Four Concerts, Seven Bands, Five Days

It’s been a busy few days in Chicago. I originally booked this trip for the Vienna Teng concert and launch of her new album, but as the timing worked out I was able to also fit in the Hart Davis Bordeaux tasting, a fantastic new production of Evita, and several other concerts by favorite bands. The musical odyssey began on Saturday with the first of three concerts at SPACE, the wonderful performance venue just down the street from Dani’s condo. Ari Hest at SPACE We had dinner at the Union Pizza company and then saw Ari Hest, who did a great job. His music works particularly well as a solo performance, and the place was packed with fans. We continued on Sunday with a Dar Williams concert at City Winery. We hadn’t been to this venue before, which is down on Randall Street not far from Dani’s office and the Girl and the Goat restaurant. CityWinery It’s a massive space, with a working winery (grapes shipped in from California and Europe), restaurant, bar, and large performance venue where they serve dinner before and during the show. The wine offerings were extensive, and the food, mostly shared plates, is terrific. The warm up act was Nina, an 18-year-old who had an interesting playing style. We would have bought her CD, but her mom took her home before Dar’s concert ended! Dar Williams at City Winery Dar was great, talking a lot with the audience, and really funny. She played all our favorites, and a few others we didn’t know, although I think we have all of her CDs. While at the Ari Hest concert Saturday we saw a poster for Theo Katzman (who we’d seen before) but discovered Jillette Johnson was warming up for him. So we had to return to SPACE on Monday to see both of them. Despite the late booking and a packed house, somehow we ended up with our usual front row center table. That was a pleasant surprise! Jillette Johnson at SPACE

Jillett’s music is great, but she seemed tired, perhaps due to an early morning television appearance. Theo, on the other hand, has realy amped up his act since we last same him. This might be the tightest band I’ve ever heard, and the crowd, as they saw, went wild.

The Katzman at SPACE

After a day off to recuperate, we returned to SPACE on Wednesday for the grand finale, Vienna Teng. This new tours is in support of her album Aims, released the day before.  In addition to show tickets, we’d bought admission to the sound check, and it was great fun watching them rehearse.

ViennaTengRehearsal Since this was the first concert on their tour, they were still working out lots of stuff, which made it very interesting. After the sound check there was a meet and great in the green room, and about 15 of us got to chat with Vienna for close to an hour.

BarnabyBright

The warm up act was Barnaby Bright, another favorite of ours, and it was great to see the audience response to them. I think they’ll have a lot of new fans as a result of this tour.

ViennaAlexJordan Vienna, Alex Wong, and Jordan put on a great show, playing our favorite songs, and some great stuff off the new album. Since Dani and I particularly like two obscure older songs, it was pretty neat that they were the two Vienna chose to do solo: Whatever You Want and Recessional. They finished with the raucous Level Up from the new album, and then an acoustic number (unamplified) and finally Vienna sang a cappella. A great concert, and a wonderful start to her tour.

1990 and 2000 Bordeaux Tasting

Hart Davis organizes an annual Bordeaux retrospective, and this year’s event was particularly impressive. It was held in the private room above Spiaggia overlooking Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It’s a beautiful space, although Spiaggia itself is a fairly terrible restaurant.

Since 1990 and 2000 were both excellent years, I was really looking forward to this event. Dani and I spent about 90 minutes comparing the 40 wines on offer, opting to pour the two vintages from each chateau side by side, so we could compare them.

I took a fair number of notes, but most were in agreement with professionally published tasting notes, so I will omit them. Here are my numeric rankings, with the 1990 followed by the 2000 in each case. Bold faced entries are particularly good buys:

Château Calon-Ségur 95, 93

Château Cheval Blanc 97+, 97

Château Clinet 90, 88

Château La Conseillante 95, 94

Château Cos d’Estournel 90, 95

Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 90, 89

Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste 90, 92

Château Gruaud Larose 88, 97

Château Haut-Brion 98, 100

Château Lafite Rothschild 98, 99

Château Latour 97, 98

Château Léoville-Las-Cases 99, 95

Château Léoville Poyferré 90, 89

Château Lynch-Bages 95, 94

Château Margaux 92, 98

Château La Mission Haut-Brion 96, 98+

Château Montrose 96, 94

Château Mouton Rothschild 97, 100

Château Palmer 94, 96

Château Pichon-Longueville, Baron 92, 99

Château Pichon-Longueville, Lalande 94, 99

 

After the tasting we joined our friends Ron and Bev for a dreadful dinner at Spiaggia. But we brought some of our own wines, which redeemed the meal:

59 Charmes-Chambertin Pierre Ponnelle (Steve)
Really youthful, mint, cherries, lemon curd,  vanilla, orange, cedar, coffee, drinks like a wine from the 80s, 94 pts

59 Clos St Denis Pierre Ponnelle (Ron)
Old burgundy nose, mushrooms, caramel, sweet, mouth filling, 94 pts

1966 Haut Brion (Steve)
Soy sauce, chewy, wood, older Bordeaux nose, yet still lots of fruit, 94 pts

1966 La Mission Haut Brion (Ron)
Cherries, not quite as complex as the Haut Brion, very youthful, 94 pts