Closeout to the Summer

Made the most of the fading summer season. First on Friday night, I took Yan to the Coldplay concert at Nissan Pavilion. The weather was great for an outdoor concert, albeit a little chilly for me. It was fun just lying on the lawn and staring up at all the stars while the opening band was playing. Overall, I have to say the concert itself was pretty good. They played most of their big hits, and only a disappointingly few of their great songs that never made it to the radio. That was one of the many drawbacks of the show, which was enough to make very sour to concerts at Nissan Pavilion and make me think twice about going to another Coldplay concert. Here come the gripes. First of all, it took more than 3 hours to get from my house to Nissan Pavilion. I understand there was some rush hour traffic, but it was simply chaotic. Once there, Coldplay didn't come on until 9:20pm or so. But they only played for slightly more than an hour. That was probably the most disappointing part. We heard about 3-5 songs per album and most of the stuff that they play on the radio. Let's see if I can remember correctly (not in this order):

Talk
White Shadows
Speed of Sound
Til Kingdom Come
Politik
The Scientist
Clocks
God Put a Smile on Your Face
Green Eyes?
Yellow
Trouble
Everything's not Lost
And a Johnny Cash Song

The encore was short. With them only playing: In My Place and Fix You. We tried to beat the crowd and split before most people, but we got stuck nonetheless. It took us another 2.5 hours to get home anyway. At least I didn't let the young whippersnapper cut in front of me in the parking lot. BOOYAH!

On Saturday, Yan and I met up with lindot for a dim sum lunch at Oriental East. It was good seeing him and his sarcastic ways again. He seems to be doing ok, but I think he'd do better if Jackie were down here with him, if anything, to keep him from starving and stepping on crap on the floor of the elevator.

Afterwards, Yan took me on Part II of my birthday present, a chauffered tour of Virginia wine country. I was very pleasantly surprised by the number and quality of the wineries. I guess I always imagined it to be 2 or 3 wineries down a dusty road. Instead it's quite spread out in Loudoun county along with the rest of Virginia. We only had time and the energy to hit up four vineyards, and for the most part they were very good. We picked a up a few bottles here and there and chatted briefly with Tracy, one of Yan's friends that works at a vineyard part-time. What a great way to spend a Saturday with the one I love.

Dang it, now the pressure's on me to one up her again.