Hard Sun

Just getting a chance to catch up on the blog after getting back from a 3 day weekend in Santa Barbara. We definitely needed a little R&R and headed up there this weekend mainly to try to get some tix to Eddie Vedder's 8 venue "Aprils Fool Tour". The whole trip was so great...we had an awesome time! Continuing in our scalping ways, Kate was able to get us 10th row seats from a Pearl Jam Fan Club member. The theatre was beautiful, The Arlington Theatre is very small in the heart of downtown SB, seats about 1,800. The show was one of the best concert experiences of my life, Kate isn't even a fan and she is now in love with Eddie Vedder. I could write about this for pages, he connected with the audience, told personal stories, and is the most charismatic musician ever, way beyond my expectations and I'm a big Pearl Jam fan. He covered the Beatles, Neil Young and Tom Petty in addition to doing some old Pearl Jam stuff...he focused mainly on the soundtrack that he wrote and sang for the movie Into the Wild (great songs if you haven't heard I highly recommend) Towards the end of the second set Ben Harper came out and sang two songs with Eddie...on a side note we shared a row with actress Charlize Theron (totally gorgeous), her boyfiend Stewart Townsend and their whole entourage! It was truly AWESOME!!!



We stayed at a cool bed 'n breakfast, kept our distance away from the overly informative innkeeper, and did the Santa Barbara thing. Great town to spend a weekend at. Wine country is about 20 miles north, we spent a day there in Solvang and Santa Ynez. Solvang is where the movie Sideways takes place, we went to multiple tastings at boutique wine shops and vineyard tasting rooms and then headed over to Gainey Vineyards, bought a bottle of wine, and had a cool picnic on the property. Check out the pix, for those who have extended visits to LA it is a must trip, less than 2 hrs away from Santa Monica and absolutely fabulous.

Happy Tax Day Everyone! Hope Uncle Sam was good to you!