Outdoor Recreation

I have often said that people will travel for entertainment events – and I proved it on Saturday and Monday of this week.

On Saturday, I had tickets to the Hollywood Bowl for a dynamic concert featuring the Foo Fighters (one of my favorite bands) and Gustavo Dudamel leading the LA Philharmonic orchestra. What I really like about the Hollywood Bowl is being able to bring in dinner, alcohol, water … whatever. My son Danny and I attended the concert, which was phenomenal. Of course I brought in our dinner (Subway sandwiches) and red wine.

It was entertaining to me to see the director of the LA Phil (Dudamel) rock out with the Foo Fighters. In addition, the DC6 Gospel Choir sang alongside the band. They brought an incomparable energy to the evening.

As a fun aside, Saturday’s performance was the first time the Foo Fighters appeared at the Hollywood Bowl. 

I hope it’s not the last.

On Monday of this week, Steve and I (and two of our friends) attended a concert by Train at the Greek Theatre. 

Now, I don’t think I’ve been to the Greek since I saw the Village People and Gloria Gaynor there in 1979 – a couple of years ago. I definitely needed a refresher course on what we could bring in, etc.

The Greek Theatre is a much smaller venue than the Hollywood Bowl – the Hollywood Bowl is about three times the size of the Greek. To me, this meant that there wasn’t a “bad” seat in the Greek. However, the Greek doesn’t allow audience members to bring in anything except factory sealed water bottles – but no cooler, so we had to carry in the few bottles we had.  

The Greek also offers independent seating instead of the bench seating the Hollywood Bowl provides. Considering how tight the seats were, I did wonder how large people fit into the seats. The middle arm didn’t go up, like it does on an airplane, so I imagine it would be a tight fit.

We ended up purchasing parking at the Greek Theatre, which was expensive, though off-site shuttle parking was available, like for the Hollywood Bowl. We’ve often purchased shuttle parking for the Hollywood Bowl that left from the LA Zoo. The cost is (I think) $6 per person round trip – a deal to be sure.

At the Greek, we easily found our car (thanks to my husband – if it had been up to me, I’d probably still be looking for our car). It was sort of strange getting out of the parking lot – we continued up the hill rather than heading down, ending up on Los Feliz.

The question is: Would I go again?

Definitely yes. The concerts were great though the venues were very different.