Stacey Kent comes back to Minneapolis

Went up to see Stacey Kent, probably my favorite singer (she even supplanted James Taylor) perform at the The Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. I was going to go see her last year when she was there, but work intruded. Apparently she's been there several times before and was the first performer at the new (current) location of The Dakota.

Stacey's show was FANTASTIC. She's one of those performers that's even better live, like James Taylor. I had such a good time I stayed for her second show, too (hey, it was that or sit in my hotel room on a Sunday night...that wasn't a tough choice!) Their pianist (Art) was outstanding too, as were their bassist and drummer (both local boys, Gordon Johnson and...I think...Phil Hey.)

I got to meet and talk with Stacey and her husband Jim Tomlinson (her sax player), after the first show, and picked up a signed copy of Jim's new CD, "The Lyric" (not out in the US yet, only Europe, and featuring Stacey on 11 out of 13 songs) They were doing mostly new material and a few requests (including a few things not on any album yet) so that was great too.

She was surprised that I drove all the way up from Iowa. I stopped by after the second set and thanked her for singing "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" (she made it her own) from the musical "Oklahoma", mentioning that I'm originally from Oklahoma (Muskogee, no less!)

The forecast changed to say there would be snow in Minneapolis late in the week, though. Argh! The day was not bad, though rainy, and I was hoping that we weren't going to get any snow, as it STILL hadn't started by the time I went back to the hotel at about 11:30pm Sunday night. But I woke up about 3:00 am though and it had started, and by 6:30am they had about 6 inches. I should have blown off the hotel room and driven back after the show. Maybe even the first show...although her second show WASN'T a duplicate of the first show...only one song overlapped, which was great.

Stacey was probably happy, though, as during one of the shows she asked "where's my snow?"

According the TV morning shows, the roads were pretty bad and slow (there were quite a few transit busses stuck on the freeway, but there are a LOT of freeways in MPLS, not just 35), but they said the snow was supposed to slow and stop about noon, so I waited until checkout time (11am) to leave and then promptly got stuck in the (uncleared) parking lot when I backed out and stopped to switch from Reverse to Drive! Some guys tried to push me but it didn't help. So I switched on 4 wheel drive, even though you're kinda supposed to be moving forward, and of course I then drove right out. I love my 4WD! Kept it on all the way back.

They said on TV that this was the worst storm of the winter. Figures.

I-35 was pretty nasty. Busy as hell though, even so. Didn't look like the snow plows had even been over it! In fact, I later saw two of them in the ditch! There were plenty of cars in the ditch too, but considering the speed some idiots were going, I'm not surprised. Most of us were going about 25-40 through Minneapolis, and no higher than 50 or so the rest of the way through Minnesota (I didn't turn on cruise control until well into Iowa). But there are sections in Minnesota where they've lined the west side of I-35 with big evergreen trees...and they need to do that ALL the way, because wherever they were, there was literally NO snow on the highway! Perhaps it just kept the blowing snow off after they cleared it (there was a lot of that, with frequent whiteouts), but it sure was nice!

I didn't really have any problems, just a few scary moment changing lanes (I always seemed to do this when there happened to be a large pile of slush piled up down the center line....that wasn't visible when I started the lane change)

Once I got back into Iowa, the snow went away quickly and the roads were clear almost immediately after Albert Lea MN, but then the damn high winds damn near blew me off a couple of overpasses. Actually blew me into the other lane once on a bridge (gusts were up to 50mph).

I got back about 3:30 or so, so the snow only added about an hour to my drive time. Still, it was NOT a fun drive. Going up there was much nicer, even though it was raining. The new Jim & Stacey CD was a calming influence after I got out of the worst of the snow and ice. I needed it!

The show was worth the bad weather, though. I'm probably gonna go back the next time she's in Minneapolis (she's there about once a year) although I may take more than one day off just in case. Might even go up earlier in the day and look around downtown, it looks interesting. The hotel was very nice (Holiday Inn Express, and it was even the cheapest I could find at $81 on Orbitz). There was WiFi (non free) or wired high speed internet (free) so I could check my email and such. And only 2.5 blocks from the jazz club! Across the street from the club (which is in a "transit mall" like we have downtown) there is the offices of the Church of Scientology. Pity no one was there...I'd have enjoyed laughing at them through the big windows.

A lot of the folks at the club had obviously been there before. Stacey went around before the show started and was talking to many people, apparently she has a lot of friends there. The gentleman and his wife I sat next to and struck up a conversation with while waiting for the show to start up described her well: "Stacey's just a doll", he said. He's right. She's a charmer. She and Jim are very well matched in life, and it shows in their performance.

Check out Stacey and Jim. If you don't like 'em, you don't have good taste.

UPDATE: Here's a review, with photos.

UPDATE: If you want to check out Stacey's music, she has a free MP3 available on Amazon.Com's Free Music Downloads