May 21, 2004 - Rosemont, IL
WELCOME TO THE SUMMER TOUR 2004! Louisville turned out to be an unexpectedly nice place (who'd a thunk!) and a warm and rewarding travel experience. SueC and I lucked into a great Thai restaurant in an arty section of town. I'm heavy into ethnic and SueC is heavy into gravy, but she gamely agreed to join me in some Chicken Pad Thai (while eyeing the Krispy Kreme shop next door). She survived and even liked it. At least she liked it MUCH better than the Ethiopian restaurant I drug her to in New Brunswick. LOL The staff was very nice at our hotel, but we overdosed on Hot Browns served by our five-star waiter, the gracious and welcoming Michael. Our own fault, I suppose. The hotel had held out wireless internet as a lollipop to entice us, but the signal was very low and I kept getting bounced off. When you live, eat and die on the world wide web, a high speed connection is the butter on your bread. Cursing, I was finally reduced to dial up. No number of delicious Hot Browns will salve that wound! Nary a fan was to be found late Thursday morning in the attractive hotel lobby as we checked out. A few had risen early to make the LONG trip to Mt Pleasant, some had left for home after a companionable drink in the hotel bar after the concert. SueC and I had our own plans. Soaring Eagle Casino had been crossed off our travel list; it had too many strikes against it. At this stage of the game, I'm not tempted to grimly undertake an 8 hour drive to sit in a bingo hall. Besides! A tall, handsome, brilliantly talented blond Englishman was waiting for me in Indianapolis... I had been a casual Bowie fan for years, disliking his early work and bizarre persona, and discovering him in the 80s when I was a desperate and lonely young mother addicted, along with my 2 year old to MTV. 
I missed the Serious Moonlight tour, and
Corn Country did not seem to be a common stopping place for him.
He slipped out of mind, but I finally woke up to Reality (the title of
his recently released cd). I'm more aware of the sand slipping through
the hourglass these days and I'm thinking more about the list of things
I want to DO before I die. Bowie was one of them, and I turned
my eye toward making that happen. A cruise on eBay got me what I
wanted, and in January, Doctor Love and I tripped up to Detroit in the
Hummer to cross one more thing off my lifelist. The concert at The
Palace was spectacular, and while it satisfied my curiosity, it also whetted
my appetite. When Bowie added the concert in my hometown, in the
intimate Murat Theatre (3000 vs the 16,000 Palace) I HAD to go. A
flurry of calls to brokers across the United States produced gold: front
row pit! I'm sure my son will understand about the need to forgo
his final year at college. I spent the evening 3 feet from the all
time greatest performer in rock 'n roll, and at one point, I actually jumped
BACK a step when he slung his mike stand onto the EDGE of the stage in
front of me. While still energized and with a stage appearance completely
belying his 57 years, his performance was a tiny notch down from January.
There was a bit of sadness about him, perhaps from recent troubles on his
tour, and a slight bit less enthusiasm. Show number 95 was still
absolutely outstanding and the man can move, effortlessly, erotically,
BEAUTIFULLY, hips gently gyrating, his entire body moving poetically with
the music. God, he is gorgeous! Sigh There's just one
negative thing about it.
I LOVE the music of The Moody Blues. While I have great appreciation of Bowie as a performer and an enduring and influential rock icon, his music just doesn't do it for me. The Moody Blues music does. I guess it really *is* about the music! So, David, good luck on the rest of your world tour, have fun, make lots of money and buy Imam something nice on the road. You won't be seeing me again for quite a while, sorry about that! I'm off to follow the greatest music in the world. (But thanks for the setlist!)  The
four of us left Indy the next day for Chicago. I think I could come
to hate Chicago as much as I dislike New York City. Yech! Hubby
handled the driving chore in his usual masterful way, and I set out to
torture SueC and CL with another one of my closet favorites - Sarah Brightman.
I had bought a new copy of my favorite SB cd, a quirky pop album titled
Dive. I thought they would hate it, but the girls surprised me.
They actually enjoyed Dive, and it's a good thing, 'cause I played the
entire cd three times, filling the van with whale song. Whenever
rebellion began to foment, I threatened them with Bowie's Greatest Hits
- LOL All went well until Chicago loomed and we were surrounded by
tens of thousands of reckless semis and played stop and go for what seemed
to be an eternity. Aaaargh! Hubby doesn't *do* well in stop
and go traffic when he *should* be going 55 (or 80 as it may be) and finally
started to lose it. Hell, we were ALL losing it! LOL
A voice expressed the group feeling when it sweetly said: I want
to KILL something! I kept calm, and gently encouraged darling
Hubby by pointing out that we had 3 hours to make the concert, all the
while thinking silently that it would be midnight at least before we reached
Rosemont. I had forgotten about the whole toll thing in Chicago,
and three women were dumping their purses on the seats and the floor (a
floor already covered by SueC's McDonald's french fries) and frantically
scrambling for quarters.
We reached Rosemont thru a killer combination of Gabe's NEW toy - the promised GPS he received for Christmas, backed up by a surreptitious printout from Mapquest. Sarah, named in honor of the lovely Ms Brightman, wanted to take us off into the wild blue yonder, and Hubby was sorely tempted to follow her into the sunset. I told him that as The Driver it was his choice, but I would not be responsible if we ended up lost in the ghetto. Mapquest won for the moment, and Sarah acquiesced and agreed to go along. LOL We got to the venue around 4:30 and reveled in beating the parking attendants, pulling in to a primo spot by the stage door undetected. Hubby was willing to reconnoiter and we sent him off exploring. After a trip to the neighboring Holiday Inn to "freshen up" (sounds so much better than piss like a racehorse, doesn't it?), we had the good fortune to meet up with a trio of old friends from Wisconsin and Minnesota. I was busily talking and was nearly run down by a van. THE van! We scattered like a pack of rats pounced on by the old gray cat. Um, it was a yellow cat in our case! THE VENUE Rosemont is a favored venue and hosts The Moodies regularly. This was SueC's and my 4th trip there. I cringe every time I see it on the tour schedule. It's not that it isn't a very nice venue with comfortable seats, good sight lines, plentiful ladies rooms and easy parking. It's all those things and a very nice place to see The Moodies. It's the TICKETS. Ticket buying for Rosemont is always hell, and it only gets worse. I don't know where the blame lies. Pit tickets seem to *disappear* at Rosemont, sometimes brokers get them and sometimes I suspect *others* get them (and I don't mean either fans or the general public). The pit is guarded like a princess's virginity and if you don't have a pit ticket, you ain't getting IN the pit. My sincere and respectful congratulations to the Kat who ended up on the front row of the pit. I salute you!  At
least this time, ticket buying was of no consequence. There were
no tickets to buy! LOL A Chicago classic rock radio station
named The Drive bought the entire house and held their 3rd birthday celebration
with The Moodies. All tickets were theirs to give. Knowing
this well ahead of time, in fact, knowing it before they had announced
it, I tried my best to score. I sweetly emailed them, I joined their
advisory board, I signed up every eligible friend and relative I HAD in
their ticket drawing. sigh Who won our pathetic tickets?
My husband, of course! It was to be expected that The Drive would
use their big event as I used to use my annual Christmas party - invite
everyone you *owe* from the year before in addition to everyone you'd like
to be there. And they did! The pit and the lower orchestra
section were filled with special friends and family of The Drive.
Sadly, I was a poor second cousin. LOL
Rosemont is a 4200 seat venue, modern, very nice, and owned by the Town of Rosemont. Mayor Donald Stevens and the City of Rosemont *welcomed* us last night to the Theatre, and reminded us not to smoke, and not to take pictures and not to take food or drink into the Theatre. Well, they probably want to keep it nice. It has a large lobby, great parking, and excellent acoustics. The large main floor is divided into a number of sections and there is a fairly large pit directly in front of the stage. The venue is finished off by a fair sized balcony. A damn big set of speakers were flying and a small stack were on either side. The stage setup was its usual for The Moodies. No photography? Please! People were walking in with big lenses with impunity. <shrug> The whole photography thing is nuts and just gets nuttier. THE FASHION REPORT JL - White long-slvd shirt, black pants, no change at half, boots JH - White long-slvd shirt, black jeans, boots (I think I saw studs glinting in the light) , second half the pink sherbet western shirt and blue jeans with some pretty amazing WHITE shoes Graeme - two ladies shirt 2nd half and God Knows What first half Norda- NEW dress, very pretty Bernie - NY top (white sequined/sparkly), dark slacks Gordon - Black tshirt with glitter on the shoulder First, let me state that I couldn't SEE jack. The above is what I thought I saw from stinking row S. Norda's new dress (reported first at Soaring Eagle) is great, lovely and becoming. It *looked* like spaghetti straps, a straight fall underskirt with a glittery overlay with tassles. It's very eye catching! It looked like she was wearing her tantalizing and tawdry Tart's Trotters. Bernie added to the glitterfest with an eyecatching white top, first seen last tour. Lots of razzle-dazzle over there. Gordon glittered too! He had some kind of *patch* on the left shoulder of his black tshirt.  However!
Absolutely nothing caught my eye like Justin's new shoes. LOL!!!
A Badger said to me afterward that her father had a pair just like them
in the early seventies and asked if a white belt was next. (I told
her that possibly JH was wearing a white belt under his western shirt.)
Hey, I noticed them and thought they were all right on stage. I *would*
maybe go out and scuff them around a bit. They're so darn white that
they GLOW. It's a bit too much there. They looked like deck
shoes of some kind, slip-ons. Personally, I'd like to see him in
huraches, but I understand The Band has a code about wearing socks.
Got to leave *something* to the imagination! THE CONCERT A large number of people asked me why in the world I would go to Rosemont when I had such AWFUL seats. Why? Because I'm a rock 'n roll maverick. I went to celebrate with other fans, went because someone was kind enough to offer me a free seat at a concert (plus hors d' oeurves and drinks), because it was 35 miles away from Merrillville and just to hear the music. I seek different kinds of concert experiences and this was as different as they come. Boy, was it different! The Moodies sets were preceeded by Karma, a Beatles cover band, playing in the lobby. It wasn't the worst music I've ever heard, but it was pretty bad. Don't quit your day jobs.  What
do you get in row S? Well, you get really good sound, particularly
at Rosemont. The first few songs were scratchy but it cleaned up
by Tuesday Afternoon. Perhaps someone really DOES do something at
the sound console. LOL You get a GREAT light show. And
finally, you get little stick figures on stage, but you *can* see them
all at once. HAHA The 2004 setlist (again including VitS and
TOoT) was performed in its entirety with a 20 minute intermission.
Row S is a very forgiving place, and I didn't notice any glaring mistakes,
just a well-performed show. There was a big crowd and they seemed
to have a good time. Several came armed with glowsticks, but no one
circled them in front of my face or tried to poke an eye out, so I didn't
mind. I'm sure it's like dandelions - a few here and there in the
yard look pretty, but before you know it the place will be taken over by
them. It's a small price to pay to hear TOSOL!
The Rosemont staff run a pretty tight ship and even this free concert was no exception. A group of no less than 5 security staff, including a supervisor, had a *discussion* with one of a pair of rambunctious fans sitting in the lower orchestra during the break. While I was not privy to the animated conversation, it was obvious to me and to a few thousand other people what the problem was - a complete and utter lack of consideration on their part of the people sitting by and behind them. I'm tolerant of most concert behavior, dancing, standing, singing along, fainting, whatever. It's another thing to belligerently ruin the concert experience for other people. <shrug> I just hope it's never my bad luck to have to sit near them! The Moodies gave a rousing ending to an excellent concert and SueC and I left, amused more than anything else. God bless the folks who are willing and content to sit in the seats we had that night, 'cause *I* sure don't want to ever sit in them again. I like to feel the crackle and sizzle of the energy off the stage and it's a lot easier to feel it in the first 3 or 4 rows than it is in Row S. Still, I'm glad I joined the festivities. The Drive made an outstanding choice for their party and it will be hard for them to do better next year. Perhaps they'll hire The Stones! What impressed me most about the concert was the large number of YOUNG people there. I walked out of the theatre behind a pair of guys in their late teens/early twenties SERIOUSLY discussing the music.  Our
group regathered at the van and thought it would be appropriate to wait
around and warmly wave at The Band as they left the venue. Everyone
should do it at least once! LOL You stand and visit while you
wait and wait and wait. To have the complete experience, it should
rain or snow on you, or be SO cold that your feet go numb and your teeth
start chattering. We were visited by a steady rain to add to our
suffering. Venue security will curtly tell you to MOVE, and will
often suggest (stupidly) that The Band has already left, ala Kahunaville.
Just as you start to consider that perhaps the vehicles are decoys and
The Band HAS already left by another exit, musicians start to come out.
You can't see a THING of course, since you're at the back of the crowd.
If you're lucky, a silver or blonde or curly head will flash by and then
be safely nestled in a black limo. I did see band members kindly
sign a guitar for a gal, and I don't think this particular guitar will
ever be on eBay. : ) The vehicles pull out and you're
left with your friends, thinking what a wonderful night it has been.
Even in Row S! MaggieMay I didn't mean to make you cry, I don't need an alibi, To stop me talking out of turn Photos courtesy of SueC |
Merrillville |