Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Nuts in New England - Boston

So, if you don't already know, I took a little jaunt to New England last week in hot pursuit of the men of Jovi.

I'd had pit tickets to Philly for a while, but decided at the last minute to hit Boston the night before the Philly show.  I'd never been to Boston, and had always wanted to go, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity.  A little Travelocity here, a little US Airways there, and I had a ridiculous amount of flights to get me through home, Charlotte, DC, Boston, Philly, Charlotte and home again - in three days time.

Slightly nuts?  Perhaps, but a hell of a lotta fun.  I'm not one of those girls who has qualms about traveling alone.  I mean, come on.  I spend half my life on Twitter with dozens of other people.  I was never REALLY alone anyway.

So, what about Boston?

Well, if you're looking for an excellent review of the show itself, The Goddess Hathor does a much better job than I ever could, so check out the  review on her blog.

As for me?  Well, I think everybody should get stuck on a rotary in Boston at least once.  *shudder*  (Give me the kiss-your-backside curves of the hills anytime, where merging traffic pretty much consists of a deer or possum trying to cross the road!  :P)  But that only happened once, and I got the hang of it fairly quickly.

Parking for the concert was interesting too.  I circled upward for eight floors in this MASSIVE parking garage in my rented two-door Speck.  Fortunately, I found a herd of concert-goers on my way down and followed them the few blocks to the TD Garden.  Finding my car after was slightly more challenging...

I got to meet my very first Twitter friend @Mary81bjc in Boston!!  Such a sweetie, and she was soooo excited that she had wicked-good seats next to Richie's side of the circle!  Mary even managed to sweet-talk one of the crew into taking a picture of Richie's guitars behind the stage too.  Super nice guy!

Wicked-good... my attempt at blending with the Bahstin accent.  Mary and her family still insist that I'M the one who had the accent, but whatever...lol.  I'd move to Boston just to listen to them talk!  I was thrilled to have a lengthy chat with the lady sitting next to me so that I could just revel in those flat, drawn out vowel sounds.  *sigh*

Anyway, a last minute ticket landed me behind the stage (which I actually prefer to being at the OTHER end of the arena), so I spent the evening jamming with Dave as I tried to tweet the play-by-play.  Reception behind the stage sucked for tweeting, so I ended up texting the songs to @yoopergirl89 so she could tweet it for me.  I was on the aisle right next to the exit and kept bopping back and forth because I could get a signal in the hall.

That's where I was when the sound blew in the middle of Work for the Working Man.  I was like "WTF?", asking some girls that were just walking out, "Did something just happen to the sound?"  "Um, yeah, I think so?" Pffft!  Amateur fans...

After 15 minutes in which part of the band was off the stage, and part of them were hanging out with the crowd (or so I heard - screens were block my view of the stage at that point), they got everything back up and running again, seemingly no worse for the wear.

The rest of the show went just as the rest of the show should, everyone applauded and filed out to the massive parking garage and I made it back to the hotel without a notable incident.  Uploaded my few little videos and pictures courtesy of an awesome wi-fi connection in the hotel and slept for about four hours (awoken by a random tweet, which was great since I forgot to set an alarm.  Thanks @gabbhook!).

Up and at em and off to Philly!

(Oh, and if you're interested, pictures are on Facebook and videos are on YouTube)

Jovi Shows

  1. July 19, 1987 - Huntington, WV
  2. March 5, 2008 - Pittsburgh
  3. March 15, 2008 - Pittsburgh
  4. March 6, 2010 - Las Vegas
  5. April 22, 2010 - Charlotte
  6. May 19, 2010 - Hershey (my first stadium show!!)
  7. July 19, 2010 - Toronto
  8. July 20, 2010 - Toronto
  9. July 30, 2010 - Chicago
  10. July 31, 2010 - Chicago (my first time in the pit!)
  11. February 11, 2011 - Pittsburgh
  12. February 12, 2011 - Pittsburgh
  13. March 1, 2011 - Boston
  14. March 2, 2011 - Philly for Jon's birthday. Third row pit and the debut of Richie Cam.
  15. May 10, 2011 - Columbus, OH (first backstage VIP adventure)
  16. May 21, 2011 - St Louis
  17. May 20, 2012 - Bamboozle, Asbury Park, NJ
  18. July 7, 2012 - Lewisburg, WV
  19. February 21, 2013 - Pittsburgh
  20. March 1, 2013 - Tampa, FL
  21. March 2, 2013 - Sunrise, FL
  22. March 10, 2013 - Columbus, OH
  23. March 14, 2013 - Louisville (I made it in a Bergman photo touching Jon!)
  24. October 8, 2013 - Fresno
  25. October 9, 2013 - Anaheim
  26. October 11, 2013 - L.A. (hung out with Kiefer Sutherland and met Tony Bongiovi's wife, Nina)
  27. February 28, 2017 - Sacramento (backstage to hang out with Phil X)
  28. March 1, 2017 - San Jose, CA
  29. May 9, 2018 - Madison Square Garden
  30. May 10, 2018 - Madison Square Garden (soundcheck!! I can die happy now!)
  31. April 8, 2022 - Charlotte, NC (first time in the front row!)
  32. April 11, 2022 - Greenville, SC
  33. April 21, 2022 - St Louis, MO
  34. April 30, 2022 - Nashville, TN (first hometown show!)