Wednesday, Rob emailed me that he bought 4 tickets to see George Thorogood and Bryan Adams in concert at the Mann Music Center! The show was the next day. Thursday arrived and I ran out of work at 5 and caught the R6 to Conshohocken where Rob and Steve and Caren were waiting for me. We drove back into the city and got to the Mann without any traffic woes. Rob bought the next to cheapest tickets available and we were in the far back and right of the stage. I was pretty happy with the seats because we didn’t have any chairs directly in front of us which meant we could stretch our legs a bit. About 15 minutes to show time a rather grizzly older man walked over and sat directly behind us.
“Mates, these are horrific seats!” he said.
“Yeah, but these are the seats that are on our tickets.” Rob replied.
“Do you like to have fun?” the man said.
“We always have fun!” replied Caren. At this point I was pretty sure he was going to offer us ecstasy or some other drug and I was getting nervous.
“So you like to dance and have fun?” the man repeated.
“Sure!”
“I want you to promote the band, mates! Get up and dance and have fun and promote the band!”
He then handed us tickets! THEY WERE FOR THE PIT! SECOND ROW RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE! We grabbed the tickets, thanked the grizzly old dude and ran to the front. The seats were incredible! We were right up there! It was like watching the show on TV but we were really there!
It seemed odd to me that George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers were opening up for Bryan Adams. Is it just me or is Lonesome George the bigger name? Regardless, he came out to a roar of thunderous applause. The first song he performed was Rock Party which seemed like an extremely apt choice to me. He sounded a thousand times better in person than in his recordings. He was fabulous! Here’s his set list:
Rock Party
Who Do You Love?
Night Time
I Drink Alone
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer (although he sang One Bourbon, One SHOT, One Beer)
I Got My Eyes on You (I never heard this song before but I LOVED IT! One of my faves now!)
Haircut
Gear Jammer
Move It On Over
ENCORE: Bad to the Bone

By the time he left the stage, I was POOPED! Let me tell you, it’s difficult promoting the band! By the time Bryan Adams came out, I had to sit the first 3 songs out! My rest ended when he played Summer of ’69. I am not a huge Bryan Adams fan but I did make my father take me to either Silo, Sam Goody, Wee Three Records or some other music store back in 1984 to buy his Reckless album. At any rate, I spent the rest of his performance up dancing. In fact, when he played Heaven, Rob and I slow danced together. We did it not to be romantic but because it was silly and we were PROMOTING THE BAND, MATE! One of the cutest points of the concert was when Bryan Adams pulled a girl up from the audience to sing When You’re Gone. The girl did a great job singing with him! I was really impressed. One of the scariest parts of the concerts was when I looked to my right and I saw (this is absolutely true, I am not lying!) a girl lifting her shirt and showing off her floppy breasts!!!!! I was speechless and I tried to motion for Rob to look but it was too late. As soon as I regained my vocal ability she covered herself. Rob said that this type of thing is quite normal at concerts. Let me tell you, that type of thing does not occur at the concerts I go to! Of course, most of the concerts I go to, the singers are senior citizens and they would most likely go into cardiac arrest if it happened! But that could be because most of the audience is also senior citizens and heck, I would go into cardiac arrest if I saw senior citizen boobies. Bryan Adams is not a senior citizen but he was very very thin and didn’t look healthy at all and I found myself worrying that he might be over-exerting himself. Steve and Caren and Rob all remarked at how small and skinny he looked. He must be one of those vegan people– he really looked like he needed to eat a nice hunk of steak. The concert let out at a respectable hour and I was able to get enough sleep to wake up the next morning refreshed and able to face the day.