Place: Leeann Chin
Lunch: Sesame chicken, fried rice, Pepsi
Leeann Chin is a homegrown Twin Cities version of Panda Express that Chin (1933-2010) founded in 1980. You order at the counter, the counter help completely ignores what you say and gives you whatever the hell they feel like giving you, you pay, you get your drink, sit down, stare at the food you didn't order, sigh, and eat it. Don't argue with tradition. The sesame chicken is spicier than you're expecting. They have some decent and unusual appetizer items like Oyster Wings. I don't like their egg rolls at all.
I saw a concert last night I didn't think I'd ever see in my lifetime. Todd Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Willie Wilcox, and a new keyboardist got together and put on a Utopia reunion tour. There was no way I wasn't going. I posted a pic on Facebook and nobody cared because they were all busy posting corny Mother's Day meme's, so I'm punishing you by talking about it here.
It was an amazing 2 1/2 hour show broken up into two acts with an intermission, the first covering mostly the band's progressive era, the second the poppier 80's style. Even with that amount of time, they didn't cover everything I would have expected. "Cry Baby" never made an appearance. Honestly, they could have gone another half hour without scraping the barrel. The sing-along of the night was their original "Love is the Answer", the same song England Dan and John Ford Coley later covered and made a big hit. The crowd went nuts for that. It was the talk of women in the lobby post-show, just raving about it. They also threw in their version of "Do Ya", Jeff Lynne's song originally released by The Move in 1972 and later recorded by ELO in 1976. (Utopia recorded it in 1975.) This confused a guy sitting near me who asked "Did that just come out of nowhere or something?" unsure if Utopia recorded it at all and if so, who recorded it first.
Overall, it was a top notch show. They just killed it. To quote the angry old fat guy in the aisle towards the end shouting at whoever, "DO YOU F@%KING SEE THAT? WELL DO YOU??? THAT'S HOW IT'S F@%KING DONE!"
I hope it gets a video release.
Utopia will be doing dates through early June, so show up already.
