Busy days...

Sunday was a pretty stacked day. We went to Alice's Now and Zen during the day, and then drove over to North Beach (I think the first time we actually chose to drive in the city to do something since moving here) to catch Russell Peters at the Cobb's Comedy Club.

The rationale behind going to Alice's Now and Zen was primarily "there's a fairly cheap concert in the park, and we're relatively near the park. Why not go?" The bands I didn't particularly care one way or the other about - Gin Blossoms, Joss Stone, James Blunt, and opening group Peter Bjorn and John. Turns out I knew and liked the Gin Blossoms music the best, didn't know anything by Joss Stone, and James Blunt is a lot more energetic than I would have expected in concert. And for some reason unknown to me, he covered Peter Bjorn and John's "Whistle Song", only minus any whistling. We got to the park around 10:50AM (doors opened at 11) to discover a long line stretching down JFK Drive, but luckily it turned out to not be so bad when we got in - got a good-size spot a reasonable distance from the stage so it wasn't too loud but we weren't super-far, either. I was extremely happy that the day before we'd gone to get lawn/beach chairs from Sports Authority - a 5 hour concert lounging in chairs with $5 toss pillows we'd gotten from Target turned out to be a great way to see things. Admittedly, after the crowd stood up for Joss Stone, we stayed resolutely sitting so I didn't end up *seeing* much (also, I pulled out my book), but it was an enjoyable way to spend the day. The weather was typical SF - went from slightly drizzly and extremely grey when we arrived to bright blue and sunny and almost hot by the time we left. We brought our own sandwich-making materials and a lot of snacks, so I didn't have to pay for any over-priced festival food (plus, they didn't have funnel cake!). They did have a number of booths giving stuff away for free, though.

The Russell Peters show at Cobb's was hilarious. It's always interesting to see the distribution of the audiences to shows, and the audience for his show was very telling - primarily Asian/Indian. It was totally sold out, and the line was already stretching halfway up the next block by the time we arrived almost an hour before the show. We got a great seat - not close enough to the stage for him to pick on us, but close enough to get a great view. They chose an interesting array of comics to open for him - one white guy, one Mexican, one black guy, and one Japanese guy. Definite rainbow there. The Japanese guy I didn't like that much - he had funny jokes that he would then ruin by taking too far, laughing at too hard, or explaining. The other guys were pretty good. Russell Peters was definitely the highlight, though. I'm still unclear how much of the show is pre-scripted and how much is spontaneous (drawing from his pool of jokes) based on the audience responses he gets...and how much is planted (why are people suddenly shouting their nationalities at random points in the show when he doesn't even ask?). But his style is very loose and funny and very interactive. He can get quite insulting when interacting with the audience, but he turns it out all into hilarity. And his accents are great - Indian, Chinese, Filipino, etc. His comedy is largely about race and racial stereotypes (or not even so much stereotypes as inside joke for each culture) and it totally cracks me up.