Good line up for the show with Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience opening up, then Cheap Trick and finally Foreigner.

So the above pictures were the only ones I got from this show, which in the long run didn’t matter much anyway as the show was kind of a flop. I guess every show can’t be amazingly fabulous and there has to be a dud at some point. This was certainly it.

It started out bad as I rushed out of the house (after waking up late from a nap) and had just a half an hour to get to the venue (White River Amphitheater), which is exactly a half an hour away from my house (without traffic)… I was a little concerned as I was doing a VIP meet and Greet with Foreigner and was told in an email confirmaiton to NOT BE LATE or else I would miss portions of the backstage tour and possibly the meet and greet, so naturally I was stressed and ran out of the house without my cell phone or my camera. No way to take any pictures of the show. If it was’t for the single meet and greet band shot and a nice lady taking the other two and sending to me, I would’t have gotten any at all.

The back stage tour and hours devours/ drinks were pretty good. The lead singer of Foreigner Kelly Hansen actually designed the food choices and it was prepared by the same caterer who supports the band on tour, so it was quite tasty…the only problem was it was raining that day (I think first day of rain in Seattle in over 70 straight days) and there wasn’t much cover.

The meet and greet was pretty good too except wouldn’t you think that a meet and greet with the BAND would mean the whole band? Apparently Mick Jones (the only actual, original band member) was above meeting the fans and busy doing something else…not cool!

From that point on, that was pretty much the end of the “pretty good” and start of the “not so cool”. The night went down hill from there. First off, my seat was about 4 and a half feet from the mammoth stage sub-woofer that was pounding every one of Jason Bonham’s bass kicks straight through my skin, bones and very soul. I felt the vibration of the speaker hit my jacket and blow my hair back with every beat. There was just no way I was going to be able to sit there, and me without ear plug I would have been deaf for sure. I took the opportunity to walk up to the back grass area and watch/ listen from the back. I returned to my seat for Cheap Trick, only to find out that Robin Zander (lead singer) was a no show…the excuse was something about having to go back to Florida due to hurricane Irma…strange that I would expect there’s no safer place from a Florida hurricane than the other side of the country, but oh well. They played a half baked show with numerous stand-in singers and couldn’t get off the stage fast enough as far as I was concerned. Foreigner came on pretty late and had a good stage show and sounded fine, but by then I was not in the concert mood any longer and only stayed for the first five or six songs.

Pretty much a bust, except I got to meet (some) of the members of Foreigner and have some pretty tasty hors devours.

Great show last night at the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery in Woodinville. It was a great line-up with The Doobie Brothers and ZZ Top. I have seen ZZ Top a number of times and they never fail to put on a great show, but I have never seen The Doobie Brothers and was very much looking forward to hearing and seeing live performances of all those great old songs I grew up with in the 70’s.

The Doobie Brothers had a great set of songs and sounded great. Although there are only two original members of the band (Patrick Simmons and Tommy Johnston) they had a great group of backing musicians and were able to hit the sound I remember from all those years ago. Some of my favorites of the night were their opening song, Jesus is Just Alright and then Rocking’ Down the Highway. Of course Take me in Your Arms (Rock me A Little While), South City Midnight Lady, Takin’ it to the Streets and China Grove were awesome as well. They closed their set with two encore songs, Without You and Listen to the Music. My all time favorite Doobies song is of course Black Water, and they did an absolutely incredible job and I absolutely loved it!

ZZ Top came on the stage around 8:30 opening up with Got Me Under Pressure, Waiting’ for the Bus and Jesus Just Left Chicago… They sounded as good as even and put on a great show.

Great show last night at the White River Amphitheater in Auburn. It was a warm night and fortunately had cooled off of the 95 degree days we were having earlier in the week which made it very nice for an outside show.

I have seen both Peter Frampton and the Steve Miller Band before, but tonight I was able to get a meet and greet with Peter Frampton which made this special. I have always enjoyed his music, but was a little apprehensive in meeting him as I have had a bit of a negative opinion of him following the last time I saw him and he was real abrasive to the crowd about taking pictures and then after the issue with him walking off stage a couple weeks ago, I was concerned he would be stand-offish and not very friendly. I was pleasantly surprised that he was actually quite nice, humble and very friendly, asking my name, where I was from and thanking me very sincerely for coming to the show.

Both of these guys put on great shows and sounded great. You just can’t get enough of Peter Frampton’s “talk box” and Steve Miller’s absolutely incredible blues infused guitar. The highlights of the show for me was Peter Frampton’s tribute to Chris Cornell with Black Hole Sun…absolutely amazing guitar work and very tastefully done. Probably my favorite  part of the Steve Miller set was when he and Peter Frampton jammed out some very classic blues tunes by legends such as Otis Rush, Muddy Waters and Elmore James and then of course Mercury Blues a K.C. Douglas cover…absolutely stunning. Of course he played his classic hits such as Swing Town, Space Cowboy, Fly Like an dEagle and Jet Airliner.

Awesome show and great to see these guys together on tour.

Last night’s show at Key Arena in Seattle was incredible. I was a little apprehensive with Adam Lambert as front man for Queen as I did go on line and watch a few of the current live performance videos and to me Adam Lambert sounded stale and didn’t seem to have “life” to his vocals, sounding much as he did during his time on American Idol. How different things were live! He sounded great with an incredible range and exuding a enormous amount of personality and energy. We were very impressed with him as lead vocalist to one of Rock and Rolls most iconic, unique and all time great bands.

We arrived at the show around 5:00pm in time to check in for the early entry VIP lounge enjoyed a few drinks and a great variety of light snacks.

The show started just after 8:00pm with the band opening appropriately enough with a short version of We Will Rock You. Their setlist was a very good mix of their big hits and some of the more obscure songs not heard since their release. Some of our favorites were Fat Bottomed Girls, Killer Queen, Don’t Stop Me Now and Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Adam Lambert sang one of his originals called Two Fux which was a song about being yourself and not really caring much about what other people think. I think my two favorite songs of the night were Who Wants to Live Forever and Somebody to Love (video link below).

Great show and definitely a must see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AplcFcDqxjc

Finally getting around to posting about the Brian Wilson show I went dow to Santa Barbara to see. Funny thing…I decided to go to this particular show as when it was being advertised, it was being advertised as the last of the Pet Sound shows, so I thought how cool it would be to go and see this iconic artist perform what many believe is one of the top albums of all time in souther California where it all started. Cool huh? Well, turns out that not only was this NOT the last show it was’t even the last show in the US as they added a later date in Hawaii and then planned a whole european tour…fished in again!

Well, didn’t take me long to get over that as soon as the first notes of the sound check started. This was by far one of the best sound checks I have ever seen as I really wasn’t expecting to see Brain Wilson, but not only did he host the entire set, but they must have played for a half an hour. What a treat to see them play for such a small group and in such a informal setting.

The main show was absolutely fabulous. I know beach boys songs are all relatively short, but he and the band played for what was around two an a half hours which turned out to be a total of 38 songs, with the entire Pet Sounds album sandwiched in between a ton of Beach Boys hits. A few of my favorites of the night were Shut Down, Little Deuce Coup, Don’t Worry Baby, Surfer Girl, Wouldn’t it be Nice, Sloop John B, and Sail on Sailor (sung by Blondie Chaplin – Who was a Beach Boy back in the 70’s).

One of the highlights of the day was getting to have a pre-show meet and greet where I was able to meet and have my photo taken Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and Blondie Chapin. Oh and I had a perfect view of him in his big huge leather easy chair off slightly behind the stage and I bought him looking at his watch probably wondering the same thing I was…”when’s the show supposed to start anyway?”

A very memorable trip and show and I hope Brian can continue to perform for years to come.

Surfer Girl shot at the sound check