Dave Matthews

Sunday’s Dave Matthews show was great, and both Pearl Jam shows Thursday and Friday were incredible. But without a doubt the best show was the Dave Matthews show on Saturday night. We had a group of about 10 people and met at my house. Things got started with some drinking games in the basement before loading up and heading for Alpine Valley around 4 in the afternoon. We tailgated in the parking lot, the highlight there was a group of high schoolers that parked a couple cars away from us getting busted for underage drinking. They had a huge cooler and it was loaded with alcohol. Shortly after the “bust” security stopped the golf cart with the cooler on it and opened it up and let anyone from the surrounding tailgate parties to take what they wanted. I will give those high schoolers a ton of credit, because that cooler was loaded with everything, tons of beer, booze, and red bull. Of course I reached in and came out with 3 cans of red bull. That was an unexpected bonus that helped push me to the edge. Then about 20 minutes learned that Dave “The General” Stegall locked his keys in his car. You could see them just daggling there hanging from the ignition. Hilarious. This minor tragedy only raised the level of the concert, knowing that after the show, I would be part of the debacle that would be smashing in Stegall’s car window. We decided to head into the show. I grabbed a beer for the walk, and up to this point I was a little disappointed that I had been unable to find a beer bong in the parking lot. As this idea was settling into my brain, I saw someone walking with one. I quickly flagged them down and poured my beer in and polished it off in quite honestly less than 2 seconds. The “kids” whose beer bong it was looked at me in total amazement and how fast I was able to do a beer bong. The General and I got split up with the rest of our group on the walk to the entrance. Once in the show The General and I went straight down to the reserve seats. I had some old tickets from last year’s show that were from the third row. The General and I reused these tickets and found some seats in the first section about 30 rows back. Fantastic seats. Easily close enough to the stage to have the personal dilemma of being unable to decide if it was better view of the band by looking right at them or the big screen monitors. We moved down to the 5th row for the encore. Just an incredible show. This was easily the best Dave Matthews show I have ever been to. And one of my all time favorites of any concert I have ever seen. After the show we went back to the cars. It was determined by our brain trust that the best way to deal with The General’s keys locked in the car situation was to break out one of the back windows. Doug had a hammer in his jeep and when The General said that he didn’t want to smash the window in, I stepped up to the plate.
Sunday I went to the second show with Nate. Another great show, Nate and I were able to find some seats 20 some rows back. And it was a great set list.

I know I had a poll on which concert would result in the best story. But for my own personal ranking on the 4 shows from this weekend, I would have to rank that as the following:

#1a Saturday Dave Matthews with the General
#1b Friday Pearl Jam with Borky
#3 Sunday Dave Matthews with Nate
#4 Thursday Pearl Jam with Liz

But all 4 concerts rank extremely high on my all time concert list all easily in the top 10. I would be absolutely shocked and overjoyed if I ever have four concerts of this magnitude four days in a row. Unbelievable.
Here is the bust going down.
The General posing with the free for all going on behind him.

Here I am smashing in The General's window. Myra took this picture, and nice work on that, she caught it right at the moment of impact. You might not find it all that funny, but if you had been there, easily one of the funniest moments of the year so far.

This one is for Eric. A little photo I shot of him after the show talking to a hot little number. Eric and I left with Myra and Shane. It took us well over an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot. Borky and the other group I orginally came with were in a different lot. Borky was at home, in my house before I had even left the parking lot. Crazy.