Vienna Teng at Cowell Theater

Written: February 29, 2004
Last Updated: March 1, 2004

Vienna Teng and her traveling musicians play before a huge crowd at San Francisco's Cowell Theater.

Vienna Teng performed in front of a huge crowd at Cowell Theater last night, accompanied by musicians Jim Batcho (drums), ??? (bass), Eric Cheng (cello), Marika Hughes (cello), and Alan Lin (violin). Marika and Alan will be touring with Vienna for part of the year. Having toured with Vienna in the past, I wonder what kind of van or truck they are going to rent; there's a lot of equipment to be transporting this time around!

Hearing her music with a full band is quite an experience. The sounds have more depth and are much richer. It's neither better nor worse than just her and the piano, just different. A good kind of different! The opening act, Noe Venable was pretty good too, hitting my soft-spot for female vocalists.

Following the performance, the crowd emptied out in the atrium, where Vienna signed autographs and CD's. It felt like I was in Hong Kong or China; there were so many Asians in the room! She certainly has crossover appeal, and I am looking forward to the day when Vienna's considered by the public to be a great musician, not a great Asian-American musician. As with the show at Border's, there were many people from different parts of my life: Stanford, Cal, Rice Bowl Journals, San Diego, and more.

I went with Rae, Dardy, and Raphael. We had a scrumptious sushi dinner at Zushi Puzzle. I surprised Rae with my sushi ordering restraint, though Dardy surprised us all with the amount he ordered! Fortunately, he didn't have food coma during the performance. Raphael remarked to us that he likes to eat anything, and he really enjoyed the soft shell crab and the unagi. Despite my love for sushi, I have to watch out that I don't eat too much. Like with Cat's delicious cream puffs from Vienna's RBJ concert, you have to eat with moderation.

Photos from the event. I took the performance photos from my seat, which I never left during the performance. Wow, what restraint! I do like the fact that Vienna condones photography or videography during her performances. It's so unlike the big bands and musicians, many of whom are way too protective of their image and marketing.

Enter The Photo Gallery

Reader Comments

I believe the bassist was Avey Gonzalez. The setlist that Michele "borrowed" has his name listed as Avey.

--posted by Erik @ Monday, March 1 2004, 16:14 pm EST

Hi Adam!

Wow, your performance photos look amazing! You seem to be sitting in the 8th row or so; what zoom lens did you use? Shelly and I sat in the 3rd row, but I was only using a 50mm prime; consequently, I didn't get much detail (I'm still deciding which zoom to buy). Also, it was really hard controlling the hotspot on her face; I shot RAW, and reducing the exposure still didn't give satisfactory results. I assume that a zoom allows you to get closer, which brings in more detail and information, allowing correct exposures with no hotspots.

I noticed you in the corner taking that crowd shot. I see Shelly and me in your shot, about 1/3 of the way in from the right and vertically centered. Just look for the shiny forehead.

Right now I have just one pic from the concert, a nice portrait of Vienna from the CD signing. Look for more soon.

Gordon

--posted by Gordon Lai @ Monday, March 1 2004, 16:22 pm EST

Erik: Thanks for the name. I'll update the site later today.

--posted by Adam @ Monday, March 1 2004, 17:06 pm EST

Gordon: Was using the 70-200 for the performance shots. The lighting was really good for the performance. I'm curious to see what everyone else got; there were quite a few DSLR owners in the crowd (I counted at least 4).

--posted by Adam @ Monday, March 1 2004, 17:08 pm EST

Hey Adam,

I was there at the concert too. I did not see you, but I came late- I won the tickets and they said the show started at 8pm. Nice shots.

Larry

--posted by larry lew @ Monday, March 1 2004, 17:41 pm EST

hey adam, awesome pix! i wish my dinky little camera had that kind of power without flashing. the concert was so good, i wanted to cry. =D

--posted by andrey @ Tuesday, March 2 2004, 2:27 am EST

Yeah, it's Avey Gonzalez. I was so happy with his performance. Two rehearsals and he nailed it. :)

Nice photos Adam, and good to see you.

--posted by jim @ Tuesday, March 2 2004, 13:40 pm EST

Hi Adam, good to have met you formally at the show! Great pictures, as always, lucky you got to be in the front :) And wow, you got me on camera and it didn't crack! Must be Vienna that saved your camera :D

--posted by Cat D @ Tuesday, March 2 2004, 23:27 pm EST

it's me and Frietchie!!!!!

--posted by Tiffany @ Wednesday, March 3 2004, 2:37 am EST

Tiff: thanks!

--posted by Adam @ Wednesday, March 3 2004, 3:12 am EST

Hey, I'm a photography fiend from Palo Alto. A friend whose trying to turn me on to Vienna Teng mentioned your named and it sounded so familiar to me. Any chance you worked for the Weekly for a while?

--posted by Laura @ Wednesday, March 3 2004, 8:59 am EST

Laura - Yup, I did some work at the Palo Alto Weekly in May, 2002.

--posted by Adam @ Wednesday, March 3 2004, 21:04 pm EST

Ok, my photos from the concert are finally up:

http://www.pbase.com/klaorman/viennacowell

I have many more performance shots of Vienna, but they were marred by hotspots on her face. And dialing down the exposure didn't help. Time for that zoom!

Enjoy, and tell me what you think.

--posted by Gordon Lai @ Thursday, March 4 2004, 5:32 am EST

Just put up some photos as well:
http://echeng.com/journal/index.php?p=614

--posted by echeng @ Friday, March 5 2004, 10:39 am EST


Zushi Puzzle plate	Dardy	Dardy and Raphael
Rae and Adam (photo: Dardy)	Dardy and his copious amounts of food	Lights
Standing outside Zushi Puzzle	Noe Venable	Todd Sickafoose
The crowd at Cowell Theater	Reading the lyrics	Jim Batcho on drums
Alan Lin and Marika Hughes	Introducing Eric Cheng	Vienna Teng
Vienna Teng	Eric Cheng playing	String trio
Jim on drums	Watch those sticks move!	Vienna, Jim, and Avey
Thank you!	Syndromes and Dardy	Eric, Wendy, and Charlotte
Raphael and Rae	What is Syndromes smelling?	Rice Bowl Journalists (photo: Syndromes)
Cat gets an autograph from Vienna	Aya Chow	Tiffany and Frietchie
Raphael conducting some business	Raphael, Syndromes, and Jimbo	Rae and company
Rolling out the drums	Cowell Theater