Photo & video from the 2009 Christmas tour

Tons of great shots from the Delaware show on the 5th:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nelsonmuntzphoto/show/with/4166228051/

Andi wrote:

Tons of great shots from the Delaware show on the 5th:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nelsonmuntzphoto/show/with/4166228051/

Those are great pix Andi, thanks for posting; I really like the Vixens' black, white & silvery minis', very cute! I think Leslie looks a little different this year because she's got her hair dark brown instead of red. She's got a great voice, but oh boy, does my husband wish the incredibly hot & lovely Beth Curry would come back lol!

It would appear the Delaware show was well-covered by pro shooters: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=setzer&w=22159563%40N07

at the Ryman: Brian Setzer Orchestra Christmas Extravaganza tonight

(beware, possibly not safe for work photo of a drunk and partially clad Santa in an alley is associated with this trying-hard-to-be-Maxim-funny article)

Since tonight is the Scene's annual office holiday party, I'll unfortunately be too busy dodging our SouthComm corporate overlords and hunting for rogue drink tickets and a Xerox machine to make photocopies of ass-cheeks to attend the Brian Setzer Orchestra Christmas Extravaganza at the Ryman. Ah shucks. If your tattoos involve flames, your girlfriend has a Bettie Page haircut and you're favorite movie is La Bamba, despite the knock-down-drag-out arguments you and your friends have over which one of you is more like Vince Vaughn's character in Swingers, then you probably already have tickets in hand to this holiday "ho" down and you're all set to "go daddy-o." I had a thing or two to say about tonight's show in this week's print edish. Peep it:

Hey daddy-o! If you're not content to simply have a merry Christmas, how 'bout having a jump jivin' one? A jump jivin' Christmas is when you celebrate the birth Jesus Christ by changing the lyrics to a yuletide classic such as "Jingle Bells" to say "Oh what fun it is to ride in a '57 Chevorlet." The swing revival might have petered out in 1999, but don't tell it's flagship artist Brian Setzer that. Dude is still stayin' the course. Louis Prima is dead and so is Chet Atkins, and as long that continues to be the case, the former Stray Cats axe-man--who can wail with the best of 'em--will continue to lead his orchestra to the end of the earth. Since the release of 2005's Brian Setzer Orchestra Live: Christmas Extravaganza, Setzer has taken it upon himself to transform into the Jack Frost of jump guitar for the holiday season, to spread swingin' yuletide cheer to only the coolest cats. See for yourself.

What if your tattoos involve flames and YOU have a Bettie Page haircut??

How's this for on demand - here's photo and video from TONIGHT'S show!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caomai/sets/72157622846842489/

Woo hoo! Some GREAT video from Nashville!

(Angels, not Gloria)








Honey Man!

Thanx Andi!!

Blue Xmas is brilliant BUT imo it's much better with the saxes rather than with the vixens; Glad to see that Brian has finally played the guitar solo on JBRock ;-)

Gretsch has been doing a tour journal from the road! Not particularly insightful but includes some interesting info and photos!

http://www.gretschguitars.com/news/article_BSOtour.html
http://www.gretschguitars.com/news/article_BSOtour2.html
http://www.gretschguitars.com/news/article_BSOtour3.html

Note, if you sign up to win the Hot Rod at a show, you're entering for a candy apple red one. If you enter online, it's lime gold. Here's the online sign up:
http://www.gretschguitars.com/promos/2009/setzertourgiveaway/index.php

Not sure which show these are from:

Sexy + 17




Angels


Rock This Town from Delaware:

More great stuff from Nashville. This is a gorgeous, very heartfelt rendition of Lonely Ave.

Stray Cat Strut/Grinch from NYC - looks like front row! Not sure why I missed this, glad someone linked to it on Facebook...

At a recent meet & greet Brian listened to a kid play Stray Cat Strut for him.

the last picture was backstage at the Peace Center in Geenville SC. We have an almost identical picture of that moment. the girl and her dad in the leopard print (please forgive me for forgetting their names) were headed to the Tennessee Theater and Ryman shows the following two nights. that would have been fun to see the big band three nights in a row!!
the meet and greet was my Christmas Present and (as i stated in another post) was well worth the $$ (at least for us anyway). my wife and i had a blast!

-Gaston

Well there's video too!!

Those videos made me have a flashback! Thanks for posting those!

No worries Rick. I'm glad to know some folks are getting value out of this thread!

There's an ad on YouTube for the Santa Rosa shows:



And, Batman/Catman apparently from Knoxville. I read somewhere it was actually "Fatman" - which would make more sense with Santa running around onstage. Quite the multipurpose song.

That 12 year old is getting plenty of exposure. Now she's on the Gretsch blog:

http://www.gretschguitars.com/news/article_BSOtour3.html

Robinsonville, MS:

Video from Thackerville, OK:

Honey Man: http://vimeo.com/8183411

Fishnet Stockings: http://vimeo.com/8183411

Photos from Thackerville: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=setzer&w=34045974%40N00

nice video clips, thx!

Last night in Coachella:

Huh, who knew The Cats did an entire tour of Austria last year?

Brian Setzer Orchestra rocks Christmas

It just wouldn't be Christmas in Southern California without a visit from Jolly St. Setzer and his mighty orchestra. Back for a seventh year, the Brian Setzer Orchestra returns with its Christmas Rocks! Extravaganza at Gibson Amphitheatre this Friday and Saturday.

The three-time Grammy-award winner, who was recently nominated in the best rock instrumental category for "Mr. Surfer Goes Jazzin'," is excited to bring his big band orchestra to Los Angeles for two nights. He also says that after seven years of playing Christmas shows – he's still nowhere near sick of it.

"If people are going to come see me in that capacity, I'm still gonna want to do it," Setzer said in a recent phone chat.

Although the singer was hospitalized for a combination of dehydration, altitude sickness in Albuquerque, N.M. on Monday, Setzer's people say he's doing just fine. In fact, he played a show the following night in Phoenix, Arizona so the shows in L.A. are still on.

He'll be rockin' seasonal favorites like "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," "Blue Christmas" and "Jingle Bell Rock" throughout the night, but Setzer says that the show isn't entirely dedicated to the holiday and calls the shindig merely "Christmas-flavored." He says the group will also be peppering in some of the tracks off its latest release, "Songs from a Lonely Avenue," as well as a few classics from Setzer's rockabilly band, the legendary Stray Cats.

Since he's covered so many Christmas standards, as well as inked a few of his own, which song does Setzer love to listen to the most this time of year?

"My favorite one ...," he thinks for a few seconds. "It's by a really overlooked guy, Andy Williams. He's had out some great Christmas records and from those I'm going to give you ... 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.' That followed in close second by any Elvis Christmas songs because those were staples in my house, but Andy's song, it's a very beautiful version."

As for his least favorite, Setzer seems to have no love for Santa's sled leader.

"Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," he says with a disgusted tone. "I've tried with that one but I'm just not gonna sing about a deer."

With so many other songs to choose from, it's doubtful anyone will notice that he left out poor Rudolph.

Setzer is looking forward to trying out some of his new songs in front of an L.A. crowd. "Songs from a Lonely Avenue," which was released on Oct. 13, marks the very first time that Setzer alone has penned an entire album. The songs, he says, are inspired by classic film noir like Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder," Arthur Ripley's "Thunder Road" and the 1946 film adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel "The Big Sleep."

"It's mostly the crime-dramas and the mysteries," he says. "I love all of the soundtracks (to those films) and that's kind of where my head goes nowadays ... how to put music to a guy running down an alley. When you hear it done in those old movies it's just classic."

Setzer started writing the album early last year but took a break when the band signed on for a tour of Japan and later he met up with the Stay Cats for some tour dates in Austria.

"When that happened it derailed me because it was right in the middle of my creative process," he says. "By the time I finally got home I was just sitting there with a tape recording and a notebook, but the light came right back on and there was little interruption. After I had finished the 13 songs I thought, 'OK, I'm done. This is the story.' I didn't need to add anything else."

For Setzer, all of the right elements have to be in place for him to get in the mood to write a song. He says most of these tracks were written by him mostly staring blankly and strumming his guitar while having baseball games on the TV in the background.

"I'd watch the game, then go shoot some pinball then I'd hear 'crack' on the TV and I'd go to see who scored and then all of a sudden there's a colorful riff that comes into my head," he says. "Then I sit down to actually work on it and write it out musically and suddenly I have two or three ideas and that start to piggyback from there."

The album also reteamed Setzer with legendary arranger/composer Frank Comstock, whose résumé includes writing arrangements for Benny Carter, Les Brown and Judy Garland as well as creating the theme songs for "Rocky & Bullwinkle" and "Dragnet." Comstock, who is now 87 years old, also worked with Setzer on his 2007 album "Wolfgang's Big Night Out," and wrote the horn charts for nine of the tracks on the new record.

On Jan. 31, during the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Setzer will find out if he's going to be taking home his fourth trophy. He says his other three are proudly displayed in his Minneapolis home and that he doesn't take the nomination lightly.

"The Grammy award means a lot to me," he says. "It's very prestigious because it's not a popularity contest per se. It's not who has the most fans and then they vote and you win. It's actually your peers, people in the industry and it's them showing their respect and it really means a lot for me to be nominated. It's like being in the top five out of hundreds of thousands of records. Top five to me is a winner. If I do take home the Grammy, well that's just the crown."

At this point, Setzer, now 50, says he's not slowing down. He admits it has gotten harder to tour and that life on the road – not sleeping, getting sick and not eating right – is not as glamorous as people may think. With that in the back of his mind, it still didn't stop him from heading out of town for Christmas, which he was happy to do after trying to have a family get-together last year.

"It was a pain in the neck to be honest," he says. "We hadn't had Christmas in a while and we were not on the road so we thought 'Let's take this year off and get a tree and decorate.' But then we had everyone over and this one was fighting with that one and then this one didn't want to eat that so I said 'Oh man, screw this, I'm going on tour next year and having a cheeseburger sent up by room service on Christmas Eve.'"

Very short article and nice photo slideshow from Coachella:

http://twa.lk/m94zm

http://www.pe.com/multimedia/slideshow/2009/20091217_setzer/index.html