Drove to Half Moon Bay Friday afternoon, picked up Denise at her friend's house, and we headed on up to Emeryville and checked into the hotel. Found our way to the downtown restaurant where we met up with Carol and Peter for dinner. Then, over to the newly-restored Fox Theater in downtown Oakland.
Fantastic concert, with a couple of glitches, which is unusual. Gordy started the countdown for "Tuesday Afternoon" before Justin was ready, so the first bar of the mellotron (computerized, of course) tune is minus the guitar. Then, in the second half, about halfway into the first verse of "Nights in White Satin," Justin's amplifier box just died, so he stopped cold, unplugged it, said something into the microphone about how you can do it without a tambourine, but.... Meanwhile a roadie was scrambling around plugging in a new box, which Justin stuffed into his back pocket, stepped back up to the microphone and said, "Might as well do it right," and restarted the song. Also in the second half, one woman started the traditional "stage rush" a little too early--and tossed her bra onstage at John. John got an extremely dubious look on his face, gingerly hooked the bra on his toe, and kicked it away. After the concert the woman climbed up on the stage and retrieved it.
Saturday morning after breakfast, we took off for Reno. Originally Denise had not planned to go, but due to a whole series of complicated events (and the fact that I had an extra ticket to that show because my sister wasn't able to come with me after all) she decided to come with me. We stopped at an overlook near Donner Lake to take pictures. At the summit, there was still some old snow by the side of the road, but the freeway was perfectly clear.
In Reno, we got checked into our hotel and kicked back to relax for a bit. I decided to head on over to the casino for the fan gathering organized by Cheryl, and met up with those folks for a bit. Then Pam and I headed to the food court in search of a bowl of soup, which we were fortunate enough to find. As soon as we sat down, Janet called from Texas just to say hello and wish us a happy concert.
We headed downstairs to the showroom, found our seats, and started passing out glowsticks. Casino shows often run straight through without an intermission, so it's necessary to pass out the glowsticks before the show, instead of at intermission. We had a pretty good showing with the sticks for "The Other Side Of Life." Another fantastic show, except somewhere fairly early on, something apparently went wrong with Justin's red Gibson guitar, and he played the rest of the show with a different one that I hadn't seen before. Good thing he carries a backup....
After the show, Denise put a dollar in a slot machine on the way out. Let's just say she didn't come away from that encounter any richer.
This morning, we headed back down the mountain, and got across the valley and through the bay area without running into any traffic jams at all. After depositing her safely back at her friend's house in Half Moon Bay, I blew the rest of the way down the coast, got home about 4:00, and crashed.
And now I'm going right back to bed.
As you were.
