Big hair, tight pants and tattoos

A couple of days ago, my friend Michelle and I went to the Def Leppard, Poison, and Cheap Trick concert. I totally loved it. (As a matter of fact, I’m listening to Poison right now – I love Pandora radio – I created my own Def Leppard “station”)

To avoid traffic, we left early and spent some time wandering around the Usana “village.” We were going to buy T-shirts, but they were $40 to $50, I mean, seriously?

Right before Cheap Trick came onstage, this geriatric looking fella walked on stage, and Michelle jokingly said “hey, it’s Cheap Trick.” We laughed until the guy sat down at the drums. It WAS Cheap Trick. I only knew one Cheap Trick song, so their part was OK. Isn’t it amazing how much difference it makes when you know the songs being performed?

When Poison finally came out, I was so excited (I say “finally” because the intermission between Cheap Trick and Poison was quite long). Bret Michaels told us that their bass player (actually a Utah resident) was really sick and was unable to play, but as luck would have it, the bass player for Bon Jovi had been backstage and rather than Poison not playing the concert, Hugh McDonald volunteered to play for them and took 20 minutes to look over all the music.

Def Leppard was amazing. I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve seen them in concert. I’ll definitely be going again! As they started, I told Michelle that there were three songs I wanted them to sing for sure, and they didn’t disappoint – but EVERY song they sang was fantastic and one that I really wanted them to sing.

Almost as fun as the concert was the people-watching. There was a girl a few rows in front of us who kept dancing around with a full cup of beer in her hands (a cup which she kept replenishing) – I kept waiting for it to spill on the people in front of her, but she evidently had mad drunk-dancing skills and only spilled on herself.

People always had the strangest reaction when I said I was going to Def Leppard. I’m not sure what kind of image I’m portraying (and I’m not complaining), but these reactions bring two stories to mind.

a. When I was 19, I spent a week babysitting three of my nephews. One night I was driving my (then) 11-year-old and 13-year-old nephews to get ice cream. One of the few AC/DC songs that I liked came on the radio, so I started singing along. After a little while I noticed that there were no longer any noises coming from the back seat. I looked in the rear view mirror and my two nephews were looking at me like they had no idea who I was. “Katie, you know this song?” “Yup, I love this song.” “Wow! You’re cool!” It’s the little things, isn’t it?

b. A few years ago, I was in Tennessee working with a couple of male co-workers. We were driving from Nashville back to Jackson – Mark was driving so was in control of the radio. He had a heavy metal station playing and it just so happened that they played something like 5 or 6 songs in a row that I knew and liked, so I sang along. Mark looked at me, aghast, and said that he would now have to change his whole opinion of me. Not quite sure what that means, but…

Long live rock and roll!!