This week in music: arena, festival, community ballet

 This week captured the joy of performance in Seattle for me. Wednesday was Beyonce at the CLink, which as it turns out is a terrific venue for a big arena show. It was a cool misty evening. The set, with its enormous rectangular box-slash-video screen, alternately showed Bey, dancers, videos, and once, went various shades of purple in homage to Prince, while "Purple Rain" boomed. The Queen B herself didn't engage too much with the crowd (as opposed to Lady Gaga, who usually talks about the West Coast, brings people onstage, gives motivational talks) but it was a powerful performance. And, from what I know, an all-female band. CityArts captured it perfectly: Beyonce is Real. Wow. Friday was the Fisherman's Village Music Festival in Everett with some friends. Venues are spread around the downtown area and include a dive bar and a vintage theatre (awkward seat-wise until you realize you can just go stand down front). Standouts were Grace Love and her band, The True Loves, and a slightly underwhelming, now-three-person band, Tango Alpha Tango. Later on, in the alleyway behind the Everett Theatre, we ran into Ms. Love herself as well of 2/3 of TAT, decompressing and having a smoke.

And, Saturday was my niece's spring ballet. She was onstage for at least a half-dozen numbers during the early show, and when I left, was heading back for performance #2.
Me, after a week of long days and late nights, I'm taking it easy. Woke up late, now enjoying some coffee, a run around the neighborhood, and  writing.