Even More - 5 - Great Concerts

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Whitesnake

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Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening

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Def Leppard

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Elton John in 2017

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Drum Tao

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M-O-R-1988

If someone could organize a concert in 2022 with the following replacements, I would go.

1. Replace Kingdom Come with The Pretty Reckless
2. Replace Metallica with Lamb of God
3. Replace Dokken with Shinedown
4. Replace Scorpions with Korn
5. Replace Van Halen with Def Leppard

Pyro

9.5 out of 30

1. AC/DC - 1991
2. Aerosmith - don't have any desire to see in concert
3. Alice Cooper - 2018
4. Allman Brothers Band - don't have any desire to see in concert
5. The Beatles - wasn't old enough to see any concert when active
6. Black Sabbath - well, Ozzy Osbourne  - 2017, 2019 (cancelled), 2020 (cancelled)
7. David Bowie - don't have any desire to see in concert
8. Deep Purple - don't have any desire to see in concert
9. Def Leppard - 1998
10. The Doors - wasn't old enough to see any concert when active
11. The Eagles - would like to see if they came to the area
12. Fleetwood Mac - would like to see if they came to the area
13. Grateful Dead - don't have any desire to see in concert
14. Guns-n-Roses - 1993
15. Jimi Hendrix - wasn't old enough to see any concert when active
16. KISS - 1992, 2017
17. Led Zeppelin - wasn't old enough to see any concert when active
18. Lynrd Skynrd - wasn't old enough to see any concert when active
19. Metallica - 1989, 1991, 1993, 2003, 2017
20. Motley Crue - 1987, with Whitesnake opening; feels like I saw them one other time on their "Girls Girls Girls" tour, 1995, with Cheap Trick opening
21. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - missed when they played in Cedar Rapids
22. Pink Floyd - don't have any desire to see in concert
23. Prince - don't have any desire to see in concert
24. Queen - not sure if Queen ever played in Cedar Rapids
25. The Rolling Stones - would like to see if they came to the area
26. Rush - 2003, 2007
27. Santana - don't have any desire to see in concert
28. Van Halen - 1988
29. The Who - wasn't old enough to see any concert when active
30. ZZ Top - would like to see if they came to the area

Whew! That was a Close One!

Thankfully, KRNA reports today that The Motley Crue Tour is way too expensive for Iowa, which is a good thing for me. Per the article, Motley Crue receives $2,000,000 for their concert, Def Leppard receives $1,000,000, and Poison receives $250,000.

Know what?

Poison deserves at least the same as Def Leppard or, to be closer to their actual value, I would say they should get $500,000.

What a Lineup!

If I had not already purchased tickets for the Phil Collins concert on Friday, October 11, 2019, in Omaha, NE, I would be VERY VERY interested in going to Manchester, TN, for the Exit 111 concert because this lineup is absolutely KILLER!

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Per a quick Google search, the drive to Manchester, TN, from my house would be 10 hours, 8 minutes:

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Of course, if I were going that far, I would get a VIP ticket.

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DL

https://youtu.be/T12iVCAS8GI

The Immediate Future

Bang your head! It’s a banner year for ’80s rock and metal in the Twin Cities

What does ** Mean?

On http://www.metalinsider.net/touring/journey-def-leppard-announces-massive-co-headlining-north-american-tour-def-leppards-original-masters-now-streaming, there are 10 tour dates with ** next to the city, but there's no explanation as to what ** means:

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Getting Experienced

College was 25 years ago & Def Leppard's Hysteria turns 30 this year!

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Def Swift

Massive Tour Announced

While I await the announcement that Metallica is going to play in Iowa, I will celebrate another huge tour that includes a date in Iowa. I am considering making a trip on 4/24/17 (a Monday) to Des Moines, Iowa to the Wells Fargo Arena to see Poison, Def Leppard, and Tesla! I've seen all three of these bands live. 

1. Poison
• The last time was the festival in Des Moines that also had Cinderella, Dokken, and . . . I can't remember who the other 'main' band was. 
• Before that, I saw them at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City with Don Dokken & Slaughter. 
• The first time I saw them was at the Five Seasons Center (now the US Cellular Center) in Cedar Rapids. 
2. Def Leppard 
• Def Leppard with Dokken (and interviewed bassist Jeff Pilson before the show and had my picture taken with him).
3. Tesla
• Tesla with Great White and Badlands at the Five Seasons Center (now the US Cellular Center) in Cedar Rapids.

 To celebrate, here is one favorite tune from each of them:

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Funny If You're A Musician and Lived Through the 1980s

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Upcoming Incorrect

Bryan Adams is coming to Cedar Rapids, IA, for a concert at the US Cellular Center. I've never felt compelled to write about Bryan Adams on this blog, but I've always liked his tunes. I used to listen to "Cuts Like a Knife" on cassette repeatedly, though, there's been too many miles between then and now to cite a track on that release other than the title cut. I also liked the release "Reckless" but not because of the hit single "Summer of '69." I really liked the tune "Somebody." There was something magical about the guitar riff and even the guitar solo that speaks to me. I am humming the tune now (silently).

Set aside all of the above and look at the announcement I received through an email:

 

It's really close, but there's a problem with the date. As you can see below, September 18, 2016, is not a Monday - it's a Sunday. That makes a big difference as far as whether I'd be able to swing going to the show as far as scheduling and such.

As I sit here on a Wednesday in September, attending this show is unlikely to happen. I would rather see one or both of these shows instead:

I've never seen Korn, Motionless in White (Alex told me last night he likes their music), or REO Speedwagon in concert which means, yes, I've seen BB, Silver Snakes (they opened for Bring Me the Horizon in Clive when Alex and I went to see them last month), Def Leppard, and Tesla. When I saw Tesla, they were the HEADLINER and had Great White and Badlands open for them. Now they get the (crappy) opening slot on a 3 band bill. Meanwhile, yes, over in Moline, IL, there are at least three concerts I'd like to see:

"Make America Rock Again" is a multi-band concert with the following bands:

1. DROWNING POOL
2. TRAPT
3. SALIVA
4. SAVING ABEL
5. ALIEN ANT FARM
6. CRAZYTOWN
7. 12 STONES
8. TANTRIC
9. More!

I would very much want to see it!

Let's Go

Sorry DL... these lyrics absolutely SUCK!!! "Welcome to the carnival / Welcome to the edge of your seat"... REALLY?!? This is the first new song released since 2008 and this is the garbage you make me listen to?!? Couldn't you find a guitar riff that doesn't simply rip off one of your biggest hits - "Pour Some Sugar on Me" - to generate some reason why I would want to listen to the entire new album?!? Yuck....

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Editor's Note - the video in question was removed from youtube.com so it is no longer available for your viewing pleasure.

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Dead Daisies

A band called The Dead Daisies are opening for Def Leppard and KISS tour when the bands come to Des Moines on Wednesday, August 20th. Who are the members of this band?
The band features

• vocals: Jon Stevens (Noisewoks, INXS and rumour has it a 90s Van Halen audition)
• guitar: Richard Fortus (Guns N' Roses/Psychedelic Furs)
• guitar: David Lowy (Mink/Red Phoenix),
• bass: Marco Mendoza (Thin Lizzy/Whitesnake), 
• keyboard: Dizzy Reed (Guns N' Roses/Hookers & Blow)
• drums: Brian Tichy (Ozzy Osbourne/Whitesnake/Billy Idol)

So much too few moments

Where did this week go?

Baseball, softball, ER season finale (just who really was in the ambulance that blew - Pratt or Sam?), Lost, Grey's Anatomy, baseball, softball... where does the time go?

Big news is that I bought tickets for Rush for Tuesday night. I didn't know this, but they have a new live 2 CD release. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_&_Arrows_Tour

In other news, Lamb of God's drummer Chris Adler is going to be writing a monthly column for Modern Drummer. I used to subscribe to MD but it has been years since I bought an issue cover to cover - at least 15 years, closer to 20.

At work, I have been working hard. There is a lot of work to do and I am trying my best to put my head above water. One reason that makes my life difficult is the virtual machine I have been using since late March. It is not working for me. I wrote this email to my cool manager that summarizes my issues and removed references to my company:

The problem is that the Virtual Machine session of my old PC doesn't perform adequately. I discovered yet another issue today: the inability to paste formatted text when it is copied in Internet Explorer (IE) and pasted into Word.

My workflow has been to always write documentation in Dreamweaver (DW), preview the text in Internet Explorer (IE) and then paste into Word. I have used this workflow for nearly 2 years on my Windows 2000 (W2K) PC. This workflow worked without any issues when I was using a non-virtual PC. I developed this workflow because it is faster to work DW ==> IE ==> Word than it is to work Word --> DW. I experimented with both workflows while developing the most efficient way in which to write documentation.

Here's a specific example:

I write this text in my HTML file:The Word_01 Word_02 system option is available.

I preview the page in IE. I select the above text and press Ctrl+C to copy the text.

I navigate to Word 2003 and press Ctrl+V. I get this:The Word_01 Word_02 system option is available.

In other words, my bolded text doesn't carry the formatting from the IE text.

The impact of this issue is that I then have to manually highlight text and format it as bold. There is no macro or automated way to do this. This adds time. For lengthy passages, it might make sense to copy a sentence at a time but this is not a long-term - definitely NOT permanent - solution. It is a [...] standard to bold names of menu options, system options & system values so that they stand out. Not bolding these items would make the documentation confusing to read as all the names would be title case but they wouldn't stand out. Bolding these items is a common and accepted practice among most technical writers.

I tested to see if this could be reproduced on my Vista machine. No, it cannot. I can select formatted text in IE 7, copy it to my clipboard and then paste it into Word 2007. The text will be copied as formatted text, working as I expect.

In conclusion, the inability to paste formatted text is yet another issue with using a virtual machine. This issue joins the list with 1) general slowness of the virtual machine, 2) the inability to scroll in any applications, and 3) the unstable PDF creation. I know that these issues did not exist on my non-virtual PC session. I am confident that they will not exist on my Vista PC. These issues would be resolved if [we] obtained the new versions of the software - RoboHelp, Dreamweaver, SnagIT, Adobe Acrobat - so that I can migrate from the Virtual PC to my non-virtual Vista PC.
To my manager's credit, she is working very very hard to get this squared away so that I can move along.

And... if you got through all that, you should be rewarded so here you go. Def Leppard, Everclear, Night Ranger, Cinderella, Warrant, and 38 Special are playing at the Iowa State Fair this year: http://www.iowastatefair.com/entertainment/mediaPlayer/grandstand.php

I just learned that Disarray is still around and kicking. They are one of my favorite bands. I am hoping to get a review copy of their latest CD to review for DV.

We are going out of town this weekend so don't bother checking this site again until Sunday PM - and even then, it'll depend upon how tired I am. We are going to pick up our camper tomorrow night, then driving to Balltown. On Saturday, we're going to 4 PM Mass and then to the casino in Dubuque. On Sunday is a birthday party for my niece and nephew. Then we return home to North Liberty and park the camper next to the house - hopefully before the finale of Extreme Makeover and Desperate Housewives!

Take it easy or any way you can get it.