Twenty One Pilots - Bandito Tour

Grace and I went to the Wells Fargo Center last night to see Twenty One Pilots (TOP to save me typing), her favorite band, and her first concert. We went with our good friend neighbors from across the street, their daughter, and another neighborhood girl. They are in college now, but share the love of TOP with Grace. We drove down together, did the apparently mandatory yellow duct tape thing, and got there plenty early. We had the ritual pre-concert slice of pizza, and were impatient for things to start.

Grace (middle) and older neighborhood friends

The show started at 7. Or more accurately, the first of two opening acts started at 7. Opening acts were Max Frost (meh) and Awolnation (which started meh and grew on me). Each played 25-30 minutes, with a half hour-ish in between, and then another half hour to ready the stage for TOP.

Awolnation

The crowd was very young, being mostly high school, college aged and young adults, with a healthy scattering of parents such as yours truly escorting the younger ones. When the band (of two people) took the stage there was Beatle-esque squealing and screaming and some crying. Not at all like the subdued old-guy classic rock geezer band shows I usually attend these days. Very different. And refreshing. Grace did her share of squealing, and screaming, and a bit of crying. Fun. Lots of energy. Opening song was Jumpsuit.

Opening number with burning car

The show was a lot different than what I am used to, much of which is a reflection of the nature of the band. Twenty One Pilots these days is a drummer (Josh Dunn) and a guy who writes the songs and does everything else (Tyler Joseph). Obviously, a live show with two people requires lots of recorded tracks, which my generation would have largely regarded as cheating/sacrilege, but... it was done very well.

I wasn't really sure what to expect, but the show was amazing. Great music, fantastic lights, props and stage show. Good banter between songs. A tremendously fanatic and dedicated fan base. And a lot of very creative things. At one point, a figure on stage believed to be Tyler Joseph (but who hadn't sung or played anything in a little while) did a back-flop into a hole in the stage. Seconds later he appeared on a small platform in our section, about 6 rows and 20 feet behind us. So the figure on stage was obviously a faked stand in. People went nuts (Grace included). He was so close... :-)

Tyler Joseph appears 6 rows behind us

Without going into any great detail, I liked the music more than I expected to. Grace's favorite song is The Judge (our show's version here).

Lights and Screens

Clever staging also made for a great viewing experience. At one point, a big long rack of lights lowered from the ceiling, and proved to be a bridge from the main stage to the "B" stage on its upper surface.

Lights lowered to make a bridge to the "B" stage

Tyler used the bridge to get to the "B" stage right in front of us, and Josh worked his way through the crowd to join him. They did a nice quiet set from the "B" stage.

"B" stage right in front of section 102

Tyler was very good at the in between song banter with the audience, and there were a number of cute running themes throughout the concert. One of them was the challenge to be the best audience on the tour, and to remember that it was't simply being the loudest single crowd moment, but that "it's an average". The teasing about "remember, it's an average" ran through the show and was amusing (you can hear him say it during "Trees" below at about the 1:24 mark...).

They played a solid two hours, and really were terrific. A highlight was their final number "Trees".

More lights and screens

It was a great night for Grace, and would have been worth it to me even if I hadn't liked the show at all. The fact that I liked it as much as I did was a nice bonus. The joy on her face was priceless.

I think she will remember this for a long time.

Art and Arcana - A Visual History of D&D

Perhaps in an effort to recapture lost youth, but perhaps simply because I have always loved it, Dungeons & Dragons has been a part of my life again over the past 5 years or so. Part of that has been to read some books on the history of the role playing game hobby (specifically D&D), watch some YouTube videos by Tim Kask, Frank Mentzer and others who were involved in the formative days of D&D, etc...

So it was with a good deal of interest that I saw that someone was going to be publishing a book on the visual (art) history of D&D. Co-authors included Michael Witwer (author of Empire of Imagination, a biography of sorts on Gary Gygax) and Jon Peterson (author of Playing at the World, the definitive history of D&D). I have, and have read, both of those books, and loved both of them.

Buying Art & Arcana was a no-brainer. And not to be regretted.

An Amazing Book...

This is a big thick coffee table sized book of terrific production values. It covers the development of D&D from a visual and artistic point of view. It has early art, later updates, and a study of the development of the art and iconography of D&D through the various editions, dating from c.1975 through the current day.

It's an informative and instructive work of obvious love by the authors, and has triggered many a "memory lane" moment for me. My history with D&D is the very first "white box" edition of ~1976 (?) (which I thankfully still own) through AD&D (1st edition) with a little Second Edition, but then with a 25 year hiatus between ~1990 and 2014 (5th edition). I recognize the "earliest days" art, and the modern stuff, but not the 2+ decades of intermediate development. Fascinating stuff.

Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in D&D and/or fantasy art in general, especially at the Amazon discounted price...

Kill Team - Space Marines

We've had enough fun with our first couple of Kill Team games that painting some other forces seems to be in order (as well as expanding the Tyranid force, but that's a different story...).

I have bought a box of Space Marines, and have worked through what I want the paint scheme to look like.

Space Marine Sample

The rest of the box is assembled and primed, with some more painting to follow soon. I hope.

It's fun to be painting again. (Bifocals rule!). Next on the paining table for Kill Team will be to expand the Tyranid force with a few small bugs (termagants and hormagaunts), as well as a larger bug or two (tyranid warriors).

A box of Eldar Guardians has also been assembled and primed.... (yes, I know, they don't call them Eldar anymore...).

Kill Team - First Playings

Ryan has finished painting a nice big batch of ~20 Imperial Guard (which are called something else now by GW and the rest of the world but not me) and I have finished my 8 Genestealers, so it was time to push some figures around, shoot some ray guns, and kill humans with weird alien bugs.

Over the past few weeks, Ryan and Josh and I have gotten together two or three times to work our way through these rules. We've started with the basic rules, did OK the first time out, and gotten more fluent with the rules the next couple of sessions. The rules are very typical GW: roll to hit, roll to wound, roll a saving throw. Every army has their own chrome galore.

Genestealers stalking Imperial Guard

We admittedly aren't great at using our forces yet, but the bugs have beaten the humans every time out so far, no matter who is playing what. Once the bugs get into contact with the puny humans, they don't stand a chance. Ryan's dice rolling doesn't help.

Tyranids and Imperial Guard

As much as I bash GW (maybe not here but certainly in real life), their figures are very nice. Vastly overpriced, but nice. And the terrain is very nice as well (and equally overpriced). That said, I've bought a bunch of different pieces as can be seen in these photos in various stages of painting, and have created a couple of foam boards to put the terrain on.

It's been fun. I'm working on some space marines and Eldar now, or whatever they call them these days...

Kill Team - Genestealers

Ryan, Josh and I have gotten together a number of times over the summer and into the Fall to do something gaming related while our D&D campaign is on a fairly lengthy hiatus.

One of the things we have talked about doing is to paint up some science fiction miniatures and have a go at Games Workshop's Kill Team, a game of skirmish combat in their Warhammer 40K universe. With some limited prior exposure to WH40K, I have no interest whatsoever in diving into that army-level game, but I will admit to liking the quality of the miniatures and having an interest in painting a few of them. Tyranids, or Starship Trooper style "space bugs" struck a chord with me.

So Ryan has been filling out an Imperial Guard force, and I have been painting up Genestealers for a Tyranid force.

Tyranid Genestealers

We have played a few games. The painting has been fun. The games have been fun. Additional troops have been purchased and are in various stages of completion. Terrain pieces have been bought and are in various stages of progress as well (as can be seen in the picture above).

My only regret... Grace took one look at my finished genestealers and said: "cool. cotton candy explosion."

Sigh.

Julia Turns 20

Somewhere in here recently, Julia turned 20, which boggles the mind.

The mandatory "presents at the kitchen island" photo

She is in a "super senior" year of high school, meaning that she is still under the age of 21 and part of the school district, but is beyond her normal senior "graduating" year. She marched with her class at graduation, but will spend the three subsequent years in job training and other life skills work before transitioning out of the school district and into the Delaware County program.

Rather than going to the high school building, she is picked up by a bus and taken to an apartment rented by the district. Job coaches are based in this apartment, and work with a dozen or so kids to develop life skills such as cooking and cleaning, laundry, and shopping. Several days a week, each of the kids is transported to a job site where they work on job skills. Julia has worked at at least 7 or 8 different places, trying a number of different types of work, and is building toward the day when she will have some sort of job placement, with assistance, to continue on in life.

It's a great program, and a good step forward into an uncertain future.