Following Rabbits Blog

I went to a concert at the Bowery Ballroom last night, namely to see Civil Twilight. They opened for Company of Thieves, who I was vaguely familiar with before the show. AM Taxi came on first, and I was really impressed. They played a 45 minute set including Shake, Rattle and Stall, and they did a rockin' cover of Paint it Black, my very fave Stones song! They also did a song with Genevieve from Company of Thieves which was great. I saw Civil Twilight back in November and was blown away by their performance. I had high expectations last night and they did not disappoint. The same two songs that I absolutely loved the last time were the two standouts again last night- Perfect Stranger and Letters from the Sky... such moving live performances that made me an instant fan of theirs when I saw them open for Evanescence. They also covered Teardrop by Massive Attack and slayed it! Unbelievable. Everyone standing around me, who were mostly Civil Twilight virgins were gushing about how awesome they were. (I, however, stood there singing every word of their set thinking, "yeah, I know.") Seemed like a short set for them, which I was kinda sad about. Company of Thieves came out and I was almost immediately a fan. They have an incredible energy about them, especially Genevieve, their lead singer. She's this adorable, feisty bit of a thing that shook with excitement over selling out the Bowery and hearing everyone sing the songs along with her. Every song was another mental note to myself to download this track, until after 4 songs I just decided I needed their whole album. I wanted to go to the after-party at Angels and Kings, but didn't make it. I actually ended up leaving a bit before the end of Company of Thieves' set. The crowd was getting really pushy and obnoxious where I was standing near the stage, and I was there by myself. Amazing show by all three bands! Would absolutely jump at the opportunity to see all of them again.

Check out their albums on iTunes: AM Taxi, Civil Twilight, Company of Thieves. 

Today I went to the Church of Craft meeting at the Etsy Labs in Brooklyn. They meet there on the first Sunday of every month from 2-6p. I've been looking to meet some crafty peeps, so I packed up my scrapbooking supplies and headed down to Brooklyn. It was a gorgeous sunny day out today, and walking around Jay and Front Streets made me miss Brooklyn a lot! I got to the Labs around 3:30, and it was pretty crowded. I tucked myself into the corner and unpacked my stuff, trying to introduce myself to everyone (who were all already wrapped up in conversation). The Labs are stocked with all kinds of craft supplies, long bench tables to spread out on, sewing machines, and big windows that let in lots of light. I'm really behind on my scrapping... I save absolutely everything and take photos almost every day, so I'm still working on getting my 2009 year-in-review together (starting with New Year's Eve 2009, pictured above). I eventually got to talking with the people at my table, including the amazingly talented guy behind Flying Haystacks (you can see his etsy shop here). There was a bit of New York cynicism when I asked people to fill out postcards for me, but before I left I got 2 ladies to help me out. (Thank you!!) I cut out a bit early so I could catch the sunset from the Brooklyn Bridge (post to come) but I may check out Etsy's other open craft time on Monday nights from 4-8p. I can't go tomorrow night because I'm going to see Civil Twilight and Company of Thieves, but maybe next week!

You must have known this post was coming, no? I apologize for the AiW overload, but I'm pretty pumped up that the rest of the world is catching up with my long-standing obsession with all things Alice. Being as big of an Alice fan as I am, I was expecting something epic from this movie, which is was not, but it was still very good. Johnny Depp is amazing... he's one of those actors that breathes his character. His portrayal of the Mad Hatter is great. The March Hare is hilarious (his lines are perfection), and Helena Bonham Carter is fantastic as the Red Queen. Everything is so over the top, but of course it's Wonderland... I think it can be expected. It's definitely worth seeing; perhaps after the opening weekend rush dies down.

This afternoon I went into the city to do some shopping (traded in a size 8 pair of jeans at the GAP and got 30% of a pair of size 6 long and lean's... woohoo!). I got off at the 59th St/Lexington Ave. subway stop and walked right past the AiW-themed Bloomingdale's windows. SO much fun! One window had a couple Sue Wong dresses, and the other window had a banquet table set up for a mad tea party with fantasy cakes by Ron Ben-Israel and great dishware, including AiW tea sets (love!). 

Long work-week this week, so my co-workers and I high-tailed it out of the office a couple hours early and crashed Dave & Buster's in Times Square. Two hours of drinking and game-playing definitely lifted everyone's mood. We had a 2 on 2 air hockey tournament, played skee-ball, tried to win giant stuffed animals with the biggest claw machine I've ever seen, raced cars, shot up stuff, and collected an obscene amount of tickets. Brian insisted we do kamikaze shots, Allie was addicted to a game she kept hitting 300 ticket jackpots on, and I had tickets wrapped around my arms and neck like bracelets and a boa. Lisa won so many tickets on a game that she kept walking away from the machine while it spit out the long string of tickets. It was so long she walked across the aisle and up onto the ramp of the skee-ball game, with the tickets still connected to the game! ha! At 5:30 we left with bags of D&B loot, candy and stuffed animals we traded in our tickets for. Such a ridiculously silly fun time.

I was first introduced to Civil Twilight's music this past November at the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom where they opened for label mates Evanescence. I had never heard of them prior, and was absolutely blown away. Live music takes such a hold of me... Ray thinks it's weird that I can always remember which songs bands play at shows, how they were moving on stage during that song, the lighting... it just gets embedded in me somehow. The dark ballroom fell silent while they starting playing the long, haunting intro of Perfect Stranger... and the lights would blaze on during the parts where the song goes from quiet to bursts of volume ("MY PERFECT stranger... don't sail away..."). It was such an amazing show! Other favorite songs of mine are Letters from the Sky and Human. Their entire album (which I downloaded from iTunes the next day) is awesome! I rocked it on my iPod for a good three weeks straight before finally letting other artists back onto my playlists, and created a Pandora station based on them.

I've been waiting (ever so impatiently) for them to do another show in NYC, and was super excited to see that they're playing this Monday at the Bowery Ballroom with Company of Thieves. I got my tickets ages ago, but you can still get them at Ticketmaster ($13 is a steal for what will be an amazing show!).

P.S. Rich takes some pretty great iPhone photos from the road and posts them here: lettersfromthesky.com.