i think we made eye contact!

sighhh...last night's concert was simply awesome. Absolutely, utterly awesome. I have to give a slight background to the importance of last night's concert for you to get a complete understanding of where I'm coming from...

So back in June when the Crowes came to Philadelphia on a tour with Tom Petty I was ecstatic. I immediately sent one of my infamous mass e-mails to my friends so see "whoooo's coming with me?!". Of course, due to the fact that none of my friends care much about the Black Crowes, let along worship them like I do, I was unable to find any takers. Turns out my brother was doing his effort to get his friends to go and was able to round up about 20 people...so my "good-sport" husband (fiance, at the time) agreed to go with me and we met up with my brother and his 'crew' to attend what I was anticipating to be the best concert ever.

The Crowes were opening at about 7:30 and Petty was to follow at around 9 or 9:30. I was psyched. This would be my fourth Crowes concert and my second Petty concert...but to have them together in one night...well, I was beyond excited. So Walt and I met up with my brother and his cronies (a group of about 20 people...all around the age of 23...still living as they were in college - love them, but just have to give you the full picture) at about 6:30 and I was really determined to get to the show on time. However, by the time we rounded up all 20 cronies...peeling them away from the keg and bong...it was closer to 7:15 and I was beginning to panic. To make matters worse, the 10 minute walk to the ferry concluded with myself, Walt, and 20 cronies staring at a 2 mile-long line (no exaggeration) just to get on the ferry to take us on a 10 minute ride to the concert. Things were not lookin' good.

We were now approaching 7:30 and, after having a minor conniption, I pleaded with Walt to take a taxi with me - we were just going to have to part from the group if we wanted to have any hope of seeing any part of the Crowes' performance. Long story short, we were able to hitch a ride with one of my brother's lagging cronies who was in the midst of driving himself to the show. As we are pulling up to the stadium, now closer to 8:15 after sitting in fellow concert traffic, who do I hear in the distance...? None other than the one and only, Chris Robinson. ugh. My heart drops. But, trying not to make the situation any worse, I am crying to myself thinking "good lord, if I miss this concert I will kill someone!". And to make sure the knife is driven straight through my heart, one of the passengers in the car with us, a friend of my brother's who had been claiming all day that she is a huge Crowes fan (and making me feel much better that I am not the only one this crushed to be missing the show)...turns on the radio to a Los Lonely Boys song and goes "Oh, I love this Black Crowes song! I hope they play this tonight!" I glare at her, just short of punching her in the face. And thinking..."Oh. My. God. Can this get any worse?!!"

Well, the conclusion of the story is that my heartbreak came true and we missed the entire Black Crowes performance. However, to ease the blow, Tom Petty put on an amazing concert...even playing some Traveling Wilbury's. Tom definitely made me feel better...I but I left the concert with deep regret for missing my Crowes.

So last night was the concert to make up for that terrible experience and the Crowes completely out did themselves. Chris Robinson was amazing...and I don't know what I love more - his soulful voice or when he jams out in his dance moves! They played for 3 hours, taking only one 20 minute break. The stage was filled with candles and the ambiance was awesome. Walt and I had nose-bleed seats, but had a great view of the entire stage - there really wasn't a bad seat in the house. When I sensed the show was coming to the end, I just had to get a closer view of Chris. I had never been in such a small venue with the Crowes and I wanted to see how close I could get. One of the benefits of being short is that you can duck down in a crowd and get in a good view without pissing people off behind you. I was able to get just 5 rows from the stage for the last 3 songs of the night. It was great. I even think I made eye contact with Chris! OK, maybe not...but I could see that he was drinking a Miller Lite bottle. I left the concert on cloud nine.