The moody Blues put on a great show Tuesday night at the Paramount in Seattle. I was a little apprehensive as their music is such that the vocals need to work right to give it the sound that is so distinctive. I was’t disappointed at all. They sounded great, and the band was just incredible. The background singers (who also seemed to play almost every instrument imaginable) did a great job of rounding out the vocals of Justin Hayward and John Lodge. All three of the guys, including Graeme Edge performed with surprising agility given they are all around 70. It is hard to believe that they are into the 51st year as being a band…how incredible is that!

Some of my favorite songs of the night were their opening “Gemini Dream” followed by “The Voice” and then of course their hugely popular “Tuesday Afternoon“, “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)” and “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere“. By far though, my absolute favorites of the night were “Nights in White Satin” and “Isn’t Life Strange”. All together they played 19 songs in two sets with one encore.

Great old sixties/seventies progressive rock music.

Last night at Rogers Arena in Vancouver Canada. Toni and I had a meet and greet with Def Leppard and were able to meet all the guys and have our picture taken with them before the show. It is always fun to see super stars close up when you have been seeing them in concerts for years, watching them in videos on television and holding them in such an iconic level…we are usually surprised that they look and act just normal people and almost always are shorter than our expectations.

We got to our seats about an hour before the show and were blown away by how close our seats were to the stage. We were four rows back from the front and on the inside aisle. As there was a center extension from the main stage, our seats were actually right at stage side. These were the best seats to any concert we had ever been too. Both Toni and I were standing at the rail all night while the guys would go back and forth singing and playing…they were less than five feet from us throughout the show.

These guys always put on such a great show. They may have aged a bit over the last 30 years, they sound as good as they did in the eighties. Some of the most memorable songs they performed were, “Armageddon It“, “Rock of Ages“, “Rocket“, “Photograph“, “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak” and “let’s Get Rocked“. I think our favorites were when Joe Elliott was out solo,  standing right in front of us with his acoustic guitar playing “Two Steps Behind“, and the guys did an incredible version of the classic ’70s Dave Essex’s song, “Rock On“…awesome bass riff.

We have tickets to see Def Leppard again at the White River Amphitheater in September, but our seats are not even close to being as good as this show, so it will be very hard to top this. Both Toni and I feel this is the concert to beat this year…certainly ranks up with the top 5 concerts I have been to.