This was one of the best, if not the very best Christmas show that I've ever seen. The only thing that comes close is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and they even managed to work some of their music into the show. I think this is going to become a new holiday tradition for us. We've already got our tickets for next December.
The show was incredible! There were quite a few changes from the plot points in the movie, but they all made sense and none of them hurt the overall story from the source material. There are a ton of easter eggs hiding in the sets, including a Clayton Ravine pennant hanging on the wall of Doc Brown's laboratory. I don't want to say too much more because if you love the movie, you really should go into this with as little advanced knowledge as possible. All of the changes and easter eggs were fun surprises that made the show that much more engaging.
Roger Bart plays Doc Brown with a frantic energy that reminded me of Sam Kinison, and it absolutely works! He has a Devo-inspired song at the start of the second half after intermission that was one of my favorite parts of the show. Our show featured Jonalyn Saxer in the role of Lorraine Baines McFly in place of regular cast member Liana Hunt. I can't compare the two women's performance because I only saw the show this one time, but Saxer's performance was absolutely fantastic. Hugh Coles was equally excellent in his role as George McFly, as was Joshua Kenneth Allen Johnson in a dual role as Mayor Goldie Wilson and bandleader Marvin Berry, and Hannah Kevitt as Jennifer Parker.
If you love the Back To The Future movies, you absolutely need to see this show. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. Even if you're not generally a fan of musicals, I'm confident that this will blow away anyone who enjoys the films.
One of the motivating factors when I'm picking which Phillies games to go to at the start of the season is whether or not I've already seen the visiting team play in person. As of today, the only teams that I have yet to see in a live game are the Orioles, Tigers, Rangers, Diamondbacks, and Rockies.
I already saw the Brewers play back in 2009, but there was no way I could pass up the opportunity to see Rhys Hoskins in his first game at Citizens Bank Park since he signed with Milwaukee. I had no way of knowing when I bought these tickets over the winter that I'd be watching two first place teams battle it out in early June in what may very well turn out to be a preview of the post-season.
This game was a bittersweet experience. On one hand, it was an excellent game and a very cool experience to welcome Rhys Hoskins back to Citizens Bank Park. However, I originally got these tickets to see the game with my dad. He's been having some health concerns recently that kept him from being able to come out to the ballpark. Hopefully we can make it to a game soon.
The real story of this game was Rhys Hoskins returning to Philadelphia. He hasn't played a game on this field since the 2022 World Series. He missed all of 2023 due to injury, and with Bryce Harper at first base and Kyle Schwarber at DH, he didn't have a place to play in Philly by the time he hit free agency before the start of this season. It's just one of those things that can happen in baseball.
I've followed Rhys Hoskins for most of his professional career. I got to see him play in Lehigh Valley alongside JP Crawford, Dylan Cozens and Scott Kingery. I was in attendance for his first MLB hit, and for his 8th career MLB home run, which occurred during an incredible stretch in August 2017 in which he became the fastest player in MLB history to hit ten home runs in the big leagues. I've followed the highs, the lows, the bat spikes, and the injuries, and over the past 8+ years, he has become one of my favorite Phillies of all time. Being in attendance for this night seemed almost mandatory.
The Phillies played a nice video package before the start of the game to honor Hoskins contributions in Philadelphia. That got a great reaction, but it paled in comparison to his first at-bat in the top of the 2nd inning. I took a video of it from our seats in Section 421, but this video from MLB.com of the Brewers broadcast of the game does a much better job of capturing Hoskins reaction to the standing ovation that he was given by the fans. Even if you're not a baseball fan... even if you have no context of what is going on in the moment... that has to give you chills.
There is a ton of credit to go all around for this incredible moment. First of all, all of the respect in the world goes to home plate umpire Sean Barber, who recognized the importance of the moment and suspended the pitch clock to allow it to happen. I'm sure there are some umpires who wouldn't have been as respectful of the game and its players and fans, but Mr. Barber is a true class act. Secondly, the fans in attendance gave Hoskins the respect he deserves. The national media likes to characterize Philadelphia fans as classless jerks, mostly for a few isolated incidents that took place years before I was born. I'm in my mid 40's, by the way, so we're talking about things that took place roughly a half century ago or longer. Hoskins reacted with class and dignity, as did all of the other players on the field on both sides. The whole game played out almost like a Rhys Hoskins appreciation night, and you could not have scripted the game on the field any better than the way that it played out.
Hoskins popped out in his first at-bat in the top of the 2nd. He drew a walk in the top of the 5th and stole second base. He came around to attempt to score off of a Blake Perkins single to center field, but Johan Rojas made an incredible throw to gun him down at the plate. Hoskins came up to the plate one more time in the top of the 7th and hit a solo home run to left field. There was a split of cheers and boos for this in the crowd, but it was mostly cheers by the time he crossed home plate. I'm sure it would have been different if it gave the Brewers the lead, but all it did was narrow the Phillies lead to 3-1, which ended up being the final score of the game.
One of the cool stories of this game that has gotten lost in the Rhys Hoskins return was the Phillies debut of left fielder David Dahl. Dahl was the Colorado Rockiesfirst round draft pick in 2012 who tied the all-time record with a 17 game hitting streak to start off his MLB career in August 2016, and who made the NL All-Star Team in 2019. However, a string of injuries that started during the 2020 season derailed his career. He has spent the past four seasons bouncing between the Rangers, Brewers, Nationals, Padres, and Dodgers organizations before signing a minor league contract with the Phillies on February 17th of this year. His signing flew completely under my radar at the time, but he has raked this season with the Iron Pigs with a slash line of .340/.416/.660 with 12 home runs, 26 RBI, and one game in which he hit for the cycle.
No one is expecting Dahl to break through the Phillies incredibly talented outfield to land a starting job, but this is a guy who was at one time a top prospect, and it's not completely unheard of for a 30 year old player who has been hampered by injuries to rebound after getting healthy. His opportunity to return to the big leagues came yesterday morning when Brandon Marsh and Kody Clemens were both placed on the IL, and he responded in his first game as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies by continuing to produce the way he did in Lehigh Valley. He singled in the bottom of the 2nd to put runners on first and third. Edmundo Sosa and Johan Rojas both followed up with consecutive RBI singles which allowed Dahl to score to give the Phillies an early 2-0 lead. In his next at-bat in the bottom of the 4th, Dahl hit a solo home run to right field that increased the Phillies lead to 3-0.
In all likelihood, Dahl will be sent back down to Lehigh Valley when everyone is healthy, but it's depth like this that makes the difference between a contending team and a championship team. Injuries happen over the course of a 162 game season, and it's good to know that there are talented prospects and hungry veterans working their way back to a full-time spot in the big leagues who can step in and produce.
I couldn't find separate videos of the key moments of the game, but this game recap video captured them all. The whole game played out like it was scripted by Hollywood. Below are shortcuts to skip ahead.
What a cool game! This is easily in the top 5 games that I've ever been fortunate enough to be in attendance for at Citizens Bank Park. It's the Phillies 42nd win of the season. They're tied with the Yankees for the best record in MLB, and they've increased their lead over the Braves to seven games. Things are looking very good right now for the Fightins!
Franklin Music Hall - Philadelphia, PA We got to see one of my favorite bands perform at one of my favorite venues yesterday. It was an excellent show, but I had to sacrifice something else that would have been pretty cool to be here.
The first Sunday of the 2024 season at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater was scheduled to be a 35mm screening of the 1932 horror classic Freaks. The start of the season was delayed due to the sad passing of Mr. Mattox, and this led to this screening being rescheduled for Sunday, May 19th, which was the same day as the Echo & The Bunnymen concert at the old Electric Factory in Philly. For as much as I would have absolutely loved to be at this screening, I wasn't going to miss out on seeing one of my favorite bands.
We've seen a few concerts here over the years. It's my favorite venues in the city because it's all general admission with no seats in the lower level, which means that all you have to do to get front row is show up early.
We ended up with front row center for this show, just a few feet to the right of Ian McCulloch. We were also surrounded by a pretty cool mix of folks that ranged from teenagers who had discovered and fallen in love with 80's music to fellow Gen Xers who grew up listening to new wave. One especially cool woman who we talked to on Sunday night was someone who we stood next to at a concert in this same venue six years ago. I didn't catch her name, but on both occasions she reminded me of Lorraine Baines from Back To The Future if she was a manic dancing pixy... definitely my kind of people.
As it turned out, getting front row ended up being a necessity for this show. We saw perfectly fine because we were so close, but the lighting and the smoke machines made it look like a band of shadows were performing for most of the folks who were further back than we were.
See what I mean? I had no trouble seeing the band at all from where I was standing, but I held the phone chest high to record The Killing Moon and this is what was captured. I swear, everything looked and sounded a thousand times better from where I was standing, but from the comments I've read online, this is what the stage looked like for some of the folks in the back.
There were a few different things that went into my decision to pick today's game against the White Sox as our first for the 2024 season. It's a Sunday afternoon game, so I wouldn't have to use up any PTO at work, and it's being played before the drive-in opens for the 2024 season. However, at the top of the list is the fact that I hadn't seen the White Sox play in person before. It's become a personal goal to see every MLB team at least once. Checking them off of my list leaves just five teams that I have yet to see: the Baltimore Orioles, the Detroit Tigers, the Texas Rangers, the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the Colorado Rockies.
The fact that there was a reasonably good chance that I would get to see a Phillies victory was not a major factor in my picking this game, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think about it when I clicked the purchase button. The Chicago White Sox looked to be a pretty terrible team on paper in the winter when I bought these tickets, but there's no way I would have guessed that they'd be this awful. They went into today's game with a record of 3-17. Three wins. That's the worst record in baseball by a comfortable margin. Just to put this in perspective, the Oakland Athletics, whose owner has gone full Rachel Phelps in his attempts to sabotage the team to make it easier to move to a different city, entered today with a record of 8-13.
There's no such thing as a sure thing in baseball, and the 2023 NLCS reminded us that the Phillies are a team with a talent of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory, but I felt pretty good about this one. Before I get into any further details, I've got to touch on the food and the pregame show.
Our first stop at the ballpark was to the concession stands at Coca-Cola Corner to try the Schwarburger 2.0. This is a bacon cheeseburger that's topped with a fried egg, crispy onions, and a mildly spicy orange sauce. It's on the expensive side even for ballpark food, but a portion of the sales of this burger go towards Schwarber's Neighborhood Heroes, which is a non-profit organization that supports first responders and their families. It's also a pretty damn tasty burger!
Today was also the annual celebration of the Phillie Phanatic's birthday, and they went all out for this one. They introduced over two dozen mascots from across college and pro sports before the game to celebrate and play softball with the Phanatic that was filled with funny skits and gags.
The complete list of mascots in attendance for the pregame festivities were, to the best of my recollection:
The group of them had a fun pregame show. One of the more memorable moments was when a guy in a black t-shirt and a Yankees cap took the field to represent their team... you know, because they don't have a mascot. He played the heel on the field for a little while until he was eaten by Iggy the Land Iguana. Iggy is the round, yellow Pac-Man looking creature on the right hand side of the group photo. That costume is built in such a way that a second person can crawl into its mouth as if he's being consumed by the creature, and then the "victim" and the person playing the mascot walk together in the suit until they're off of the field.
I tend to really enjoy the performance art of a sports mascot. When it's done well, it's kind of a combination of Three Stooges slapstick and prat falls, mixed together with prop comedy and Sunday Funny Pages humor, with a smidgen of pro wrestling mixed in for the way that they use body language to get a spot over to a large audience. It's one of those things that can bring a smile to just about anyone's face, regardless of their age or background.
The Phillies wore red and blue Phanatic caps for the game in honor of their fuzzy green mascot. Although the cap is probably the best part of the team's god awful City Connect jerseys, I'd still take these Phanatic caps over those any day of the week.
After having swept the Rockies and taking the first two games of the series against the White Sox, the Phillies entered this game on a five game winning streak. Aaron Nola took the mound for the Phillies against rookie Nick Nastrini in his second career start in the big leagues. I don't know much about him other than his name reminds me of the jobbers that would work on a Saturday morning WWF Wrestling show in the early 90's.
Spencer Turnbull opened up the first game of the series carrying a no-hitter into the 7th inning, and Zack Wheeler followed it up last night by keeping a no-hitter into the 8th inning, but the White Sox lineup wasted little time in taking that possibility off the table. After retiring the leadoff batter, Aaron Nola gave up a single to Robbie Grossman which was immediately followed by a two run homer off the bat of Eloy Jimenez to give Chicago an early 2-0 lead. It was the first time in the series that the White Sox had a lead over the Phillies, and it didn't last long.
Bryce Harper had been taking long leads and generally messing with the Nastrini throughout JT Realmuto's at bat. He ran on what ended up being strike three to Realmuto, but he wasn't even close to second base. This should have been the first clue to the White Sox that they were being set up.
MartÃn Maldonado threw to second base to seemingly get Harper caught in a rundown, but Bryce backpedaled to distract second baseman Lenyn Sosa long enough to allow Trea Turner to score from third base to tie the game. Trea caught Sosa off guard causing his throw to home plate flew past the catcher, so Harper was able to take second base on the play and then come around to score on a Brandon Marsh RBI single to give the Phillies the lead before the inning was over. It was a lead that they wouldn't lose throughout the rest of the ballgame.
Aaron Nola was dominant for the rest of the game. He went 8 innings and threw 81 pitches with 8 strikeouts. Only three batters reached first base for the Sox after the first inning; a Kevin Pillar walk in the 2nd inning, a Gavin Sheets double in the 4th, and a Nicky Lopez single in the 5th.
The Phillies offense exploded in the bottom of the 4th. Johan Rojas led off with a single. He stole second, and Kyle Schwarber walked to put runners on first and second with no outs. Trea Turner hit an RBI single to bring the score to 4-2 and knock Nastrini out of the game. He was replaced by Tanner Banks, who gave up a sac fly to Harper that scored Schwarber from third base, and an RBI double to Alec Bohm that includes the Phillies lead to 6-2. Kyle Schwarber led off the bottom of the 6th with a bomb to deep right field (his sixth home run of the season). Schwarber tacked on the Phillies final run of the game in the bottom of the 7th with a sac fly that scored Bryson Stott from third.
Overall, things are looking pretty good for the Phils in 2024. The starting rotation has been the best in baseball through the first three weeks of the season. There are a few bats in the lineup that haven't hit their stride yet, but they've been picked up by hot streaks from Turner and Marsh. There's a lot of baseball left to play, but this might be our year.
There are a lot of bands from the 80's that still tour in 2023, but this band is one of the very few that are still touring with the same members of the band who took the stage back then. Cy Curnin (vocals), Jamie West-Oram (guitar), Rupert Greenall (keyboards) and Adam Woods (drums) have each been members of The Fixx since 1980, and Dan K. Brown has played bass in the band since 1983 when they recorded Reach The Beach.
I've listened to The Fixx on the radio since I was a kid, and I became a big fan of theirs five years ago when I found a recording of the KROQ Top 106 Of 1983 that was uploaded to the Internet Archive. The fifth song in the recording is Red Skies. I'm not sure if this countdown was the first time that I ever heard it, but it's definitely the moment when I fell in love with the song. The DJ must have also been a big fan of The Fixx because he played Shuttered Room next, even though that song wasn't officially part of the countdown. Hearing these two songs back to back in this recording inspired me to dig into their history. The Fixx has released 11 studio albums over the past 41 years and I can't think of any song that I didn't enjoy.
I'm more torn about my feelings about the venue where The Fixx performed last night. The Keswick Theatre opened its doors on Christmas 1928. It's a beautiful and historic building in the suburbs of Philadelphia with free parking and incredible acoustics. The only other time that I've been here was last September when Kevin Smith hosted a screening of Clerks 3. They've had a lot of events here that I've been tempted to get tickets to since that screening, but I decided not to because there's one thing about this place that's a dealbreaker, and that is the seating.
I realize that I'm kind of a big guy, but I've been to a lot of different venues (including old and historic ones), and none of them have seats that are as small and uncomfortable as the ones at the Keswick Theatre. It feels to me like squeezing into a chair that's meant for children in an elementary school auditorium. If they removed the seats to make this place a standing room only venue like the Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg, I think that this would be one of my favorite places to see a concert, but the seats at the Keswick are so uncomfortable that it overshadows everything else that's great about the place. Unless they do some major remodeling, this is going to be my last time coming here.
There's a cute little ice cream parlor called The Weldon next door to the theater. It was too cold out for ice cream, but we stopped here before the show for hot cocoa and pumpkin cupcakes.
The opening act was a man named Kasim Sulton. He was bassist and vocalist for Utopia, Joan Jett & The Black Hearts, and The New Cars. He also was the bass guitarist for Scandal from 2004 to 2006 and for Blue Öyster Cult from 2012 to 2017. He's gone on tour with many other bands and singers and has worked in the studio with many others. His resume is so long and impressive that it would take pages to list everything he has done. This guy played bass and sang backup vocals for Meat Loaf in the recording of Bat Out Of Hell and Bat Out Of Hell II for crying out loud!
When I learned about the work he has done before the show, I thought that we were really in for something special, but... well... let's just say that his live solo performance isn't my cup of tea. I did enjoy his rendition of Drive and Across The Universe, the latter of which began with a sad revelation.
Kasim Sulton dedicated the last song of his set (Across The Universe) to Psychedelic Furs saxophonist Mars Williams who passed away earlier in the day. He was 68 years old. I got to see him perform twice with the Furs, and he was absolutely incredible and added to both nights being two of my favorite experiences at a concert.
The Fixx took the stage next and performed an incredible 15 song main set with a 3 song encore that was everything that I hoped it would be. The set kicked off with The Fool from their 1982 debut album Shuttered Room. They played two other songs from this album during the set which are two of my favorite songs from the decade: Stand Or Fall, and the song that made me a fan of the band, Red Skies. They also played both of their big hits from their 1983 album Reach The Beach: One Thing Leads To Another and the show closer, Saved By Zero, and two songs from their 1984 album Phantoms: Are We Ourselves and Less Cities, More Moving People. They played one other song from 1984 called Deeper And Deeper that the band recorded for the Streets Of Firesoundtrack. I still haven't watched that film. We had the opportunity to see it at the Mahoning this past season, but we didn't make it out that night. I realize that we can't possibly be there for every movie, but I regret missing out on that one.
