I saw Steve Vai in the Ibanez booth, and popped into the Peavey booth to catch a glimpse of Greg Howe playing. Paul Stanley of KISS and Joe Satriani were also somewhere in the house on Friday, but I missed them both. I was so caught up in the endless aisles of musical gear, I felt like a kid lost in the world's largest candy store! (I will post more pics from the NAMM Show tomorrow on this thread.)
Well, let me get on to the best part. I told the musician friends that I was with that we had to catch this killer JSS/Neal Schon show on Saturday night. I think at first they thought I was kidding. So, I stopped by Loffler's at around 7:00pm to buy tickets to the show, because I knew from reading the JSS post on this forum that they would sell out quick. I then went to pick up my friends at the NAMM Show and we went to JT Schmidt's Microbrewery & Seafood House in Anaheim to eat and have a few brews (their Emil's Amber kicks ass!). Then I drug the guys out and we headed to Loffler's around 10:30pm.
We had to park about a block away from Loffler's becuse the street was lined with cars on both sides, and when we walked up to the door we saw a huge crowd of people waiting to get in. The show was obviously sold out by this time. We were confronted at the door as if we were going to be told that the show was sold out, but when we held out our wrist bracelets we were quickly ushered in. The place was packed from wall to wall with a standing room only crowd. We went up as close as we could to the stage to watch The Trio with Marco Mendoza:
They were rocking big-time, and my musician buddies looked at me with big smiles and nods of approval. Then I looked over to my left and saw a familiar figure with curly black hair and sunglasses rocking out to the band... it was none other than Neal frigging Schon! He was standing right next to me. I tapped the shoulder of one of my friends (a guitarist) and said, "Hey, there's Neal Schon right next to me." He did a quick double-take and his jaw dropped open. Then I snapped a quick shot of him:
I then walked to the other side of the crowd to snap this shot of Neal taking in the Marco Mendoza Trio show:
Shortly thereafter, Neal disappeared just as the Marco Mendoza Trio was wrapping it up. Then they gave away a 1969 Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster for the charity raffle, and the JSS Band started setting up their gear. Howie Simon took the stage and started warming up. About 15 minutes later, I heard a bunch of screaming and whistling, and JSS walked on stage. Within a few minutes, the JSS Band was rocking the house:
After they did about six or seven songs, JSS announced that there was a very special guest guitarist in the house who was going to join them, and Neal Schon came onstage to the roar of the crowd:
They whipped through a few killer Soul Sirkus songs and at one point in the show Marco Mendoza came onstage to play bass with them. They did a killer rendition of Journey's "Separate Ways" which sounded absolutely awesome!
Other than the soundman having problems with the tacky Fender P.A. mains that sounded distorted at times (Fender needs to stick with guitars), this was ONE KICK ASS SHOW that I was very glad to be able to witness.
Before JSS & Company left the stage, Jeff was privileged to be able to give away another Fender Custom Shop Telecaster that was signed by JSS, Neal, and other well-known musicians in attendance at the show:
What was amazing is that about 95% of the audience were musicians in town for the NAMM Show. To entertain an audience of musicians, it takes some very skilled professionals - and JSS, Neal Schon, Marco Mendoza, Howie Simon, Gary Schutt, and Dave Dzialak did not let them down.
I tried to walk around and see if I could recognize any MelodicRock.com Forum members, but there were so many people in the building that I didn't know where to start. Plus, I know a lot of your screen names - but I don't know your faces. I wore my Journey shirt hoping some of you would maybe get my attention, but no one did.
I hope some of the rest of you who attended the show (and maybe even JSS himself) can fill in the details that I may have missed and/or post some of your own pics of the show (there were a lot of cameras flashing, so I know I was not the only one taking them).
I'll post some more pics from the NAMM Show itself tomorrow after I get done checking it all out.
Available @ 
I don't know what came over me!...guess it was just knowing that he is partly responsible for creating the music that touches me the most. So, Jeff, if you read this - hi, it was a fun night & I love those disco songs - will we ever be hearing them again?! 
