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Hi guys,
I sent this once and I'm not sure if it went through, so here it is again. If you get it twice, sorry and just delete it. Well it's 7:38 CST and I just flew in from Las Vegas and all I can say is, the show was totally awesome! This was my first time seeing NR Live and in Person and it was an unforgettable experience which I would gladly repeat over and over again, lol. Here's the report but to me only, this story actually begins 8 hours before the actual concert began (and yes its NR related, lol). I arrived in Vegas Friday night and got to Sunset Station Hotel and Casino around 11:00 p.m. Since I had never been to Vegas before, I immediately went out to see some of the things that I had been hearing about. I was meeting Mary (from this list) down there but she wasn't due to arrive until Saturday. Her flight wouldn't get in form California until around 11:30 so I didn't expect her at the hotel until about 12:30 Saturday. Since I had the morning free I had thought about taking a shuttle to the strip for a few hours and being back in time to meet Mary (she had the car). But once Saturday morning rolled around the temptation to sleep in and take my time getting up was too great so instead I decided to wait for Mary then we can both run around. Around 12:00 I made my way down to the front desk (where I told Mary I would meet her) and waited there watching all the cars letting people off at the front entrance. Apparently Las Vegas sends stretch limos to pick up a lot of their guests so there were a lot of limos coming in and leaving. So I'm standing there watching cars and looking for Mary when another one of those white limos pull up. A short guy with curly hair gets out and I think "wow that guy looks just like Jack Blades but it couldn't be him because he'll probably be brought into a back hidden entrance". The front door was facing the main part of the casino at Sunset Station. So I write it off as just a look alike. Then I see a taller guy get out with long blonde hair under a baseball cap and I KNEW that was Jeff. So Jack and Jeff had arrived at the hotel and were coming into the front door. I don't know where Kelly, Brad and Fitz were. I was expecting a mob but these people were so into their gambling no one noticed the guys, LOL. So I walk back in dying for a closer look because after all I've never seen these guys in person before. So I find the path they are taking and just casually stroll down it towards them. We pass, they glance at me and I try hard not to stare at them and not succeeding at all (LOL). So I'm psyched because I now know NR is in the bldg. Then all of all sudden I hear "Paging Sharon Turner Please". Since Mary hadn't arrived I suspected that it probably was her. I go to the bell captains desk and tell him I was just paged. He tells me to go to the courtesy phone and dial 0 for my page. I do and the lady on the phone tells me I have a message at the front desk. I turn around to go to the front desk and I notice that Jeff has checked in and was waiting around with some people waiting and Jack was standing there waiting on his room key and etc. This meant that I had to stand in line behind Jack to get my message. As I was walking to get in line and as I pass Jack (his back to me and facing the desk), I casually lean over and say "Hi Jack". He turns around and says "Hey, how ya doing". I said "Fine" and I told him how excited I was. He then asked me if I was going to the show tonight and I said "Of course, are you kidding". He laughs and then I ask him if he is going to do autographs after the show. He said probably but then he said "Well, do you want me to sign something now? I have a pen." (By the way, here is where I have to profusely thank Judy (JDavis3728)). I reach into my pocket and pull out one of the photos that I got in the mail a few weeks ago from Judy of Jack and handed it to him. Since I had never seen NR in concert before I didn't have any photos of the guys until I got Judy's. (Judy, I'll e-mail you privately with what Jack said after he saw the pic you took of him and sent a copy to me). He autographed the photo and before he left he turned around and said "See ya later, ok". I say "Don't worry, lol". By the way I did get my message and it was indeed from Mary telling me she was on her way. Once Mary arrived and got checked in, I told her all about what happened earlier and showed her the photo and we decided to see if we could catch soundcheck. Sunset Amphetheatre is very open and you can just walk right in and sit down. So we did. Kelly was already there fussing with getting the drums right and not looking to happy about them (I'm not sure but I think he rented them in Las Vegas) Around 4:00 pm soundcheck started with all the guys there except Fitz. Apparently Fitz was in his room not feeling well. So he missed soundcheck. Brad told us, and the other guys in the band, about something funny he had heard on Letterman the other day (Letterman put up a picture of Marilyn Manson and said "OK who is this". Then he said Cher). All the guys in the band started laughing right into the microphones. The stagecrew and those of us watching soundcheck laughed as well. They played several half songs (looking for something with "A lot of vocals", and then they played "4 in the Morning" all the way through. By the way, this was when Mary finally got to meet Jack (she's a huge fan also). By the way while Jack was onstage during soundcheck he looked down at me and casually smiled. My weekend in Vegas was made and I haven't seen one sight the first yet, LOL! Brad was also clowning around a bit and just have some fun. So we sat in the front row for a while then they shooed us out to begin the official seating for the show. We did get our front row seats back but a few very drunk individuals tried their best to ruin it for us by jumping in front of us throughout the entire performance with security doing nothing. Even with that the show was excellent. Jack was running around like a wild man (where does he get all that energy) and I was at an excellent spot to get a lot of good closeups of Jeff when he came to the end of the stage. Jacks pics got blocked quite a bit so I'm not sure how those will come out. It seemed everything I would snap a photo, I would get a drunk arm or head right in front of my camera. I also got my feet stepped on quite a few times by a drunk woman who was jumping up and down. Another couple who wanted to see NR left in the middle of the show because of these people who bullied their way up front and in front of us. I did speak with security but nothing really happened. I tried to also get photos of Fitz, Brad and Kelly but again I think Jeff is the only one I did get good photos of because of where he was standing. So we'll see how two rolls came out later today. Anyway that was my take on the Vegas show. No indication was made by the guys as to whether they were planning anything else soon, so I don't know about that. I also wanted to mention a really cool moment between Jack and Kelly at the end. Jack introduced Kelly as the guy with the most fantastic voice ever and Kelly introduced Jack as the guy with the most awesome vocals around. So that was nice. They were also really enjoying the response and they got a really good response from the crowd. It was a pretty good crowd there also. You could see in their faces that they were pleased with all the people who came to the show. Jeff and Fitz was introduced and then Brad also. The guys looked great and the show was excellent (sorry I'm not very good at remembering the set list but if you want to ask me if they played certain songs, I'm sure I can answer). They did do SOTT (The only one from Seven) and they did do "Coming Of Age", the only Damn Yankees tune. The show was 1-1/2 hours long (not long enough for me), and the rest of the songs were standard NR. So that was my first NR experience. Hope you guys found the report enjoyable. I think Mary will be sending something also and Judy (I owe you big time, Girl! Thanks a million). By the way, I did get a chance to also meet Jeff. He was really nice and accommodating with autographs also and Kelly walked right passed me right outside the amphetheatre. Mary started repeating, Kelly Kelly Kelly and all I saw was this little girl so I though it was someone she new and as I turned around I saw him walking passed us and towards the amphetheatre carrying about 5 drumsticks. LOL. Also after the show we saw Brad and Jeff leaving still taking photos and signing autographs. They were all really great to the fans there this weekend. C ya. - Sharon JBladesFan |