I gotta know tonight, are you alone tonight?
A batch of photos from the concert I went to last week, and some other stuff too.
So the background: I'm a child of the 80s, and as such I was a big fan of that era's rock music, especially so-called hair metal. And two of my absolute-favorite bands from back then were Def Leppard and Tesla. In fact, as a guitarist it would be fair to say that those two bands (along with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd) taught me to play guitar. To this day when I pick up a guitar and noodle stuff from memory, Tesla and Def Leppard will pop out. As I think I mentioned here at some point, back in 1988 my sister and her boyfriend got tickets for us to go see Def Leppard on the Hysteria tour--but his car broke down on the way and we never made it. Doubly sad, since Steve Clark passed away a few years later. So anyway, DL and Tesla came to Tampa last year, and I missed it--so when they announced another run of dates that included Orlando, I jumped on that. The show was supposed to be back in January, but Joe Elliot of DL had laryngitis and they had to cancel. So this was the rescheduled date.
Tesla sounded good! Only the second guitarist is not an original member, Tommy Skeoch having departed some years ago. It was nice to see Frank Hannon in the flesh, though, since I've always considered him a big influence on my playing.
Oh, these were all taken with our newish Canon SX530 point-and-shoot, by the way. Detachable lenses were verboten, though it didn't really look like they were checking too closely. Between the zoom and stabilizer, it did a pretty good job, though.
Tesla played a pretty good selection, mostly their best-known stuff from the first 2 albums, with "Edison's Medicine" from the 3rd album and "Signs" from 5MAJ thrown in. Good stuff. The whole set was only 45 minutes or so, I would have liked a bit more!
The January lineup was to be Tesla, Styx, and Def Leppard, which I was quite excited about since I've long appreciated Styx too. But due to the reschedule, I guess Styx was no longer available so REO Speedwagon filled the middle spot instead. I was frankly a little disappointed to hear that, since I'd been looking forward to seeing Styx. But REO really impressed me--they put on a great set, and I knew all but maybe 2 of the songs they played. And they do have some really classic hits--"Take It On the Run," "Keep On Loving You," "Time For Me To Fly," "Roll With the Changes," and of course "Can't Fight This Feeling."
Kevin Cronin was clearly an old pro. He still sounds fantastic, and he had a great stage presence as well.
Cell phones are the thing for ballads instead of lighters these days, I guess.
And finally the main event. Gotta say, the Lep lads sounded really good. I could tell Joe was still struggling with his voice now and then, but for the most part I couldn't tell.
Phil Collen is pretty ripped for a guy pushing 60, I must say.
The stage setup was pretty cool--a huge screen to the rear, which extended down on each side of the drum riser, and a big screen for live camera shots to each side as well. Some of the graphics were pretty cool--I liked this one.
My seat was okay--upper bowl, but first row (and on the aisle, too) so I had a good view over the balcony (though I definitely needed the long zoom for shots like this) and only one neighbor. Unfortunately that neighbor could have been better. It was a fairly large woman who smelled.. not so good. And she was constantly trying to get the attention of her (husband? boyfriend?) next to her, who was a generally loud and obnoxious dude, and when he ignored her (as he usually did, and I couldn't blame him a bit) she would get all huffy and exasperated and throw her hands up in the air like a 12-year-old with no working filter between her id and motor control center.. And she kept trying to take photos and videos with her cell phone, but clearly had no idea how to get a decent shot due to the mix of light and dark, so that frustrated her too. And they and their friends all kept leaving and returning mid-show to get beer and use the bathroom, so I kept having to get up to let them by. Just generally annoying and distracting.
For "Hysteria" they played along with photos and live footage from that tour, which was pretty cool. I was glad for the tribute to Steve.
"Photograph" as an encore, of course.
The next day we went to LEGOLand to activate our new passes! A few weeks ago they did a one-day-only deal for buy-one-get-one-free annuals, and that was too good to pass up. So we got passes for the 5 of us, and one for Heather's sister as well--she met us there to get her pass too.
We hadn't been to LL for at least a year, so we hadn't seen the new Friends-themed area. It wasn't too big, but pretty nice. They're building a Ninjago area to open next year--Amy will sure love that!
Hallie wanted a photo with all the big Friends girls, for some reason.
There seemed to be some things in Miniland that I didn't recall, like this fort and the Orlando Eye, which you can see a little of in the back.
Subtle warning sign, right?
Okay, that's all for now. Hope your week is going well!