Heinz Field
July 26th, 2003
Pittsburgh, Pa
By this time I had joined many groups online and was able to meet quite a few new friends at this concert. I meet Connie, Anna, Yvette, Jackie and Karen at the hotel. Jennifer and Gail at the venue. All of whom are the best.
Karen and I shared a room. We all meet up the day before the concert. (those staying at the hotel). We hung out at the bar for a while that nigh(july 25th) to celebrate my birthday. We meet Ty from Trading Spaces in the bar. We took pics of him with Anna since she is a big fan of that show.
We all went to our respective rooms promising to call if we spotted the guys. Around 5 am, I saw some tour buses pull up and yep it was the lepps!! So we call up to Anna and Connie's room and they called Yvette and Jackie. We watched as the guys got off the bus and entered the hotel. Let me tell you, Karen has a real good set of lungs. When she saw Viv get off the bus I bet she woke up at least half the hotel patrons:) We were nice and didn't rush down to the lobby. We figured since they had played a gig in OH the night before that they were probably wiped out. Another missed opportunity for me.
Around 6 am we went to the hotel restuarant and had breakfast while our waiter regaled us with tales of who had sat where to eat in the restuarant, like Bon Jovi, walter Matheauw(sp), etc. He told us that the team from trading spaces were there to shoot two episodes.
Well, around 9:30 or 10 am we decided to got o the venue, we walked quite a ways. Karen and I stood in line since we had GA tickets, while Connie and Anna went to the will call window for their meet and greet with Rick Allen(Raven Drum) tickets. They had a lot of problems with that because the venue personal were not pleasant.
When the gates opened at 1pm Karen and I ran like hell to get up front(standing room only for GA). We did it:) Not bad for a couple of older ladies:) We were on Phil's side of the stage. Lepps didn't come on until 7:10pm and by then Karen and I had learned the hard way what a mosh pit was. We were both sunburned and dehydrated and bruised in to many places to mention. The lepps were awesome again!! I think I made a few of those younger people around us deaf when the Lepps played Slang:) I was singing so loud(after screaming to bring the stadium down from the first chords of the song). Karen bless her soul, had the presence of mind to snap pics of Joe singing to me:) I was to busy singing back to him to even think about bringing up my camera. I did manage to get some good pics though:) Sav was wearing his patchwork pants and came over to our side of the stage alot. He smiled at us a couple of times. He seemed to be in a really good mood. Phil smiled at us as well, and I swear he had a look of concern on his face a couple of times when he looked our way, I could be wrong. We were the only older individuals down front on our side:) And we were constantly being slammed into the barrier by this time. Hence the many bruises. Viv only came over maybe twice to our side of the stage, much to Karen's dissappointment. We couldn't see Rick behind his drum kit. The young kids were really getting into the Lepps even though they didn't know to many of the songs, that was so cool to see.
Well, the only way out was to be helped by security up and over the barrier. Being really short it wasn't pretty when I was pulled out, ass up in the air......LOL I wonder if anyone thought there was an eclipse....LOL
Karen and I went out into the concurse and bought t-shirts. Karen bought the one with the new tour dates on it and I bought the white one with the british flag X on it. We meet up with Yvette and Jackie , meet Jennifer in the concourse as well, and then meet Gail outside.
We hooked up with Connie and Anna when they were done with there meet and greet and all headed back to the hotel. No lepp sightings. We did find out that Justin Timberlake and Christina Agulaira(sp) were staying in the hotel though.
No matter what setting it is the lepps always put on a great show!! I am glad I went even though I came away the worse for wear...LOL
Barbara
