Concert Road Trip #9

love that powder blue Gibson

My friend A. and I loaded ourselves into Karma once again for another concert adventure south of the border. This time it was for Eric Clapton, and Los Lobos who opened for him. I stayed overnight in Victoria to avoid having to drive in from Sooke to pick A. up for the journey. After dropping her wee one off at a friend's we were off to catch the 9am ferry from Sidney. Smooth sailing across but the worst line-up ever at on-board cafeteria. Once we docked at Tsawwassen (near Vancouver) we hit the road headed south. A smooth border crossing (yahoo) and we were on our way, stopping at Safeway for some food and booze. We prefer US concerts to Canadian ones as the concert ticket prices are lower, the booze is WAYYYYY cheaper, gas is cheaper, hotels are cheaper.

The view from our hostel room

this is how you smuggle booze into the concert

We arrived in Seattle in due time, parked Karma and checked into our hostel on 2nd Avenue before taking a quick walk to Pike Street Market to check out the scene there. From there we headed back to the van to have some beers before the show. Along the way we stashed some of our booze on our bodies to smuggle into the show. I refuse to pay $8 for domestic beer when I can spend $10 on a dozen in the store down the street. We then set out to find Will Call, where we were to pick up our tickets. We had ordered them by mail but they never showed up in time. After walking around what seemed like the entire arena, we finally found Will Call. Getting in was a breeze, hardly any line-ups and the dude in the wheelchair was real lax. We then headed to the ladies room to put our booze back into our bags.

First order of business was to check out the tour t-shirts, and both of us bought one. They didn't have the one I wanted in the size I wanted, so I bought a different one, but I think I like it just the same.

acoustic guitar tunes

From there we went in search of the best seats we could sneak into and act like we owned them. Our tickets were for balcony seats in the nosebleed section, but that is not where we start. We were able to get seats in the 4th row from the floor, in the section closest to the stage. No one showed up for the seats until after Los Lobos, and into Eric's 2nd or 3rd tune. Once we were rousted from our seats, we went in search of our own, or more empty seats. Trouble was that the concert was sold out, and only just a few people didn't show up for their seats. We finally relented and went to our nosebleed section, but sat in the first empty seats we found, which were several rows ahead of where ours were. I was fine with it as the sound was still awesome and the high seats gave us a real different view.

Los Lobos played about 6 or 7 tunes, ending with La Bamba which was awesome. They were terrific, and it wasn't long before Eric Clapton hit the stage with his band. And he was AWESOME. Boy can he make that guitar of his sing, it was amazing to watch him in action. When he was standing he had this weird chicken leg thing going on with his left leg, hilarious to see. When he was sitting, he did some serious toe tapping. The concert was over before we knew it, and then it was time to head back to the van for a few more drinks. We had a little trouble finding our direction, since the arena has several exits, and the street we were looking for stops and starts again after the arena, so we needed to be on the right portion of it. After a bit of walking, we managed to find our way back to Karma. A few beers in the van, and we headed back to the hostel to turn in for the night.

The next morning we were up for the free breakfast and then hit the road for home. Some sloppy snow slowed us down as we went through the one small mountain pass on the I-5 from Seattle (saw two vehicles in the ditch) and then we were at the border - real fast stop there, and we managed to get to the ferry terminal by 11:20am, just missing the 11am ferry. We had to wait for the 1pm ferry, so hung out in the van until then. Just as I'm about to start moving to head onto the ferry, some Chinese dude came over to my window and asked to swap tickets because he had to be back in Vancouver later that day. Um, sorry bud, I am hungover, tired, and not willing to wait ANOTHER hour after having waited an hour and a half for this one, not to mention, my vehicle was running and the ferry was in the process of loading and while he was standing there, my lane was loaded...so I pulled away...

Now we're back in Canada again, with our eyes on the concert horizon once again - Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks are playing a show in April...