9.30.25
This has been quite the month for concerts, especially the last couple of weeks, and after getting Sunday off, I was back at it on Monday night to see one of my favorite artists, Jeff Rosenstock. Julie doesn't necessarily seek out his music and she has never seen him live before, but I asked her to come along to have the experience of seeing one of his shows, which are inevitably joyous, communal gatherings which embody everything I love about live music.

This show was no exception, and I think Julie really got it even if it might not have increased her desire to hear his music outside of the live setting. It helped that I gave her some of the context of what he and his music mean to me—the first vinyl record I ever purchased once I got into that hobby after the fire destroyed all my other collections was Rosenstock's -POST, and my late friend Marc and I bonded over our love of Rosenstock (when he passed, his wife sold off some of his records, and I ended up with his copy of Rosenstock's first solo album, I Look Like Shit).

He was the middle act of three, which made it easier to see him on a Monday night after a week when I'd been out of the house so many evenings. He started around 8:15, finished around 9:15, and we were back home by 9:30. I've only seen him as a headliner twice, and I much prefer that extended experience, but I rarely miss a chance to see him play live, and I'm glad Julie was able to join me to get a taste of what his shows are like.

9.25.25
I didn't have a concert last night (although I do have a few more left this month), but instead of taking a night off to chill out at home, we instead went out to the North Georgia State Fair, something we've done almost every year since moving to Atlanta.

We left pretty much as soon as Will got home from school, so even with a stop on the way to pick up discounted entry tickets at an auto parts store that sponsors the fair, we were there around 5, an hour after the fair opened. Given that it was a Wednesday night, I was surprised at how full the parking lot was that early, but we still got a spot reasonably close, and inside the gates it didn't start to feel crowded until a couple of hours later.

We took advantage of the relatively sparse crowds early on to hit up some of the more popular rides that have long wait times later in the evening, including the flying swings and the ferris wheel, and we also rode the sky gondola a couple of times back and forth across the fairgrounds. By the time we finished all that, it was around dinner time, so we got some fair food and sat on the plaza. When we were done with that, the special attraction for that evening, the demolition derby, was getting started, so we found a spot in the bleachers and watched for a couple of rounds. I hadn't been to one of those since I was a kid, and Will and Julie had never seen one, and it was a ton of fun. There's something very lizard-brain-activating about watching loud machines smash into each other as violently as possible.

I was running out of steam at that point, so after stopping for one last sweet snack, we started heading for the car. It began raining just as we exited, so the timing worked out really well. It was a fun visit as usual, and I'm sure we'll be back again next year.

9.24.25
Spoon was my second Shaky Knees Late Night show, and I returned to Center Stage on Saturday night for that show. The songs for this set were pulled from across their decades-long career, but did include my two favorite tracks from their most recent record, Lucifer on the Sofa, along with one of my favorite songs from my favorite record of theirs, "The Way We Get By" from 2002's Kill the Moonlight.

I realized after seeing these shows that I'd only seen each band once before, and both of those shows happened to be at the 2007 Virgin Fest in Baltimore. And just like in 2007, I saw TV on the Radio one day and Spoon the next. Spoon is actively recording new music and seem like they'll be back on the road within a year or two to promote a new record, and I really hope they make another visit to Atlanta as a headliner.

9.23.25
I don't really do festivals like Shaky Knees anymore, but a few years ago that festival started adding late night shows in more traditional local venues the same weekend as the festival proper, and through those bonus shows, I've gotten to see bands like Arcade Fire, Interpol, the Walkmen, and Modest Mouse in venues that are smaller than they might normally play on a headlining tour.

This year I was able to add two more artists to the list: TV on the Radio (doing their first significant tour in about 10 years—they last tour was in support of their most recent (and possibly last) album) and Spoon, who put out one of the best records of their career in 2022. Coincidentally, they were both playing the same venue—Center Stage—a place I haven't been to in years, so I was able to pick up some tips on night 1 that made night 2 much easier to navigate in terms of parking, etc.

The TV on the Radio set on Friday night was amazing, especially in such a (relatively) small venue. They don't really have a bad album, but their first full-length, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, remains my favorite of their releases, and I was lucky enough to hear two of my most-loved songs, "Dreams" and "Staring at the Sun", the second of which was their final song. It might be too much to hope that they get back together to make new music, especially because founding member Dave Sitek has not joined them on the recent return to touring and frontman Tunde Adebimpe just released a solo album earlier this year. But I'd love to see them stay on the road regularly so I might get another chance to see them.

9.18.25
I just finished reading Quantum Radio, a sci-fi book by NC author A.G. Riddle. I've had a hard time getting into a rhythm with sci-fi over the last year, partly because reading a poor example of the genre tends to turn me back to non-fiction, and then I'll stay in that area for a few books before I go back to sci-fi. And unfortunately, that's what's going to happen here—even though I have several already-purchased sci-fi novels in my Kindle, this one put me off of the genre for a little bit.

It has a really good premise: a scientist at CERN decodes a complex signal amidst all the data generated by the Large Hadron Collider, a signal that gives instructions on how to build a device that presumably allows communication between different universes. His world is turned upside-down shortly after he gives a lecture about his discovery, and prompting his evacuation to a secure facility in the US where a team of scientists works to actually build the device.

But from that point forward, the quantum radio (as the device is called) becomes a shapeshifting MacGuffin whose capabilities are used to move the plot forward, but never really explained. The book turns from a sci-fi investigation of the technological and societal implications of having contact with other versions of our universe into a pretty standard spy thriller with some militaristic elements thrown in. I've seen this happen with other supposedly sci-fi books (The Price of Time by Tim Tigner is one that immediately leaps to mind), and I don't care for it—it's using one genre as a cover to write in a different genre, and invariably does justice to neither.

It doesn't help that the characters lack depth, the writing can be a little flat (especially the dialogue), and it ends with a cliffhanger that seems to be setting up future sequels. I'm not even sure I would read those if they ever came out—based on all the breadcrumbs the author has already dropped, I have a reasonably good guess as to how the overall story arc will play out and what the big reveals for books 2 and 3 will be.

9.17.25
On Sunday night, Julie went with me to see Stereolab, who released their first new music in 15 years earlier this year. They also took a decade off from touring during that timespan, but they've been back on the road since 2019 (with an understandable decrease in dates during the two pandemic years). This was our third show during that run, and our second time seeing at the Variety, which has become my favorite midsize venue in Atlanta for the easy neighborhood parking and the reserved seats.

As expected, many of the songs on the setlist came from the new record (half of the total songs they played), and it was great to experience them in the live setting. They also played two songs from my favorite album, Dots and Loops, including "Flower Called Nowhere", which is probably my favorite track from the band and which I've never seen them play live before.

I don't anticipate more new music from them anytime soon, but I do hope they keep up the touring. Since they returned to the road in 2019, we've been able to see them three times in Atlanta (including the Sunday show), and it would be nice to see them pop up on the concert calendar every two or three years.

9.16.25
We're now three weeks into the college football season and two weeks into the NFL season, and while I have high hopes for both the teams I follow (UGA for college, the Ravens for the NFL), there are concerning signs from their first couple of games.

UGA has won all three of its games so far, but only one of those was against another ranked SEC opponent, Tennessee. That game finished in thrilling fashion, with the game going to overtime and UGA winning by scoring a touchdown on their possession after the Vols put the pressure on them by getting a field goal on their possession. But even though they won, it took far too long for the offense to really get going, and the defense did not play anywhere near the standards we are used to from the past several years.

Their schedule doesn't get any easier over the next several weeks, where, after a week off this coming weekend, they will face 7 SEC opponents in a row, including games against Alabama, Auburn, Florida, and Texas. Not all of those teams are the powerhouses that they were in the days before NIL, but neither is Georgia. And although the expanded playoffs mean you can drop a game or even two and still make the cut for the postseason, it's not out of the question that the Bulldogs will drop more than that if they don't get some of their issues cleaned up, especially on offense.

It's sort of the same story with the Ravens, although this time the problems are primarily on the defense. For the first game of the season, they were sent up to Buffalo to face Josh Allen and the Bills, the team that ended their season last year by knocking them out of the playoffs in a close and hard fought game. It initially looked like Baltimore was going to get its revenge when they were up 15 points (40-25) with less than five minutes to play before the defense let the Bills score on three consecutive drives to put the score at 40-41 in the Bills' favor with less than 90 seconds left on the clock.

True, the offense could have done its part to prevent this collapse by eating more time off the clock instead of quickly going 3-and-out on all of its drives during that last five minutes, but honestly, when your offense is putting up 40 points, you shouldn't have to ask them to do any more than that even against at great team like Buffalo, especially with the loaded roster the Ravens have on defense.

They bounced back with a solid win over an awful Browns team, but their next two games are against Detroit and Kansas City, both teams who will likely go to the playoffs this year. If they don't fix the defensive issues, it won't matter how many points the offense puts up, because those are both great teams whose offenses are perfectly capable of putting up 40+ points themselves.

9.11.25
I usually try to have a couple of nights at home after I go out for a show, especially one where I have to travel as far as Duluth, but when my friend Jeff invited us to join him and his wife for an evening out at the ballpark to see the Braves play the Cubs (Jeff is a Cubs fan), and we found tickets next to them for less than $10 each, we had to do it.

So for the second night in a row I spent over an hour in rush hour traffic hell trying to get up to the stadium in time to get that night's limited free giveaway: replica jerseys. Despite Siri taking us on a route that I am sure was at least half an hour longer than the route I usually take, we got to our parking lot and through the gates in time for each of us to get a jersey before making our way up to our seats and getting some dinner.

Jeff and Connie got there after the game had already started (which isn't surprising given how much farther a trip it is for them—they live on the other side of the city outside the Perimeter). They were nosebleed seats, but they were behind home plate and we could still see the action fine. And since three tickets and parking combined cost less than $50 even with taxes and fees, I couldn't really complain.

We usually go to two or three Braves games each year, but this was our first time heading out to Truist Park in this disaster of a lost season. I work with Jeff every day (we first met at a small company back in the mid-90s, and we became colleagues again about 15 years ago), but it's usually over Zoom and we mostly stick to work projects, so it was nice to spend a little personal time with him and catch up on his life outside of work. Going to the game was fun too, but getting to hang out with Jeff for a little bit is what I enjoyed most about the evening.

9.10.25
Last night I drove way out to Duluth during rush hour traffic to see Nine Inch Nails on their Peel It Back tour at Gas South Arena. I've never been to that venue before, and I always freak out a little bit about parking logistics, especially when I'm going to an event by myself. But I did a little research on Google Maps beforehand and ended up parking about half a mile away at a corporate building, so I didn't have to pay for parking, I got a nice little walk to and from the venue, and I also didn't get caught in a packed parking garage trying to leave after the show.

The first and only time I'd seen NIN before this was way back in 1991 when they played the very first Lollapalooza. I saw that tour in Raleigh NC, at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre (which has now been renamed Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek, which I returned to for the first time since 1991 when I went to see Slow Pulp, Death Cab for Cutie, and the Postal Service last year). This was after their debut, Pretty Hate Machine, had been out for a couple of years, but about a year before its follow up, Broken, so most of the set was from PHM (although they did preview two songs from Broken, including an Adam and the Ants cover that ended up as a hidden bonus track).

I knew this show would be very different from a truncated daytime festival slot from so early in their career, but even though I'd read a few reviews of the tour beforehand, I was still blown away by the stagecraft and of course the music. The show started with an hour-long DJ set by an artist named Boys Noize and then segued seamlessly into the NIN set, which started with Trent playing an acoustic version of "Right Where It Belongs" on the b-stage, which was an elevated island in the middle of the crowd.

The band moved back and forth between the b and main stages every few songs, and there was a b-stage segment that featured Boys Noize that incorporated his remixes. The visuals and lighting paired with the music to recreate visually everything you feel when you listen to the best NIN songs on your headphones with your eyes closed, and Trent seemed really vulnerable and exposed, especially on the songs where it was just him and a piano.

I don't know how they could have made this show any better—even with all the hype and high expectations, this was even better than I had hoped. I've remained a fan of NIN in all the decades between 1991 and 2025, and I have no idea why I never made the effort to see them on one of the many tours they've done across those decades. But that won't happen again—there's no way I'm missing something like this if I have the chance to experience it again in the future.

9.9.25
I've gone to a ton of concerts over the past couple of years, but I've also missed a bunch. When I used to only go to one or two shows a month, I would immediately buy tickets for a concert I wanted to see as soon as they went on sale, but as the frequency of my concert attendance took a sharp upturn after live shows came back from the long pandemic absence, I often found that I just didn't have the energy to make it to every show I wanted to see, especially during months where the calendar was saturated to the point where I might have tickets to 2-3 shows a week for several weeks running.

So I've taken a new approach: I'm more discriminating about shows that I'll immediately get tickets for, focusing on acts I haven't ever seen or haven't seen in a long time (and also ones that are likely to sell out), and for the rest, I'll make a tab in a browser window dedicated to concerts (keeping the tabs in order of the date of the concert). If there are still tickets available for relatively close to retail and I feel like going, I'll buy them closer to the date of the show; otherwise, if I don't end up going, I just close the tab after the show has passed.

And while the total is similar for this year so far because I didn't start using this strategy until two or three months ago (and I missed a ton of shows between February and May), I think it will help going forward. September is a packed month, so I hesitated to immediately buy tickets once the calendar got pretty full, and I'm guessing that most of the concerts I have saved in browser tabs won't be ones I attend. The same is true for October: it's another packed month, but I've already hesitated to buy tickets to too many shows (averaging around one show a week).

It's highly likely I'll end up going to at least a few of the bookmarked October concerts in addition to the ones I already have tickets for, but I don't look at my calendar and freak out about how many evenings out I've committed to. I'll wait until the day before or the day of the show, see how I'm feeling in terms of stress, exhaustion, and social battery, and make a call when I'm much more likely to attend if I buy the tickets.

Sometimes that might mean I miss out on a show that I otherwise would have attended because it's sold out and the resale prices are too high, but that's worth the price if I end up saving hundreds of dollars on tickets I don't use (and can't give away to friends or resell).

9.4.25
Last night Julie and I went to the Atlanta Symphony Hall to see two 80s acts, opener Haircut 100 and headliner Howard Jones. Haircut 100 only have a couple of songs I really like, but they were really great musicians (and of course they played their best known songs). They were never big enough in America to be their own draw here, but they pair perfectly with another New Wave legacy act like Jones.

We've seen Howard Jones live a couple of times in the past few years: once doing a solo semi-acoustic show at City Winery (in case you don't know him, he's known for playing synths and keyboards, but that night he mostly played a synth set to emulate a piano and didn't have any other instruments backing him), and just last year, as the middle act in an all-80s lineup that featured Berlin opening and Culture Club closing.

In addition to liking his music, he's a charming, self-effacing performer whose stories are almost as good as his songs. This tour was to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his album Dream Into Action, so about half the setlist was made up of songs from that album, with the majority of the rest of the setlist coming from the two albums released before and after that one, Human's Lib and One to One. It was a fun evening, especially because we ran into a few friends before and after the show.

9.3.25
Yesterday was Will's first day at his new high school, and all in all, it went really well. He's sad to be leaving his previous school behind, where he had a great 9th grade year, but it only took one day of the new school year to see that it was a sinking ship, and it's always best to get off those as soon as you can instead of hoping for some sort of miraculous recovery. Several of his closest friends from last year left over the summer, either because they moved or because they also switched to a different school, and his class was reduced to a very small number of people, none of whom he was particularly close to. A couple of his classes only had one or two other people in them, and Will's the kind of kid that learns and works better in a larger group.

So we moved him to the public school for our neighborhood, which has a good reputation and has solid academic and extracurricular offerings, but is also much bigger than any other schools he's ever attended (including the public schools he went to for elementary and the first year and a half of middle school). I'm a little worried about his transition, especially academically, but even if there are some rough patches early on, I think he'll pretty quickly find his people (or, if he stays true to form, multiple groups of his people) and also have a lot more to engage him after school.

But so far, so good, even if it's just one day. That's a huge step for him, and him coming home in a pretty good mood and not upset and overreacting to something minor is a big deal. Hopefully the coming days and weeks will mostly go smoothly, and pretty soon he'll be in a place where he won't have any regrets about leaving his former school.

9.2.25
Work has been stressful for a variety of reasons lately, so I was looking forward to a long weekend with few responsibilities. And although I did get some downtime, it was much busier than I expected, even with the extra day.

On Saturday we went out to visit my mom while my godmother was in town. She has been best friends with my mom since they were in college at UNC together, and because my mom really can't travel anymore, she makes a point to come down to visit from DC three or four times a year. We met my mom, my godmother, my sister, and my brother-in-law at my mom's house, and then we got loaded up to go to a local Italian restaurant that my sister likes. It was very, very average Italian food, and even though we were there after the normal lunch rush, the service was a little inconsistent as well. I wouldn't choose to go there again, but my sister is VERY picky with very pedestrian tastes, and it's usually easier to just let her pick a place she's comfortable with.

We were at lunch for a pretty long time, but we also had some time to chat back at my mom's house before we headed back home. I always like talking to my godmother, but most of the time when I get to see her these days, it's when she's visiting my mom, and the sheer number of people make it hard to have a one-on-one conversation. But even in that context, it's always good to see her.

Sunday was also a visit day, this time with some college friends who usually spend Labor Day weekend in Atlanta visiting relatives. We went out to dinner with them at Holy Taco in East Atlanta (our go-to place for out of town visitors, especially when the weather is nice). The food is usually really good, but it was fairly mediocre on that visit, so I wonder if the prime crew had the weekend off. But the company was nice, and since Will chose not to go with us (he's been very active socially recently, in part because one of his close friends has her license and can drive their whole crew around), we were able to catch up with our friends without worrying about needing to include him or him getting bored.

Monday was pretty chill for me—I stayed at home and made progress on some personal projects, but was also able to nap or read or listen to music without any expectations or structure. And even though this is a short week, it's the start of a very busy month for me, where I anticipate going to somewhere around a dozen live music shows and two or three sporting events along with our normal slate of activities.