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"1.) Opening Act. They were called "Heartbreaker". I liked them. They did all cover tunes of 80's type stuff. My favorite was the Outfield's "Say It Isn't So." 2.) T-shirts. Two flavors. One (the better one) was white with a red and blue NR logo on the chest. The back said "Still Rockin' America '97" in black and had a similar red and blue logo. The second flavor was black, with the same back as the white. The front has an outline of a city on the horizon and "Still Rockin America" under the same NR logo. I shelled out the $40 bucks for one of each. 3.) The set list. After the show, I grabbed the actual piece of paper (its just a normal photocopy) that had been on Fitz's keyboard! Here's exactly what it looked like: 1. Neverland 2. Touch of Madness 3. Sing Me Away 4. 4 AM 5. Rumours 6. Eddie - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7. Sentimental Street - Kelly DS 8. Let Him Run 9. High Enough 10. Goodbye - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11. Forever All Over 12. Night Ranger 13. Slap! 14. When You Close Your Eyes 15. NY Time 16. Comin of Age 17. Don't Tell Me You - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sister Christian Rock In America 7-10 were mostly acoustic. The last two were the encore. I liked the new stuff (my first time hearing it!) "Neverland" rocked. FAOA is classic power ballad Night Ranger. SLBB was hard to understand (the mixing, I think). "NY Time" had a unique sound. No Mojo. No Big Life. And no Man in Motion. I was disappointed by the latter. I was hoping for "Restless Kind" or "Reason to Be." ("Disappointed" in the way you are when you only win $100,000 in the lottery, and not $1 million :-) ). < br> My girlfriend asked what my favorite song of the night was, and I had an impossible time deciding, but I'd have to say Sentimental Street. Which is odd, because ordinarily its not in my top 2 or 3 favorites. But Kelly was awesome acoustically, and that rendition just blew me away! It was just really "clean," but still had bite to it. 4.) Guitar pick. Not only did I get 2 t-shirts and the set list, I got a guitar pick, too! My first one ever! It was from Brad. Its yellow and has a NR logo on one side, and Brad's signature on the other. All in all, a good night for souvineers for me. 5.) The crowd. In a way I was disappointed by the turnout, because I would have liked to see the place packed. I'd say at max, 600 by showtime? The place holds 1400 I was told. On the other hand, I was glad, because I got right down front. Only one person in front of me, right between Jack and Jeff. I wanted to squeeze up closer, but I was with my girlfriend, and she had worked 70 hours that week and was exhausted, so I couldn't go nuts. But it was great! I could see *everything.* And I snapped a whole roll of film. he he he. 6.) The band. What can I say? It was a religious experience for me! The most noticeable thing was how much *fun* the guys were having on stage. Not just with the crowd, but with *each other.* The first thing my girlfriend (who's not a huge NR fan) said after the show was, "You could tell they were having fun up there, and it was contagious! Jack's a real entertainer." One of the best comments Jack made was, "This time, we're doing it because we want to... We're just having fun." Poor Fitz looked bored during the acoustic set, though. He just stood in back there with his hand in his pocket. A few of us laughed and waved at him and he waved back. And during some songs, Jeff would get right up in front of his face, but Fitz didn't see him because he was playing so intensely, I guess. And then Jeff would just laugh. Oh yeah, two comments about Brad. One, he played awesome. He had some great guitar licks (literally :). And two, he cut his hair! He looks just like Ian Ziering (sp?) from 90210 now. 7.) Lastly, I want to say I *really* wish I'd found this list earlier! I had no idea so many of the rest of you were going to be there. Heck, we were probably bumping into each other in the crowd. I've done the whole "meet Internet friends in person" thing before, and its always been fun, and worked out well. Ah, well, I'll just have to make a point of it on their next pass through! :) Well, its late, I gotta get home. To sum up, it was awesome. I'm a lifelong NR fan, and I was not disappointed!" - Tracy Braun |