1005 the baker's dozen ...

Tonight, I went to see the Twelve Girls Band (top pic) from China, performing at the Greek Theatre. Michelle picked me up early, as I was expecting Friday traffic to be heavy; it wasn't so we arrived at the venue a couple of hours before the concert. Which was fine, because we brought CPK with us for dinner. Michelle had the Chicken Milanese and I had the BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad. We also shared a Sweet & Spicy Sausage Pizza.

The Greek is ADA-compliant, but getting inside was kinda fun. You see, the geography is hilly terrain and Vermont Ave is an incline. Normally, this wouldn't matter, but I'm in a wheelchair. Free handicapped parking is a blue-painted curb on Vermont, just past the theatre entry. There is off-street handicapped parking, but you have to pay $15 to park there.

Transferring from Michelle's Jeep to the wheelchair was easy; the hard part was wheeling slowly down the sidewalk, using my feet as brakes. Michelle did her part by hanging onto the handles of my chair. We made it inside without much difficulty. The uphill climb on the way back? That's another story.

The concert started late and the Greek was less than half-full; both terraces and section C were empty. We were in row T of section A, a row of movable seats, which allowed me to wheel into a space. There were about 24 seats in the row, but only four were being used.

The Band started off the concert in bright yellow outfits, and each girl wore a different style; some wore dresses, others wore pants. Some were sleeveless, other had sleeves. Etc. Just like the cover of their "Shanghai" album (middle pic).

There was a mid-concert interlude featuring a guest artist whose name was easily forgotten. The second half of the concert featured the Girls in short dark pink dresses and black knee boots. Very distracting. Very. So distracting that I cannot remember any of the songs they played in the second half. Hmmm.

We did notice, however, that there were thirteen performers on the stage. Five played a sort of two-stringed vertical violin (the erhu), three played something that looked like a sitar (the pipa), two played a koto-like instrument with sticks (the yangqin), two played flutes (the dizi, the hulusi, and the xiao), and one plucked a very large koto-like instrument (the duxianqin). Five plus three plus two plus two plus one equals thirteen. Kinda curious about that.

The Greek is an outdoor amphitheatre, and it was a bit breezy. The temperature dropped for the audience. Fortunately, Michelle was able to get a cup of hot chocolate (bottom pic) from the snack bar. She also used a blanket I had packed in my bag. I was fine in a sweatshirt.

The concert ended around 10pm; I made it home before 11pm. It was a nice night. Thank you, Michele, for helping me.