly five years. Again, I wasn't wild about the first listen. But I'm appreciating it more and more. I dig Edge's work on "Magnificent." I like the whole feel of "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight," which is the song we heard live at the Letterman show. And Adam Clayton's bass on "Moment of Surrender" is addictive.

Of course, there are certain artists who've earned repeated listens from me. Springsteen and U2 top that list. But I'd like to think I'll take the time to give other artists more of a break in the future. Because you never know what you'll miss on that first listen.

Hanging out with Letterman and U2...sort of

I love to plan vacations almost as much as I love the vacations themselves. But sometimes the best trips are the ones you don't have time to think about beforehand.

Three weeks ago I got a call from John at The Late Show with David Letterman. Several weeks earlier I'd heard that U2 would be Letterman's musical guest every night for the week of March 2, in conjunction with the release of their new album. So I went to The Late Show Web site and put in a ticket request.

I've put in a Letterman ticket request every time I've been to New York. And my name has never been picked. So imagine my surprise when John asked if I was still interested in tickets for March 4. "Oh, absolutely," I said. John asks, "So you're going to be in New York next week?" "Oh, absolutely," I said. (I could always figure out later just how realistic the trip would be.)

As is protocol for The Late Show, John had to ask me a trivia question about the show before guaranteeing the tickets. This worried me, as I don't watch the show as much as I used to. He says, "There's a bit we had on the show for many years, but stopped doing recently. I'm going to give you the title and leave out a word. You just have to tell me the word." Again, don't watch the show much. And, at that moment, I couldn't recall a single one of the bits. He continues, "Great moments in BLANK speeches."

Truly, this is the only bit I could possibly have named, other than the Top Ten list. The answer was "Presidential." And I had my tickets.

It was hard to keep my mind on class that night as I looked forward to getting home and seeing if the airfare and hotel costs would be reasonable enough for this trip to happen. And I was very surprised to find the rates were pretty darn cheap, even just a week out.

We sweated the weather forecasts for the next few days, especially the period when NYC got almost a foot of snow. But it had all cleared up by March 4 and we flew out that morning. The flight was flawless and, after a bit of an annoying cab ride (thanks to some awful Midtown Tunnel traffic), we were at the hotel by noon. (If you're ever traveling to NYC, I've had great luck with the Hampton Inn at 51st and 8th. It's been our NYC base the past three trips.)

We didn't have to pick up tickets at the Ed Sullivan Theatre until 2 p.m. So we took the advice of Will DiMartino, a native New Yorker who now forms a great KC photography team with his wife, Jill, and had lunch at Zen Palate at 46th and 9th. I don't eat meat during Lent, so I'd asked Will for some good NYC vegetarian options. He was right on the money with Zen Palate...one of the best veggie burgers I've ever had, along with some tasty sweet potato fries.

From there, we booked it over to the theatre. A crowd had gathered on the south side of the building, awaiting U2's arrival. We stood (and froze...no sun) out there for several minutes, before heading to the front of the building to wait in line with the other lucky ticket winners. They opened the doors at precisely 2 p.m. and we shuffled inside to have our IDs checked.

I'd read somewhere that the more enthusiastic you appear, the more likely you might get better seats. Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm not typically an outwardly enthusiastic person. But believe me when I say I was off the charts enthusiastic between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. The staffer at the head of our line, after pulling out our two tickets, asked if we were excited to be there ("Of course!!" and if we had a favorite bit on the show ("Great Moments in Presidential Speeches...what a bummer Dave doesn't do it anymore. Oh, and by the way, we came all the way from Kansas City for this!" before saying, "You guys look like you're ready to have fun today. So I'm going to do you a favor." She applied a small sticker to each of our tickets and told us to go meet another staffer on the other side of the room.

So off we went, along with a handful of other folks, whom I can only assume were just as enthusiastic as we were. This staffer tells us that we must have caught the eye of the line staffers, because we'd been picked to be among those seated in the first few rows of the theatre. Success! We just had to come back and meet our group at 3:15.

We bounced across the street to a deli, mostly to warm up for a few minutes, and then made our way back to the theatre. The "select" group turned out to be 75-100 people (the theatre holds 400 or so for Letterman's show) and, upon meeting at 3:15, we were led inside the lobby of the Ed Sullivan Theatre. We lined up and the next 20-30 minutes were spent being entertained by one of the staffers, whose job it was to get us suitably pumped up for the show. The kicker was we could hear U2 sound checking in the theatre and no one in our group was paying attention!

Sometime around 3:45, we were led into the theatre. They filled up the first and second rows of the center section, then directed us to the second row of the right section (stage left.) We were lined up with a direct view of Letterman's desk. A warm-up comedian came out and explained a bit about how the show would work, told a few jokes, then introduced the house band. They played for several minutes, while we clapped along. Then Paul Shaffer came out and they played a bit more. At about 4:25, Letterman came on stage, sans jacket, said hello and took a few questions from the audience. Now, I was thinking the show didn't begin until 5 p.m. So imagine my surprise when I saw a camera guy counting down. When he got to 1, Letterman walked briskly to the back of the stage, out of sight, and the band started playing the intro music. Guess the show starts at 4:30!

I won't go into all the detail about the show. Letterman came out and did his monologue. U2 came out and did the Top 10 list, which was hilarious. Dr. Phil McGraw was the guest. He turned out to be funnier than I expected. The show moved along in real time until about 5:20. They took a bit of extra time to set up U2's equipment. Then the band came out and did "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" from the new album. It was, of course, excellent.

And that was it. The lights came up and we filed out.

The rest of the trip may seem ho-hum by comparison to that first afternoon. But we got to do and see a lot of things that we'd missed on our previous trips. Saw two shows ("Jersey Boys" and "August: Osage County," both excellent), got out to Brooklyn and walked the bridge, saw the American Museum of Natural History and the New York City Police Museum, walked through Central Park (and I ran around it several times), dined at some great places and, all in all, had a great time.

Already looking forward to planning the next trip...