I'm still recovering from the Al-induced haze, but I think I'm ok now.
I've purposely tried to stay away from reading too many reviews so that everything would be new to me. The last Al concert I had attended was in Sacramento in 2004, where I had met up with the friends I had met at the Stockton show in 1999 and made some new ones as well. As this concert was approaching, I was bummed at the lack of response for this concert. But I digress.
This venue was unique in that it seemed to be more of a show for locals/HSU students than for the general public. As it got closer to the show, it seemed the best seats we were going to score were in the balcony. When they finally got their online ticket sales system running, I pulled row J, but threw them back. On a whim, I had checked a few days before I was truly ready to buy and pulled front row on the aisle. I wasn't going to let that go, so I purchased those right away. After the seats next to ours sold, the show had sold out. And to give an update on me purchasing the tickets twice by accident, they refunded the duplicate charge before I did anything.
It got to be 7:30 (the show was scheduled to start at 8 ), and the natives were getting restless. We went up to ask about will call, but the person before us was asking about when the doors would open. The woman in the booth said 7:30, but the guy pointed out to the woman that it was well past 7:30. She didn't have much to say after that. Between that and the odd online sales, I thought we were in for a strange show. Luckily, that's where the strangeness ended.
The seats were incredible. Right up to the stage. It really made a difference, since you can have all the fun you want and not worry about how the people around you feel about your shenanigans. Since there were only about 3 or 4 women in the front row, Al could really schmooze the ladies. For WBUL, I received some Al attention twice (which has been a bit of a dream of mine
). What I really loved, though, was that the crowd was really into the show. Since there weren't many "heavy hitters" from here attending, if any, I was kinda afraid that the show would be attended by people that just needed something to do that night. They seemed really into the music, and the stuff that was new to them was a real hit.
Y'all already know how the show goes better than I do, so I'll just point out some highlights.
The only flub I noticed was that a few songs after Pentiums, the Pentiums intro started again before another song. Just a few seconds worth - enough time for the band members to look at eachother - and then the correct song started. There was the traditional exhaustive list of doughnuts, but I don't know which ones are new, otherwise I'd share only the new ones. Sorry! There were many berry doughnuts, coconut, old fashioned, vanilla cream (or something like that), etc.. He started over once when the one woman in the front row got the deer in the headlights look when Al was addressing her, then he sorta started again when he lost his train of thought, but "remembered" soon after starting and cut to the end. No I'll Sue Ya, so no Yankobucks. We were sitting right in front of the confetti shooters, so it was fun to have those just miss us (the stage was really short). I'm still finding confetti. No extra Star Wars characters for that portion of the show.
I guess it's too late to share this, but if Al keeps the Cell Phone song in the show, the iPhone has a great free app called myLite that recently added a lit lighter to the things you can display on the screen, in addition to many other flickering displays of color to choose from. Perfect for Amish Paradise as well, although the lighter may be a bit too modern for the Amish.
On the way over to the bus after the show, I was able to chit chat a little with Steve Jay, who is always friendly and approachable. Afterward, we hung out with the crowd near the bus and equipment truck, but Al was not coming out. They said he was in a black and silver bus that had already taken off. Don't know if it was true, but oh well. And, if you were the one who gave him the "Weird Al for President" sign, it's hanging in the equipment truck. We did find a large black and silver bus parked near an inn and some late night fast food places as we were trying to find the freeway we needed, but I'd assume that Al probably went straight to Lancaster, if anything.
That's all I can think of for now. Hope it wasn't too boring. I know I lurk more than post, but it's nice to be here.
DB
. Yesterday, however, they were offering Row J, so it's totally right place at the right time. Last week on the phone they were offering balcony. I did see that the next set of tix were next to ours so if you happen to be in the Arcata area, get some tix and join us! The website timed out on me on the "Purchase" screen, but I got the tickets anyway. In fact, I got them twice/was charged twice since I thought it never completed. That'll be a fun set of phone calls. Tip: wait a few minutes for the confirmation email before trying again.
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Glad you had a such a good time.