Lenny Kravitz and Aerosmith Concert

Lenny Kravitz and Aerosmith concert

All right so last night Dave, Nick, Bart and I went to the Lenny Kravitz/Aerosmith concert at Philips Arena. We first met up at my place b/c I live near downtown and then we drove over after a few cocktails. Philips is all of a mile and a half away but yet I still don't know how to get there. For those who are unaware, I probably have the worst sense of direction in the history of mankind. I don't know if I developped this poor sense of direction because I started drinking or if I started drinking because I had a poor sense of direction. For those of you who have seen Leaving Las Vegas that last sentence may make sense. The only problem is you probably won't laugh either way.

We had great seats, left center of the stage, 10 rows up. Lenny Kravitz was up first. He sounds great live (esp his voice) and he was a pretty good entertainer. He moves around the stage and gets his band involved. Speaking of his band, there was a collection of backup singers/additional musicians who played the sax, trumpet, trombone, and....well I think some of the dudes just stood there. I'm not kidding. I'm not even sure Lenny knew who they were.



He played all of his hits (Believe, Pocket Full of Money, American Woman, etc.) and overall it was pretty entertaining.

The entire time I was waiting for him to play "Are you gonna go my way?" which, I thought, would be completely bad-ass if they flashed yellow lights behind the stage during the song, a la the video for that song.

After playing a 15 minute rendition of "Let Love Rule," which according to Lenny himself is the "one song [he] wants to be remembered by," and in which Lenny walked through the entire crowd, he came back with "Are you gonna go my way?" with the lights flashing and going crazy and it was, in fact, pretty bad ass. A solid performance from Lenny, who just might be slightly cooler than I am.

At intermission we managed to crush an entire large pizza. While we were stuffing our faces we saw an absolutely gorgeous girl who could not have been 22 with a very short man with grey hair who was probably in his late 40s. They asked one of us to take a picture of them so Nick grabbed the camera. Dave said to the girl "so nice of your Dad to take you to this concert" and the guy just looked pissed off. We then commented that he probably has very little to be upset about, which drew a smile. Nick took the picture and said "she looked good, you looked ...meh"

Aerosmith came up next. I had heard that they were not that great live because they did not play a lot of familiar songs. I was hoping it would be different this time. Sadly, I would be let down.

They came out and blasted a pretty good rendition of "Helter Skelter" by the Beatles and got the crowd rockin. Coincidentally I am reading a book called Helter Skelter right now, a non-fiction book written by the prosecuting attorney in the Charles Manson murder cases, and I was wearing a Beatles shirt last night.

As I mentioned we had pretty good seats. Here is a pic of Dave, Bart, and I.

Unfortunately I don't have a picture which I had to delete of this crazy woman sitting a few rows in front of us. Listen to this, I am standing up looking around at the arena, kind of browsing through the crowd. I often do this at concerts, just to get a general feel of the atmosphere. Anyway, as I am looking around I see two girls a few rows down who appear to be looking at me. Instinctively I look away and continue looking through the crowd. As I glance back I see that they are definitely looking at me, and one or both of them gave me a smile. I looked away again. In such a situation it is inevitable, you have to look back one more time, so I do, and I see that they were motioning towards me...I think they wanted me to come down and sit next to them or something. Now for those who don't know I have a girlfriend and I am not particularly interested in meeting strange, grungy women at Aerosmith concerts. Thus, I found this whole ordeal amusing. As such, I pointed my camera at these ridiculous women and took a picture. Nick came back from the bathroom and I briefed him on what transpired. Next thing I know Nick said to me "I think they are coming up here." I look down and, sure enough, they were coming up. The girl marched up with a pouty look on her face on and shouted at me "I want you to bring up that picture you just took of me and DELETE IT!!"
I was thinking that was strange as in she is not exactly a celebrity and I can take a picture of whoever the f--- I want to. Upon closer inspection I realized she was kind of hit and I could see why she didn't want pictures taken of her. Regardless, I didn't want to delete the picture because she was a joke and I found her amusing. Then she kept hounding me "delete it!" and I quickly became very annoyed. So I pulled out my camera, found her picture, stuck the camera in her face, and deleted the picture. Somehow, this b-tch was still not satisfied!! She says "delete it!" I told her it WAS deleted and to get away from me. Still, she would not leave. I looked over at Bart and he was completely clueless but was enjoying what he was witnessing. Searching for a way to get her to leave, I showed her my camera and that there was no picture of her. She said "you just showed me other pictures not the one of me." Wow, I thought to myself, could this woman be as stupid as she is crazy? "Well sweetheart," I said, "I can't exactly show you a picture that I deleted, can I? Please go back to your seat. Enjoy the concert."

She finally walked away. Nick was obsessed with the idea of taking a picture of her as she was walking away. I honestly thought he was going to grab my camera and take the picture himself. I decided against it because we weren't allowed to take pictures at the concert and I didn't want to risk having this obviously psychotic woman getting a bouncer or someone to taking my camera and/or pictures away. Strangely, those two girls left a few songs later, which was not even halfway through the show.

So Aerosmith played a pretty good set. Steven Tyler sounds great live as well and he can still perform. He was wearing the same style clothing he always wears - tight pants, a half shirt, and some gay scarf.

He dances around just like he does in all of his videos and its pretty entertaining. They started off playing all of their hits. Walk this way kept the crowd roaring and then they kept it strong with Cryin, Livin on the Edge, and I Don't Want to Miss a Thing.

Then Joe Perry played some kind of solo song which sounded a lot like Fell in Love With a Girl by the White Stripes. Aerosmith is DEFINITELY the Joe Perry and Steven Tyler show. I think it always has been. The other guys in the band looked extremely old, with grey hair and whatnot, but they could still play. Through what is likely extensive plastic surgery and hair dying, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler looked a lot younger.

Aerosmith then played about eight songs in a row, including their four song encore, which included not one song that any of us knew. That was our cue to exit.

Overall a good time. Doesn't crack the top five concerts for the past calendar year (Bloc Party, the Strokes, Coldplay, Pinback, and Arcade Fire, in that order), but it was still fun. One highlight that almost pushed it into the top five was when this girl jumped up on stage and Steven Tyler said "I don't give a f---; I'd go to jail for that"

All right that's it for the first edition to this Blog.

© 2006 The Schrein-bot