San Diego's Top Weekend Events: From Disco To The Decemberists

This is K PBS midday edition I'm worrying Cavanagh from disco to the Decemberists. There are some interesting things to do in San Diego this weekend my guest Nina Garran puts out a whole PBS arts calendar listing all the events you can catch. She joins us now to talk about a few of the most interesting on the weekend preview. And Nina welcome. Hello. Now it seems like Abba is everywhere this summer. Am I wrong. No you're definitely not wrong. So last month it started when moonlight amphitheater staged Mamma Mia the musical that is based on ABBA songs and that musical was one of the most popular in the theater's history. It was sold out constantly and then last weekend. Mamma Mia 2 the sequel to the movie with Meryl Streep that just came out and everyone's talking about it because Cher is not one of them. This weekend the San Diego Gay Men's Chorus will be doing a concert singing Abba's greatest hits so ABBA was formed in 1972 for quite some time ago. What is it about this band that's endured all this time. They're just really good at writing pop songs. You know they have some magic thing that they can just write really catchy songs and then they happened to put themselves in pop culture like every 10 years in the 90s. I don't know if you remember this movie called Muriel's Wedding It was one of my favorites and that was ABBA songs. And then the stage musical came out in 99. Ten years after that was their first movie Mamma Mia. And now here we are 10 years later with the sequel so you know they just put themselves in culture every couple of years and they never go away never go away. And also this is kind of fun dance music that kind of soothes us during difficult times I say well let's hear some let's listen to some ABBA. This is Waterloo. So there is. Tell us about this San Diego gay men's chorus concert. They'll be performing Abba's greatest hits which means most of the songs that you've seen in Mamma Mia. You'll see about 200 singers dancers and musicians they'll be singing under this glittering disco ball they'll be wearing wigs and makeup and having plenty of costume changes. And for those who have never been. Tell us a little about the gay men's chorus concert. So they take popular songs and then they give them the full chorus treatment. And it sounds really great with so many voices and they act out certain parts. And it's just a really fun playful atmosphere. It's family friendly. It's really I've never had a bad time at one of these events. You brought a clip of the chorus singing dancing queen. Let's listen. The San Diego gay men's chorus performs Abba's greatest hits Saturday and Sunday at the Bellbowrie theater. Comedian Kathy Griffin returns to San Diego. Tell us about her tour. This tour is called laugh your head off which is a reference to the latest scandal that she was involved in. Tell us what happened there remind us about it. So she posed with a fake severed head that looked like Donald Trump and it had blood all over it. Lots of people found it in really poor taste. They thought it was inciting violence and they were angry. She did lose a lot of fans and she lost her representation. She lost her job cohosting the New Year's Eve with Anderson Cooper. I mean it was just pretty bad fall out. So given the name of her tour I guess we can assume she'll be talking about the experience at the show. Yes. So she was basically shunned and in an interview she said that she just like basically confined herself and started writing the show discusses how she's been stopped at airports how she had to go overseas to earn money. She talks about you know her reactions of what happened before and after. Also kind of her disappointment in the audience that turned their back on her. Is this all she's going to talk about. I mean it's two and a half hours that she's on stage right. Well you know people love Kathy Griffin because of her pop culture and celebrity humor. And of course you're still going to get that she bought the house next to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. And so she's also got plenty of stories about her neighbors. Kathy Griffin performs Saturday night at the Civic Theatre. The band The Decemberists will be in San Diego. Tell us more about them. They are very earnest indie folk rock band and they've been around since the 2000s and they're known for these long epic songs. They're led by Colin Malloy who was inspired by 60s music but also 80s bands like RBM and he's also a creative writer. So the songs are very meaningful and they can tell these epic stories. And I understand there's one song in particular that's been making headlines lately. Good headlines. The song is called once in my life. It came out in March but they just released a video. Malloy describes it as a celebration of sadness but also soothing for people who read a lot of news and the video audience. Yeah the video is just you know it shows a man who doesn't fit into society and he kind of suddenly breaks free and starts dancing. And it's kind of he's in defiance of other people's perception. We can't show the video but let's listen to some of the song. This is the Decemberists. Once in my life I've been waiting on my. I've been waiting. The Decembrists perform Monday at Humphreys. I've been speaking with PBS arts calendar editor Nina Gueron you can see all the events she's been working on at Cape GVs dot org slash arts. Nina thank you. Thank you.