Concerts and More Concerts

This past weekend I got my fill of concerts, or at least you would think.

Friday night I had VIP seats for the Black Crowes at The Riverside. I took my camera and took some pictures and video, but do you really want to see a bad picture or listen to some distorted video? I didn't think so. The Black Crowes were good. Apparently this is their 20th anniversary tour. I really don't know much of their music other than the first two albums. It was a decent show and I had fun. I knew I was going to be drinking at the show, so in preparation for that, I put my bike in my truck and biked home after the show. The VIP seats were actually the first 5 rows of seats pulled out and all the VIPs in there as general admission. The first set I was pretty close to the left side speakers. For the second set I moved more front and center. Halfway through the second set, this little guy who was a full head and a half shorter than me came walking through saying excuse me to everyone. When he got to me, he said excuse me, but then when he was in front of me he just stopped. I thought fine if he wants to stand there whatever. But then after a minute or so, he backed up into me. So I took a half a step back. As I moved back so did he. Then this happened again. Obviously the further back he was from the person in front of him the better he could see. But he was all over my personal space. He eventually left after a couple of songs.

Saturday I went to see Phish at Alpine Valley. I haven't seen Phish in about 15 years. My friend, Suzanne, who is married to my college roommate, Mark, asked me a while back if I wanted to go to the show. I told her if she couldn't find someone to take her other ticket, that I would. Mark's brother, Eric, and Eric's girlfriend also went to the show. We had a VIP Parking pass so we parked right up front. After we cooked some food up on the grill we went for a walk the parking lot. I learned that it is way more fun in the general parking than the VIP. I won't make that mistake again. Once we got into the show, we were able to make our way down in the first section about 30 rows back. Really good seats. I had forgotten how good Phish was in concert. The night before the Black Crowes were good. But Phish was 10 times better than the Black Crowes. Midway through the show I had to go to the bathroom which is all the way at the top of the amphitheater. But I love when you have good seats and you walk back down into them. The closer you get, the more the concert intensifies. You walk out of the bathroom and you can hear the band but there is a lot of outside noise from the people around your. Then as you get about halfway down the hill, you get a smile on your face as the music begins to settle into you, and you walk closer. You get down to the entrance to the reserve seating and you begin to dance a little to the beat of the music. By the time you get down to the 30th row you are literally jumping up and down. Like I said it was a great show, and I nearly went back down to Alpine Sunday night for the second show. I would have to put this Phish show in my top one or two for concerts that I have seen this year.