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5:15am generally sucks, if you ask me. But yesterday I got up at that time, it turned out to be a good thing. I was a volunteer for a fundraiser for the Mon County Habitat for Humanity. Daria Jones invited me to volunteer, and I'm glad she did. It was a triathlon at Marilla Park and on the rail trails near there. I was a general gopher and assistant to Frank, the dude who managed the pool laps, the first leg of the triathlon. There were around 270 entrants and about 40 kids for the little triathlon, and I think it went pretty smoothly. The weather was perfect. I saw the moon and stars when I woke up, instead of the thick morning fog we've had all week and much of August.
posted by cat mcconnell 8:02 PM
Saturday, August 23, 2003
The Kiss Army joins the Aeroforce
Larry and I took Liv to see Kiss and Aerosmith at Starlake in Burgettstown last Thursday night. Everything seemed to line up in our favor, and we all had a thoroughly wonderful time.
We left town around 3:30p with a picnic packed and a full tank of gas, heading north on 79. We hit some traffic when we got off onto 18, but once we got through little Washington it was smooth sailing on the twolane northwest all the way to Burgettstown.
We arrived at the parking lot around 5, two hours before showtime. It was very hot and humid, but we enjoyed seeing fans of every stripe walking around. Fat bald guys in their old Kiss shirts, dudes in Kiss makeup and even the occasional chick in 4 inch silver platform boots. There were plenty of Aerosmith fans, too, but they didn't make as much of an impression.
We had no tickets, so at 6 we mosied over to Will Call to see if anybody had extras. First dude we see says, "she's got some," and points to a girl who looked about 19 who was looking at a fan of about 10 tickets. We asked if she had 3 extras, yup, what do you want to pay? Hmm, tough question. We offered up $140 for 3, she said sure. Then we realized they were not lawn tix (which had a face value of $45), but were inside pavilion seats with a face value of $125 a piece! Yeah baby! With the convenience fees and the this fee and the that fee we'd have probably had to pay nearly $400 for these seats at the box office or on the net. Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.
Time to head in. We pass through the gate with a minimum of purse checking, and walk up the hill to the very back of the lawn. As we crest the hill, Liv's eyes were big as saucers. This place is big! Look at all these people! We cruise around, buy Liv an Aerosmith Tshirt, get some pricey beverages, check out the various wares. The opening band Saliva starts. Very loud, not too sucky, but nothing to rave about, either. We are still sitting at a picnic table by the vending, and the girl across from us says to her guy "let's go see the band, I like these guys." He responds: "I'm here for one thing, and one thing only -- Detriot Rock City. You go ahead." We stroll over to see the band, Liv likes them. When they finish, we head for our seats. We follow the usher chick and she keeps walking closer and closer (yeah baby!) and our seats are right in the center and 2 rows behind the gold circle!!!!!! TremendousHere are setlists I pulled off the net. I couldn't find a setlist for Kiss, but I found one from a few shows earlier in the tour and it seems right as far as I can remember, so here it is:
08.21.03
Burgettstown, PA
Post Gazette Pavilion
Kiss:
Detroit Rock City
Deuce
Shout It Out Loud
King Of The Night Time World
Do You Love Me
Let Me Go, Rock 'N Roll
Firehouse
I Love It Loud
I Want You
God Of Thunder
100,000 Years
Black Diamond
E:Beth
Rock And Roll All Nite
Aerosmith:
Mama Kin
Toys In The Attic
Love In An Elevator
Pink
Jaded
What It Takes
I Never Loved A Girl Like I Love You
Stop Messin' Around
Baby Please Don't Go
Dream On
Nobody's Fault
Same Old Song And Dance
Cryin'
Walk This Way
Sweet Emotion
Train Kept A Rollin'After admiring our view for while, watching the roadies do their thing, and listening to some quality classic rock on the PA, the lights dim. Paul Stanley's voice booms, the giant curtain opens, and Kiss takes the stage in a blaze of explosions and pillars of flame. It was quite a spectacle, these cats all decked out in makeup and costumes, and straight out the shoot, Detroit Rock City. Instant gratification for that dude.
Kiss put on a hell of a show for nearly 2 hours. Totally dedicated to fully entertaining us, the classic set with Kiss in white lights, a million watts of white spots, plenty of pyrotechnics, Gene flying through the air to play God of Thunder 40 feet above the stage, the whole tongue thing, fog machine, audience response singing, the works. Paul Stanley's voice sounded great, echoes of Robert Plant, and he looked fantastic. The lead guitar player who replaced Ace Frehley looked and sounded just like him, fooled me. Peter Criss came out under a single spot and sang Beth, while we all sang along (who knew I would remember every word, but I did). We flicked our lighters till we got the obligatory and wonderful R&R All Night encore.
Hard act to follow, Aerosmith was going to have to seriously kick ass to keep us happy. But there were up to the task, and delivered a very high quality show. Those guys have more in the chops department to dazzle us with, and they also had some good video stuff on the two giant screens at the back of the stage. One song (which?) had a cool video of a band using their instruments as skateboards, water skis, and snow skis, and wiping out over and over again hugetime. Very entertaining. Even the drummer would be on his throne behind his whole kit on some board sliding down this snowy slope, shit flying off in every direction. Steve Tyler's vocals were also just excellent, and Aerosmith was definitely a treat for the electric blues guitar enthusiasts in the crowd. They played 3 new tunes, very roots blues, including the classic cover Baby Please Don't Go. My personal favorite of the night was Dream On, beloved song from my youth. No encore, but none needed, they played a hellatious Train Kept aRollin to end the night.
We skirted the crowd and headed out to the car, tired and happy. We hung out for a while waiting for the initial bottleneck to start moving, and headed home. After sitting almost still on 18 for 10 minutes, we turned around and took 22/30 to 79 instead, farther but moving at normal highway speed. We finally rolled home about 2:45am, and I set the alarm for the ungodly hour of 6:30am (I had to be in Institute for work at 10am).
posted by cat mcconnell 7:48 PM
Thursday, August 14, 2003
asdfkl;jasdfkljaopsifghqk.,gn;oxcbv
posted by cat mcconnell 11:07 AM
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
posted by cat mcconnell 8:06 AM
Monday, August 11, 2003
Mercury must be in retrograde or something, communications are difficult around here. But liv looks cool.
posted by cat mcconnell 6:18 PM
Friday, August 08, 2003
Nev is coming back east! Cole, Savannah, Malia, Madeline, and Molly are coming from California after Nev gets it all together. Yeeeeeeeeeehaa! Now we can start rehearsing for my fantasy band, that's what I'm talking about. Here's my latest photocrop creation, all photos taken here at my house, most this spring and summer.
posted by cat mcconnell 10:44 PM
