Crazy Weekend

It's been quite a whirlwind of a weekend, but given the choice I would definitely do it all over again. Friday at work I was just browsing around checking out some different music websites and as I was watching The Black Crowes on the projector at the time, I looked them up to see if they were going to play anywhere close in the near future. What I found was that they were indeed playing close and on that very night.

My brother and I drove down to the Waukesha fair and paid 9 bucks for admission and got to see the Crowes play live for close to 2 hours. I realized how long its been since I have seriously listened to them as I didn't recognize about 2/3s of the songs they played. They did do a couple of my favorites though including Hard To Handle, Thorn in My Pride and Wiser Time. Even the songs I didn't know were great. They still have that blues-rock sound and Chris Robinson has a great voice for it.

So that was Friday and on the way home my brother and I made plans to hang out the next day and we lamented the fact that we were not going to see Dave Matthews Band who were playing at Alpine Valley on Saturday and Sunday night. They are a favorite of both my brother and I. We had been looking for tickets, but came late to the game on that one and both shows were sold out. All the tickets we found for sale were 2-3x or more than face value.

Saturday I get a call from my brother saying he found a guy that had 2 extra lawn tickets for Sunday night that he was willing to sell to someone that could go for 50 bucks a piece.. did I want to go? HELL YES! So he made the arrangements. We hung out for the day and then I spent the evening with my SO.

After some minor issues with my car, my brother picked me up at the mechanic so we could head down and meet the guy with the tickets outside of Milwaukee. Everything was on the up and up and we had 2 lawn tickets. Gates didn't open to 530pm and it was only about 145 so we decided since neither of us had been there we would do a drive by on the venue so we knew where we needed to go and then we were going to get some food and chill for a bit.

That was the plan anyway. When we got down by Alpine Valley however, all the roads were being controlled and funneled by officers and before we knew it we were in the parking lot. We were hoping we could drive out the other side.. but nope. It was one way in.. no way out. Suddenly we were parked amid a ton of people unpacking their tailgating gear. On a whim I had thrown a couple of those camping chairs in the back of my bro's car 'just in case'. Well I am glad we did as at least we had a place to sit. We had about half a bottle of soda each left from the drive down.. and yeah.. that was it. Really were not prepared at all for tailgating.

We hung out and took stock of Alpine Valley while we waited for the gates to open. When they did we grabbed some overpriced food as we were starving and found some seats on the grass. At 7pm Umphrey's McGee opened the show and they were a great band to listen too. At about 830 Dave and crew took the state and flat out destroyed the place. Tim Reynolds has been touring with them this summer as well as Jeff Coffin from Bela Flek on the sax and Rashawn Ross on trumpet.

The setlist was:

Dave Matthews Band 7-19-2009, Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, WI
Preshow: Umphrey's McGee opened.
Set 1: Proudest Monkey, Satellite, Squirm, Pig, Shake Me Like A Monkey, You Never Know, Crash Into Me, The Dreaming Tree, You and Me, Funny The Way It Is, Gravedigger, Alligator Pie, Out of My Hands, #41, Rhyme and Reason, Dive In, Jimi Thing, Time Bomb, Two Step
Encore: Thank You, Halloween

They played all the songs I was really hoping to hear off the new album as well as some of my older favorites. Gravedigger was awesome as was Crash. I will tell you though, what really set the show off was #41. Jeff Coffin on sax and Carter on the drums....just flat out unbelievable. The song must have been close to 25 minutes long with some of the most incredible jams I have ever heard. Two-step was in that same ballpark as was Jimi Thing.

The arena was like a big sing-along dance party with 40,000 people. It was an amazing experience and we are already making plans for next years shows at Alpine Valley. We got out of the show around midnight and were home around 2am. All worth it for an amazing evening.

There are some pics from the show up on my facebook page, so look for them there if you would like to see them.