I Counted Seven...

Last night was the Counting Crows and Maroon Five concert. Great show, as usual.

Straight from work, I came home, got everything and everyone together, and off we went. It was 5:15 when I got home, and we had to make it to Irvine by 7:00, with a stop at my parents house to drop off the kids along the way. Almost 60 miles of driving in Friday afternoon traffic. It was 6:30 by the time we made it to my parents house. From there to the Irvine area went pretty quickly, but of course there was concert traffic once we got to the area. Illuminated signs on the freeway directed us to use Bake Parkway instead of the Irvine Center exit I was accustomed to (of course, it's probably been 15 years since I've been to this venue). We followed the directions (and avoided a good amount of traffic that didn't) and exited at Bake Parkway, the exit past that one. Now, you'd think, after they go through the trouble of putting up not one but two electronic signs on the freeway, there would be would be some signage on the surface streets. You would be mistaken. Fortunately, I have an above average sense of direction!!! A bonus at the parking area, the had the parking rate displayed at $20. At no point was there any money takers, so we parked for free. Almost makes up for the Ticketmaster surcharge and venue charge. It was well after 7:00 by the time we got parked and in. Fortunately, the opening group was all we missed.

This is the first time I've ever purchased the general admission lawn tickets for Irvine Meadows. When I went to get tickets, they actually had some pretty decent seats available, but the price!!! I think last time I saw them, it was under or right around $100 for two seats, which turned out to be awesome seats. The actual seats tickets were $118 EACH, before the extra $20 or so for the extra charges. Turned out to be just fine where we were at, pretty much at the back of the lawn. It was a bit distant, but we could see everything quite well.

The set list was as follows:

Mr. Jones

Hanging Tree

Los Angeles

A Murder of One

Goodnight L.A.

Mercury

Have You Seen Me Lately

Round Here

Miami

Come Around

Rain King

A Long December

Three songs off the new disc. I realize it was only 12 songs, but a few of them were quite long, around 8 minutes or so. On A Murder of One, they did something very cool, they segued into Sordid Humors' "Doris Day" in the middle. I have a live recording where I've heard this done before, but this is the first time I've heard it live with my own ears. They also stretched out Round Here, with a part where he goes on with "She said“Did you think that you were dreaming?" I said “no" She said “Did you think that you were dreaming?" I said “no" She said“Did you think that you were dreaming? I said, “Sometimes I don't know...", as well as mixing in parts of Have You Seen Me Lately. The opening group, Augastina, joined Counting Crows for their Rain King finale, harmonizing nicely on the chorus.

What else??? Well, their stage setup is somewhat different now, they've got some cool video screens in the background, and they seem to have done away with the electrically lit skeletal trees and bushes that they had at three of the four last shows I've seen. I don't know, but from the look of them, I'd guess they were stage dressing for the tour for This Desert Life. Maroon Five rocked, and my wife declared them to be quite sexy.

Instead of heading all the way home, we had arranged beforehand to spend the night at my parents house. The boys would already be asleep by the time we got there, and it would be late (especially considering I was at work two hours fifteen minutes before I'm accustomed to). Of course, we hadn't eaten dinner, just snacked on the drive down there. Afterwards, we'd been considering going to Wendy's, but their dining room was already closed when we got there, and we didn't feel like eating in the car, nor taking it to my parents house. We headed over to Dennys instead, and had a great midnight dinner.

This morning, since we were already at my parents house, I did some work on my vacuum valve for the Benz. Welded the linkage arm to the shaft collar, and came up with a better arrangement for mounting it. Clamped it in place and set up the linkage and tried it out. A bit more fine tuning is required, but once again, my hypotheses is correct, this will work. Spent much more time than I'd planned with that. Next weekend!!!