by Rip Rokken » Tue Jul 29, 2008 12:43 am
Here's the ROKKEN REPORT!!!
First, pre-show, we had a get together at La Villa Del Txfirefighter -- a beautiful and sprawling estate in the country, where Mr. Tx had served up a perfectly executed BBQ -- grilled chicken, hamburgers, and BBQ sausage -- DELICIOUS!!! The sides were killer, too, and Rhiannon made her famous banana pudding, which I ate way too much of... LOL! And to really add to the love TX put into the event, she had a chilled out set of Rokken's signature green-bottle brew ON HAND and waiting for me! I think she remembered my poison from Vegas, and it's extremely rare to see anyone drink that stuff, so TX -- MUCH LOVE!!! MUAH!!!! And give Mr. TX a big pat on the back -- he's super-cool and fully as heck! Oh, and LOVED YOUR CAR, BTW!!! GIMME!!!
All three band kicked total A, and I wasn't sure how much I'd be into Cheap Trick, but they were excellent! Man, Rick Niesen still puts on a great show, and brought out just about every custom guitar he's made famous over the course of his career, from the yellow square one, to the Niesen caricature axe, to the 5-necked guitar! WOW! And Robin Zander sounded OVER THE TOP! Great show, and I caught a pic from Nielsen!
Heart -- OMG!!!! YIKES, can Ann Wilson sing!!! At so many points my friends and I kept looking at each other with distorted faces of disbelief at the notes she would hit and hold out. I think most of us made the comment it was single-handedly the best female rock vocal performance we'd EVER heard. And during "Alone", the musicians really geared back to really showcase her vocals, and all I can say was... W O W ! ! ! I'd see them again in a "Heart"beat, and Saint John even made the comment that Heart should not be opening for anyone -- EVER! Nancy, too was incredibly fun to watch, and she's sexy as hell! Looks great, moves great, plays out of this world, and every time she spoke, she kinda had a playful way of talking that just made you want so badly to, umm... give her a hug! My new dream girl!!! Let me tell you who the unsung star of the show was for me, though, and that's their keyboard player. This really cool chick that was not off to the side, but sort of adjacent to the drummer and on a riser. Very cute girl with twin pigtails, a tank top, and a big grin that rarely left her face. She was on fire, and was so much fun to watch. When she wasn't playing keys, she was shaking a marimba (or whatever they call those shaker rattles), and had quite a nice rhythm to it. And during "Magic Man", it appeared she did all those wild keyboard effects MANUALLY (not sequenced). I saw her moving and twisting a joystick on her synth, and who knows -- maybe it just was part of her act, but it was flawless, and looked very cool. She looked to be focusing very hard while she was doing it.
After Heart's outstanding show, we began visiting with many of the fans from various board that were near us, and started taking a ton of great pictures with anyone and everyone. Again, big shout to Jrnycms, mod of the official Journey board for bringing the "cool" to such a hot venue! Also had a great time chatting with Barb, who runs a site for Ross, and was so glad to catch up with her since I'd missed out in Chicago last week. Also, met JSS Rocks there, and he recognized me I guess from pics when I walked by, and said, "There's Rip Rokken!" Dude, you are the coolest, as is your daughter, and as Chalfant 2.0 would say with upheld sword, "Let's rawk agayne!" Damn, these Journey fans are a great buncha folks!
One more guy we really enjoyed meeting, and who gets a special shout-out -- Crazy Deb, help me out with this, but he was the kid with the signed copy of Frontiers that everyone talked to and got pics with. A poster on the Journey board who uses his first name and hometown for a screen name -- that young man was in Journey heaven last night!
Now, Journey -- hell, what can I say! I thought the Vegas show kicked A, but they freaking tore it up last night! And Arnel -- Good Lord, he's improved! He was outstanding enough in Vegas, but he was sooooooo much at ease, and full of ENDLESS energy. Listen, people take for granted how physically fit you need to be to really tour and put on a great show, and he was just... flawless. Everyone loved him, as much as you could tell how much he enjoyed his role. All over the place, great stage moves, and every time he jumped down about 4-5 feet to the ground, my knees felt the pain his should have... dang!
Rick is right, Jon was out in front more than I've ever seen him, and we were pretty much directly in front of his side of the stage. At one point, during one of the new songs, he came over and noticed a group of people not showing quite enough enthusiasm, and sat down on the stage and crossed his arms, making a pouty look -- it was funny! I really enjoyed watching him. Also at one point, I got a kick out of seeing a roadie slip in from the side and place his stool next to his piano, perfectly timed before he needed to sit down. I laughed to Saint John that the roadie must be Cain's "stool pidgeon"... LOL!!! And Rick was also right in that Jon's pre-"Open Arms" solo was none that I'd ever heard before... really a nice change!
Ok, and apparently more proof that the band does read the boards here, or it seems so -- the DID NOT close with "Faithfully" (which by the way, Texafana -- we sent the dogs out after you last night, but the scent trail ended at an overturned portapotty, so you either died inside or slipped away unscathed again). Neal was much more animated, even spinning as Rick described, and near the beginning really tore into a shredding guitar solo the likes of which I'd never seen him do -- even including a kick-ass hammer on/pull off run with his fret hand while he let his pick hand hang at his side -- KILLER!!! Way to go, Neal!
Now my favorite highlight of the show -- as Rick mentioned, our good brother T-Time had sent down a killer batch of custom Journey T's, and made sure we all got our pick. I got a beautiful grey one, and the only reason I didn't wear it to the show was because I'd already posted what shirt I'd be wearing in hopes friends could I.D. me easily. So one of the designs was a beautiful black T with a white or silver image of Arnel taken from his first concert in Chile, over a custom Journey scarab imbedded with a vocal mic, one of which I was given the honor of finding a way to get it to Arnel. Even as close as we were, I would have had to step over a few folks to get to the stage, and my attempts to hold it up went unnoticed (and unfortunately obscured a very cool friend's view, so I apologized to her and gave up that notion). Managed to pull it off at the LAST minute, when I had slipped out of my seat during the encore and was prepared, and sure enough, once the vocals had finished on the LAST song and Arnel was working the stage, he managed to come by one more time and there was NO ONE in front of me. The security guard didn't mind my approach a bit, and I held up the shirt, then handed it to him -- he did a double-take and held it up to look at it, with a really surprised expression, and he turned around and started to hand it back to me. I smiled and laughed and motioned to him that it was his, and you could tell he was touched to see it! After that, he came all the way to the left side of the stage and started shaking/slapping hands, and even stepped down from the stage to the next level to reach us -- I got a very nice and firm handshake from Arnel along with the others, and that made my NIGHT! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, T-TIME, and wish you and your bros could have been here with us!
KICK-A time, with too much good food, great folks from different boards, and as usual, a few sleepless nights! Can't wait to do it again!
