The concert at Tink's Entertainment Complex, August 12, 1997




Hi all!

Well I had a hell of a day yesterday! I guess you could call it Night Ranger
day. I'm interning at a local radio station here in Scranton PA this summer,
before I go back to college for my senior year in September. It just so
happened Night Ranger was in town yesterday and came to our station
for an interview and to perform two acoustic songs, "High Enough" and
a simply AMAZING version of "Don't Tell Me You Love Me"! It was
truly awesome, and I got to meet the guys and talk to them, get
autoigraphs, etc., so I was definitely a happy guy! :)

Then later that night they played a club here and got an AWESOME
turnout, the biggest I've seen ever at this club. I had seen both Cheap
Trick and Dokken there in the last few weeks, and Night Ranger had
way more people! The place was just packed! It was great to see this!
The guys were awesome! This was the first time I've ever seen the
original lineup, so it was pretty close to a religious experience for me. :)
I'd seen DY and MOJO era NR, but never the whole original lineup.
I was front center right up against the stage, and Brad kept climbing
out onto the speakers lying on their sides on the floor in front of me,
so I literally got to watch Brad's fingers fly over the strings 6 inches
from my face! Simply incredible! The guys were flawless, and looked
like they were having a blast up there, joking around and having fun.
Here's the setlist:

1. Neverland
2. Touch Of Madness
3. Sing Me Away
4. Four In The Morning
5. Brad Gillis Solo
6. Rumours In The Air
7. Jeff Watson Solo
8. Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight
--------Acoustic--------
9. Sentimental Street
10. Let Him Run
11. High Enough
12. Goodbye
----End of Goodbye back to electric. Acoustic set ends----
13. Forever All Over Again
14. New York Time
15. When You Close Your Eyes
16. Coming Of Age
17. Don't Tell Me You Love Me
--------Encore--------
18. Sister Christian
19. (You Can Still) Rock In America

The crowd was very into the show and the new songs got a great response,
especially "New York Time", which they just blazed through! I didn't think
they'd been playing that here in the States lately, but I'm very glad they
put it in the set. Much like Kyle said about his show, whenever Kelly
came to center stage to sing, the crowd would sing a lot of the parts for
him. The guitar solos just blew me away! I think I was just standing there,
in awe, with my mouth wide open for both of them! The crowd gave Jeff
an especially huge cheer after his. At the end of the show, I got one of
Kelly's drumsticks, so it was pretty much perfect...

...Except for one small detail... The band had sold out of t-shirts the night
before and didn't have any to sell. I was really really disappointed by this. :(
I NEED one of the black ones! Does anybody have any idea where I could
get one?? I double checked the Sony and Firststars sites to see if they had
any merchandise links, but they didn't, and I checked CDnow, because
they sometimes sell t-shirts, but they didn't have them either. I would
REALLY appreciate any help anyone can give me. Thanks!

- Craig



Thanks for the great review, Craig!