Squatters In Modesto: George Thorogood, Aug '04 (Part One)

Trying to write a story about George Thorogood without using "Thoroughly Good" is like trying to order the halibut in a restaurant without someone at your table saying, "just for the hell of it". Even if there's an awkward pause, someone's going to say it and everyone will groan or maybe laugh politely. Playing off of Thorogood's name is impossible, so I used it right off the bat. We can move on now. Come with me.

One night this past July, in the dugout between innings of a co-ed softball game, our good friend Tony D had asked if I'd heard anything about George Thorogood coming to Modesto. Ironically, I'd just been cruising around on Pollstar.com, which I do before vacation weeks to see if there are any interesting shows around the state. I'd seen the Modesto date for Thorogood, but couldn't remember the day or date. Tony D thought it was at the end of August on a Saturday night. I told him that Mary and I would go if it was indeed on a Saturday night, but that a midweek show would preclude us from going. Modesto's about an hour and a half away from home here in Fresno and when you get up for work at 3:15am, you have to choose your battles. As we took the field for the top of the third inning, I told him I would look into it.

(My stats for that night, for those of you keeping score: 3 for 4 at the plate including a triple with 2 runs scored, 3 putouts and one assist in the field, and 5 drafts at Me-n-Ed's pizzeria after the game.)

A day or so later, I checked back with Pollstar to find that Thorogood date. As it turned out, it wasn't on a Saturday night, but fell on a Tuesday. Oh well, I thought, turning around in my chair to power down the computer for the night. I spied the calendar I keep on my desk and looked at August for kicks. I realized that Mary and I would be on vacation at the time of that show and had no plans in the middle of the week. In fact, the night of the show, August 24, 2004 would be my 37th birthday. I had never been to a show on my birthday before, so I figured it would be fun. The next day, I called Tony D and told him that if he wanted to go, we were in.

Tony D was aboard immediately. Even after finding out the price of the tickets. I had gone online to the club's website and discovered that they were asking a cool fifty bucks to see Thorogood. But being the rationalizing fool that I am when it comes to the ol' entertainment dollar, I felt that it might just be worth that to see a large act in a small venue.

The venue in Modesto is called The Fat Cat, a really nice place with an art-deco style motif. Its fairly small, has a long bar running the length of the main floor, and a cool lounge upstairs. In the lounge, another beautiful bar is found with overstuffed chairs and couches laid out to relax on. Limited seating is available along the rail of the balcony, but those are usually taken pretty quickly. Mary and I had seen Dread Zeppelin perform there a couple of years ago and were impressed with the place. That night, we'd made the trip back home the same night. It seemed a little silly to get a hotel when we could drive the 90 miles back home.

But for the George Thorogood show, Tony D had another idea. His brother is in sales and his territory is in the Modesto/Stockton area. His company requires him to maintain a residence in the area, but he decided to keep his family in Fresno and commute. So he rented himself a little apartment to keep up appearances. Tony D called him to see if we could crash there after the show and his bro said it would be no problem. The apartment was going to be completely empty of furniture, dishes, towels, or any other conveniences so we'd have to bring in sleeping bags and anything else we'd need for the night. But we didn't care because it was free and it might be fun to sort of camp out indoors. Maybe the best part of the whole deal was that Tony D's brother thought that the place was withing walking distance of the club. Or, as Mary and I call it when we have a hotel near the Fillmore in San Francisco, "stumbling distance".

We bought four tickets; two for Mary and I and two for Tony D, who was thinking that another brother of his would accompany him. But this brother would be on the fence pretty much until the day of the show due to a recent ailment. I figured that we could find somebody to take the ticket, but it might be little tough selling a friend on the idea of heading up to Modesto on a Tuesday night and flopping in a deserted apartment. At worst, we'd be able to sell the ticket to someone hanging around The Fat Cat before the show.

In the days before the show, we made final plans with Tony D. Mary and I would drive up and Tony, along with his guest, could ride along. We'd all bring sleeping bags, some food, most definitely an ice chest filled with cold beer, and the appropriate personal items. The other concern I expressed to Tony D was that his brother's apartment had electricity. Camping out was fine, but roughing it indoors might be a challenge, especially if we staggered back to the place a little tipsy after the show. Finding my way around a vacant apartment with a lantern or flashlight would be a little too Blair Witch Project for me.

As it turned out, Tony D's brother could not make it for the show and we called around for last minute takers. As I feared, nobody we called could make the trip, so it was just the three of us. But that was fine as far as we were concerned. On the afternoon of my birthday, we hit the road after a quick stop for some coffee and pointed the car north on Highway 99 to Modesto.

After some Mad Max driving on the part of Mary, we made the 90 mile trip in what seemed to be a blink. We started seeing signs for Modesto exits and used the directions to the apartment given to Tony D by his brother. I had printed out a map from the internet that would get us to The Fat Cat from 99 and noticed that indeed the apartment looked to be just a few blocks away. So we headed to the club to get our bearings and gauge the walk as we then navigated to the crash pad. Passing The Fat Cat's marquee, we gazed upon the huge tour buses that stood parked like rock and roll monoliths on the narrow downtown street and we could feel the rumble of their engines, running if nothing but to provide precious AC to the band on this muggy August night.

We turned at the next light and headed up to the street named on Tony's notes. Knowing that we were looking for an apartment, I was expecting to see a sprawling complex like those so common in Fresno. But we were on an established residential street with older, but mostly well kept up homes. The addresses on the houses told us we were close as we counted down the numbers to our destination. We stopped in front of a two story house on the corner at the next intersection. The numbers matched. This was it. Not an apartment, but a whole house to ourselves?

We parked and got our bags and ice chest out of the trunk. Heading up the walk, we noticed that it was in fact a duplex, but with four separate residences. Ours was upstairs to the right. The staircase was narrow and the steps were the most shallow I've ever experienced. I wear size 9 shoes and still the entire back half of my foot hung off of each step as I trudged up the stairs. I commented that getting up those steps might be a challenge at 2am. Nervous laughter from Tony D and Mary followed.

Tony D unlocked the door to the place and we entered a small, empty apartment that appeared to be freshly painted white. Some boxes of the brother's work material lay in the middle of the living room's floor. There were no window coverings, but luckily the sun had passed over the heart of the house and it wasn't too warm up there. We tossed our bags on the floor and Tony D and I went to retrieve the ice chest. After another challenging trip up the funhouse stairs, we were all enjoying cold brews. Mary and I pumped up our inflatable mattress and Tony D laid out his padded mat, all of us thinking ahead knowing that we'd probably just want to pass out upon entering the apartment after the show. We sat around for a little while, Tony D sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, Mary leaning on her elbow laying on the air mattress, while I sat on the ice chest. Looking at each other across the indoor encampment, we realized that if anyone were to knock on the door, the scene would certainly paint us as squatters. Then, we raised our cans with a toast to squatters.

After a few beers, it was time to wash up a bit and head on down to the club. It was a short walk and we easily had time for some dinner. Walking next to the entrance to The Fat Cat, we looked around for a prospect to take the fourth ticket. Everyone hanging around had one in hand, so we continued on down the street. Right next door to the club was a new-looking bar and grill and we decided that it would cool to stay close to the venue instead of traipsing all over the downtown area. It was a pretty decent place and the food was really good. It wasn't all that crowded, but picking out the concert goers from the family diners was easy because of the black T-shirt factor.

Tony D excused himself to hit the restroom and a few steps away from the table, the key to the apartment fell from his pocket. He didn't hear it clink on the brushed concrete floor. I just happened to look up and see it happen and I chuckled, as D is known to misplace things from time to time. I pointed it out to Mary. We were going to see if he'd see it on his way back to the table and laugh at him, but before he returned, a waitress noticed the key and started asking patrons if it belonged to them. I stood up and told her it was our friend's. I tucked it in my pocket and I told Mary we should just hang onto it and see if and when Tony D noticed that he'd lost the key. He came back to the table and we continued our conversation. He had no idea about the key. Good ol' Tony D.

Next up, Part Two: The Hair-Raising Tale Of The Gipper vs. The Mullet From Hades

This Delay Proudly Brought To You By Tony's Life

That's right, folks, Tony's Life; busy, sometimes crazy, and always very tiring. (For best effect, read aloud in beer commercial announcer voice.)

Sorry for the latest delay in storytelling here, but I'm tryin'. Stupid life gettin' in the way yet again. Between work, trips away from home, and just being away from the Mistress (aka the computer), it has been frustrating lately for me to try to get a tale up here for you all. I know I'm not writing The Rise And Fall Of The Roman Empire here, but I write in fits and starts when I can and sometimes it takes a while. And don't get me started when it comes to editing my own work. I do have a 3/4 finished George Thorogood piece in the hopper and should be ready in a day or so.

As always, I thank all of you for checking in, even when in most cases there isn't anything new to read. But I'm looking forward to the fall and winter, when I'll have much more time to publish this garbage. So come back, have fun reading, but remember that if you're not careful, you just might learn something.

Van Hagar '04 Part Three: A Phoenix Rises In Fresno

"Jump. Huh. Whadya know about that?"

Still a little taken aback at the choice of Jump for an opener, I rushed along the concrete floor of the Save Mart Center's concourse, glancing through the section entrances as we passed one after another to see the flashing stage lights and hear the raucous crowd sing along to the 1984 hit. Mary led the way around the arena towards our section. We'd circled the arena before the show, talking to people and just soaking up the pre-concert scene. If we had been thinking strategically, we'd have been close to our section as showtime neared, but somehow had lost track of time and our sense of location.

I looked up at the next section placard placed above a portal into the arena. Mary had seen it too and hollered back to me, "What section are we in again?" I flashed the ticket in my hand so I could read it and still jog onward. "One Twenty Four", I huffed. We had just passed section 116.

"Shit", she hissed. "How did we do this?"

"Ahh, I dunno", I said, looking down at my beer as it spilled all over the back of my hand. At $6.50 a pop, I figured I was losing about a dime's worth with every splash-producing step. Continuing on, we passed other harried travelers. I exchanged the same look with everyone that passed us: a slight shrug, raised eyebrows and pursed lips. A look that conveyed the unspoken understanding that, yes, we blew it too.

Section 124 came up quickly and we ducked through the black curtain, met by the first bars of Runaround. Now we had to negotiate our way down the steps in the relative darkness, using only the illumination of the stage lights to guide us home. I was looking at the ticket to remind us of our row, but Mary had already spied Jean and Scott, so we now had a point in the distance to focus on. We had approached from the far end of the row, away from the stage, and since everyone was naturally looking in the direction of the band, we had to tap everyone on the shoulder so we could scoot by to get to our seats. To the person, we were given a look by the fans as they had to suck it in to let us by. We were "those people". Not quite as bad as Dodgers fans that arrive in the third inning and leave in the seventh, but I suppose to keep the baseball analogy going, we had only missed the National Anthem and at least the first pitch.

We finally got to our seats. I really shouldn't use the term "seats". A more appropriate terminology would be "space" or "lot". In retrospect, the arena could have been void of chairs altogether and simply been adorned with painted squares on the cement with stenciled ticket numbers that people could stand in. I never saw anyone sit all night, although I did see some shoes pointed forward under the doors of the bathroom stalls, but I really can't count them.

I immediately smiled and nodded along to the tunes. The sound was fairly clean and the band looked like they were having a good time. Upon further inspection during my environment survey, I noticed that the stage had an interesting configuration. It took me a moment for the design to set in, but when it did, I was duly impressed at the ingenuity. Placed at one end of the arena, the stage was built to resemble the "VH" logo re-imagined for the post-Roth era Van Halen albums. If you remember, the wing-like effects on the V and the H are now stretched out into a 3-Dimensional circle. The stage featured a triangular center and two semi-circular ramps that kind of looked like a slot car track. The spaces between the main stage and the ramps were filled by a small number of fans, those of which I'm sure fell into the VIP, contest winner, and major groupie catorgories. Sammy Hagar paid a lot of attention to those folks and it reminded me of his stage setup used during the joint tour with David Lee Roth back in 2002. Then, there were two bleacher stands on stage full of fans on both sides of the drum riser and those lucky bastards were served margaritas prepared by Sammy himself onstage with his Cabo Wabo tequila. Sammy is nothing, if not a good host. On this night, he continually signed autographs on anything held up to him from the pit, even while singing. Never missing a note, he would cradle the wireless mic under his arm and crouch down to sign an album or T-shirt. It may seem like a cheesy thing to do, but I thought it was pretty damn cool to make those folks happy. Also, in a typical Sammy move, he took a homemade banner from some fans in the audience and fashioned a kilt out of it.

When I saw Van Halen years ago in Fresno, I was almost embarrassed for Sammy. I felt that he was trying to regain his youth and be something that he was not. The more I read about him and the more I see him interviewed on television, I realize that he really does love what he does for a living. He's about my dad's age, and when I see him rocking out, I can put it into perspective; wouldn't you be acting like a 21 year old if you were still doing what you loved to do when you were 21? Long live Rock and Roll.

But the thing that struck me as most interesting about the stage was the fact that the actual playing space (in the "VH") wasn't all that large. I won't guess as to the dimensions, but it couldn't have been as big as your typical theater stage. I would put it more in the category of a large nightclub stage. At most times during the show, all four members of the band were within 20 feet of each other and at some moments, in arm's length. The ramps were used mostly by Hagar, and Eddie strode around a bit during his showcase solo, but for the most part it was like seeing a famous band on a club's stage placed in an arena. I was fascinated by this and annoyed Mary to no end by yelling into her ear intermittently, "How fucking cool it that? Look at that! That stage is small. Genius, I'm tellin' ya."

She would patiently look over her shoulder at me and say something like, "Yeah, I know. It was genius the last time you told me to look, too. Small. Uh huh. Cool." Then she'd turn back to the show and resume bobbing her head to the party beat. I'd get the hint and be quiet for awhile. A few songs later, I'd be bellowing back to Mary, "Man, I can't believe that stage!" What an idiot.

During most of the show, I would bump and grind in my "space" with both Mary and Jean. Her sister isn't a big Van Halen fan by any means, but she was having fun partying along with Scott, Mary and I. I was sandwiched by my wife and Jean and got some playful harem-type type attention, all in the tongue-in-cheek fashion. It's no big deal between us---sort of like a running joke, but I can see where some people could wonder what's going on.

Mary and Jean left during a slow song to go to the ladies room. A moment after they'd left our sight, the guy right behind me tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and he had his hand held out to shake mine. He leaned in so as to be heard and said, "I don't know how you do it, man, but I gotta shake your hand".

"Wha..?", I asked.

"Yeah, man. You got two of 'em all over you. You got it goin' on, dude." He then grasped my hand and shook it enthusiastically. I laughed out loud and yelled to him, "Naw, man, that's my wife and her sister. We just mess around like that."

"Whatever, dude. You da man. Two fine chicks like that...", he replied. He let go of my hand and his buddy next to him raised his hand, signaling for a high-five from me. Still laughing, I responded in kind and scanned the faces of the rest of his group. They were all shaking their heads with an expression that held both respect and disbelief. As I turned back to the show, I leaned over to Scott and asked him if he'd heard that exchange.

He said, "Yeah. The guy said the same thing to me!" We both cracked up and met fists. Mary and Jean re-entered the aisle at this time and Mary asked me what we were laughing about. I told her and she smiled and shook her head. Scott told Jean and when she turned to us smiling, I put my arm around her and whisper-shouted into her ear, "These guys think we're all into each other, so give me a big hug right now". We embraced and groped each other (in all the safe zones) for a moment, trying not to double over with laughter. A few songs later, I looked back at the guys behind us and got a "thumbs up" from one of them. I thumbed him back, and thought to myself that he'd probably have a stroke if he witnessed what we all do on crazy, drunken poker nights.

Tangent Alert!

This reminds me of one of many nights where I've gotten the harem treatment from my wife's sisters. About a year ago or so, Mary and I went to a local micro-brewery to see a cover band that featured a friend of Jean and Scott's as well as our friend Paul, whose blog is linked here on this site on the sidebar. The band played a nice mix of danceable classic rock stuff and Mary wanted to dance. I'm not one to be the first out on the floor. I need some brave soul to christen the dance floor and take the heat of the haunting gaze from the inhibited crowd so I can slip out there unnoticed. I'll get your back, but you gotta take point, man. But this night, I'd had the precise amount of the cool, amber ale that I call Liquid Courage and appeased Mary. We walked up to a space in front of the band (there was no real dance floor, just a place between them and the front door), and proceeded to do our thing. Seconds later, we were joined by Jean and her friend Diana. Somehow, probably because I was the only male dancing, I became the focal point for all three of the gals and was caressed, grinded upon, and had my shirt unbuttoned by any number of them at any time during the song. I don't know how well I danced, but we got many whoops and hollers when we left the dance floor at the end of the song.

I stepped back to the bar facing the band, took a drink of my waiting beer, and wiped my brow. I was standing next to Steve, a friend I've met through Chris Brown (another blogger linked to this site) and he smiled at me. "Man, you are the King", he said. "Dancing with all those chicks, these people worship you", he said, waving his hand at all folks watching the band play that night. I nodded and thought about that for a second. I leaned on my elbow and looked back at those faces and reconsidered the situation. I leaned back over to Steve and said, "Y'know, that's what I thought too, for a minute there. Here I am, thinking to myself, 'Yeah, man, these dudes are all sooo jealous right now. Check it out; three women, all over me. Me. A frog like me and these gals have everyone thinking that I've got them all wrapped around my finger as they compete for my attention.'" I stepped back and said, "Then, about half-way through the song, a realization came upon me and I told myself, 'No, Tony. They all think you're gay. The gay guy always dances with his girlfriends. You're the gay guy, Tony. Way to go.'"

End of Tangent

The Van Hagar show raged on and we ate it up along with the rest of the Fresno crowd. Eddie Van Halen played a solo that seemed to be a medley of past solos, mixing parts of Eruption with parts of other showcase solos from past tours and albums. I really didn't have a problem with this, but some folks I talked to in the following days were disappointed. Michael Anthony played a bass solo that provided me with a nice bathroom break that lasted into Alex Van Halen's drum solo. Aside from Neil Peart of Rush and Gov't Mule's Matt Abts, there hasn't been a drummer that can keep me in the room with their solo. As much as I love Led Zeppelin, I even skip over Bonham's 30 minute indulgences during Whole Lotta Love on the many bootlegs I have. Later, Mary and I ducked out again during Sammy's 1,000,000th rendition of Eagles Fly. Phewww! I could only think to myself, sack that shit and as long as you're playing old stuff, give me more tracks from Fair Warning!

The show moved on and was paced well. I even enjoyed the Pepsi commercial song and sang along in a raspy, where's-my-lighter voice to Panama. What I'd forgotten, was how mean the Van Halen-ized riff to The Kinks' You Really Got Me is. That is a guttural, sneering, dirty-ass riff and it furrowed it's way into our bellies that night like a heavy metal tapeworm. When It's Love seemed to be a strange closer and left me feeling like I'd been to The Spaghetti Factory and skipped the spumoni. Still full, but not fulfilled.

--------

The next day, Mary and I awoke at about the same time. I did the typical Sunday morning self-check; Headache? Check. Back? Not so bad. Stomach? Considering the amount of beer consumed, not so bad. But wait. What's this? The ears are ringing! What the hell? My ears had not rung after an arena show since high school. I conferred with Mary and her ears were ringing too. But that I could understand. She hadn't suffered the echoes bouncing off of the cinder block walls of Fresno's Selland Arena like I had. Let me state that when the solos from Dokken's George Lynch sound exactly like those of Mark Knopfler of Dire Straights, it's probably the building's fault. In recent years, most arena shows I've seen have had the volume turned down a bit in comparison to past decades and the benefit is a cleaner sound and buzz-less eardrums the next day(s). So I'd have to say that this Van Halen concert was deceptively loud. I didn't get it at the time, but my ears certainly did. Years from now, God willing, when I'm in the rest home and constantly saying, "Eh?", you can all chastise me for not wearing plugs on August 14th, 2004.

In the end, I would say that I enjoyed the experience very much. But I did hear and read some negative things in the days following the show. In the S.F. Chronicle dated 8/22/04, I read a letter to the Datebook section editor that contained claims of taped musical segments, including keyboard parts and even guitar riffs. I cannot support these accusations with personal eyewitness testimony, and have to say that I wasn't aware of anything of the kind. If they'd never reunited, my life wouldn't have changed that much. But I'm glad they did. The world's most prominent party band gave us all in Fresno a hell of a party. What else do you want? We can't all be Spicoli and hire them out to play a private party.

Van Hagar '04 Part Two: Oh, The People You'll Meet

Jean zipped along the rows of parked cars in the lot, kicking up a pretty good dust trail. I know that Mary secretly was happy that we took Jean's SUV instead of her precious Solara, of which I'm convinced she loves maybe a bit more than she does me. Veering left now, Jean really didn't slow down much approaching Mark's parked car. When we pulled up next to him, our cloud of dusty grit had followed aggressively and overtook both vehicles. I was sitting in the back seat with a perfect view and laughed as Mark made a "What the Fuck?" face before recognizing me through the window.

We all exited the cars and went through greetings and introductions. Mark's buddy had made the journey down from Reno to see the show. He'd made good time on the trip and was celebrating by chain-slamming beers. We sponged a few Budweisers from the duo and hung around standing in between the parked cars, watching more fans pour into the lot and race around, defying the guidance of the yellow-jacketed lot attendants. The chaos, complete with music blaring, engines roaring, and dust flying everywhere made it look like a climatic scene to a Mad Max movie. I was talking to Mark and Scott when I heard Mary laughingly yell out, "There's Sammy!" I looked in the direction she was pointing, but only saw a Jeep fishtailing into the sunset through the haze of suspended gravel particles in air. "That guy looked just like Sammy", she said.

"He wouldn't be out here", I told her. She knew that, but insisted that this dude was a dead ringer for The Red Rocker himself. I shrugged and returned to what I'm sure was an intelligent, well presented, and meaningful discussion about football, or more likely, some chick's breasts.

After a while, we decided that we'd better make our way into the arena. Faithful readers here already know that I like to be in the venue for a concert well before showtime so I can people watch, get a drink, and look at the band's ridiculously overpriced wares at the merch table. But when I see shows at the Save Mart Center, I also like to make time to check in with my with my inside source at the arena. This gal, who I'll call "The Cat", works in the building and sometimes hears the soundcheck, gets inside dirt on the artists, or even sees the celebrities themselves as they're escorted through the secure catacombs of the edifice.

We walked across the lot and upon remembering our Fleetwood Mac experience, Mary and I suggested that we get our "over 21" wristbands at the stands outside. We sauntered up to the end of the short I.D. station line and watched as the security folks checked licenses without really paying much attention to anything except the birthdate. "Geez, they're not even looking up to see if the picture matches the person", said Jean. I think it was Mary that suggested we all switch I.D.s to test them. I hesitated at first, picturing a scenario with much confusion and alcohol-addled explanations if by chance we were caught. But after seeing person after person adorned with the precious paper bracelet that allows consumption without so much as a glance upward of the presenter, I saw no risk in goofing around a little.

Scott and I traded licenses and so did Mary with Jean. So nobody remotely resembled the face on the I.D. they handed over to receive a wristband. Even with Mary and Jean being sisters, there was a distinct difference of appearance from license to license. And Scott and I look nothing alike other than we both sport goatees, his much fuller than mine. Mary and Jean went up first and breezed through, laughing all the while. They waited near the entrance to the arena as Scott and I got checked. Scott handed my license over and the lady looked at it with a little squint. She passed it back without looking up and Scott was awarded a wristband. He chuckled and strode over to Mary and Jean. I held out Scott's I.D. between my index and middle fingers, trying to act casually. The lady took it, focused in on the birthdate and said quietly, "Okay". As she was handing it back to me, she suddenly looked up at my face and gave the card a second glance. I shot a look over to Scott and the sisters and they all giggled. "How're you doin' tonight?", I asked the lady in an effort to distract her. She looked up again and absent mindedly replied, "Okay, I guess". With that answer, she also robotically handed me back Scott's I.D. and the guy next to her placed a Coors Light bracelet around my wrist. Good thing I'm not with Al Qaeda.

On a side note; while I'm a fair haired boy, I do have somewhat hairy forearms. Aside from a good parking spot and getting to the concert on time, one of the telling signs to a good night out at a show is if the wristband presenter puts one on me without trapping untold numbers of hair follicles between the adhesives ends of the band. This was a to be a good night.

Inside, we got some beers and wandered over to the merchandise stand. I rarely see a shirt that I would wear anymore. I've got to really be into the band and I don't really wear black that often anymore. (It gets over 100 here fairly often and wearing a black T-shirt is like becoming a walking solar panel.) Lately, though, Mary has been on a pretty strong run of concert T-shirt buying. Now that bands (or rather, their merch brokers) are putting there logos on "girlie tees" that have short sleeves instead of the tiny "rock grrrl" spaghetti strap tops that were fashionable a couple of years ago, Mary has found some pretty cool duds. While she will never catch up to me in total purchases, lately she has outpaced me by far. But then again, I just wouldn't look right in that pink top with Van Halen's logo across a tattoo heart design, so she's welcome to the surge of late.

She bought her shirt and we only got about 30 feet away from the stand when we bumped into Mark and his buddy again. This time, they were talking to a couple of fellas they knew. We joined in on this conversation for a minute when Mary spied the Sammy guy again. She yelled out, "Sammy, Sammy!" I cringed a little when people started looking our way, but I knew what she was doing. "Sammy" smiled and waved a little wave towards us. "I gotta go say hi to this guy", she said, and walked over to a group of guys standing around laughing with "Sammy".

Just before she reached him, two drunken girls screeched and giggled upon seeing "Sammy". They hugged him and he smiled wide, nodding at his cronies. The girls left and Mary stepped up telling him, "Y'know, I was just messin' with ya, yelling like that. That was me screaming in the parking lot, too". He gave her a huge grin and replied, "Yeah, I know, but I love it anyway." I stepped over to take the cellphone picture of Mary and the Faux Red Rocker and ended up talking with a couple of the guys. They were all pretty cool and one dude from a Central Valley band and I exchanged websites. (Tre geeky, no?) The band is called The Well and because he checked out Tony's Hazy Concert Memories, I'll return the favor to him by recommending that you check out their site. I surfed over there and I liked the sample tunes enough that I'll be looking for them when they play locally. Click here to head over to the The Well's site and tell them that "the dude that writes about concerts" sent ya. Be sure to check out the influences for each player in the bio section. Cool, varied mix of musical tastes.

I guess the "Sammy" guy has been to a few shows and gets alot of attention. At first, in the lot, I thought it was kind of nerdy that Mary saw a guy trying to look like Sammy Hagar, but when I met the guy, I realized that it was all in good fun and rooted firmly in the spirit of Rock and Roll.

We moved on after some handshakes and searched out my inside source, The Cat. There wasn't really any groundshaking news. I asked if the Van Halen crowd was as drunk and obnoxious as the Fleetwood Mac baby-boomers and surprisingly, she said no. I guess real rockers know how to party righteously (or there were just a bunch of professional drunks there this night). The other thing she told us was that the soundcheck was loud. Really loud. I discarded this remark with some sort of hand flip and a "feh". What did The Cat know about loud? I'd seen Blue Oyster Cult a half-dozen times, for Chrissakes. That's loud.

We said our good-byes to The Cat and got another round of beers. My internal clock told me that it was just about showtime, but Mary and I both had to hit the bathroom. Better now than later, we decided, and dove into the lines at the Jane and John. Scott and Jean chose to head down to the seats and meet us there. While in the John, I overheard a snippet of conversation that I've heard at every concert I've ever been to. What these conversations could be about, I will never know. But the following seems to be a universal substitute for actual give and take:

Dude: Are you fuckin' kiddin' me?

Bud: No fucking way, man. 'M serious.

Dude: Get the fuck outta here.

Bud: Swear to fuckin' God, Dude. She.......

Dude: Fuuuck. Really?

Bud: I'll show you. Here.....

Dude: Fuck that, man!

I finished my business and tried not to laugh while washing my hands so as not to interrupt Bill and Ted's Excellent Mensa Meeting. I met Mary outside and we started the way towards our seats when we heard the crowd roar. I took a quick peek through the black curtains at the top of the nearest stairway and confirmed that, indeed, the lights had gone down. "C'mon, let's go", I said to Mary. We hightailed it through the deserted concourse on around the internal perimeter of the building to our section, but didn't get 20 yards before we heard the oh-too-familiar opening keyboard fluff of Jump. I stopped dead in my tracks. "They're starting with Jump?", I asked to nobody in particular. Mary had gone a few feet in front of me before realizing I was standing in the middle of the concourse mumbling with my head cocked to the side like the RCA dog. "Who cares?", she blasted. "Let's go!" She grabbed my hand and yanked me forward to our section placard.

"Yeah, but Jump?", I whined. "They fuckin' opened with Jump".

Cellphone photo of Mary and "Sammy"

Next Up: Van Hagar '04 Part Three: A Phoenix Rises In Fresno