Day 2 - no need to wake up at the crack of dawn because the Allstate Arena in Rosemont was just 90 minutes away from Milwaukee. I took my time and stopped here and there to shop along the way since my concert buddies for this show wouldn't be available until dinner time. Happily the Allstate Arena was immediately adjacent to my hotel as well as a strip mall with multiple restaurants, so we all could park at the hotel and walk everywhere.
Although our ticket situation all worked out in the end, for a while things were dicey. I had purchased one pair of tickets in Jake's presale, then thought perhaps a second daughter might be able to make it to the Chicago show, so again used Jake's presale to buy a second pair (or so I thought). One pair was in the risers next to the stage and the other was in row 16 of the floor.
It wasn't until months later when I actually printed my TicketFast tickets a few days before the show that I discovered something had gone wrong with my purchase! There was only a single floor seat - not a pair : ( I don't know how that happened - my only guess is that I had exceeded my limit of Jake presale tickets so they just didn't fulfill the order. Disappointed, I called my daughter to let her know that it looked like one of her friends wouldn't be able to join us as planned since we were short a ticket. She told me it was okay - one friend had changed her plans so Sara had just invited her fiance Sam instead. Sara figured Sam wouldn't be crushed if he could not attend the show.
Well, browsing Monkeyville I saw a post from a Canadian Monkey advertising decent Chicago seats at regular price. I shot her an email and she replied she had had one offer but I was next in line if the deal fell through. But a few hours later she let me know the tickets had been sold. Darn!
But sometimes its a small world when it comes to us Urbanites who make it to quite a few shows. Not too much later I got an email from Tim - a Keith fan I had once sold an extra Green Bay ticket to on the streets of Green Bay and then ran into again at a Monkeyville pre-party somewhere. He had seen my attempt to buy Chicago tickets on the Monkeyville board and it turned out he had been the person who beat me to the punch. But now he was re-thinking the trip to Chicago, so offered me the seats he had bought from the Canadian gal. Yay! So I got them after all - in a roundabout way - solving our seat problem. Now that we actually had 5 tickets, Sam could join as as well as my sister! A family event! But the coincidences weren't over yet. It turned out the seats from Canada were just about the same seat numbers and immediately behind the riser seats of my original purchase!! So although we still had one lone floor seat, I decided not to go down to the floor until absolutely necessary. I thought it likely we could all hang out together in the risers at least through Jake's set. But in fact I never got chased out of the row L seat I borrowed. When It was time for Keith and the guys to come on it was clear that the riser seats across the aisle from us had not been sold (probably thought to be too close to the stage), so all 5 of us moved down about 6 rows closer to the floor in the risers beside the stage seats where we could all be together in a single row.
When Keith paused to greet the fans, he added a little emphasis to his "We made it back!", saying "Damned good to be here!" After turning his attention to each area of the arena Keith read and provided brief responses to quite a few signs. There were the usual "want to get closer" and "kiss me" selections, but also 2 separate individuals celebrating their 50th birthdays, another with best wishes for KU's upcoming birthday, and one saying that 3 generations of their family were at the show. The Canadian contingency was large so Keith noted the Canadian flag and the London, Ontario fan sign. Another sign said "Hi to the Ranch!" spurring Keith to say that Chicago had been among their earliest engagements in either 1996 or 1997. The final (winning) sign read said "Don't Put Me in a Song, Put Me On Stage!" and he did!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pyyeeYNvQQ When the gal from Gray's Lake, IL arrived on stage Keith asked her who was the crazy woman she had been with on the floor. She replied that it was her boyfriend's mother and that his mother loved Keith even more than she did. So Keith invited mom up on stage as well where she immediately got Keith in a tight clench of a hug. Keith joked about how they hadn't yet even been introduced. Apparently this was not the first time the younger gal had gotten lucky and joined Keith on stage. She mentioned that 4 years ago in Moline she had been his "Warm Wet Kiss"! Keith offered to have Danny take a photo of the three of them with with audience in the background and told the audience to "pull in a little bit" for the photo : )
Keith had fun with his big spotlight on the upper tier of seats, then told the audience that if they wanted to dance or sing or stand on their chairs and completely annoy the people behind them, this was the concert for them. He then added "If someone behind you taps you and says "Hey, sit down!" that they should reply "Hey, stand up!"
It sounded like the whole arena was singing along on Long Hot Summer! I noticed that even my son-in-law-to-be sang along to some of the songs - another good reason to welcome the sweet guy to our family!
Amazement! Here it is the next to the last show of the tour and I am still experiencing new bits in the show! Has there always been a laser light show going on at the back of the arena??Have I been so focused on the man up front that I was oblivious to the quite beautiful, brightly colored, constantly changing play of laser lights on the ceiling and riser railings during Stupid Boy and some of the other songs??? Something for everyone (or especially for those whose eyes aren't glued on KU!) I guess!
Keith did some pretty impressive picking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I805WVezQ4 before settling down for Without You. I love these little bits of guitar play featuring those amazing fingers! Since it was a riser night for me, the closest I got to Keith was during his Sweet Thing on the left platform. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQBZrrBv3k
Tonight's special treat was Keith bringing out Richard Marx for a song. Keith mentioned that he first starting writing songs with Marx six years ago and that their most recent effort was "Long Hot Summer" which just hit the #1 spot. Richard sang "Don't Mean Nothing" and, as usual, Keith hung back to let his special guest shine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggp86oNQYgg This was one point in the show where I was a bit sorry I was in the risers to the side of the stage rather than down front on the floor with a more up close view. Keith also brought Richard back out at the end of the night for another one of the #1 hits Better Life but I really didn't have a good video shot for that collaboration.
Earlier in the evening I had been telling my sister that the fans that end up on stage for Kiss A Girl give some idea of how many fans travel great distances to come to Keith's shows.
Tonight's contest included not only a guy from Indiana but also a gal who came all the way from San Francisco. The mohawked guy was quite a ham, evening kneeling at the end of the little catwalk, clasping hands with the front floor folks. He impressed Keith (who said "What the heck are they doing in Indiana?") and he won the audience's applause the night.
At the end of this wonderful show the Allstate Arena exerted more control over the audience than most arenas I have been to. They blocked those of us in the left risers from walking around the arena on the concourse to choose what door we wanted to exit from. Instead we were all forced to exit on the south side of the arena (the side facing away from the hotel, strip mall and much of the parking. Since the evening had cooled substantially it was a very chilly walk outside all the way around the arena to the other side. They also forced us to skirt around all the tour buses on our way but unfortunately there was no sign of Keith or the guys (they probably knew that their buses were captive until the circling crowds dissipated).
It was a great night sharing a concert with family!
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