This is from January 1998.

WTC from Empire State Building

I was on a work related trip to New York and on this day we had some free time to see the city. The first thing we did was hit the Subway and ride to the World Trade Center.  The experience of riding in the subway was wild and worth it in and of itself.  Once we got to WTC we were amazed at how big the two towers and entire complex was.  Sadly though, the observation deck was closed and we couldn’t go up. Bummed, we hopped back into the subway to go to the next best thing: the Empire State Building.  Even though we couldn’t go up I’m still thankful I at least got to visit once.

Tuesday night the Plaza Theater hosted Chris Isaak and the Silvertones,  a first for El Paso.  We’ve seen him before elsewhere but this was the first time we’d been to the restored theater.  I’ll have to say, I was quite impressed.  The sound was incredible and the band played flawlessly.

There was an especially amusing instance where in typical El Paso fashion a couple was late and getting escorted to their seat in the front row 3 songs into the set.  Chris joked ” We’ve been waiting for you, until now we’ve just been messing around”  Classic!

If you are only familiar with his hits and not his full albums you are missing out.  He plays the gamut from slow ballads to rockin numbers.  It may have been small size of the venue, but the band was really engaged and there was a lot participation with the audience.

Chris played his hits, fan favorites and then broke out into a jam session where they covered Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and other Sun Records recording artists.  He mentioned that they had previously recorded at Sun Records for an upcoming album.

They finished up and for the encore out came the famous mirror suit!

It was about a two hour set making for a very enjoyable night.  I was able to record a couple of videos which are included in my flickr set here: Chris Issak @ the Plaza

I found a postcard scan of El Paso from about 92 or so:

El Paso from about 1992

For comparison here’s a similar shot from 2006:

El Paso from 2006

And here’s from a week ago:

El Paso from 2011

Yeah, I didn’t notice anything different either 🙂 That’s unfortunate because a lot has changed down there.  In that same time we got a couple of new museums, a handful of buildings have been revitalized and the Plaza Theater has been reopened.  The makings of an art scene have begun and there are many new restaurants and clubs that have opened.    To the casual visitor who may only stop at scenic drive for that 4000 foot view, downtown looks exactly the same as it has for years.  You know what though, that may be a bonus to the vendors who have stockpiles of El Paso postcards.