Re: 8/23/15 Denver, CO PARAMOUNT THEATRE - Two shows!
Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2015 10:09 am
Driew! Sorry, I missed you, didn't know you were here!
Anyway, I did get to meet up with Casey before the show. He enjoyed the VIP activities very much and I could see him rockin' out to the show from my seat, so I'm sure he'll share his stories.
Jackie, Heather, Josh and I took Uber over, which was the first time I ever tried Uber actually. Following the theme for us this year, thanks to a bicycle race going on downtown, we made it there just in time to sit down and for the show to start. Our seats were third row off on Steve's side and except for the few shows we ended up in the center section somehow, probably the best seats we had. We were very close to the stage. For "Tacky" Al started in a seafood restaurant and walked out into an alley. He flipped JW's sunglasses off in the alley. The stage was small enough that they had to sit the microphone/sound guy on the stage, and it was funny to watch him mouth along to every video clip. The cheerleaders for SLN were professional cheerleaders. You could tell right from the start that they were above and beyond any of the cheerleaders at the other shows I've seen, but when they started lifting each other over each other heads(!), that's when they started stealing the show. They were absolutely awesome! Al definitely played up that there were two shows that night because at the end of show during the James Brown routine, he said something like "I wish we could play all night, but we can't because we have another show to do in 90 minutes and it wouldn't be fair to those who paid for tickets." Al had only the white people sing for "Yoda". Anyway, the crowd was awesome. Had that been my last show as planned, I would totally have been pleased, but as it was, after the show, we hung back in our seats to let the crowd thin out before leaving, and Bermuda comes over and says hi for a minute. Then Jim was also hanging around and said hi. I think they were looking for their guests. Well, we're about to leave and we run into an old friend and long story short, she casually tells me that there are 4 tickets waiting for me for the 7:30 show at will call.
Wait... what?!?!
So now that our plans of going home and watching zombies and wrestling having being abruptly changed, we head to the closest restaurant, which I believe was called Earl's and was really good, and had dinner, then walked back to the theater, where I ran into JW outside wrapping up VIP stuff. This time our seats were oer on Jim's side a few rows further back, but it was nice to see the same show back to back from opposite sides of the theater. Slightly different opening to "Tacky" as Al followed the same path, but slapped a drink out of Jim's hand and threw flowers JW had onto the ground. Also being on the opposite side this time, Al walked right past me as he came down the aisle. At the beginning of NTWICP Al played up the 2 show thing again, and said that he just felt like he played Denver 90 minutes ago. The cheerleaders did the same routine but were somehow much better the second show, which is insane because they were so incredible the first show. There's a video I shared on my Facebook of them from the second show that's worth watching. . And at the end of the show during the James Brown thing, Al said something "I wish we could play all night, but I just did two shows and I'm really tired and he have to drive 11 hours tonight to Utah, so that would be highly impractical". There were much less stormtroopers for the second show so we surmise some had to leave early. Al singled out a guy in the front row to sing "Yoda".
Anyway we were asked to hang back at the end of the second show to say good night to my friend and security hassled us a little but then security got the official okay that we could stay in the theater and we watched them almost completely tear down the stage, which is a massive undertaking. At one point we were asked to move to the middle of the theater because they were taking down the speaker stacks and I guess they were afraid of dropping them on us! Well, we ended up being shuffled backstage, where we ran into Steve Jay who congratulated Jackie on 100 shows and asked me to show his guests my tattoos. We asked Steve if he was tired from playing for 4 hours and he said no because he fed off the energy of the awesome audiences and that Denver always had good audiences. Then shortly after Al came out and he was very relaxed too considering the physical workout he had. He commented to Jackie that it was her 102nd show and told her at 500 she gets a pair of novelty glasses. We complimented him on the show and talked about the cheerleaders which Al said he couldn't actually see them while singing, he only heard when they did something awesome because of the audience reaction. Anyway, Al graciously posed for a group photo. We then said good night to our friend and caught an Uber back to the house, where everyone (not me-- too scared!) watched zombies after all.
I totally couldn't have asked for any more awesome or unexpected ending to a great summer. I saw 24 shows this tour and this was my favorite setlist so far, and probably my favorite tour chasing . A lot of it had to do with the shows, but a lot of it had to do with the great friends I got to meet for the first time, or see again and hang out with along the way. I will miss seeing you all, but you know where to find me, so don't be a stranger!
Here are the pictures from the shows. My camera died halfway through the second show because, well, frankly I didn't conserve batter power because I didn't know there would be a second show. You need to be my friend to see them. Applications for friendship are available for free at Facebook, and I accept all applicants.
Dave
Anyway, I did get to meet up with Casey before the show. He enjoyed the VIP activities very much and I could see him rockin' out to the show from my seat, so I'm sure he'll share his stories.
Jackie, Heather, Josh and I took Uber over, which was the first time I ever tried Uber actually. Following the theme for us this year, thanks to a bicycle race going on downtown, we made it there just in time to sit down and for the show to start. Our seats were third row off on Steve's side and except for the few shows we ended up in the center section somehow, probably the best seats we had. We were very close to the stage. For "Tacky" Al started in a seafood restaurant and walked out into an alley. He flipped JW's sunglasses off in the alley. The stage was small enough that they had to sit the microphone/sound guy on the stage, and it was funny to watch him mouth along to every video clip. The cheerleaders for SLN were professional cheerleaders. You could tell right from the start that they were above and beyond any of the cheerleaders at the other shows I've seen, but when they started lifting each other over each other heads(!), that's when they started stealing the show. They were absolutely awesome! Al definitely played up that there were two shows that night because at the end of show during the James Brown routine, he said something like "I wish we could play all night, but we can't because we have another show to do in 90 minutes and it wouldn't be fair to those who paid for tickets." Al had only the white people sing for "Yoda". Anyway, the crowd was awesome. Had that been my last show as planned, I would totally have been pleased, but as it was, after the show, we hung back in our seats to let the crowd thin out before leaving, and Bermuda comes over and says hi for a minute. Then Jim was also hanging around and said hi. I think they were looking for their guests. Well, we're about to leave and we run into an old friend and long story short, she casually tells me that there are 4 tickets waiting for me for the 7:30 show at will call.
Wait... what?!?!
So now that our plans of going home and watching zombies and wrestling having being abruptly changed, we head to the closest restaurant, which I believe was called Earl's and was really good, and had dinner, then walked back to the theater, where I ran into JW outside wrapping up VIP stuff. This time our seats were oer on Jim's side a few rows further back, but it was nice to see the same show back to back from opposite sides of the theater. Slightly different opening to "Tacky" as Al followed the same path, but slapped a drink out of Jim's hand and threw flowers JW had onto the ground. Also being on the opposite side this time, Al walked right past me as he came down the aisle. At the beginning of NTWICP Al played up the 2 show thing again, and said that he just felt like he played Denver 90 minutes ago. The cheerleaders did the same routine but were somehow much better the second show, which is insane because they were so incredible the first show. There's a video I shared on my Facebook of them from the second show that's worth watching. . And at the end of the show during the James Brown thing, Al said something "I wish we could play all night, but I just did two shows and I'm really tired and he have to drive 11 hours tonight to Utah, so that would be highly impractical". There were much less stormtroopers for the second show so we surmise some had to leave early. Al singled out a guy in the front row to sing "Yoda".
Anyway we were asked to hang back at the end of the second show to say good night to my friend and security hassled us a little but then security got the official okay that we could stay in the theater and we watched them almost completely tear down the stage, which is a massive undertaking. At one point we were asked to move to the middle of the theater because they were taking down the speaker stacks and I guess they were afraid of dropping them on us! Well, we ended up being shuffled backstage, where we ran into Steve Jay who congratulated Jackie on 100 shows and asked me to show his guests my tattoos. We asked Steve if he was tired from playing for 4 hours and he said no because he fed off the energy of the awesome audiences and that Denver always had good audiences. Then shortly after Al came out and he was very relaxed too considering the physical workout he had. He commented to Jackie that it was her 102nd show and told her at 500 she gets a pair of novelty glasses. We complimented him on the show and talked about the cheerleaders which Al said he couldn't actually see them while singing, he only heard when they did something awesome because of the audience reaction. Anyway, Al graciously posed for a group photo. We then said good night to our friend and caught an Uber back to the house, where everyone (not me-- too scared!) watched zombies after all.
I totally couldn't have asked for any more awesome or unexpected ending to a great summer. I saw 24 shows this tour and this was my favorite setlist so far, and probably my favorite tour chasing . A lot of it had to do with the shows, but a lot of it had to do with the great friends I got to meet for the first time, or see again and hang out with along the way. I will miss seeing you all, but you know where to find me, so don't be a stranger!
Here are the pictures from the shows. My camera died halfway through the second show because, well, frankly I didn't conserve batter power because I didn't know there would be a second show. You need to be my friend to see them. Applications for friendship are available for free at Facebook, and I accept all applicants.
Dave