(Evidently this was in the wrong place, so here it is again. I've never seen a forum before where a locked topic can't even be viewed from the topic list)
My wife and I had a great time at our first Al concert at Meadowbrook Friday night. I've been a fan since '82 or so when I'd listen to Al on the Dr. D show in my bedrom with my headphones on and the lights out. My mom used to wonder why I was always so tired for school Monday morning! My wife isn't as much of a fan, but she she likes him and has a good sense of humor and was more than willing to go along.
The funny thing is that we don't go to that many concerts but wound up going to two different concerts in two days! Thursday we went to the Michigan State Fair to see Willie Nelson and then Friday morning I saw on the news that Al would be at Meadowbrook. I asked my wife and she said she'd go if I could still get tickets, so at about 2:30 that day I called the Meadowbrook box office to see what was available and to order. I wanted the pavillion, but would have settled for lawn seats if need be.
Turns out I needed not have worried. When I asked the woman at the box office what was available, she said she had Row A, seats 101 and 102, and that they were "good seats." I snapped them up and they weren't good seats, they were absolutely fantastic! We were dead center in the first row of "normal" pavillion seats, behind about the five rows of temporary seating set up in the orchestra pit. The view was perfect, close enough to see Al work up a sweat, but not so close that we had to strain our necks or look up his nose.
I had no idea Al was such a dynamic live performer! My wife doesn't like most popular music, so most of the parody humor was lost on her, but she still had a great time. She especially liked the bits that the roadie participated in when he held Al's harmonica and when he did the "Elvis bodyguard" number in OOM. The highpoints were when he come out to the audience for "One more minute" and sat in the lap of the woman right in front of my wife and when he splased the water during the Kurt Cobian song. WIt was like he aimed right at us, because we were drenched! Of course, we both loved the Yoda/Saga Begins encore. Once again my wife espcially liked how the band got into it.
Before the show started I saw a woman in the front row with an Al Con III T-shirt so I went up to ask if she knew if there would be another Al Con. I don't know anyone on this board, but since by reading the board I figured out she was with Patti and I talked to both her and Patti briefly, so I met some people here before I even knew this board existed!
The only disappointments were that we weren't able to meet Al and that I didn't bring a camera. I didn't think photography would be allowed, but it might have been for the best as when I have a camera I tend to go into "reporter/photographer" mode and spend more time trying to document the experience then enjoying myself. I did bring the albulm covers from my his first two albums in case I'd be able to get an autograph, but it was not to be. At least by hanging around for an hour or so we missed the huge traffic jam when we left.
That's about it. I'll probably be posting at various places around here and I'll probably put something up in the Newbie/introduction thread. We are definately going to watch for Al's next trip to Michigan and go again.
Rob (Trebor)
Meadowbrook Music Festival ~ August 22
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Nice review, Trebor! It was nice meeting you! So, this was your first show? Fantastic! It was fabulous, wasn't it? Btw, sitting in the Orchestra pit didn't strain my neck one bit!
hehe! I was supposed to have seats in Row J, if you read my review. I still can't get over being front row! Oh, and I will definitely go again if Al comes back! He played Meadowbrook twice last tour, so who knows? Hopefully, I'll be posting pics in the topic set up for that soon! Weird Al RULES!
Patti

Patti