Last Tour to Endor: The Original Star Tours Experience, Part 4

Inside the cabin of the Starspeeder 3000, there were more video reminders to stow loose items and prohibiting flash photography and smoking. Then there was Rex, the Paul Ruebens-voiced droid pilot of your journey. I snapped some blurry, in-motion, low-light level shots during the ride, including the last shot of the George Lucas look-alike who ducks under the control panel. The ride was a classic.

Last Tour to Endor: The Original Star Tours Experience, Part 3

Here are some shots of the original Star Tours pre-show video. It’s all about themeing and that means immersion into the attraction’s world. Although certainly showing its age, Star Tours did that, in part, by creating a pre-boarding video incorporating everything from Ewoks and Chewbacca to the pre-show announcer’s funky hairstyles. Enjoy!

Last Tour to Endor: The Original Star Tours Experience, Part 2

Today we have some shots of the queueing area at Star Tours in Orlando. It was pretty well-known for all the easter eggs and hidden Mickeys. Things like the letters and numbers on the conveyer baskets representing the initials and birthdates of the Imagineers who worked on the attraction, and the arrangement of droid parts to create the iconic three-circle Mickey Mouse head. I always loved the atmosphere they were able to convey with the use of light and animatronics...

Last Tour to Endor: The Original Star Tours Experience, Part 1

I’m excited to experience the new Star Tours attraction at Walt Disney World. I’ve been following StarTours2Live.com and their Twitter feed for a while now, and with the official reopening of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue scheduled for the end of this week, I thought it might be fun to share some of our pictures from the Last Tour to Endor at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (though it'll always be "MGM" to me). The event was a part of Star Wars Celebration V that took place in Orlando, Florida, last August. Along with some key attractions like The Great Movie Ride and Toy Story Midway Mania, there was a special Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular that was reworked and retitled “Raiders of the Lost Jedi Temple of Doom: A Fan Film of ‘Epic’ Proportions” with all kinds of guest stars depending on which of the three performances you attended, and, of course, Star Tours was up and running.

I figured we’d start off with a couple of shots of the promotional diorama at the Disney booth at CV, and some event signage at the Studios…

Coat of Arms

We are in the process of cleaning and purging the contents of our basement. We’ve held on to a lot of crap alongside a lot of important items from our collective and individual histories. Over the last few days and nights, I’ve been working my way through boxes of exclusively my stuff. Folders, photo albums, cartons of action figures and toys, baseball and football cards, cards from my wife, letters from friends… the same sorts of things you probably have in your basement.

I had a particular photo album that had all my organized sports team photos and all my class photos from grade school, along with all my choir and school programs, and miscellaneous items (like an autographed picture of Lindsay Wagner and a clipped story from the newspaper about Michael Jackson’s record setting eight Grammy awards win). But in the front of that album, on the very first page, was this…

I wish I could remember what year I made this. I am sure it was a school assignment – a “Make Your Own Crest” type of project. And I can still remember the reasons behind each and every item:

• Purple and orange because they were my favorite colors (purple still is one of my favorites).
• The basketball because, despite my size, I always loved to play it (just like my kiddo who faces the same size challenges).
• My name in calligraphy because I was into art and my mom signed me up for a calligraphy class at the local art shop.
• The tent because my family camped while growing up, and it was a huge part of my childhood (although we camped in a hardtop camper, not a tent, I took some artistic license here).
• The Walkman, baby. Music has always been important to me.
• Pitfall! I loved my Atari 2600, and I loved Pitfall.
• A comic book. Note: Even as a kid I was apparently sensitive to copyright infringement issues and, instead of rendering my favorite Marvel comic cover, I opted to go generic. Or, at least, that’s the story we’ll go with to cover the fact that I probably spent my entire artistic bankroll interpreting the Pitfall screen capture.

So, yeah. It was crazy to stumble on this and realize just how accurate a representation of the kid version of me it is (clearly, I took this assignment seriously and put a lot of thought into it), and although I don’t go camping and I don’t play a lot of video games anymore, I do still enjoy shooting hoops with the kiddo, appreciate art, love music, and continue to read comics. I guess four out of six ain’t bad.

Agent Provocateur

The Monster Ball Tour Starring Lady Gaga
27 April 2011: Quicken Loans Area, Cleveland, Ohio

If you know me, you know I have a soft spot for pop music. Girl pop, in particular, since the late ’90s. There was something about the Spice Girls and the pop confection they were putting out that I can trace this girl pop love directly back to those five ladies. From there it was Kylie and Britney and Rihanna and on and on, straight up through Adele. I love it.

Falling somewhere between my beloved girl pop and the serious artistry of Madonna is Lady Gaga. I disregarded Gaga as long as I could, but “Bad Romance” couldn’t be ignored. More than an earwig, the song is everything I could possibly want from a pop song: attitude, sex, hooks, a driving beat under a melodic wave. Impossibly fun. That was all it took, and I was in.

Somehow, the first time Gaga brought the Monster Ball through town (July 2010), the ticket sale got by us, and we didn’t get to the table until the show was already sold out. I was genuinely disappointed. Fast forward a few months and it’s announced that the tour that started in 2009 was finally coming to a close after a third North American leg. The third to last show – and the last North American performance – was scheduled for Northeast Ohio. I was buried in work when the announcement came out and had no idea, but when I turned 40 last October, Tracy surprised me with a pair of tickets to the encore Cleveland performance!

The entire event – from the moment we arrived downtown to the walk back to the car four and a half hours later – was encased in fun surreality. Just driving to the parking deck provided plenty of visual cues that this was no ordinary night in front of us. It was like Halloween had arrived six months early. Say what you will about them, Gaga’s fans are devoted. And they put it on display in every way imaginable. Regardless of gender, there was plenty of bubble and Saran Wrap, hot pants, fishnets, leather, caution tape, beer can rollers, face paint, wigs, and the pelts of a thousand dead Muppets. It was a glorious spectacle.

While hanging out in the main concourse of The Q before the show, I told Tracy that as much as anything else I was struck by the sense of community among the fans Gaga has dubbed her “Little Monsters.” It reminded me of the punk scene we belonged to back in the day. There was a freedom to look how you wanted to look; be who you wanted to be. I didn’t see a single person hassled at the show for how they looked or what they chose to flaunt.

Announcing around 9pm that “We are Semi Precious Weapons from New York mother fucking City, and we hope you all get laid!” the supporting act took the stage. It has been a long time since an opening act I was completely unfamiliar with moved me, but SPW did it. With the ferocity of vintage PiL Johnny Rotten and all the theatricality of Freddie Mercury, Justin Tranter was the consummate front man. While they are the “filthy party band” they claim to be, that description falls short in defining who they are. Songs like “Semi Precious Weapons” (with the unforgettable opening line: “I can’t pay my rent, but I’m fucking gorgeous!”), and “Put a Diamond In It” were catchy as hell and hard-edged as any alternative rocker. Tranter played the crowd masterfully, telling them “You know why we love Cleveland? Two reasons: 1) You bitches love rock and roll, and 2) you like to drink!” before launching into “Sticky with Champagne”. The playful 30+ minute set was the most fun I’ve had with an unknown opening act in years, and I was left wanting more. And about an hour later, I got the “more” I needed in the form of Gaga.

After much delay, Gaga took the stage at 10:30pm and moved through four set changes, 18 songs, and innumerable costume alterations over the following two hours. While calling the Little Monsters a “spectacle” may seem like an overstatement, the word doesn’t even come close to describing the show itself. The woman is a showman first and foremost, clearly determined to give her fans their money’s worth. The idea of a storyline doesn’t exactly hold up in execution, but on paper Gaga and her dancers are trying to get from the seediest side of NYC to the Monster Ball by way of subway and some sort of fucked-up Narnia.

Each set change was preceded by movie shorts projected on a giant stage-covering scrim that showed things like Gaga gnawing on a heart, and Gaga being covered by a green paint spewing girl. All the clichéd arena rock trappings were present... repeated name checks of the city, high theatrics, pointing out a song she wrote in Cleveland, and pyrotechnics.

The second quarter of the show (the subway sequence) included an explicit shout-out to her “Cleveland gays” in the intro to “Boys Boys Boys” before ripping through a great version of the song. Shortly thereafter, Gaga called one of her fans in the arena from the stage. It played out in the exact mix of sincerity and mawkishness you’d expect: the fan’s adoration getting a little uncomfortable and Gaga’s reciprocation equally offbeat, but extricating herself from the call was clever genius. Gaga told the fan she had another call coming in from Beyonce and launched into “Telephone”.

This was followed by an extended piano version of “Born This Way” (complete with a rambling monologue about her never being able to ever prove to the fans how much she loves them and how much she’s been through and how being there is just a dream come true and that fans should remember her story if they ever feel down and on and on and you get the picture). She stayed at the piano for another new song, “You and I”, that she said she wrote last summer in Cleveland and that Brian May of Queen played guitar on for the new album.

The second half of the show (the fucked-up forest and the finale) was packed with hits and undeniably catchy songs. Beginning with “Teeth” and barreling through “Alejandro”, “Poker Face”, “Paparazzi”, “Bad Romance”, and “Born This Way”, Gaga delivered on every level.

"Born This Way" is more than the name of her current single and forthcoming album. I'm not sure if Gaga is a marketing shill or genuinely believes in her own words, but the way she wove the idea of being "born this way" into the entire show, it was clearly the theme of the night. She couldn't go more than a few minutes between reminding her Little Monsters that either she was or they were born this way. She even played two versions of the song: the midpoint piano version and the single-song encore full-blown version.

While it's easy to question her musical originality – one listen to the new single or "Dance In the Dark" and it's clear Gaga’s no stranger to Madonna's songbook – the uniqueness of her character is undeniable. Gaga is as much an icon today for both her persona and music as Madonna was at the peak of her relevancy. But, thinking back on the ’80s, Madge’s shock value seemed to be derived from shock for marketing’s sake, whereas Gaga’s meat dresses and general exhibition seem to come from a somewhat less contrived place – feeling like a more natural extension of the act. By the same token, Gaga is as much a part of Bono’s legacy in her fearlessness of using her status for socially active promotion as she is Madonna’s. Between the opening act and the main set a video was played of the performer urging fans to text donations to charities that help GLBT kids who’ve been forced out of their homes because they were (yes, here it comes again) born this way, and a donation was made in the name of the fan she called during the show to a charity that offers support to gay kids.

Last year, I saw bits of Gaga's Oprah interview online and was struck by what appeared to be a cross between genuine appreciation for her fans and radical insecurity. In concert, Gaga is prone to bouts of over-emotion that manifest themselves unexpectedly in the middle of songs or while half-naked on a piano bench. These eruptions were uncomfortably raw, often rambling monologues about never being able to repay the fans for believing in her and how far she has come and to, basically, don't let the bastards bring you down.

It certainly appears Gaga takes her position as inspiration and role model for the gays and freaks and misfits of the world seriously, and that seems to be where these emotional outbursts originate. The result is an R rated old-time gospel tent revival, an Up With People-positive production slathered in sex for the 21-and-over crowd.

(All photos by Tracy Besenyodi.)

Punk Schmaltz

Green Day
06 May 2005: CSU Convocation Center, Cleveland, Ohio

When Dookie broke, there were rumblings from Green Day’s northern California punk brethren that they had sold out and had become corporate, mainstream whores. Green Day denied it, and I think they were justified in that denial at the time. But I have to wonder what their contemporaries would think if they attended one of the stops on Green Day’s American Idiot tour.

Admittedly, I wrote off Dookie as, well… dookie. But I eventually picked up their greatest hits collection and then got the brilliant American Idiot when it was released. And the more I listened, the more I was convinced that Green Day were the latter-day Clash. In 2004, Green Day mattered, at a time when very few artists did. And they knew their history: The album is rife with overt references to the likes of the Who, Bowie, and Mott the Hoople. Much like the Clash, they're not afraid to trot out their album collection and put their influences out there, as well as their politics.

Taking its activist and socially conscience tone from “Minority,” a single off their immediately previous album, American Idiot is a fierce indictment against the second Bush administration, the war in Iraq, and the neo-cons of the Religious Right. It contains bold statements of conviction. Lines of songs – like “Maybe I am the faggot America / I’m not a part of a redneck agenda” from the title track, and “Pulverize the Eiffel towers / Who criticize your government” from “Holiday” – drip with contempt and irony that amount to landing a kick somewhere slightly south of the Bible Belt. And the political Left doesn’t make it out of the fray unscathed either, as the band takes a swipe at the John Kerry’s of the world (remember him?) with the “Holiday” line: “Hear the drum pounding out of time / Another protester has crossed the line / To find the money’s on the other side.”

I have been to my fair share of punk shows and seen footage of the Clash live, but nothing prepared me for what I saw one night in May 2005. When I got my tickets for the American Idiot tour stop at the Wolstein Center on the edge of the Cleveland State University campus, I had visions of attending a punk show. I did not get what I expected. What I got was Def Leppard pyrotechnics and a Britney Spears audience. The show opened with five of the first six songs off of American Idiot… but they were peppered with “1-2, 1-2-3-4’s” and “Hey-O” call and responses. As if channeling all the 70’s arena rockers who influenced them, Green Day offered numerous call-outs to Cleveland and lyric changes to incorporate the hometown. Flashpots lit up the stage, synchronized with songs and illuminating the arena. The satiric pinnacle was the cover of Queen’s “We are the Champions” during the encore, complete with lyrics flashing on the giant curtain of lights so the kids too young to know them could sing along. It was clichéd and schmaltzy. And it would have worked beautifully for me on an ironic level, if not for being surrounded by girls less than half my age screaming and crying in N*Sync-like joy at attending their first concert – with their mom’s and dad’s in tow – turning the evening’s proceedings into a wholly surreal affair.

While I was surprised by how much I enjoyed hearing the older material live, I would have preferred Green Day to play the American Idiot album in its entirety – straight through, in order, and uninterrupted. There is a ferociousness to the American Idiot material – a combination of urgency and (what seemed like at the time) timelessness that is still compelling. In spite of the arena rock trappings, the conviction found on the album arrived in tact when translated to the live show, and was surprisingly coupled with an earnestness in its delivery. And while I think the message came across very well to the crowd, I almost wanted more political statements throughout the show to ensure the kids understand just how important it is, that it’s worth giving a damn about, and that they have the power to influence it. I appreciated frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s political comments that peppered the show and that he closed the show urging everyone in the venue to get out and make a difference. But, if you’re going to neuter your stage presence to the point where a punk show is a semi-political family-friendly event – you might as well pour it on a little thicker.

I remember this being one of the first shows where it struck me just how much concert going has changed. Before the Information Age, you had no idea what to expect when you attended a concert. Things like what the band would perform, stage setups, etc. were all a part of the great unknown. Now, with the interweb, if you choose to look you can find the set list, the stage setup, the pre-show music, reviews, and even how often the songs have been performed on that particular tour.

Going into the evening, I knew all about the big pink bunny, “YMCA”, the theme from 2001, the set list and order, the making a band bit during “Knowledge”, the “King for a Day/Shout” routine, that “Minority” would be the last song of the main set, and that a solo version of “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Armstrong would close the encore.

I’m torn on this spoiler knowledge. Part of me misses the sense of unknown and anticipation that going to a show used to generate. There was a sense of “this show is just for me” and, by virtue of not knowing what was done or played at other shows, a sense that what we were seeing was truly a unique experience. Does all this knowledge at our fingertips detract from the overall feel of the show? Maybe, but despite all that knowledge going in, by virtue of their charisma and apparent genuine appreciativeness of performing, I still felt the Green Day show I saw that Friday night in Cleveland was unique and personal and worth both my time and money.

So, is Green Day still a punk band? Are they worthy of Clash comparisons? On disc, the answer is a fairly decisive “yes.” Based on the incarnation of their live show I witnessed six years ago, the answer is a bit more of a shoulder shrug and a half-hearted “sure.”