Ugh… Sir Megabyte actually had to work late. Argh. So we missed about the first ten minutes of the concert. Oh well. We got there and we went to our seats and I can’t describe how awesome they were. Sir Megabyte looks at me and says “OK, you get to buy ALL our tickets! This is awesome!” We were about 25 feet away. We were in the front row of our section. And we were raised just enough that sitting comfy in our seats we could see right over everyone on the floor standing in front of the stage and had a great shot of the bands. We were so close, we could see their buttons. And then, several times we had members of the bands walk right in front of us. I almost touched the lead guitarist from Styx. I could have if I had leaned over but I didn’t feel like it. It was cool enough that I stuck my hand out and was about 5 inches from his shoulder and he waved to me. 🙂

We got there and Styx was just rocking. They got done with that song and they start looking around and one of them says something like “Hey, anyone seen our guitarist?” Everyone starts looking around and the guy goes on to tell us that this guy likes to walk the crowd. The spotlight starts searching and he is across the way from us and walking up and down the stairs. Then he comes over and he walks down the stairs in our section. We were smack dab in the middle of our row in the section. Then he walked in front of us. Another time he actually went down those same stairs and this woman jumped out in front of him so he grabbed her, swung her over and planted a huge kiss on her lips. Yeah… bet those lips will never be washed again! HAHA

Styx was so awesome. They must have thrown out a million picks. ONe landed on the floor just in front of me but I didn’t see it in time to jump out of my section and grab it before three people down there on the floor were fighting each other for it. Another one was caught by the people directly behind us. They threw out towels, picks by the truckload, shirts, and even beach balls! And the keyboardists kept grabbing a poloriod and taking pictures and handing them to the people in the front rows.

One cool thing was the keyboard was on this big pole type thing. So the keyboard player kept spinning it around. He spunt it so he faced the left side people, the right side people, behind the stage towards the drummer so we could see him shaking his bumm. He played it over the top from the back and he even turned around, faced us and played with his fingers behind him. I bet that guy could play that keyboard standing on his head!!

Styx was way fun. They did a lot of interacting with us. ANd all their songs were good. And yes… they did play Come Sail Away. So awesome. The keyboardist was lead singer there. The whole band ran off stage but him and changed clothes and stocked up on picks again while he started it off and made it back on stage just in time for their turn in the song! No, they didn’t play Mr Roboto.

After Styx was REO Speedwagon. Of the three bands, that is the one I know the best. They played all of side one of High Fidelity. And of course my favourite REO song of all time, Can’t Fight this Feeling. They were awesome as well. They put on a great show but didn’t interact as much in a physical way. But you could tell they were having fun putting on a great show for us. The lead singer has been with the band for 30 years. And he told us this great story about how he has little kids (six year old daughter and twin 3 year old sons I believe) and they live in LA and he just loves being at home with them and they party together. He said that he was recently invited to a party at the playboy mansion and he wasn’t going to go (yeah right) but then he figured he had better go to get this “see what temptations his sons would have as they grew up”. Sure… hehe So he says he goes and it is everything you would think of, actors, rock stars, hot babes, debauchery, etc. Well apparently someone comes up to him and tells him one of the bunnies is super excited because she found out he was there. Apparently his music inspired her all her life and at her last shoot for Playboy she actually played his music to get into the mood. So he’s all like “Wow, great!” SO he’s of course like “Sure I’ll meet this bunny!” So he’s picturing this awesome introduction, eyes meeting across the room, all that sort of stuff. But she’s looking at him vacantly (come on… she is a playboy bunny after all badada!) and as it turns out… bummer… she thought he was the lead singer for… REM. HAHAHA Poor guy. He was funny and talked to us and sang great and was awesome. He plays guitar and piano. They had a real piano up there as well as an organ and keyboard.

At one point he tossed a pick out to the crowd. Just as he tossed it, Sir Megabyte thought “I’ll never catch that or any other one unless it hits me.” Two seconds later “THUNK” on his shoulder. He looks down… there’s REO Speedwagon’s pick! Yeah we snatched that sucker up and shoved it into my purse! Awesome!

Last Journey came out. Apparently Journey has really fast songs. I had no idea. Only thing I’ve ever heard by them was slow stuff. So it was 20 minutes before they played something I knew… and then? It was the national anthem. Which was barely recognizable. They only played two songs that I was really familiar with. And to make it worse they turned up the speakers three times louder than the other two bands so we couldn’t even hear what they were singing. And then they did all these really aweful guitar riffs so we couldn’t even follow the tunes. We were so disappointed because it just wasn’t as enjoyable. TO make matters worse? The people behind us started freaking out and kept hitting us over and over while they were attempting to dance in front of their seats. OK, once I can understand, you got a little excited. Twice I’ll forgive. But it was for the whole hour and fifteen minutes they sang. WAP! WAP! WAP! We’ve decided that you buy Jouerney CDs but you don’t go to their concerts. However we’ll go to a Styx or an REO concert in a heartbeat!

We were happy that until Journey the music wasn’t uncomfortably loud which I was worried about. My ears weren’t really badly ringing until Journey came out. And no one smoked in there either. Yay obeying the law! They all either waited out the four hour concert or ran to the one little smoking designated area. Heck, people hardly had lighters. I did see several cellphones being waved for lights.

So anyway, this was my first rock concert and I was excited to be there. It was awesome. And be proud of my you guys, I fought all temptation to read my two books I took with me! 🙂 So I didn’t lose any cool points by pulling out books!

I highly recommend going to this concert if it comes to your area. Or if not, if Styx or REO come to your area, go! They are so awesome! Go buy Journey cds to enjoy. 🙂

We got home after midnight and were EXHAUSTED! I do kind of wish we had bought a tshirt or something… I wish I could have taken pictures. It was so so cool!