Everybody's gonna dance tonight!!

"Hey, guess what?"
"What??!"
"I found that jacket I was looking for"
"Mom, that was mean... I thought it was about tickets..."
"Well, guess what else?"
"What?"
"We're gonna see Paul McCartney!"

A few hours later I was in the middle of The Beatles Universe - which is normally known as Charlotte. I've never seen so many Beatles shirts...
All that wandering around town looking for food, standing in line for tickets, it's all part of the adventure. We ended up eating at a little pizza place that was playing Wings on speakers outside. And we walked by a bar where a guy playing "Layla" unplugged. I knew it was going to be a good night.
There were 2 people standing outside, right in the middle of the mass of people in ticket lines. One had a sign about "Cleansing yourself" and "Your sins will be forgiven" and all that good stuff. I didn't mind that, but I did mind the guy with the megaphone. Some lady finally yelled at him "John Lennon was the one that said that about The Beatles and Jesus, NOT Paul! Why are you bothering US?"
I could've hugged her...
We stood in line forever, and when we finally got in it was chaos. But we finally found our seats and then embarked on The Epic T-Shirt Hunting Adventure. On the way back from the T-shirt stand, I was talking to Mom and said "Ya know, of all the Paul McCartney songs, and I've randomly got Venus and Mars...Rockshow, whatever it's called, stuck in my head." She kinda laughed at me and we kept walking.

All night I was wondering "Who would open for Paul McCartney??"
Well apparently nobody...
The "opening act" was pictures, old concert posters, a few Beatles videos, and old merchandise (Beatles lunchboxes and pins...that kinda stuff) scrolling up the screens behind/beside the stage while remixed Wings and Beatles stuff played. It was really cool...

And then the lights went down...
The arena exploded.
The band came onstage, Paul waved to the masses and donned the Hofner.
The first notes of "Venus & Mars/Rockshow" blared out of the speakers.
"Sitting in the stands of the sports arena...waiting for the show to begin..."
Mom just smiled at me.
I knew there was a reason I had it stuck in my head...
They went straight from that to "Jet", and I don't remember the order much after that...
After a few songs, he went to the edge of the stage, took off his jacket and handed it to a roadie. He came back to his microphone in the classic white shirt and suspenders with all the ladies cheering.
He smiled and said "Ok, but this is as far as it goes..."

I can't remember which song it was, but they went into "Foxy Ladies" at the end. After the song was over, Paul was talking about Hendrix, and how honored he was when Jimi opened his show with "Sgt. Peppers" right after the Beatles had released it. And how "He was goin' all crazy with the whammy bar..." (Paul McCartney air-whammying = the funniest thing EVER) and back then, whammy bars totally threw your guitar out of tune. Jimi was looking around in the audience after the song and asked if Eric was out there. "Well, he was lookin' for Eric Clapton, who was actually in the audience... and Jimi finally spotted him and goes 'Will you tune this for me, man?'" The place erupted.

He told stories or antedotes before several of the songs. After "And I love Her" he was talking about the 60's... "Because I remember the 60's...." (cheers) "and I bet you don't, and you dont...and you certainly dont! You dont even remember the 1900s...er 19..whatever!" (crowd laughs) "So anyways, back in the 60s..." and he started talking about the cival issues, especially in the southern states, like Arkansas... "So I wanted to write a song, that would kind of sum up what I was feeling...and maybe if somebody in Arkansas, somebody in the Little Rock 9 heard it...It might just give them a little bit of hope..." And he started playing "Blackbird"

After Blackbird, he was talking about trying to remember lyrics and chords when people have signs... "Part of you says 'Dont look at it'...but the other part goes 'Ohhh just read it...' but I still can't figure out why someone has a little car sign with 'McCartney' mispelled..."
(It was a license tag that said "MCCARTNY")
"You left the E out there...I suppose it's too many letters" They zoomed the camera in on it so you could see it on the TV screens. When everybody got done cheering, he said "I rather like it that way... it's easier for children to understand..."
When the crowd died down he started again.
"So anyway... I think sometimes that you dont say what you mean to say to people, 'Oh, I'll tell them tomorrow' or 'I'll do it next week'...but what happens is that when they pass away, you go 'Oh I wish I'd said that to them' ...and so you regret not having said something to them... And I wrote this next song for my dear friend John with that kind of thing in mind...of all the conversations we didn't get to have"
"And if I say I really knew you well what would your answer be?" The most beautiful, emotional performance of "Here Today" that I've ever heard. I was crying by the end of the song...for reasons some of my friends will understand more than others.

And then he picked up the mandolin...
"Ok, now we're gonna lift the mood from the sober to the jolly..."
"Everybody gonna dance tonight, everybody gonna feel alright! Everybody gonna dance around tonight!"
The drummer was dancing the whole time, and at one point I saw him doing the sprinkler...and that disco-arm-Stayin' Alive-thing. But in slow-mo to be with the song. It was hilarious.


A lot of what made it so special was the little things...

• I learned that they never played "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" live before this year. That made me feel special...
• "In case you're wondering why we keep switching guitars out like this... it's because we're showing them off..."
• He was amazed by the age differences of the fans... teenagers, middle-aged people... "Then you've got the people my age... in their 40's..."
• During "Live and Let Die", one of the guitarist dramatically fell down and acted like he was dead. You could see Paul at the piano looking at a Brian like "Is just kidding around again?" He jumped back up and dramatically brushed dust off his jacket as he went back to the mike to sing backups.
• Paul's attempt at a Russian accent when explaining "Back in the USSR"...
• They way he smiled when he was listening to the ladies sing "Hey Jude"
• "Well, I'm not actually going to play the song, I just thought I'd tell you the story!"
• I felt the heat off of the fireworks in "Live and Let Die"
• All those thousands of people trying to do harmony on "Paperback Writer"... he just smiled at us.
• And of course; the McCartney Dance. After about half the songs he would stand at the mike and do the most random things. And he was doing the Twist at the piano. He's still just as goofy as he ever was... (just go watch A Hard Days Night and you'll understand)

They played 2 encores. Because "We had to come back!" he said with a smile.
Before the last song(s), he was telling us what a great crowd we'd been. "But there comes a time when we've got to go home..." (awwwwssss from the audience) He just smiled "And it's very close to the time you've got to go home..."
From my upper level row B seat, I yelled "Well can I go home with you??"
It was worth a shot...

We hung out in the parking deck for quite a while. And I didn't have my iPod. And all that came in was the "New Rock" station and the oldies station...
(While listening to Sublime) "Man, this is ruining my McCartney Vibe..."
The commercials finally went off on the oldies station, so I flipped it back.
Just in time for "Band on the Run"
You could say I was pretty happy...

Later that night, we heard "Twist and Shout" too. Which I've never heard on the radio before.
So that was fab ;)



In memory of "Stogner" and John Huey
I thought about you guys a lot last night <3

"And if I say I really loved you, and was glad you came along, when you were here today, for you were in my song"

And... that's a wrap!

Well, tonight I'm sitting at my own dinosaur computer in my living room.
It feels a little weird, honestly.
Today wasn't overly-exciting.
It kinda hurt my feelings to leave Cleveland this morning. I normally get depressed for a few days after we come back home from the beach for a weekend. How am I supposed to handle coming off of a 3-week roadtrip?
The answer turned out to be U2.
We tried to listen to the radio for a while this morning, but once we got into the mountains again, we couldn't keep stations. So, I plugged in my iPod and started playing "Elevation". it seemed fitting...
We listened to the playlist on shuffle for a while, then got annoyed and played all of "Rattle & Hum" in order. I never get over that album...It still amazes me and pulls on my emotions every time I listen to it.
And so today I survived my Post-Roadtrip Depression Syndrome with a little help from Bono, Edge, Adam, and Larry Jr.


Random observations about the last weeks:

• You know it's HOT when the heat-willies make it look like there's a river going through the road (this happened a lot between New Orleans and Arizona)
• Passing through time zones gave me a whole new outlook on "time" and what exactly it is...
• You know you're in "the north" when you ask "Do ya'll have.........." and they just stare at you for a second until you repeat the name of the item you're looking for. THEN they understand. That one word "ya'll" just got him all confused...
• Yes, James Taylor did write a song about Carolina, don't look so amazed...
• You can still get your kicks on Route 66
• We should all smile at more truckers
• No matter how long I'm gone, my room still smells like incense when I get back.
• Why are armadillos so hard to find?!

I hope somebody has enjoyed this little blog...this adventure of mine.

I don't know how often I'll be posting now that I don't have something to do everyday, but I will keep it up. I have enough stories, random observations/opinions on life, and musical journeys to keep this goin for a while... ;)

Thanks to all for hanging in there with me!

Peace and Love

Day 21: Cleveland rocks!

Today was amazing.
We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. AWESOME!
I saw John Paul Jones' "Christmas tree ornament shirt" (As us Zeppelin Maniacs call it) from 1972. It said that it was the one he wore in TSRTS, but I know better...
And I saw U23D. It blew my mind! It's from the Vertigo Tour, so it's not the same show I saw, but it still took me back to October 3, standing in Carter Finley stadium, screaming out songs at the top of my lungs...
And the 3D is amazing. I wanted to reach out to Bono...and kept ducking because I thought Adam's bass was going to hit me...
I feel a whole post on U2 coming up soon...

So anyways...
I can't describe all the stuff in the museum. I'm still so overwhelmed from it...
They have whole sections on The Rolling Stones, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Stevie Nicks, Aerosmith, U2 (they have the Lemon Suits!), and a tribute to Les Paul.
And I found an awesome postcard! Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, with Charlie Watts on drums, onstage together.

Oh, and we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. We've hit all of them along the way but Houston and San Francisco. They always have the most awesome employees...

And tonight we ate at an Irish Pub at about 10:30. It was great...
Live band, wicked flute/bagpipe/woodwind player. And they were kinda cute...
And our awesome waitor... ;)

So tonight, I'm in downtown Cleveland. In a nice hotel, on my own sleeper sofa.
I'm living it up before we have to go home tomorrow night...

Day 20: ROCK AND ROLL

Well, we drove all day. 12+ hours. Woohoo.
But, I've had some wicked radio stations come my way.
The first station was playing a Bon Scott tribute, so I got my AC/DC fix. Can you believe he would be 64 today?
I've been developing a hypothesis today: If you listen to a classic rock station for about 45 minutes, you will hear (including but not limited to) Run Like Hell, Mony, Mony (Idol or original), Taking Care Of Business, something Jethro Tull, Deep Purple (today I've heard Hush, Woman from Tokyo, and Smoke on the Water), What I Like About You, something Led Zeppelin, Summer of '69, Dream On, something ZZ Top, Baker Street, You Got Another Think Coming...
All the above songs/artists I've heard at least 3 times today.
Yeah, I have NO life...


And then my epic story about finding Nights With Alice Cooper...
Should I really post it all?
Well, here's the good part:
I had it on a station that has the show, but we only heard like 10 minutes of Alice and we lost the station...
So I had the radio on scan, and stopped it on "Cheap Sunglasses"
And what came on afterwords but a sweeper for Nights With Alice Cooper...
So I lost it, found it accidentally, but then eventually lost it again before we got to the hotel.
But now I'm streaming him live on my laptop!
Life is good...

Day 19: Awesome music and Mt Rushmore

I knew today was going to be a good day when...
I put the radio on scan, and fell asleep. Only to be woken up in a few minutes by "Travelling Riversibe Blues" by Led Zeppelin. Waking up to Zeppelin is always a good sign...

We found some nice stations this morning... An oldies that played "Eight Days A Week", "Heart Full Of Soul", "96 Tears", "Get Off My Cloud", "Rock Around The Clock", and "Great Balls of Fire" within an hour. I was in heaven.

Also on today's playlist: "Got To Get You Into My Life"
("This sounds like Chicago..." "No! That's Paulie singing...")
And "You're So Vain" was on two stations that kept bleeding into each other, so it was like listening to it in rounds. That sent me for a trip...

And "God, Pt. 2" inspired to make a huge rambling speech about life, love, religion, and Bono...
And then "I Wanna Rock" came on and totally ruined the moment...

And then we FINALLY got to Mount Rushmore. And stayed about 20 minutes...and drove another 2 hours.

Life is great...

Day 18: Yellowstone

Happy birthday Mom!
Still the coolest Mom ever ;)

So we drove some more this morning...
And went to Yellowstone National Park. It's beautiful. There's a river that runs all the way through the park. And talk about wildlife... We saw buffalo, deer, elk... At VERY close range. I could've petted (?) a buffalo. From the car! It was just standing there on the side of the road... And some elk were just hangin out in the side-ditches...missing cars by inches. All in all we saw about 15 buffalo and 2 huge herds (15-20 elk) and quite a few lone elk. It was amazing. I could live there...
And geysers! They're everywhere! It's kinda creepy, actually...
Oh and we saw some big thing called "Old Faithful"...

On the road again tomorrow...

And remember Mom; It could be worse...you could be as old as Ringo...

San Francisco...and driving

Well, yesterday we were driving from LA to San Francisco. And got to San Francisco this afternoon. I love it! Sadly, I did not have any flowers for my hair.
That is the steepest city I've ever seen... You go straight up a hill, and cant see at the intersection. It was slightly nerve-wracking.
We cruised around the city for a while, looked at the Golden Gate Bridge, and then got moving again.

It's a 22 hour drive from San Francisco to Yellowstone Park.
We got our work cut out.

Weekend in Vegas!

I feel like a rockstar.

It was a great weekend! Vegas is amazing. ;D

It all started when we walked into Hard Rock Hotel. The first thing I saw was a 2'x4' Led Zeppelin portrait. Yeah.
I love that hotel. It's just wicked cool. Oh and I had a huge picture of Janis Joplin and Grace Slick beside my bed. I slept well.

We saw the Hoover Dam yesterday. It was prettty cool. I guess. Meh.
It's really big, ok?
We wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, but hit traffic and couldn't have gotten back to Vegas in time.

Last night we saw "LOVE" cirque du soleil. It's and entire show all based on Beatles music that Sir George Martin arranged. It was amazing. I can't even begin to describe it. Even the people seating you were dressed up. I loved it! LOVE was the first Beatles album I ever bought, so I've been listening to it religiously for over 3 years. It was great to finally see the show. There were so many "Ohhh that makes sense now!" moments.
Then we walked The Strip for most of the night. I was soo revved up after that show.

I've discovered that Joshua Trees are everywhere around here. It's pretty nice.

Kenny Chesney was playing both nights that we were at Hard Rock. Talk about mass chaos...
And today was the 4th of July pool party. It was hellish trying to get outta there.
So, I got up, put on my Yellow Submarine shirt, said goodbye to all the huge pictures that helped me not get lost in the hotel (Jim Morrison, Janis, Paul and Linda, Jimmy Page...) and got lost trying to find the Hard Rock Cafe. That is half a block from the Hotel. Yeah.

This isn't even half the story, and I'm holding back some stuff 'cause I kinda want a somewhat family-friendly blog. Just trust me that it was a great weekend ;)

We're turning Tingting into a rocker girl.. \m/

Day 12: Big huge trees

Today we went to Sequioa National Park. Those trees are HUGE!!! I loved it! I had fun, being the tree-hugging hippie chick that I am ;D And of course, I had to play "The Trees" by RUSH.
Dad was looking for Bigfoot. And bears.
I was looking for Elves.
They had a controlled fire in part of the area, and the smoke was kinda drifting around. Tingting said that we might see faeres. I started playin my Lord of the Rings soundtrack to set the mood.
We wandered around and hugged trees for about 3 hours...
Now heading to Vegas!

PS- I was playing Queen this afternoon for the ride, and now Tingting has been singing "We Are The Champions" all night.

Day 11: LA! Sunset Strip, Walk of Fame, and another Hard Rock

I feel like I'm paying homage to the rockers before me just by being here. Live on the road for a while, get burned-out, then crash in L.A.
I really am living a little like a rockstar lately (without the sex, drugs, and money), and I'm loving it. I love being on the road, I love driving all night, I can't stand to stay in one place, But...
It was so great to finally get to sleep late! Yay for NO "Checkout is at 11..."
Mom won at finding a topless establishment. First thing this morning. "Topless Cooking" is what the sign said. I kept having flashbacks of Mrs Doubtfire...
We cruised Sunset Blvd this afternoon. And I, being the HUGE classic rock fan that I am, had to find some random places. The Whiskey-A-Go-Go was one... that was pretty awesome. Another was the infamous Continental Hyatt "Riot" House of the 70's (Led Zeppelin, in particular). Well, it's no longer the Hyatt House, but the building is still there, so we walked in, snuck around, and slipped back out.
We also drove past the Viper Room. It's not open during the day, needless to say...but it was awesome just to see it. (Johnny Depp owns it, if you didn't get why it's such a big deal to me).
And then there was the Walk of Fame. It's massive. Random observations: 1)Elvis' star isn't there anymore, but it's still in the brochure. 2) The Beatles star isn't there anymore, but it's also in the brochure. 3) Queen's star IS there, but not included in the brochure. Imagine my surprize to walk across a star that I had just looked up on the map and thought that it didn't exist. 4) If Motley Crue has a star, why doesn't PAUL MCCARTNEY??
Yeah, you know what I was complaining about all evening.
My complaints and attention have finally been turned from the ellusive armadillos to bigger problems. Such as why Paul doesn't have a star...
Random fact: we stopped outside a guitar store, and they we playing Black Dog/Bulls On Parade mashup. It was actually pretty cool.
And then we went to Hard Rock.
I don't have the time to explain all the stuff we saw and how many times I almost passed out, so just check out my pics tomorrow.
But here's the cool thing; Hard Rock Cafe is actually inside the Universal Studios park. It's just awesome, ok?
Well, Tingting decided to have a Purple Haze while we were at Hard Rock (don't worry, this "Purple Haze" is just berry-infuzed Long Island iced tea).
That was a trip...
When we were leaving, walking back through Universal, "We're Not Gonna Take It!" (Yeah, Twisted Sister) was playing on the huge video screen. Tingting was dancing and loving it.
Now, Tingting normally doesn't like rock. Mom laughed at her and said "When you get drunk, you love Rock, huh?" I answered "That's how rock and roll has survived all these years!" It was great... ;)
And then Tainted Love by Soft Cell came on. And I HAD to dance...
It's been quite a day.
And night.