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Cheap Trick - "Cheap Trick" (1977- Epic Records)...my all-time favorite album (can I choose only 1?) My Photographs You like photos? I love taking them. Click here, if you wanna see some of my work
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Monday, Aug. 15, 2005 - 9:14 p.m. And I am complaining about tiny bats getting into my house? I�m glad I don�t live in Texas. If I did, I would have to buy a large gun, so I could shoot these pre-historic creatures. And eat them. Like I did last Saturday. Moose had his yearly fish fry at the pavilion just up from the ramp where he launches his boat (with me in it a couple of times every summer). In attendance were most of his fellow NDDOT coworkers from his storage, along with a couple of road commissioners and�Lease and myself. We had a blast. The food was great (I consumed at least � pounds of the creature in the photo above, brought to the party by another employee at his storage), along with a bunch of fried fish, eggplant (from my garden), hush puppies, and fried pickles. Fried pickles? Yes- very salty, but much better tasting than they sound like they would be. The only negative about the evening? That would be the 40-50 mph winds that showed up about 1 � hours into the festivities, followed by a torrential downpour that lasted about 20 minutes. I was soaked to the bone, but Lease hid behind me and stayed mostly dry. The hot oil didn�t mix well with the rain- Moose and one of the other fry chefs finally carefully carried their corn oil pots into the pavilion. Rick (the third cook) rode the storm out, using an umbrella to block the rain from his electric deep fryer. Somehow, he survived. Since the temperature dropped about 25� with the passing of the storm front, Lease and I figured it was time for us to head home. It was almost dark, and we had a wet car (mainly because I forgot to roll my driver�s side window up before the rains came) to take care of once we went home. All in all, we had a great time. Considering Lease knew nobody (well, we did say �hi� in passing to Moose and his wife Jane once last fall at one of my fishing spot, but that really don�t count as �knowing� people, does it?), she had a really good time- the wives of Moose�s coworkers (and Moose�s wife Jane) went out of their way to make her feel like one of the family. That doesn�t always happen in real life� There was a vendor selling fried alligator at the Illinois state fair yesterday. I bough one of their �sticks� of fried meat, but didn�t eat one bite. I gave all of it away to various members of Lease�s (and my) family. None had ever tasted �gator, so I thought I would turn them on the reptile meat. Why didn�t I eat any of it? Because it didn�t look as good as the fried chunks I had eaten the day before. That and I had eaten a stick from the same vendor at the Mohall Celebration 7 days before. I KNEW it wasn�t as good�. We drove all the way to the fair to see at 3-band concert yesterday. The crowd was absolutely huge for a state fair concert:
Head East (mid-70�s band who had a few good albums) Cheap Trick (Yes, probably my favorite band of my lifetime- with over 2000 albums in one form or another in my collection, their first album is still my #1 album of all time). And REO Speedwagon (Lease liked their later stuff; I grew up on their early albums). How was the show? Head East were quite good, especially if you could ignore the fact that their lead singer had found religion and left the band to sing for long-time Christian rock band Petra long ago. The remaining members seemed to make up for that with their enthusiasm. Cheap Trick? Even though they are nearing their retirement years, they still are one of the best live bands around. They slipped 3 songs in from their great 2004 release (�Cheap Trick present: Special One�), all of which sounded fresh and alive. They also went back into their past to play both hits (�Flame�, �I Want You to Want Me�, �Surrender�) and fan-only favorites (�Voices�, �Southern Girls�), all with precision and obvious joy. Since there had been rain for the last 3 days, the race track was off-limits. We were in the 4th row of the stands, and this was as close as I could get for a photograph:
Badly blurred, this shot of Rick Nielson playing his guitar on top of one of his amps (for some reason, this one actually works for me):
REO Speedwagon? Sucked. The lead singer kicked the lead guitarist (Kevin Cronin and Gary Richrath, respectively) out of the band a few years back. They are now the Kevin show. The replacement at lead guitar barely plays his instrument. All we could hear was Cronin�s voice, overpowering every other performance by the band. It was painful to watch. Codeman wasn�t interested in watching them anyway (he is a huge Cheap Trick fan, and like me it was a huge letdown to watch REO after Trick�s 1 hour 10 minute set), and he had to go into work early this morning (Lease and I were off today, as were Rubes and Sam, who watched the show with us). After about 45 minutes of Cronin�s �Look at me!� performance, we had all had enough. We left, and reached our car right as REO were finishing up the encore. One odd thing I noticed during their performance- all of their recognizable (re; MTV friendly from the 80�s) songs became sing-along with the audience. But only the female portion of said audience. Absolutely no male voices were to be heard. As opposed to Cheap Tricks set, where the voices chiming in were about evenly split male-female (and yes, even though I sing off-key, I was singing along at the top of my lungs for almost the entire set). Maybe I didn�t enjoy REO�s show because they became a chick-band once I left high school in the late 70�s? Oh well- Lease and I had a great 4-day weekend. Work awaits tomorrow morning. Bummer�
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