Hollywood Vampires--All the latest news

[Ingrid 3]

I will be at Tuesday nights show here in Ohio

Did you have a great time?

[Joni]

Hollywood Vampires to salute rock's late stars at DTE
Brian McCollum,
Detroit Free Press Pop Music Critic
12:02 a.m. EDT July 15, 2016

It's the dynamic supergroup that pays tribute to the fallen superstars.

Hollywood Vampires, a loose-knit collection of players led by Alice Cooper, Joe Perry and actor-guitarist Johnny Depp, takes its name from the rock 'n' roll circle of friends who gathered for nights of drunken debauchery in L.A. in the '70s — a crowd in which Cooper proudly took the lead.

Having come together over the past two years, the new band released its guest-studded, covers-heavy debut album in September, paying tribute to late rockers like Keith Moon, John Lennon, John Bonham and Marc Bolan. That's the material that will make up the band's Saturday set at DTE Energy Music Theatre, along with selections honoring the since-deceased David Bowie and Lemmy Kilmister. The Vampires' lineup this summer also includes Robert DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots) and Matt Sorum (Guns N' Roses).

The group debuted last fall with performances at West Hollywood's Roxy Theatre and Brazil's Rock in Rio fest, but most of the world got its first glimpse during February's Grammy Awards, when the Vampires played a set that included Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" in homage to Kilmister.

The band was back in the headlines this week with less-welcome news after Perry fell ill onstage in New York and was rushed to a hospital. After the initial scare, reports on Perry's condition have been positive, and the tour resumed without him Monday. It's possible he'll be back in action in time for the DTE show.

Cooper spoke with the Free Press before the Perry incident, chatting about the band's mission, the rock heroes being honored and Depp's impressive guitar chops.

QUESTION: What were you guys looking to get out of this thing as you dove in?

ANSWER: Basically, (each of us) started out in a bar band. Everybody started out in a covers band. I just said it would be great if we did a tribute to all our dead, drunk friends. All the guys we used to drink with — Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and Keith Moon. That ended up being the gist of the first album — being a bar band and picking out the songs that we wanted to play for each guy. When we played the Roxy and then down at Rock in Rio, that’s what the show was. It was us being a glorious bar band. Really, that’s how we still look at it: getting up there and playing all these great songs in honor of our friends. And it’s a pretty darned good band. (Laughs)

Q: Will the live set pretty much track with the songs on the album?

A: Bowie is gone now, so I’m sure we’ll add a Bowie song or two. I don’t know if we’ll go into Prince land. I didn’t really know Prince that well at all. And it’s a totally different kind of music, unless we took one of his songs and jazzed it up our way, the way we would play it — which could very well happen. And we’ll certainly do "Ace of Spades" for Lemmy.

You're kind of hoping that not too many more people pass away because we don’t want to learn any more songs! That’s the worst thing in the world, these guys dying. I don’t want to have to learn it because I don’t want these guys to die. The last thing you want to happen is for the Vampires to be doing one of your songs. That’s a bad sign.

Q: Did some of this material present more of a vocal challenge than others? You're doing Led Zeppelin stuff, for instance.

A: Yeah, but it’s not that difficult because you just transform it into how you would sing that song. You know, Alice Cooper has got a pretty rock 'n’ roll voice, so I can do John Lennon and T. Rex pretty well. Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. I give the twang of their voice, but I still sing it as Alice Cooper.

And we try to stay pretty close to the arrangements of the original songs. We don’t want to move too far away. We might stretch out a guitar solo so that you’ve got Johnny and Joe switching off guitars. And then you never know who’s going to jump up onstage and play with us. Tom Morello came up and played with us, so it made that song longer and longer because everybody got their own solos. You’re not going to get a guy like that up onstage and not have him play for a while.

Q: I’m sure if Kid Rock is in town, you might get a visit. He lives literally right down the road from the venue.

A: I would love to have Kid to come up. He’d fit in like an extra finger in the glove.

Q: It's got to be tough getting all you guys together in one stretch — with Johnny Depp in particular.

A: He has to actually block that time out. In other words, a year ago, we said if we’re going to do a tour, I figured we were going to do four or five shows. Then I looked at the itinerary and it was 25 shows. I said, how did Johnny get that much time off? And how does Joe get so much time off from Aerosmith? (When Cooper's manager, Shep Gordon, configured the tour), he knew Johnny would be the first one that we’d have to deal with because a movie is an everyday thing.

We have fun up there. It’s sort of like, with all that ego in one room, there’s absolutely no ego in the room. There’s no alpha guy going, "OK, I’m the leader here, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that." Everybody just looks at each other and goes, "What do you want to do?" There’s nobody in there fumbling around — everybody’s got the confidence to play whatever it’s going to be.

Q: And Johnny Depp fits right into that mix?

A: First of all, Joe Perry takes guitar lessons from Johnny. I’m not kidding you. Joe saw Johnny playing in that movie “Chocolat.” It was all the Django Reinhardt gypsy-jazz stuff. And normally, if that was any other actor, they would just have a guitar player and make it look like he was playing it. But that’s Johnny really playing that stuff. And Joe Perry’s going: "Are you kidding me? Do you know how hard that is?” So he says, “Show me how to do that.” Joe is the first one that’ll say, “I go over and take guitar lessons from Johnny.”

Johnny’s played with everybody — Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith. He could play with the Stones. He’s played with McCartney. He’s not nervous when he gets up onstage. He gets up there because he knows he can play.

Q: He’s got a bit of the rock 'n' roll attitude, too.

A: He was a rocker before he was an actor, so he’s always had that swagger. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s Johnny Depp, you know? (Laughs)

Hollywood Vampires
7:30 p.m. Sat.
DTE Energy Music Theatre
I-75 at e—xit 89, Clarkston
248-377-0100
$33.50-$108

[Joni]

I think it's time to post this again, for easier reference.

[Shirley]

I have a VIP ticket for this Saturday's show in Jacksonville, OR. I thought for sure another Zoner would have already done this and posted about their experience. I have questions! The ticket came in the mail with no instructions, just the reserved seat assignment and show time (7:30) Are they doing the meet-n-greet before or after the show? How much time might I expect to get with Johnny and Alice? Argh!

One article quoted a gal who said she had about four seconds with him. Given how much they charged for the VIP ticket, there better be more than four seconds! I was only able to buy one because some friends chipped in, plus what I had scraped together, and a grant from the Bank of Mom.

[Snowcat]

I have a VIP ticket for this Saturday's show in Jacksonville, OR. I thought for sure another Zoner would have already done this and posted about their experience. I have questions! The ticket came in the mail with no instructions, just the reserved seat assignment and show time (7:30) Are they doing the meet-n-greet before or after the show? How much time might I expect to get with Johnny and Alice? Argh!

One article quoted a gal who said she had about four seconds with him. Given how much they charged for the VIP ticket, there better be more than four seconds! I was only able to buy one because some friends chipped in, plus what I had scraped together, and a grant from the Bank of Mom.

Wow, I am envious that you managed to scrape together enough for a V.I.P. ticket, Shirley! You'll have to tell us all about it after you go. Please!
Can you call the venue and ask someone?
If not, then, if I were you, I would go early just in case the meet&greet is before the show.
You would not want to miss it. And if it's after the show, well, no big deal about going early, huh? Enjoy!!

[SnoopyDances]

Review: Hollywood Vampires sink their teeth into classics at DTE

INDEPENDENCE TOWNSHIP - Daylight is supposed to be lethal to vampires. But The sun was still shining Saturday evening, July 16, when the Hollywood Vampires hit the stage at the DTE Energy Music Theatre, and it didn’t seem to prevent the all-star classic rock group from going for blood at all.

Fronted by Detroit native Alice Cooper and actor Johnny Depp -- with Aerosmith’s Joe Perry on the sidelines after collapsing on stage in Brooklyn on July 10-- the Vampires on stage were high concept with a bar band spirit. The group formed to pay tribute to the superstar drinking club based at Los Angeles’ Rainbow Bar and Grill of the early 70s; “Now they’re all gone. I’m the only one left,” Cooper told the DTE crowd. And the six-piece group, which also includes former Guns N’ Roses/Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum and Stone Temple Pilots bassist Robert DeLeo -- did his “Dead Drunk Friends” proud, thrashing through 85 minutes of mostly covers, playing everything with a garagey kind of exuberance and an eardrum-melting sound mix that any heavy metal band would envy.

Perry was certainly there in spirit, too. One of his guitars sat on a stand in front of his amplifiers on stage left, while the band dedicated its performance of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” to him, with Cooper asking fans for a “Get well, Joe” shout-out. Meanwhile, regular Cooper band guitarist Tommy Henriksen, keyboardist-guitarist Bruce Witkin and Depp (who handled the Talk Box part on “Sweet Emotion”) ably covered for their missing Vampire, providing plenty of six-string firepower for a 21-song set list that covered the likes of Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, T. Rex, Motorhead and other bands that had members pass away prematurely.

Depp, of course, was the Vampires’ titillating draw -- though not enough to fill the venue by a long shot on Saturday. Some purists routinely dismiss actors who insinuate themselves in the rock ‘n’ roll world as a gimmick, but Depp, sporting a modified Mowhawk and Capt. Jack Sparrow makeup, played the rock star part convincingly, his guitar slung low across his calves and prowling the stage like he’s been playing sweaty clubs all his life. Depp also looked like he was having as much fun himself more than the crowd was watching him, even lingering on stage after the bows to soak in the moment.

And it was a rare chance for hometown fans to hear and see Cooper out of his theatrical comfort zone. He still dressed the part in makeup, an Edwardian longcoat and a blood-splattered white shirt but the guillotine stayed at home and Cooper clearly relished the opportunity to push his vocal range a bit, particularly on a medley of the Doors’ “Five To One”/”Break On Through (to the Other Side),” David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” and “Suffragette City,” Jimi Hendrix’ “Manic Depression” and a T. Rex pairing of “20th Century Boy” and “Bang A Gong.”

He also got to whip out the harmonica for the intro to a pounding rendition of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” (sung by Witkin) and Aerosmith’s arrangement of Tiny Bradshaw’s “Train Kept a-Rollin’,” which featured former Romantics member Coz Canler on fourth guitar and photos of Perry on the video screen -- the only living rocker to be featured like that, which was a bit, er, eerie.

The Vampires also had their three originals to play -- the show-opening “Raise The Dead,” “My Dead Drunk Friends” and the unreleased “Bad As I Am” -- totally tore up the likes of Motorhead’s “Ace Of Spades” and Love’s “7 And 7 Is,” and offered up Cooper’s hits “I’m Eighteen” and “School’s Out,” both of which he noted were written in Detroit. The fun factor was certainly on the band’s side, and a spirited DTE crowd certainly had no trouble hearing all of those heritage classics played in the Vampires’ tight, ferocious form.

“If we didn’t do any of your favorite covers, it’s because they’re not dead yet,” Cooper explained during the encore. “But when they die, we’ll be here.” We certainly don’t need to lose any more rock icons, especially this year, but Cooper, Depp and company proved on Saturday that their legacies will be in good hands.

Source: The Daily Tribune

[Theresa]

Looks like a bit of sightseeing today...

Alcatraz
hollywoodvampires
Johnny checking out Whitey Bulger's cell in Alcatraz.
Photo by: John Bionelli

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.instagram.com/p/BIGoEWnjN1a/[/bbvideo]

[Theresa]

[Joni]

That's great news about Joe Perry!

Thank you Theresa!

[RamblinRebel]

That's great news! Thanks, Theresa!

[stroch]

That is a great picture! As well as great news. Thanks Theresa,

[SnoopyDances]

Alice Cooper: Performing is in Hollywood Vampires’ blood

Alice Cooper can’t sit still. Between launching simultaneous campaigns to become the president of the United States and the prime minister of England with a rebooted version of his 1972 hit “Elected,” the 68-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is also spending the summer touring with his own band and Hollywood Vampires, the supergroup he fronts with actor Johnny Depp and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. The band — which takes its name from Cooper’s old Los Angeles drinking club with Harry Nilsson, Mickey Dolenz, John Lennon and Keith Moon — performs a mix of classic rock covers and originals from its 2015 self-titled album.

Q: You could be spending the summer at the golf course. What are you doing on tour?

A: I feel more comfortable onstage than off. I would rather be working. My wife and I are built the same. She has been a ballerina since she was 15, and she’s as much of a professional as I am.

Q: How did the Hollywood Vampires come together?

A: Everybody’s pretty good friends. I’ve known Johnny for a while. I knew he was a great guitarist. Really. Joe Perry takes lessons from him. Our drummer Matt Sorum is one of those guys everybody knows. The music business is a bit of a fraternity — everybody knows each other. When you get that many alpha males in one place you would think there’s a lot of ego. With this group, there hasn’t been an argument in three years.

Q: Is this the full Alice Cooper tour with the snake and guillotine and all that?

A: Just the opposite. I’m on two tours right now. I started out in April with my band. And then this tour started. The crazy thing is my show is very constructed and it’s really, really tight. Everybody knows what’s going on at every second. It’s exhausting. The Vampires show — we bill ourselves as the world’s most expensive bar band. We get to be a bar band, only in front of 20,000 or 30,000 people. It’s really a cool thing. Alice Cooper never talks to the audience. When I’m with the Vampires, I talk to them after every song. I’m sort of like the narrator. It’s like a history lesson.

Q: What do you remember about hanging out with the original Hollywood Vampires at the Rainbow?

A: Well, you know, if you remember you weren’t there. Honestly, we would go up there every single night and we would sit there and it was the only place where all these rock guys who had the pressure of performing concerts and doing interviews and radio and selling themselves could be with a bunch of guys exactly on their level. People would just tell road stories: You realized half of it was lies, the other half was drunken truths.

Q: I love that back in the day all you did was drink beer while the Mamas and the Papas, James Taylor and David Cassidy were doing all the hard stuff.

A: It was the weirdest thing. All these people were doing things we would never do, and I’m the one who survived. When we do “Dead Drunk Friends,” I tell the audience the entire history of the Hollywood Vampires.

Aidin Vaziri is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop music critic. E-mail: avaziri@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MusicSF

Hollywood Vampires: 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 22. $40-$1,500. Weill Hall, Green Music Center, Sonoma State University, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. 5:30 p.m. Sunday, July 24. $69.50-$159.50. Mountain Winery, 14831 Pierce Road, Saratoga. http://www.axs.com

[jruoss]

Looks like a bit of sightseeing today...

Alcatraz
hollywoodvampires
Johnny checking out Whitey Bulger's cell in Alcatraz.

Nice pad I forget if Alcatraz was the place where Bulger was subjected to LSD experiments, but so much for "set and setting". Johnny's face reflects the gravity of the place and empathy for the man he played on screen; I'm a little surprised he hadn't visited this cell before (filming Black Mass).

[SnoopyDances]

Review: Johnny Depp, Joe Perry, Hollywood Vampires rock Saratoga
By Jim Harrington, jharrington@bayareanewsgroup.com

Who knows how long the Hollywood Vampires will last? After all, this is really just a side project for the three Vampires, all of whom have other significant projects vying for their attention.

So, fans should definitely try to check out this super group -- featuring shock-rock icon Alice Cooper, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry and A-list actor Johnny Depp -- while it's still around.

The Hollywood Vampires delivered a really enjoyable evening of music on Sunday at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga. It was wild, a bit woolly, and sold with attitude and charisma.

It was pure rock 'n' roll fun delivered by two legends of the genre and one Oscar-nominated actor. It wasn't high art -- and it didn't need to be. If you saw the band's performance on the Grammy Awards in February then you should get the picture. It's not for everyone -- the Vampires are like a self-indulgent Sunset Strip bar band, with some really good musicians -- but the capacity crowd of 2,200 fans at the Mountain Winery certainly seemed to enjoy the performance.

And there was much to enjoy, including, most notably, the expert guitar work of Perry. Many fans were concerned that Perry -- who was hospitalized after collapsing at a show earlier this month in New York -- wouldn't rejoin the band in time for Sunday's gig. Yet, Perry made his grand return during Friday's gig at Weill Hall in Rohnert Park and was in fine form as the Vampires kicked off Sunday's show with a compelling "Raise the Dead."

It was one of the few originals in a night that belonged to covers. It's all part of the Vampires' mission to honor legendary musicians who have died, often -- but not always -- as a result of an excessive rock 'n' roll lifestyle. The band's sole album, last year's eponymous affair, features nods to The Who's Keith Moon, The Doors' Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and T. Rex's Marc Bolan, among others.

Unfortunately, there's no shortage of source material.

One of the early highlights of the concert was the tribute to a recent fallen hero -- David Bowie -- as the Vampires sunk their teeth into a double shot of "Rebel Rebel" and, even better, "Suffragette City."

The band sounded strong as it continued through Hendrix's "Manic Depression" and doubleheaders of The Doors ("Five to One" and "Break On Through (To the Other Side)") and T. Rex ("20th Century Boy" and "Bang a Gong (Get It On)").

Cooper handled majority of the vocals -- and, for the most part, he handled them quite well. He did pass the microphone on a few occasions, such as when Perry sang lead on the bluesy early Fleetwood Mac nugget "Stop Messin' Around." Perry really seemed to be feeling it by this point, using the rare vocal spotlight to do a little showboating and play the guitar behind the back of his head.

Depp's musical contributions were, let's say, a little more subtle. He played rhythm guitar, took a decent lead or two, and crooned some backing vocals. Still, he does add something of great value to the equation:

Star power.

The actor, whose messy public split with wife Amber Heard has included allegations of domestic abuse, still managed to generate plenty of excitement from the crowd. There was a steady chorus of "oohs" and "ahhs," as well as quite a few catcalls, as Depp played the role of the handsome rock star to perfection.

The Vampires, backed by an expert four-piece touring band that included bassist Robert DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots) and Matt Sorum (Guns N' Roses), closed the main set by running through such classic-rock staples as The Who's "My Generation" and Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion."

[Shirley]

It's been a crazy week since I got home from the concert last Saturday night, but I want to share my experience at the Hollywood Vampires VIP meet and greet.

We were almost an hour behind schedule for the meet-n-greet prior to the concert at Britt Pavillion in Jacksonville. Rumor had it Alice had to play a round of golf before they left Rohnert Park that morning, and Johnny was "in no hurry" to get ready. Alice Cooper's personal Jeep Grand Cherokee was on a trailer being towed by one of the luxury motor coaches. We'd get updates from time to time, like "Alice is in the house!" and later that all three were finally in the building, but not together yet.

Somehow I ended up being first in line of our 40-person VIP group. Johnny is even better looking in person, and you clearly get the sense he is a genuinely nice guy. I expected a hand shake, but he greeted me with a hug. I told him I'd brought a book to give him, but as we weren't allowed to bring anything in with us, Tara, our guide, said she'd give it to him. I explained I'd waited ten years for the chance to give it to him and thank him for helping me to write it. He leaned closer and raised his brows in the "say what?" expression.

Alice turned toward us and leaned in at that point, shamelessly eavesdropping, and he and I grinned at each other. (There are two stages at Britt, and there was a local group playing at the small stage, and they were *very* audible where the photo backdrop had been set up -- not so much backstage as under it, outside at what is usually an entrance to the building but had been cordoned off with pipe and drape and many security guards.)

I told Johnny I'd grown frustrated over the years that he wouldn't take on a typical romantic leading man role, where his character gets a happy ending AND the girl, so I wrote a book where his character does.

He smiled and half-laughed. Alice said, "It's very hard to have a happy ending."

I think I replied "That's why I write romance!" but I may not have had the chance, as that's when the photographer turned me around. Oh yeah, my ten seconds are up. He snapped six shots, but so close together there was barely time to blink let alone change pose or expression. The link to the photos has everyone's pic from the session, and everyone was photographed that way, so each person's pics are nearly identical.

As soon as the photographer lowered his camera, I whipped around and offered Johnny my condolences on losing his mother. He said thank you (he let me see a hint of his sorrow) and pulled me in for another hug.

I shook hands with Alice -- I think. It may have been a hug, because I can't recall how he shakes, and I usually notice how people shake hands. The meet was so fast, it's such a blur. Both Alice and Joe are so much smaller in person than I expected -- shorter, and very slender builds. I definitely shook hands with Joe Perry. I felt bad for having ignored him, so I told him I was glad he was feeling well enough to rejoin the band. (He had just rejoined the group the night before.)

The concert portion sounded great, and what little I could see, the musicians seemed to be having as much or more fun than the crowd. The problem was that Britt is an outdoor amphitheater, on a hill. There is an area directly in front of the stage that is usually sold as reserved blanket seating, but for this event, they sold standing room only tickets, so the view from our reserved front row seats was of people's backsides. The top of the drummer's set was visible on its raised platform, but that was about it. One of the gals in our group complained to ushers. After a few minutes they rounded us up and gave us the wristbands so we could also go in the SRO area, but people had already been crowding the front for a couple hours at that point, and being 5'2", I still couldn't see much more than shoulders and heads, and when the band came out (20 minutes late) there were so many raised arms waving, fist-pumping, and recording, I ended up seeing much of the concert on other people's cell phone screens.

The first five rows of reserved seating couldn't see the stage over the people in the SRO, so they stood up, which meant the people behind them had to stand, and so on, so basically the entire sold-out crowd of about 2,600 had to stand the whole time. Being outdoors, the sound was good without being painfully loud.

On the plus side, I was near the side of the stage where Johnny hung out, so I could see his head and shoulders between the crowd, and he often came to the front edge of the stage, about ten feet away. Alice was an awesome showman, all over the place, and often came to the front edge, too. He frequently held the microphone out to the crowd, especially on the encore song, School's Out. He talked to the crowd between songs, telling the band's origin story and why they sing the songs they do. Johnny did back-up vocals, so there were only a few times we could clearly hear him. Alice introduced "Bad As I Am" and explained Johnny's inspiration for writing it.
"Johnny's step-father was... well, he was--"
"He was a criminal!" Johnny chimed in.
So the song is about the things step-dad would say to Johnny, about as bad as he (dad) was, and good as Johnny was, i.e., don't do what I've done. There's a spoken word part that Johnny does, but it was muddled and I couldn't make out the words.

We clearly heard Johnny tell the crowd Thank you! at the end. He threw guitar picks to the crowd often, and went back to playing so quickly I wondered where he had them stashed. He was great about coming up to the very front edge of the stage often during the performance, sometimes joined by Alice or bassist Robert DeLeo. He stayed at the front for quite a while after the encore, slapping hands with the crowd.

I expected to see Johnny's long-time bodyguard, Jerry, and I wasn't disappointed. He actually came out on stage first, and hung out by the speakers at the edge of the stage for a while, near Johnny's microphone. I guess when Jerry saw the crowd was going to behave themselves and stay on the correct side of the barricade, he relaxed and went farther back stage, though we still saw him now and then when Johnny went back to the corner to change guitars, get a drink, or wipe the sweat from his face and head.

As part of the VIP package, we received a bag of Hollywood Vampires logo swag -- bandanna, coasters and bottle opener set, black candle, guitar picks in a small tin, an autographed 8x10, and a picture frame. My bag was short the frame, so Tara said she'd have it after the meet. Nope, the truck with the goodies had been sent away (very limited parking at the venue -- I had to park on a residential street and hike in about a half mile, in 88 degrees, and then walk back in the dark, after 11 pm), please meet her after the concert. The truck took a long time to get there after the concert, so I chatted with the security guards and saw another VIP meet-n-greet group go in, a family with pre-teen girls. Tara was shocked that the venue had sold SRO tickets directly in front of the VIP group, and felt bad that it took so long (about 45 minutes) to get my frame, she had the guy at the merchandise booth comp me a t-shirt and poster. So I got another $65 worth of swag. And she said she gave my book to Johnny after the meet, before the concert.

I knew our time to talk would be short, so I wrote a letter explaining why I had "cast" him as the hero in my novel, and how being able to envision him made the monumental task (for me) of turning in a publishable manuscript in only five months under contract (it had taken me three years to complete the first draft of the first novel I'd sold) much easier. I remembered to print the letter and tuck it into the book before I left home, but do you think I remembered to sign it? Gah.

Amazingly, I did not cry or tear up when I met him -- got that out of the way in the truck before I drove to the venue -- and was so giddy I forgot to tell him the title of the book or my name. Was annoyed with myself, but as a friend pointed out, how many people do you think brought him a book that night?

So other than a highly obstructed view of the performance, the experience all went much better than the beginning of our trip might have suggested: we were 90 minutes into our 5-hour drive to Medford in Friday afternoon rush hour traffic when I realized I'd left my concert ticket in its safe place, on the refrigerator. D'oh!