Keytars and the Universe

Whoa. This has been a hectic week (I feel like I say that every week...).

The highlight has definitely been, hands down, yesterday. It was, of course, the much-awaited Dream Theater/Iron Maiden concert. I apologize ahead of time for those of you who don't know them/don't care to hear the gory details of the concert. This blog is partly for my own record though, so I'd like to remember the intense epicness.

To start off, myself and two other members of the REU group, Eric and Nick, left for Phoenix at about 3:30. I like the drive a lot, so it was nice. We made a planned stop at an In 'n Out in Phoenix for dinner. They only have In 'n Outs in CA, AZ, and NV I believe. Apparently it's a big deal or something... I got a pretty dissatisfying veggie burger, but the fries and shake were good. And the other two seemed to really enjoy their food, so I guess you need to eat meat. There is some kind of 'secret menu' that you can order off of if you know what to say. Weird westerners.

Hot Phoenix.

Moving along, we went to the venue next: The Cricket Pavilion, which was smaller than I expected, but pretty nice. Turns out we had superb seats. We were about 20 feet from the stage, which was excellent for my eyes, but awful for my ears. To be honest, I went online looking up DT tours, and was pleasantly surprised to see they were touring with Maiden. So, really, I went to see DT, and got a bonus of Maiden.

Wooo! Dream Theater takes the stage!

I've never seen DT live, but have been spending far more time than I should looking up youtube videos of them recently. In short, they kicked some serious butt. Some of the highlights were: Mike Portnoy (drummer) threw his sticks in the air multiple times and caught them probably 50% of the time... Jordan Rudess (keyboards) PULLED OUT THE ZEN RIFFER! YESSSSSS!!!! I think the all caps and exclamation points convey my excitement. I don't know why, but I have a strange obsession with keytars.

Jordan Rudess and John Petrucci during Panic Attack.

During one song, James LaBrie (singer) came to our side of the stage. When he did so, I was the only one in the area who was fist-pumping (I think everyone was there just to see Maiden...). He looks over at me and points to me from stage. It's really not anything spectacular, but for a brief moment I was one of 'those fans'. I can die a happy girl now (who knew that was all it took?). DT played a pretty great set (although I kept waiting for Overture 1928....). What I remember they played:

-Rite of Passage

-Home

-Panic Attack

-Under a Glass Moon

-Pull Me Under

-And some other song I forgot

But... that was only half of the show. The main entree was of course, Iron Maiden.

Unintentionally caught Steve Harris mid-headbang.

I know hardly any IM so I felt pretty out of place as the crowd got crazy and sang all the songs. I knew maybe 3 or 4 out of the 2 hours they played... woops! They were really incredible regardless, though. I have never seen such an energetic band perform. These guys are at least in their 50's, and they were running all over stage, jumping around, and being generally Crazy. Bruce Dickenson (singer) was running on top of the set, while Janick Gers (1 of 3 guitarists) was doing insane acrobats with his guitar. I think he actually played it 2% of the show, while 98% of the time was spent throwing it in the air (for real), banging it against props (seriously), playing it in between his legs (it looked uncomfortable...), spinning it around himself, and throwing the cord all around stage.

Janick Gers. He seemed to really enjoy playing like this.

Musically useless but visually entertaining.

The best way to describe the way he ran around stage would be prancing. I felt sorry for the drummer, Nicko McBrain, because he was boxed in around his drum set and nobody paid attention to him. Oh, I forgot to mention that at the beginning of their show, Maiden played a little intro movie to Mars The Bringer of War from the Planets by Holst. I didn't see anyone else around me who seemed to appreciate the reference... silly rock fans. They also showed some clips of the Crab Nebula! Something else I also forget to mention and am adding now: The guy next to me looked like Geddy Lee and was doing some serious head-banging and air-guitaring to Maiden... I've never seen anyone air guitar with such passion.

After the concert it took us forever to get out of the venue, and after a gas/coffee stop we were on our way back to Flagstaff. I happened to stick my head out the window and saw the Milky Way! So we got off the highway and pulled off to go look at the sky. We happened to see 4 or 5 other guys who actually had a telescope and chairs set out. They just happened to be astronomy/physics (graduate?) students! It was actually pretty funny that we were all astronomy people and we sat around talking about science and Iron Maiden. It was one of those strange chance moments that happens rarely but is really neat. The skies were phenomenal and the Milky Way very bright.

I don't know what kind of luck I was having, but on the way back I saw a fireball! I've never seen one, and it was really cool! To top off a long night, we went to Lowell to try and see Comet McNaught... turns out it's not visible naked eye or was too low. FINALLY I got back to my apartment at about 3 and got to sleep for ~4 hours.

The result today: I'm really tired and feel deaf!