Sunday, April 17, 2011

Nuts in New England - Philadelphia

Okay, so I've been SLIGHTLY negligent in posting anything on my blog lately.  But then again, I never really expected to have a blog, so I'm ahead of the game in some respects.

Anyway, I thought if I were going to chronicle my adventures in Philly, I'd better do it before I forgot all about it. After all, it's been six (*gasp* can it have been that long??) weeks ago.  Before you know it, I'll be headed back out the door on another adventure.  

Sooooo... Lemme see....  

Quick flight from Boston to Philly, grab a rental car, plug in the GPS and off to check into the hotel.

First of all, let me tip my hat to the Philly city planners on the whole sports complex thing.  They have the hockey, basketball, baseball, football arenas all in one neat area surrounded by a plethora of parking lots.  Now they charge out the nose to park there, but in comparison to the rest of the world it's fairly reasonable and a whole lot less stressful than trying to park at someplace with a downtown arena.  Kudos to the City of Brotherly Love...

After checking into the hotel, I jaunted off to meet @Gutter_CEO, @sissy452, @soul3208 and soul's friend Jennifer for lunch at Chickie & Pete's.  A Jovi lover's must do if you're in Philly, right?  Last I heard, Jon highly recommends the crab fries and lobster pizza.  A word about the crab fries: do not be misled my friend, they are not crabby at all.  They are merely fun cut potatoes sprinkled with the same seasoning they put on crab.  So no, they are nothing like BK's chicken fries.  These are really just seasoned fries. Consider that my Chickie and Pete's public service announcement.

Back to the hotel for a bit, where I saw a familiar woman in the parking lot.  I know that face, but where from...?  Hmmm....  WAIT!  I have it!  That's Richie's cousin!  I saw her on Facebook!  Apparently Richie isn't putting the whole family up at the Four Seasons, but it isn't my place to speculate on that.

Next, off to the arena where I was to encounter a whole slew of Twitter girls randomly throughout the evening.  Let's see... there was @ktfcoyote, @liznorwich, @CatteSambora, @JovisWillow, @TaraJovi, @jovixphillies24 and @gabbhook.  Wow!  I didn't get to visit with some of the gals as much as I would've liked, as the box office was a bit challenged when it came to knowing where to pick up tickets.  Hmpf.

Finally wandered into the VIP thingy down in the bowels of the arena.  While standing in line, I heard them playing 'Garageland' over the loudspeakers.  Or so I thought.  Nope, I'm a moron.  That was sound check!!  They almost played 'Garageland' that night, but opted for (I think) In These Arms instead.  It was still pretty cool to get to hear even a snippet of it live though!

Down to the Lexus lounge, where I enjoyed the company of @gabbhook, her husband, @jovixphillies24 and her friend Stephanie.  Oh yeah, @jovixphillies24 and Stephanie (who are high school students) won the Livin' on a Prayer video contest for Philly!  Their video was played during LOAP at the close of the show.  So VERY cool, and they were super excited!  Can you blame them??  I felt like I was hanging with celebrities.  XD

Finally wandered up to my seat ready to for showtime.  Opening act - Soraia.  Very cool band, but I didn't really know their music.  They had a good opening set.

Okay, camera ready?  Check!  

Oh wait.  I should mention something else first, I suppose.  

*flashback to Valentine's Day, Toronto*  

For those of you who follow the shows, setlists and play-by-plays, you may recognize this as the night the boys did Superman Tonight acoustic.  *THUD*  On the off chance you haven't heard it... well, you just must!  Richie's harmony and vocal solo were just stunning!  Unfortunately, all of the YouTube videos focused on Jon, and us Richie girls were left out in the dark (so to speak) on watching our man do his thing.  It was a very sad day :(
In speaking with some of my European Twitter friends, we came up with the idea of an all-Richie video, which I promised to do in Philly.  Thus the Richie-cam was born...

*back to Philly*
So, camera... check!  I'm not going to bore you with the setlist.  If you want a true account of the setlist and accompanying videos, please check out The 2010-11 Bon Jovi Circle Tour Blog sponsored by The Goddess Hathor and Company.  They do an amazing job linking everything up!  *tip of the hat to you ladies*

The highlights of the show (for me) were:

You Give Love a Bad Name

Okay, granted it's a bit overdone, but I have a special moment with Richie in this song.  I'm standing there in the third row, just bopping along to the music with my SAMBORA vanity plates flying over my head, and he sees them.  YEP!  AND acknowledges me!  We had a moment...  *sigh*  

On the off chance you're interested in proof of that moment, please check out the footage at 1:35.  He kinda nods his head and smiles, then actually points at me on the 1:37 mark.  


The More Things Change

Then a couple of songs later, he realized I was camera stalking him (:08), and started looking just the tiniest bit creeped out.  There may be a restraining order in my future. :P



Bad Medicine/Hot Legs

So the other main highlight of the show was the 'kiss heard around the world'.  Or at least around my Twitter world it was HUGE news!  In the middle of Bad Medicine, Jon lays a big kiss on Richie's cheek, both of them grinning like mad.  Guess who got it on film? Check out at around the 3:00 mark in the video.


So those were the highlights of Philadelphia for me.  Oh wait, Richie did give me another shout out for my license plate during the bows.  And I think I ended up in a pic of one of @BonJovi 's official tweets during the show.  

Philly was an awesome adventure, with a great show and a lot of great Tweeters.  One of the best times I have ever had!!!  

If you're interested in photos or all the videos, the links are below.  Next stop... Columbus, OH on May 10th.  Second row seat in the pit, backstage tour.  *giggles*  I'm VERY excited!!




1 comment:

Riku said...

So. Very. Jealous.

Haha but how brilliant that Richie saw you!

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!)