Ok, so this is admittedly a bit self-serving and has nothing to do with Real Estate. But we had such a good time that we felt we'd share. Everyone has a personal life too, so this is just a part of ours that you are welcome to either enjoy, or roll your eyes & laugh at. It was our Nickelback moment, we made the best of it, so here's how it came about... as told by Larry. Having been a DJ in rock radio 24 years, much of it as a Program Director (13 years), I can safely say that I have had my share of backstage "meet & greets" over the years (Metallica, Santana, Pink Floyd, Van Halen, Black Crowes, Motley Crue, Styx, Rush, Foreigner, ZZ Top, Heart, U2, Yes, REO... the list goes on - name a rock band, I've done some sort of promotion, meet & greet, interview, etc.), plus live interviews with rock band members in studio, on location, and by phone, and have hosted a few nationally broadcasted shows as well (KISS live from Dodger Stadium Halloween 1997 - we were live on 203 radio stations across the country, Queensryche from both San Jose and The Very Large Array in the New Mexico desert, Ozzy from Phoenix, Sammy Hagar at Red Rocks and Universal Amphitheater to name a few). But a needed "life change" in the early 2000's finally made it clear that it was time to grow up, lose the "radio personality" mask, and get off the rock & roll train. I fought hard against it, but slowly transitioned out. It was necessary. Still, now at age 50, I have my love of some rock bands, and Nickelback just happens to be at the top of the list. I programmed and played Nickelback's breakout song "Leader of Men" from the CD "The State" on the station I worked for, and it became a top requested song, thus building a fan base for Nickelback in town. At the same time the band's next CD "Silver Side Up" was growing in popularity, I was leaving the radio business, thus never had a chance to be involved in the radio "access" to bands coming up at that time like Nickelback, even as their music got more and more attention. Still, each CD they released became my personal favorite. I even went backwards in time and found "Curb", the band's first major release, which contains a GREAT song titled "Where". Anyway, as their CD The Long Road came along, so did Linda, my girlfriend, significant other, partner, friend, other half of my daily existence and fellow Nickelback fanatic. Something about Nickelback's music at the time we met, were learning about each other and spending time together drew us closer and closer, to the point where we agree that "this is our band". Ok, those of you rolling your eyes can bail out now, it gets worse. Those who understand, read on. Things happen in everyone's personal lives that no one else understands. That said, without airing personal laundry, the song "Far Away" became "our song". It has, and continues to hold us together through what life throws at us. (I told you it would get worse... lol). Silly as it sounds at 51 years old, it's true. Many other songs in the Nickelback roster have meaning to us, but that is our song, period. SO, along comes the 2009 Phoenix concert date announcement, and the Platinum VIP Ticket offering where you get up front for the show, some memorabilia, and a photo taken with the band. Now imagine the irony here... as a radio station program director in the radio business, you not only RUN the backstage meet & greet for your contest winners, you also in many cases TELL THE BAND what they are going to do with your contest winners! One of my favorite stories is a sold out Metallica concert in the late 90's... 11,000 people are clawing and scratching to get close to the stage, and I'm backstage with the band and my contest winners telling 2 Metallica band members to shoot photos with this group of winners, and the other two members to sign autographs with that group of winners, "We are here for 15 minutes, now GO!" I'm literally telling Kirk and Lars and James what to do! The irony for this Nickelback concert is - after YEARS of having that kind of access to most any rock band, I suddenly find myself on the other side of the fence, a 'regular guy who is a fan', having to BUY my way into meeting the band. It wasn't cheap, but when you love a band, the VIP deal is worth every penny. Such was the case with the Nickelback show. They created 2 "PIT" areas for the handful of VIP ticket holders (just 30 of us total). Roughly 15 people in an area stage right, the rest in a duplicate area stage left, BOTH just under and INSIDE the wing ramps the band uses during the show. In short, we're looking directly at the band from the side of the stage, the floor of the stage is at eye level, and got many "direct looks" from all members including Timmy, the guest acoustic guitar and keyboard player on the songs that required another player. We happen to have been lucky enough to be escorted directly from the photo shoot to the VIP PIT stage right, what turned out to be the better of the two. During the show, Chad has a tendency to walk to his right about 3 times as much as to his left, PLUS goes to that side between every song to switch guitars! Needless to say, we could have untied his and Ryan's shoes repeatedly. You see this in the photo album here, the close up shots of the band members as they milled around our side of the stage. Ryan's stage position and microphone location was right in front of us. So, the photo album gives you some idea of where we were, also including being at the location where the Pyro guys were setting everything off. Steve the main Pyro guy turned out to be great entertainment, and very nice man, and made us feel very welcome. I almost convinced him to let me pull the trigger on the big BANG that starts the show, but of course, only got a photo with the trigger gizmo in hand, not armed (see photos). But it was just a couple minutes before the start of the show. He armed the charges just after the photo of me with it in hand. After the show, Steve was nice enough to tear off and hand us the set list for that night. VERY cool! See the set list at the bottom here. The pre-show photo with the band was the usual "cattle call"... step up, shake hands with the guys, line up, shoot photo, get shuffled off, "NEXT!". BUT, during our turn, Linda got her hands full of Chad and Ryan ass while I was busy asking Chad if "this old radio programmer and girlfriend could join the band for the pre-show Toast & Shot" they do before each show. I wasn't ready for his reply. He could easily have said "No chance". Instead, it seems they "bagged" doing that. DARN, I'm bummed! As we were shuffled off to make room for the next people to get a photo, I told Chad, "That was the most entertaining part of the video". (They have an "On The Road" video DVD with The Long Road CD special package. In that video, you see them do the Toast & Shot several times, and have fun doing it.) I had visions of being a part of that... didn't happen, but Chad smiled and gave a "Right On!" look and thumbs up back at me to my comment. Small score on my part. In the "PIT" area side-stage, the tour people were amazingly kind enough to hang a pair of small monitor sized speakers with the full sound mix aimed right at us from behind. I was floored with this detail... pretty amazing that someone even thought of that. It made ALL the difference in the show for those of us that paid the cost for the Platinum VIP ticket. In fact, the PIT made the entire show for us. Rarely do you get that close without getting crushed by other people and everything that goes with being up on the front rail with hundreds of idiots behind you. We had maybe 10 people total in our PIT... it was truly the one thing that stood out about the whole experience. We had endless photo ops, lots of attention from the band, plenty of room to move around, play air guitar with the band and DANCE as well. I even missed Chad handing me a shot of Jagermeister by just one hand, but DID catch one of Daniel's drum sticks at the end of the show. Seems silly to be going off about this stuff at age 51, but the live concert experience just plain never gets old! I could do this over and over again! SO there you have it, the photo album isn't the best collection of quality photos, but it is what we saw, and then some. It's too bad the drum solo video Linda shot is so distorted, we had a ring side seat! Our Casio Z-60 isn't the best camera for recording SOUND in a concert hall! The video is cool, but.... So, from our little home in Cholla Bay Mexico to Jobing.com Arena and our night with Nickelback, hope you got a chuckle or two out of this. Rumor has it Nickelback might be back on the road this Spring in smaller cities.... might have to do it all over again in Tucson!! PHOENIX SETLIST: Something In Your Mouth, Because of You, Photograph, Figured You Out, Savin' Me, Far Away, Highway To Hell with Hinder & Papa Roach, Gotta Be Somebody, If Everyone Cared, If Today Was Your Last Day, Rockstar, a bit of Friends In Low Places, the T-Shirt Toss with bits of Sad But True and SEX played in the background, no vocals, Burn It To The Ground, DRUM SOLO - one of the best ever, drum solo ended with some riffs of Fight For All The Wrong Reasons, How You Remind Me, Too Bad. ENCORE: Someday, Animals, then a great Pyro ending. Nickelback web site: www.nickelback.com Nickelback fan club: www.niceklbackfanclub.com Thanks for reading and looking... we had fun. Hope you do too. Linda & Larry |