so it was a very interesting Saturday past (8/25/07). My sister decided fairly early in the day that she wanted to go see the Def Leppard/Styx/Foreigner show at Hi Fi Buys Amphitheatre. I thought she was gonna go with her friend since her husband is out of town but, nope, I got the nod to go instead. When I went to Publix to buy the tickets ($30.50 x 2 somehow equals $89 in Ticketmaster math), the lady behind the counter began telling how she saw Leppard on the Pyromania tour and the guy behind me spouted how lucky I was to be going. I was going to suggest they set up a date and go together but just ventured back into the heat with my too expensive tickets.
Before I dropped my mom off at my sister’s house to babysit, we went to Waffle House to eat. When we walked in, two of six booths were occupied, one was open and the other three were dirty. When we left, all six booths were dirty as our waitress, who disappeared after serving us, had informed the cook that she hadn’t waited on those tables and they “weren’t paying her to clean those tables.” I kinda think they were. Lord knows she certainly wasn’t going to get to wait on anyone else until she did clean them.
So my sister and I leave Duluth at about 6:15. We make good time through the city and get down near the Lakewood/Langford Parkway exit by about 7:10 (the show was a scheduled 7:00 start.) Whammo, the exits were packed full. Typical city of Atlanta traffic control (or non-control) means incoming show traffic moved at a standstill. When we get inside, it’s pushing 8:00 and not only have we missed Foreigner (no big deal since some schmo other than Lou Gramm is singing these days) but we barely get situated for Styx. Now I’ve only seen Styx without Dennis DeYoung (meaning not back then either) but they are still fairly enjoyable for what they are. And they played that Toys For Tots charity show back in 1977, alright. All of the set (outside of Too Much Time On My Hands) was from the albums The Grand Illusion & Pieces Of Eight. But it was hard to both see and hear Styx because a) the speakers situated on the roof of the covered seating were not turned on for Styx (meaning the lawn was only hearing the band from the stage PA which wasn’t very loud)  b) the video screens were also not used. I understand why Def Leppard didn’t want the video used but not allowing use of the speakers for slightly better sound comes off as just petty. They’ve been playing shows together so maybe there’s problems between the two bands, who knows.
Def Leppard were just sort of disappointing. After all the raving I did for the covers album they released last year, this was just a tepid not very rocking show. My sister noted that all of their songs tend to sound alike and as the set wore on the near capacity crowd began to dissipate. Not sure if the older crowd had to get home to babysitters or were just bored like me. The couple next to my sister didn’t seem to mind. This late forties-ish twosome were making out like it was the No Tell Motel. He was shirtless (and shouldn’t have been) but she didn’t mind, at one point licking his shoulder. Ewwwww.
Anyway. we left just before the set ended with Photograph, the one song I kinda wanted to see. When I got home I flicked by a show called Red Eye that Fox News airs at 2 AM. The show has a panel who comment on various news stories and items. On Saturdays they usually run repeats but last night I stopped on it when I recognized the countenance of Sir Johnny Rotten. Of course Johnny ran the show and nobody else could easily get a word in edgewise, but that’s ok. Two weird moments. One, they actually interviewed Johnny, which they don’t usually do with panelists. Secondly, they brought on the great wrestler Rey Mysterio Junior and interviewed him as well. In the process, you could hear Johnny literally perk up at the mention of lucha libre and he then saluted Rey for for his good work. John Lydon is familiar with lucha libre. Absolutely surreal.
Before I went to bed I watched most of a sort of documentary called “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” about the MPAA, ratings, and the people who make them. Will finish it in just a bit when I get home and may post a mini-review later.
One quick review is of a DVD called “This Is Southern Rock”. Besides seeing the shells of what’s left of bands like Blackfoot and Molly Hatchet, you get to see the completely different sounding guy ARS have gotten to replace Ronnie Hammond. There’s a vintage clip of Black Oak Arkansas (who I never much cared for) but little else to recommend here.
do you still swap emails with bono?
the world and all it’s violence is spinning towards the sh-tter… i think we need something like a “global moment”. bono could pull this together.
for five mins or so, everyone around the world would hook into the internet, and at the united nations, the ambassador for each and every county would step forward to a mic and say something like “for the citizens of , we say, enough! we move, from this day forward, TOGETHER!” – and then the citizens of that country will cheer and we can have some satellites measuring audience appaluse and we can rank the countires on how they cheered. and we can lay down all our arms and our holy books and just look at each other and say – “today and tomorrow, we move together…”
and then the sappy “i’d like to buy the world a coke” song or something could ruin the moment…
mike rucker
OK, so I’m late to the party here, but your main problem with going to the Lakehood show was the way you went. It’s *much* faster to get off at Freedom Parkway and take a right onto Boulevard. You then take a right where Boulevard dead-ends at the prison, then take the first left (dunno the name of the road, but it runs next to the prison). Go down that road and take a left at (I think) the first light (there will be a “Lakewood Amphitheater