Summer concert anticipation?!?!?

Got tickets for Saturday night at the Birchmere in Alexandria VA.
Samantha Fish and Davy Knowles. I can't wait for this one.
 
Pretty decent couple days here.

Thursday was Brian Wilson on the 50th anniversary Pet Sounds tour. The band was great, the harmonies were excellent, and the music, needless to say, was outstanding. Al Jardine looks like he's barely aged. His son Matt handled the falsetto vocals beautifully, and he really shares a chemistry with Brian - they switched off in mid-phrase several times, and it was seemless. The first set was a mix of hits and deeper cuts, including "In My Room", which is a favorite of mine. The set ended with a fiery version of "Sail On, Sailor", with Blondie Chaplin tearing it up on guitar. The second set was Pet Sounds, and it was gorgeous. "God Only Knows" was one of the highlights of the night, and got a rousing standing ovation that only ended when Brian said, "Okay, sit down!" The encore was a hits-fest - "Good Vibrations", "Help Me, Rhonda", "Barbara Ann" and "Fun, Fun, Fun" in rapid-fire succession, topped off with "Love & Mercy".

Friday morning, I decided to drive 90 minutes to Youngstown to see Kiss on the Freedom To Rock Tour. They're playing all smaller towns on this tour. I ended up with a seventh row seat - by far the closest I've sat at a Kiss show. Covelli Center is the second-smallest venue I've seen them at. Great show - pretty standard Kiss set. "Flaming Youth" was the only real deep cut that was added, and they hit most of the highlights that would fit into a 1:40 show (they'd have had to play at least another hour to hit all the songs I'd want to hear). Well worth the drive. On the way home, it seemed perfectly reasonable to drive two hours to Erie tonight to see the show again, but when I woke up, sanity prevailed.

My wife did get a couple chuckles at my expense tonight. We went out to dinner, and I wore my tour shirt. The cute waitress at the restaurant liked it. When we ran through the drive-thru at Chick-Fil-A, the kid at the window said, "Did you get to see them live?" I said, "Last night, in Youngstown." He said, "Oh my god! I'm so jealous! You're so lucky!" I thought my wife was going to choke before we got away from the window.
 
It's been a good summer concert season for me...probably the most shows I've seen over a summer since college (i.e. Long time). Bonamassa, Trucks, PRSX, McCartney...looking forward to my last...Robert Cray, this week.
 
I really hope they put out a live DVD from this tour, not only did they look and sound amazing but Ozzy really had a great voice all night long, the drummer was crushing it, wish i remembered his name, and the screens behind them had changing displays all night that were visually stunning. I will throw up a couple of pics later today.
 
Thank you everybody for sharing! I've added another one to my (late) summer concert schedule.

Alter Bridge playing a local club at the end of September!

Kevin
 
My wife and I are going to see Wishbone Ash September 26th in Annapolis at Rams Head On Stage. We'll follow that up with a Tuesday tour of a guitar factory in Stevensville that you may have heard of. We've toured it during PRS Experience but this will be my first time while they're running a normal schedule and with no tents in the parking lot. I may also drop off a couple of guitars for a PTC mod while we're there. Can't wait.
 
Got another Alice show lined up in September. Also Ghost and Kansas (two separate nights - but that would be a hell of a bill!). Gotta talk to my buddy - lot of shows floating around that we talked about but never committed to. Carcass is coming - I'll probably go see them again. Trivium. Opeth. Not sure who else is coming around. And that doesn't even get into potential road trip dates.
 
My wife and I are going to see Wishbone Ash September 26th in Annapolis at Rams Head On Stage. We'll follow that up with a Tuesday tour of a guitar factory in Stevensville that you may have heard of. We've toured it during PRS Experience but this will be my first time while they're running a normal schedule and with no tents in the parking lot. I may also drop off a couple of guitars for a PTC mod while we're there. Can't wait.

David - the factory tour will be a treat. There's a really different vibe when everything is up and running. The place even smells different. You'll have a blast.
 
We have tickets for Brian Setzer's Christmas Show in November. I think he is a fantastic player. More importantly he is one of the very few artists my wife and BOTH like.
 
We have tickets for Brian Setzer's Christmas Show in November. I think he is a fantastic player. More importantly he is one of the very few artists my wife and BOTH like.

I've seen this show several times over the years. Always a blast. Monster player!
 
One thought on Les's question on the small venues is the ticket prices are not cheap! The tickets for Jonny Lang were about $110 per ticket which is what I paid the last time I saw Rush with a full stage show. He probably grossed $50,000 plus a cut of the bar. Not a huge living but also not staying at home making nothing. Two cool things about the show was that he totally ripped it up and the bass player was from the next town over from mine.

While living in CT sometimes has its drawbacks like no real job growth, it does have its perks due the number of concert venues, large and small in the area. It used to be that you had to go to NYC to see bands, now they are usually within 15 minutes to a one hour train ride away. Lots of bands at the casino's as well.
 
Opeth last night. Great show and a lot of PRSi on display, although I wasn't close enough to make out what any of them were. Possibly the best Opeth show I've seen - very balanced set between the proggier stuff and the heavier stuff. They opened with two songs off the new album (which I picked up), and they sounded very good. Looking forward to hearing the whole album.

Kansas tonight. Clutch/Zakk Sabbath (Sabbath tribute band w/Zakk Wylde)/Kyng are here tom'w, as is Styx. Not likely to go to either of those, although the Clutch show is tempting.
 
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