{"id":11605,"date":"2012-03-17T14:51:06","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T18:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/?p=11605"},"modified":"2023-03-15T07:09:04","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T12:09:04","slug":"paula-valstein-at-rockwood-music-hall-stage-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/17\/paula-valstein-at-rockwood-music-hall-stage-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Paula Valstein at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paula Valstein<\/a> headlined a set at Rockwood Music Hall<\/a> Stage 2 last night. I\u2019ve been wanting to see a full set of Paula\u2019s for a while now. The fact that she was on right after the amazing Burlap to Cashmere<\/a> meant that I would already be there and didn\u2019t have to leave my seat.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen Paula do a couple of numbers, at two different benefit concerts. The first was back in January 2010 at the Haiti Benefit show. The second was three months ago at the Holiday Benefit #5 show. Both times, Paula impressed, albeit briefly.<\/p>\n

\"PaulaValsteinSinging\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Paula has a fantastic voice and plays the piano extremely well. Last night she also played the electric guitar on one number, very nicely. I liked every one of the songs, which ranged from Pop to Rock, with Jazz tinges here and there. So, she\u2019s a good songwriter too. In other words, Paula\u2019s one talented lady.<\/p>\n

\"PaulaValsteinPiano\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Given my seat for the previous set, I had the misfortune of staring at her back for all but the song when she played the guitar (nice tattoo by the way) \"Winking. It didn\u2019t affect what I heard (thankfully). Lois had a better angle, which is why you can even see Paula\u2019s face. \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

\"PaulaValsteinGuitar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know what to expect (other than I knew about her voice and piano skills). What I found out is that Paul has a regular band, of very talented musicians, helping create a big sound that has a high energy level throughout the set.<\/p>\n

Her guitarist was out sick. In addition to the rest of her band, she had one special guest, who I\u2019ll mention after listing the band members.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve complained in the past when an artist makes it hard to find their band members\u2019 names. That complaint is valid to me when they have a regular band. In this case, let me do the opposite and praise<\/strong> Paula. She has a separate page that names each band member and has a photo of them as well. It\u2019s named THE BAND<\/a>. Thank you Paula. I admit that I would have had to spend considerable time tracking down the spelling of some of the names I thought<\/em> I heard on stage last night!<\/p>\n

Left-to-right on stage:<\/p>\n

Ben Antelis<\/a> on vocals and tambourine. Ben\u2019s site lists him as a drummer, among other skills. Last night he sang a ton of harmony, perfectly. I sometimes hesitate to say sweetly<\/em> when I\u2019m writing about a guy, but I always mean it as a high compliment, so I\u2019ll say it here. Ben sang harmony sweetly<\/strong>! His tambourine play was really good too, not surprising for a drummer\/percussionist.<\/p>\n

\"BenAntelis\"<\/a>\"BenAntelisDanielOri\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Aaron Comess<\/a> on drums. Aaron was excellent on the drums (more on that when I get to the guest). I admit to not recognizing the name, but when I visited his site now to get the link, I was quite impressed with his accomplishments, including being a founding member of Spin Doctors!<\/p>\n

\"AaronComess\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Daniel Ori<\/a> on electric bass. Daniel was also excellent throughout the set. Clearly, talented musicians like to play with talented musicians, and Paula is one, and has gathered like-minded and like-talented people around her.<\/p>\n

\"DanielOri\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Feigenbaum<\/a> was a special guest. He provided great beat-boxing on one number. Toward the end of the song, he started a long-running duel with Aaron on drums. Michael would beat-box some rhythm, then turn and point to Aaron, who would wail on a drum solo, then back to Michael, etc. At first, the solos were on the longer side, showing each person\u2019s individual talent. Each one got shorter, turning it more into a call-and-answer duel, with Michael belting out some short beat, expecting Aaron to mimic him. Extremely cool and very well done!<\/p>\n

\"MichaelFeigenbaum\"<\/a>\"MichaelFeigenbaumBeatBoxing\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I very much enjoyed the entire set and look forward to catching Paula again, perhaps from a better angle next time. \"Winking<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the set list:<\/p>\n

\"SetList\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paula Valstein headlined a set at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2 last night. I\u2019ve been wanting to see a full set of Paula\u2019s for a while now. The fact that she was on right after the amazing Burlap to Cashmere meant that I would already be there and didn\u2019t have to leave my seat. I\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2],"tags":[1254,1256,1255,1257,1367,1182,493],"class_list":["post-11605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-2","tag-aaron-comess","tag-ben-antelis","tag-daniel-ori","tag-michael-feigenbaum","tag-music","tag-paula-valstein","tag-rockwood-music-hall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11605"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14234,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11605\/revisions\/14234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}