{"id":5016,"date":"2010-12-10T14:11:14","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T18:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/?p=5016"},"modified":"2010-12-10T14:27:57","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T18:27:57","slug":"alex-wong-at-rockwood-music-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/10\/alex-wong-at-rockwood-music-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Wong at Rockwood Music Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Wong<\/a> played a solo set at Rockwood Music Hall<\/a> last night. Usually, that means a lot of guests (and this show was similarly teased). But last night was nearly purely solo, with the exception of Alex Berger<\/a> (visiting here from the UK) joining on two songs.<\/p>\n

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

If you were there, but didn\u2019t know Alex, it\u2019s remotely possible that you didn\u2019t know who you were listening to. When he first introduced himself, he just said: \u201cHi, I\u2019m Alex\u201d (no mention of his last name). He quickly started playing on that. He said, \u201cI\u2019m Alex, with an extra two X\u2019s at the end.\u201d Followed by \u201cActually, it\u2019s Alex with an ick and three X\u2019s, as in AlickXXX\u201d, which ended up being his nickname for the night.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll take him with however many X\u2019s he wants to tack on to his name. \"Winking<\/p>\n

I saw Alex at Rockwood a month ago without Lois. Here\u2019s what I had to say about that night<\/a>. You\u2019ll note the many guests that night. As importantly, you\u2019ll note the mention of three new songs, each co-written with a different person. I was very sorry that Lois missed them that night and just as equally happy that she got to hear them last night!<\/p>\n

She loved all three (instantly) as did the other five people at our table (their reaction to the songs was palpable!). It\u2019s no surprise to those of us that love Alex. He\u2019s an amazing songwriter (solo or co-writer). He\u2019s one of our favorite producers as well. Aside from his musical talents, he\u2019s flat out one of our favorite people.<\/p>\n

In my previous post, I mentioned that Alex performed Motion Sickness and split the audience in half, with me in the \u201cna na na\u201d section. Last night, the split was right where I was sitting, so I could have legally<\/em> chosen either part. To shake things up, I chose the \u201cOh, oh, oh oh oh\u201d part this time. In retrospect, I made a wise choice, it challenged me more than the \u201cNa na na\u201d part. \"Winking<\/p>\n

Alex teased us on his second number, playing the intro to Brooklyn Blurs. He then backed off, saying it was too much of a summer song, so he switched to a more wintry one.<\/p>\n

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

For his third song, he invited Alex Berger on stage. Alex played the grand piano and sang gorgeous harmony with AlickXXX (note how cleverly I avoided the confusing use of last names in that sentence!). \"Winking They played Don\u2019t Be Afraid.<\/p>\n

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

When Alex played the song he co-wrote with Nate Campany<\/a> (I don\u2019t know the name, it\u2019s the one with the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah\u2019s) he noted that Nate was in the audience, but that he was unlikely to come up and sing. A few people in the audience were really vocal about encouraging Nate to come up, unsuccessfully.<\/p>\n

Berger agreed to come back up, singing the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah part in harmony with Wong. Beautiful, the song and the harmony. I need a professionally produced version of this song, pronto. Get on it AlickXXX!<\/p>\n

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

Another highlight of the evening was Alex (back to Wong now) playing In the Creases, one of our favorite songs. I couldn\u2019t stop thinking that an entire set of the various versions of In the Creases that we\u2019ve see live would make for an awesome show.<\/p>\n

First up, Alex playing In the Creases (ITC) solo. Then ambeR Rubarth<\/a> doing it solo. Then the two of them (they could even do it three times in a row, once with each playing the guitar alone and once with both playing the guitar at the same time).<\/p>\n

Next would be Alex playing it with Melissa Tong<\/a> and David Fallo<\/a> on the strings. Then bring ambeR back up to play it with the strings as well.<\/p>\n

Finally, the crescendo, bring Vienna Teng<\/a> up (keeping the strings) and add Katie Scheele<\/a> on oboe and recreate the most perfect version of ITC we\u2019ve ever heard live with Vienna on the grand piano and adding three-part harmony to the mix. Ahhhhhhhh, just remembering it brings me peace and joy!<\/p>\n

Yes, we have indeed seen every combination of the above versions of ITC and loved them all!<\/p>\n

Another wonderful set, thanks AlickXXX.<\/p>\n

We got there 10 minutes before Alex\u2019s set. I stood outside (brrr) and caught up on some comms on my Droid. Lois went in and heard the last song of the set before Alex, Dorie Colangelo<\/a>. Lois was extremely impressed by Dorie.<\/p>\n

When I walked in, she was telling Dorie how wonderful her voice was. She asked if Dorie had any CDs\/EPs and Dorie handed her one (she didn\u2019t want money for it). Lois insisted. She asked me for money. Since I wasn\u2019t privy to the conversation, I handed her a $5, thinking it was the standard fee for most EPs. When I loaded it up this morning, I saw that it was an 11-song CD. I\u2019ll slip Dorie some more money the next time we see her. Given Lois\u2019 reaction, I\u2019m sure there will be a next time<\/em>. \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

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

After the show, I made my way to the room on the other side of the bar. In all the times that we\u2019ve been at Rockwood, I\u2019ve never been in that room (used as the green room, but it\u2019s open to the public, so not quite a real green room, just a staging area). I bumped into Tony Maceli<\/a> there and got to tell him in person how amazing he was the night before, playing as part of Greg Holden<\/a>\u2019s band.<\/p>\n

Only two shows (that I know we\u2019re going to) before we hit a month-long dry spell. The first will be on Sunday, 1:30pm, seeing Artemis Chamber Ensemble<\/a> (at Holy Family Church<\/a> in Larchmont, NY). They are amazing. Then on Monday night, we\u2019ll be at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2, 10pm, to see Alex Berger perform. Can\u2019t wait! \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

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

Alex Wong played a solo set at Rockwood Music Hall last night. Usually, that means a lot of guests (and this show was similarly teased). But last night was nearly purely solo, with the exception of Alex Berger (visiting here from the UK) joining on two songs. If you were there, but didn\u2019t know Alex, […]<\/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":[505,483,806,1367,521,493],"class_list":["post-5016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-2","tag-alex-berger","tag-alex-wong","tag-dorie-colangelo","tag-music","tag-nate-campany","tag-rockwood-music-hall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016","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=5016"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5018,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions\/5018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}