Styx Concert Recap
Last night Michelle, Bryant, and I headed to the Charter One Pavillion for the Styx and Foreigner concert, and I have to say that it was one of the funniest and happiest days of my life.
Our voyage to Chicago was at times a bumper-to-bumper one, and always one filled with truck drivers to either side of us. I have a tendency to look out of the windows of a car and just think or notice new things around me. My everwatchful eye peeped inside the cab of this semi, which had the entire roof near the windshield of the cab covered with porn. Naked women. Near waterfalls, in thongs, and I swear I saw a picture of a (fully clothed) little girl. I was fucking perplexed on that one. So I point it out to Bry and Michelle... and the trucker looks at us. We sped away laughing.
At the next light, we're caught next to another semi. I look around because I know where we are and I notice that the trucker next to us... is looking into the car. At me. I look up, do a friendly wave to not be rude, and look forward. He keeps looking, Michelle said. I talk to them, and he's still looking. At the next light, he's next to us... and winks at me. I freak the FUCK out. I take a sip of my Amp Tall Boy and swallow just as Bryant says something hilarious... and I start to choke. I was choking. I had to spit out the Amp... so I open the door of our moving car just enough and choke up the beverage. The truck driver wouldn't look at me at the next light. I guess he thought I vomited some toxic, lime green acid.
We blasted Styx the whole way there and made jokes. We finally get to Soldier Field to park, and we take the short walk to the Pavillion. First thing we do is check out the overpriced merch. We each got a Styx shirt, and I'll picture post later. This lady behind us had a boy around the age of 8 and told him "You can get whatever you want, as long as it's not Foriegner." Well Done, woman. Well Done.
The only beverages I saw for sale were mixed drinks, corona, bud light, and lemonade. All the adults were completly trashed, and by the time Foreigner busted out the cheesy lines like "I wanna know what love is, I want you to show me," all of the fortysomething drunk couples were making out and grabbing each other's asses.
Before we get into Foreigner... the opening act, the Highway Band, was fucking horrible. They sounded like the NWI Lynyrd Skynyrd. They played one song that had a very long intro almost exactly like Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" which turned out to be an "original" song. It was as original as Ice Ice Baby, which we all know has the tune from "Under Pressure."
So Foreigner looked like they were extras in Corpse Bride. They looked so old, which they are... and the lead singer was wearing a Foreigner T-shirt with a sheer button-up long sleeved shirt over it. It was pretty bad. They started off with Double Vision, which was one of the three songs worth hearing, the other two being Hot Blooded and Jukebox Hero.
Every song by Foreigner follows a strict formula.
Best line of the song + verse + verse + chorus x2 + verse + chorus x2+ verse +chorus x2 + interminable instrumental break +chorus = Shitty song by Foreigner.
The guy behind me and Bryant was quite a character. He came off as either a) really fucking drunk b) a tool or c) homosexual. He snuck Bud Light into the show, offered some to us, screamed a lot of shit at the band like "I'M HOT BLOODED" or "I WANNA SAIL AWAY!!!!!!!", and he took quite an interest in Bryant, so I'm guessing he was all three. He talked to us a lot, asked us where we were from, was shocked when Bry said he was only in college, and even more surprised when I told him I'm a junior in High School. Ah, drunk cradlerobbing tools, how I love thee.
Then... Styx came on. For visual comparison, all the members of Styx were dressed up in black clothes, white shirts, ties... and I came to the conclusion that Foreigner is the White Trash Styx. That should be on their T-shirts. My favorite part of Styx concerts is the synth. Their synthesizer is on a rotating stand, and the keyboardist spins it around the whole time and can play behind his back, and it's an all around good show. The keyboardist had on eyeliner and all around looked very asian. It reminded me of Nicole.
They didn't play Crystal Ball, my favorite song, but they did play a lot of other good ones, like Blue Collar Man, Renegade, Miss America, Fooling Yourself, and other songs most of you have never heard of (excluding Renegade and Come Sail Away, anyone who has seen Billy Madison and old Carnival Cruise commercials has heard these songs.)
I'll end this long post here. It was a good fucking night. :)
Our voyage to Chicago was at times a bumper-to-bumper one, and always one filled with truck drivers to either side of us. I have a tendency to look out of the windows of a car and just think or notice new things around me. My everwatchful eye peeped inside the cab of this semi, which had the entire roof near the windshield of the cab covered with porn. Naked women. Near waterfalls, in thongs, and I swear I saw a picture of a (fully clothed) little girl. I was fucking perplexed on that one. So I point it out to Bry and Michelle... and the trucker looks at us. We sped away laughing.
At the next light, we're caught next to another semi. I look around because I know where we are and I notice that the trucker next to us... is looking into the car. At me. I look up, do a friendly wave to not be rude, and look forward. He keeps looking, Michelle said. I talk to them, and he's still looking. At the next light, he's next to us... and winks at me. I freak the FUCK out. I take a sip of my Amp Tall Boy and swallow just as Bryant says something hilarious... and I start to choke. I was choking. I had to spit out the Amp... so I open the door of our moving car just enough and choke up the beverage. The truck driver wouldn't look at me at the next light. I guess he thought I vomited some toxic, lime green acid.
We blasted Styx the whole way there and made jokes. We finally get to Soldier Field to park, and we take the short walk to the Pavillion. First thing we do is check out the overpriced merch. We each got a Styx shirt, and I'll picture post later. This lady behind us had a boy around the age of 8 and told him "You can get whatever you want, as long as it's not Foriegner." Well Done, woman. Well Done.
The only beverages I saw for sale were mixed drinks, corona, bud light, and lemonade. All the adults were completly trashed, and by the time Foreigner busted out the cheesy lines like "I wanna know what love is, I want you to show me," all of the fortysomething drunk couples were making out and grabbing each other's asses.
Before we get into Foreigner... the opening act, the Highway Band, was fucking horrible. They sounded like the NWI Lynyrd Skynyrd. They played one song that had a very long intro almost exactly like Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" which turned out to be an "original" song. It was as original as Ice Ice Baby, which we all know has the tune from "Under Pressure."
So Foreigner looked like they were extras in Corpse Bride. They looked so old, which they are... and the lead singer was wearing a Foreigner T-shirt with a sheer button-up long sleeved shirt over it. It was pretty bad. They started off with Double Vision, which was one of the three songs worth hearing, the other two being Hot Blooded and Jukebox Hero.
Every song by Foreigner follows a strict formula.
Best line of the song + verse + verse + chorus x2 + verse + chorus x2+ verse +chorus x2 + interminable instrumental break +chorus = Shitty song by Foreigner.
The guy behind me and Bryant was quite a character. He came off as either a) really fucking drunk b) a tool or c) homosexual. He snuck Bud Light into the show, offered some to us, screamed a lot of shit at the band like "I'M HOT BLOODED" or "I WANNA SAIL AWAY!!!!!!!", and he took quite an interest in Bryant, so I'm guessing he was all three. He talked to us a lot, asked us where we were from, was shocked when Bry said he was only in college, and even more surprised when I told him I'm a junior in High School. Ah, drunk cradlerobbing tools, how I love thee.
Then... Styx came on. For visual comparison, all the members of Styx were dressed up in black clothes, white shirts, ties... and I came to the conclusion that Foreigner is the White Trash Styx. That should be on their T-shirts. My favorite part of Styx concerts is the synth. Their synthesizer is on a rotating stand, and the keyboardist spins it around the whole time and can play behind his back, and it's an all around good show. The keyboardist had on eyeliner and all around looked very asian. It reminded me of Nicole.
They didn't play Crystal Ball, my favorite song, but they did play a lot of other good ones, like Blue Collar Man, Renegade, Miss America, Fooling Yourself, and other songs most of you have never heard of (excluding Renegade and Come Sail Away, anyone who has seen Billy Madison and old Carnival Cruise commercials has heard these songs.)
I'll end this long post here. It was a good fucking night. :)