Quote:
Originally Posted by LosAngelesBeauty
After he's done with his research at UCLA, he'll probably move to the Bay Area.
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He'll fit right in. The ppl there are notorious for being obnoxious dingleberries, stuck with a mentality typical of high school or college aged kids who never grow up.
And speaking of childish----not to mention a person who's projecting----here's a message he sent to my SSP mail box:
Quote:
someone needs to tell you this. you have got to be the most idiotic forumer on this entire site. i hope you're not clinically diagnosed with some mental deficiency or something because i'd feel genuinely bad about writing this. don't bother replying because i'm not going to respond - talking to you is like trying to talk geometry to a 3rd grader.
cheers,
"ed"
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Meanwhile, on to matters that really count. For the record, here are pro & con reviews of Nokia:
Eagles, Dixie Chicks throw open Nokia's doors
Members of the audience settle in for a concert from The Dixie Chicks after checking out
the new theatre Thursday night. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
It's a hopeful sign for the new downtown L.A. venue that its first audience felt comfortable enough to dance.
By Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2007
THE Nokia Theatre, the blindingly bright new gem of downtown Los Angeles night life, turned out to be two things Thursday during its opening night, the first of six shows by the Eagles and the Dixie Chicks. To the ears and well-cushioned backside, it was a high-class concert hall, with excellent acoustics, comfy upholstery and nearly flawless sightlines.
For the soul, the theater offered something else -- the excess stimulation only arena shows provide. Pulsing with screens, awash in colored spotlights and free of the haute-bourgeois aura that can sometimes make pop shows feel strange in older, more ornate theaters, the Nokia made it easy for 7,100 concertgoers to forget the steep cost of the night's tickets (face value of nearly $300 for orchestra seats) and cut loose.
As the Eagles boogied through two hours' worth of new songs and beloved hits, guys clinked cups of beer across the aisles. Couples pressed together, swaying to the music. Dads and teenage daughters linked arms and sang along to Don Henley's "Boys of Summer": "Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac."
This kind of raucous behavior does sometimes happen in theaters, but it's the essence of the arena-rock experience. It's a very hopeful sign for the Nokia that its first audience felt comfortable enough to dance and carouse; great pop shows run on the energy of an inspired crowd. A venue can as easily deaden the spirit of an audience as fuel it. The Nokia's atmosphere proved conducive to excitement.
This wasn't completely evident during the Dixie Chicks' set, which highlighted the theater's other strong qualities. The trio, augmented by a small brigade of sidemen, was rather staid at first, perhaps because this was the first show they'd played since winning five Grammy awards in February. Their vocal harmonies and rich, warm instrumentation showed off the hall's acoustical properties. But only after sprinting through the bluegrass breakdown "White Trash Wedding" did the band really come together.
Emily Robison's chops finally kicked in on banjo, and Martie Maguire followed suit on fiddle. Singer Natalie Maines hit her stride singing "Not Ready to Make Nice," which has become her "My Way." The set's highlights were all newer songs; the Chicks are definitely done with Nashville, and want to focus on their new, California-bred sound.
After the Chicks departed without an encore, the band that set the rules for that sound took the stage to instant pandemonium. The Eagles are consummate arena rockers: They have a repertoire fans adore, an extroverted performance style that flaunts their prowess as a band and a great sense of how to put a set together. Thursday's show built steadily by mixing hits with relative obscurities; the hits got everyone singing, while the lesser-known songs, mostly by guitarist Joe Walsh, let the Eagles turn into a jam band.
The set began with four songs from the band's new album, "Long Road Out of Eden," to be released Oct. 30. With one sung by each member, these newbies offered assurance that the Eagles sound remains intact. Don Henley offered "Busy Being Fabulous," a typical slice of moral outrage; Glenn Frey took the lead on the current single, the '70s J.D. Souther song "How Long." Walsh and bassist Timothy B. Schmit did well on their turns too.
Then a trumpet call signaled a trip down a warm desert highway. "Hotel California" was made even grander by the contributions of eight sidemen, including a horn section. Guitarist Steuart Smith played the leads made famous by the now-absent Don Felder. From behind the drums, Henley spat out his famous lyrics, sounding as tough and spooky as he did in 1976.
Frey then took the microphone, playing the natty foil to Henley's penthouse prophet. The interplay between the relaxed Frey and the intense Henley is a major factor in the Eagles' appeal. Put it this way -- Frey wrote what might be the best song about free love, "Peaceful Easy Feeling," while Henley wrote the best song about freebasing, "Life in the Fast Lane." Both sounded great during this set.
Frey and Henley played ring toss with their hits, but they also gave a lot of room to Walsh, whose wacky persona (he made a reference to his "new teeth," making light of the inevitable decay of a once hard-partying baby boomer) charms Eagles fans, but whose songs aren't quite as indelible.
Live, however, it was Walsh who helped the Eagles to explore new terrain. His songs are blues- and funk-based, and allow his mates, especially the lithe-fingered Schmit, to stretch out and groove. The tight harmonies that emblematize the Eagles sound were beautiful in this room, but the full-on jams were more surprising. At one point, the Eagles almost -- almost -- sounded like George Clinton's band Parliament-Funkadelic. If the Nokia Theatre led these old birds to try that new trick, it's truly an inspiring room.
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Nokia Theatre Not All It Should Be
Review: The Eagles and Dixie Chicks turned in fine opening-night sets, but this junior Staples Center lacks warmth.
By BEN WENER
The Orange County Register
There's a catchphrase that kept cropping up Thursday night before the debut performances at the new Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Amid the Wachovia ads and the Morgan Freeman-narrated promo detailing coming attractions of Nokia's larger home, the $2.5 billion L.A. Live project, a crazy boast became so persistent the Pavlov's dog in me had to jot it down.
(Hear Movie Trailer Guy. You know: "In a world …")
"Finally … what we've been waiting for … a new way to experience live entertainment."
First of all, who's this "we"?
Don't know about you, but apart from how venue names keep changing, I'm OK with Southern California concert-going. Our abundance of good-to-great halls hosts too much overpriced mediocrity as it is. Do we need another hot spot?
What will get locals to come out regardless – and for more than just one-of-a-kind events (or, in the case of Eagles and Dixie Chicks, six-of-a-kind events) – is if Nokia really can offer "a new way to experience live entertainment."
So ... does it?
Not really. Sure is colorful outside, and it's far from drab inside. But parts are awkward. Its rows of unattractively bolted-down multiplex seats, for instance, are too long and crowded – kinda like in an arena. The video screens, in need of a vertical-hold adjustment (everyone seems remarkably thin), are poorly integrated. They're so high and wide of the stage they can make you forget there actually is a stage. Again, kinda like in an arena.
As for Nokia's ballyhooed state-of-the-art sound, well, it's kinda like an arena's, too. That's the stab at reinvention here: cramming an arena into an amphitheater. Consider this Staples Center Jr. Only, the concept doesn't entirely work. The Eagles and Dixie Chicks both delivered engagingly scrappy (rather than boringly impeccable) performances, but the evening's chief letdown had nothing to do with either act. Both played with vigor, yet neither sounded as sharp as it should have, each coming off about as solid as they have at Staples Center, when by definition they should sound superior in a space less than half that size.
The trouble is an overall vastness, a pervasive rumble and echo. With that as an acoustical foundation, what tends to follow is a distinct lack of warmth in everything. Certainly this can be corrected (to a point) by top engineers and the sort of augmentation a group like the Eagles totes. I sense, in fact, that their mixers probably got close to optimal here – bass runs, guitar lines, accents of horns and piano all came through with clarity, even separation, while these master examples of harmony singing rang out as robustly as you'd want. (I was downright startled by the richness of the Eagles when they hit the chorus of "Lyin' Eyes.")
But the natural boom of this room seems as unavoidable as, say, that of the Grove of Anaheim. For any hall to retain warmth, the airy gulf between act and ceiling can't be too high – and the Nokia's is dangerously so. The wrong bands in sloppy hands are gonna sound like soup in this place. (Beware, Queens of the Stone Age.)
Yes, it's impressive that the Eagles could comfortably fit in all the visual enhancements they use in arenas, including an elongated video screen hung overhead. But there's also potential for such massiveness to needlessly overwhelm. Sprawls need scope to keep them from looking like chubby kids in Speedos.
As for the performances: The DCs served up a dozen songs in an hour flat – and felt a little flat as well, energy-wise. (This being their first show since February's Grammys may explain it.) Professional but also perfunctory, they lacked spark on the parade of hits the led to last year's inspired "Taking the Long Way." Eventually "Lubbock or Leave It" fired up both band and crowd, another potent rendering of "Not Ready to Make Nice" earned another roaring reception, and "Easy Silence" and that title track maintained momentum. But then the set was over. (Some nights, I hear, the ladies are joining the Eagles for "Desperado." Other guest appearances have been rumored as well – Stevie Nicks, anyone?)
I enjoyed the Eagles much more here than at the Pond in 2005, perhaps because they're playing like a band with something to prove, as opposed to well-paid nostalgia peddlers.
To that end, they boldly opened this high-profile gig with four cuts from their coming opus "Long Road Out of Eden," their first album of new material in nearly 30 years (due Oct. 30). Two were winners, including Don Henley's concise commentary "Busy Being Fabulous"; the others, from bassist Timothy B. Schmit and nutty guitar hero Joe Walsh, were bland. Patient attention was repaid with a run of staples – 10 classics plus three from Henley's songbook and three from Walsh's. Bet I'm the only one bothered by that imbalance (if you're Eagles, be Eagles), but those harmonies were so luscious – and everything else endearingly rough around the edges – that quibbling would belie how much I rooted for the geezers. Walsh would wildly miss a high note – but then shine in a solo. Henley would lose his breath, leave the beat galumphing – but then convey an overly familiar phrase with renewed conviction.
For a change, they seemed human, not like machines. Could be there's a resilient heart still beating inside this weathered bird after all.
L.A.'s Nokia Theatre is the new kid on the block
The first piece in the $2.5 billion L.A. Live entertainment complex, opens this week with a big-name roster – led by the Eagles and Dixie Chicks – that puts competing venues on notice.venues on notice.
By BEN WENER
The Orange County Register
It's a cloudless, azure afternoon in mid-September, perfect weather for another day of construction at the massive, messy site that is slowly becoming L.A. Live. The sprawl, extending out some 4 million square feet across from Staples Center and the L.A. Convention Center, will eventually give rise to what developers envision as a Times Square for Los Angeles. With an estimated price tag of $2.5 billion, the expanse will become an entertainment and housing complex the likes of which the city has never had.
The list of coming attractions is long, every facet another piece in AEG president and CEO Timothy J. Leiweke's master plan for reinvigorating downtown Los Angeles, a campaign launched (along with Anschutz Entertainment Group) with Staples Center in 1999. ESPN will have its own wing, with a viewable-from-the-street studio – just like MTV's glass box overlooking Times Square. The Grammys are getting a museum. More than 25 restaurants will be featured, along with movie theaters, a bowling alley and a 2,300-capacity nightclub. Towering behind it all will be a 54-story skyscraper, divided into condos, apartments, a 123-room Ritz-Carlton hotel and an 878-room J.W. Marriott hotel.
Most of that won't appear until late next year, with the tower's unveiling not until 2010. But right now – as Staples Center general manager Lee Zeidman leads the way through a service tunnel beneath Chick Hearn Court to the underground facilities of this new operation he's overseeing – it is 31 days until the first fixture at L.A. Live, the Nokia Theatre, opens for business, kicking off Thursday with the first of six shows from the Eagles and Dixie Chicks.
"The thing you should notice first," Zeidman says as he steps out of the Nokia's main lobby and into the hall itself, "is that it's not a theater."
He has a point. Even at this phase, with only half the chairs in place and the immense stage (180 feet wide and 80 feet deep, the largest of its kind in California) still just a series of wooden planks, an experienced concert-goer can tell that this $120 million creation is like no other venue nearby.
A NEW SORT OF THEATER
At 7,100 seats, the Nokia is slightly larger than either of its chief competitors, L.A.'s Greek Theatre and Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal CityWalk, making it a tempting stop for both midlevel tours and arena attractions looking to supplement outings with more intimate shows. Better still, its wide but never remote design, which keeps every seat (even those in the mezzanine) within 220 feet of the stage, avoids slanted sightlines that can crop up at the Greek and Gibson.
Then there's the duality of the Nokia's construction. The plush bottom half looks and feels like a performing arts center – a contemporary Radio City Music Hall for the West, as its designers have deemed it, complete with luxury lofts flanking the orchestra section. But the array of catwalks and piping high above looks more like an arena's roof – the better to utilize enormous trusses upon which major productions can be hung and spread out.
As such, the venue is ready-made for Hollywood's endless parade of award shows. Already the American Music Awards, slated for Nov. 18, has moved from the aging Shrine Auditorium to the Nokia, while the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the ESPYs and MTV's annual galas are being courted.
"There's no facility comparable to this," Zeidman boasts. "In some respects, it's like a miniarena."
Indeed, the Nokia is not unlike the half-house configuration that sometimes occurs at Anaheim's Honda Center – only done right, with detailed attention to finishing touches and great expense given to acoustics. When I show concern for how much the music might bounce around in such a vaulted space, Zeidman assures me that everywhere I look there will be or already is acoustic paneling. Even up top, amid all that piping and rigging.
It also doesn't hurt to have JBL installing a state-of-the-art sound system touring acts can use or augment. (Also enhancing the experience: two 16-foot-by-28-foot LED video screens on either side of the stage.) Then there are the amenities. Each level has its own concession and bar area seemingly as wide as the venue itself, while an 800-space underground garage leads to a swanky lounge that will most often be used for after-parties.
Getting people to realize the same conveniences downstairs are available upstairs may be tricky, Zeidman admits, as is the need to redirect people toward peripheral parking lots, given that L.A. Live sits where most people used to leave cars during Lakers games. Zeidman notes there are 20,000 spaces within a 10-minute walk of the venue, "but it'll be a process of re-educating people to go to them, just as we have to face the challenge of getting people not to fight lines on (Nokia's) main level."
SHAKING UP THE INDUSTRY
Whether L.A. Live will achieve its goal of radically revitalizing downtown is as unknown as whether Nokia will trump all other midsize venues in SoCal. The concept already seems to be dividing people – some praising the economic spike it should bring to the area, others decrying it as superficial artifice that won't complement older architecture. Yet, regardless how the rest of it shapes up, Nokia arrives next week as a considerable threat to the relative stability of the local concert industry.
It goes without saying that such an ambitious undertaking would attract big names in its first few months. In addition to the run from the Eagles and Dixie Chicks, the roster of A-list talent acquired so far includes Neil Young, John Fogerty and Aretha Franklin, country favorite Sugarland, Latin heartthrob Enrique Iglesias, edgier fare from Björk, Tool and Queens of the Stone Age and a stop on the next "So You Think You Can Dance" tour.
"Our booking philosophy is simple," explains Randy Phillips, president and CEO of AEG's concert-producing counterpart, AEG Live. "Book as many nights a year as you can, and diversity will be a natural extension of that."
In the process, Nokia could steal away a sizable chunk of shows that otherwise might have turned up at Gibson or the Greek, not to mention the 8,000-seat Pacific Amphitheatre, which is aiming for a full season next year, not just July dates in conjunction with the Orange County Fair. It begs the question: Even
in such an intensely oversaturated market, are there enough tours to go around?
"Our competitors might not see it this way, but we believe the more competition there is, the better it will be for everyone," Phillips says. The Greek, he realizes, "is an experience unto itself"; it's not likely to suffer at the hands of Nokia anymore than the Hollywood Bowl has since Staples Center emerged. But Gibson, a much older building with less flexibility that is booked by AEG Live's direct national rival, Live Nation – "They will have a problem with us … we are going to take acts from there."
Already, comedian George Lopez, who tends to end each year with a stand at Gibson, has moved over to Nokia. (Live Nation declined to comment.) Plus, the
new venue has an edge over Gibson (and the Greek) in terms of access; it's a shorter drive for Orange County concert-goers, for instance, while any inconvenience with satellite parking lot pales in comparison to the headaches the other two can bring.
Phillips says the goal with Nokia is to extend the "consumer experience" Staples is known for while establishing a venue that could outpace all predecessors. AEG opened a similar spot in 2002 just outside of Dallas, the Nokia Theatre Grand Prairie. "That has become the hottest venue in the country, in terms of number of nights," Phillips claims. "That's what we wanted to create here – only on steroids, because it's L.A."
The plan also hopes to position L.A. Live as a breeding ground for future superstars. Next October will bring the opening of the 2,300-capacity Nokia Club. "Theoretically," Zeidman says, "we could have a band play there, then grow up to play (Nokia Theatre), and then graduate to Staples Center – elementary school, high school, and then college."
For now, though, with some carpet yet to be laid down and dust and debris clouding up the 5,000-square-foot LED displays that can recolor the venue inside and out at will, such a tradition, let alone staggering success, is only a prediction.
"It's an exciting time," Zeidman says. "But it's also a nervous time, because you're right … there seems to be a tremendous amount of work left to be done. (But) I can't be out there cracking the whip. I'm the guy waiting for the keys.
"And one way or another, the Eagles will be on that stage."
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