When I heard Bad Company coming
onstage, I went back to my seat. I didn't sit, but I went back to my seat!
After a little bit of a slow start, the audience really got into their set.
They added in a John Lee Hooker song, "Boom Boom," as a tribute to
the blues master who passed away a week prior. It sounded incredible! Paul Rodgers
has an amazing voice, and he really dug down and nailed the song.
Security was kind of hot and cold during Bad Company's set. The security guy in front of me saw me taking pictures and didn't say a word. On the other hand, he confiscated a couple of beach balls that were being tossed around and put them under the stage curtain. Next thing you know, he was telling people they could hit the beach balls back towards the crowd but not up towards the stage. Then he would tell people to go back to their seats and clear the space in front of the stage for the guy running the video camera for the big projection screen. Then he apparently got tired of that, because the guy next to me went up and stood right up at the stage, and the video cameraman nearly tripped over him, and the security guy said nothing at all. After that, this guy came back and tried his best to get me to go up to the stage with him, to the point of putting his arm behind my back and trying to lead me up there! I appreciated the thought, but I didn't know what mood the security guy would be in at the moment, and I figured if I was going to get in trouble for going up to the stage, I should wait and do it during the Styx show! However, during the last few songs, enough people went up to make it a bonafide trend, and I did join them then!
Once at the stage, you can't go
back! During the break between Bad Company and Styx, I stayed up at the stage.
Sandy came up to talk to me and was so sweet, she offered me money for the
Styx buttons I gave to her and Tom! I told her absolutely not, they are to be
given away, and she wouldn't hear of it - I thought we were going to have
a fight! But the polite kind of fight you have when two people are trying to
pay a check in a restaurant! She really felt bad about taking them for
nothing, so I made her take more! I gave her about ten more buttons and told
her, "Here, give them to other people - that's how you pay me
back."