Last week on Friday, I got a voicemail from a DJ from my local radio station (Thunder 10.7) that went something like this:
“Hey Ed, this is Lisa Kelly from Thunder 100.7 with some fantastic news; you won two tickets to see Aerosmith and Sammy Hagar in Oakland next Friday. Come by the station to get your tickets”.
Monday morning, I drove over and picked the tickets…nice! The were for the upper level, but you can complain for free tickets!
Yesterday, Julie and I left for Oakland after some appointments (thanks again Mom for watching the animals and house!). We drove a few hours to Fairfield and got a motel room at the same place we stayed at when we saw Iron Maiden 3 weeks ago. It’s about 30 minutes out of the Bay Area and less than 3 hours from home, so it’s a good place to stay.
From there, we drove into Oakland for dinner before the concert. I have bad memories of Oakland from the last concert I saw there in 1986 (Iron maiden with my friend Dean…we got lost in the ghetto looking for the arena) and today was a full repeat. Julie and I tried to find a Chinese place to eat and the GPS took us into the crackhead, grafitti, ghetto-ist part of town. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and we ended up finding a Denny’s just down the street from the arena.
After dinner we went to the arena and got a parking spot. Unlike other concerts, there was little tom-foolery in the parking lot. We had an hour to kill before the doors opened so we people watched on the tailgate. Everyone form 12 year old kids to 50+ year old groupies were waiting for the doors to open. I did notice that there wasn’t a big line. In fact, the parking lot was mostly empty.
Once inside, we got Julie a tour shirt and found our seats. We was on the 2nd deck, but still had a pretty good view of the stage.The arena was only three-quarters full when Sammy Hagar hit the stage (on time) at 7:30pm.
I won’t apologize to say I am a bigger Sammy Hagar fan than an Aerosmith fan I have like Sammy since I was 12 years old. He hit the stage and frickin’ owned it! He played a ton of hits spanning his entire career, from Montrose (Rock Candy), Solo (I can’t drive 55), Van Halen (Why Can’t This Be Love?) Wabos (Mas Tequila), and even brought out Joe Satraini for a Chickenfoot song. He put on a hell of a show!!
Aerosmith took about 30 minutes to prep their stage and rolled out just after 9pm. They also played songs covering their entire career: Sweet Emotion, Janie’s Got a Gun,Pink, Walk This Way, Ragdoll, Love in an Elevator Toys in the Attic etc, etc, etc). It was a hit fest! Steven Tyler impressed me so much. I have seen a lot of concerts, and I have to say Steven Tyler is the 1st true rock star I have seen. He sang, danced, played harmonica, and put on a hellova show! It was a long set (they a so many hits to play!), I didn’t think it was ever going to end. It was pushing 11:30pm before we left the arena and got back to the truck.
The only negatived for the entire night was sometimes the music got super bass heavy to the point that the band was mudded. I don’t know if it was the arena or the sound guy, but occasionally the bassists (mostly Aerosmith, but Hagars bassist also) would just overpower the rest of the band.
One thing that happened that has never happened before was we got in my truck, made a right turn, then a left turn out of the lot and was on the freeway in literally 4-5 minutes. Usually getting out of the parking lot at a concert takes an hour.
Driving back to the motel that late was rough. It took about 40 minutes with late night Bay Area traffic and a toll bridge slow down. Once we got out of the bay, it only too 20-30 minutes to get back to Fairfield to the motel.
The next morning, we got up, and a quick bite at the motel and drove back to the bay area ad spend the morning at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. We shopped around a bit and ate lunch at Hooters (I hate to say it, but I think I am over Hooters…they eye candy doesn’t make up for the crappy, expensive food). We finally rolled into our driveway just before 4pm. Loooooong couple of days, but totally worth it. 2 fantastic shows that blew me away!
Next up is Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament on September 1st…that is gonna rock my face off for sure!!
