Night Ranger

I had little idea on how many people may show up to watch this show. With an 8:30 start (Summerfest made changes to some start times so you could catch more than one main act), I thought there could be a decent size crowd there. When we wandered by at 7ish, the picnic tables in the back were taken as were the majority of the bench seats in the middle. When we came back at 8, the bench seats that were available were mainly on the ends. At 8:30, the crowd had swelled to standing on the side. I wouldn't say the place was packed as I could still see the beer tents in the back. When you can't see them, then the area is packed.

I was happy to see them start with This Boy Needs to Rock. They finally did something different. Plus, the song makes for a good opener. I did like how they segued into Deep Purple's Highway Star and back to TBNR. They moved on to the "normal" set then, playing Touch of Madness and Rumors. Apparently there was a problem with Keagy's mic in the beginning as his vocals were coming and going. Thankfully it was corrected just a couple songs in.

I don't know if I liked the idea of them playing AC/DC's Highway to Hell. Everyone is throwing a little AC/DC into their shows now but I would have preferred another Night Ranger song. At least the rocked up the guitars a little bit and added their own touches.

The acoustic portion was as expected. One of my favorite parts is when they play Goodbye and then go electric in the end. Beautiful stuff.

Once again they put on a great show IMO, (but I am biased). The guys were on stage having fun, playing their hearts out. My bud Corey was impressed with them as well. To me that is the biggest thumbs up I could get. If you haven't seen Night Ranger live, go check it out. Go in with an open mind and watch them play. I think you will like it especially if you liked 80s rock.

On a side note, I had to keep telling the lady behind me how long she had to wait to hear Sister Christian. On the first song she yelled it out. I told her she had to wait about 1 hour, 20 minutes to hear it. Ok, I was off by about 10 minutes. But I gave her a countdown along the way. BTW, it is the first song of the encore.

After Night Ranger, we headed off to Skid Row. Got there about halfway through the show. Crowd wasn't overflowing and there was plenty of room on the side bleacher of the Rock Stage. Came in as they were playing Riot Act. They then played a punked up version of I Remember You that I thought was pretty good. It got better when they played Get the Fuck Out. But for some stupid reason, they then played an acoustic version of I Remember You. WTF? You must did this 2 songs ago? The lead was amusing, bantering out all the cliches of the 80s that a frontman ever used. Overall, Skid Row was good, from what I had seen.

Again, over at Skid Row you had people sitting there just waiting to hear Youth Gone Wild. Why wait through an hour and a half, on your butt just to hear one song? Get with the show.

I also ran into a slew of people I work with/used to work with. It just about seemed like an old company picnic. Had a good time talking with all of them. Makes me miss the good ole days.

Today is the marathon day. It is about 9:10 and the first beer is about to be opened. One Mountain Dew for the caffeine has done me good. Let's see if I can make it all the way to Whitesnake at 10 pm.

In the meantime, go check out Dr. Pauly for the story of the WSOP.