No videos in this one. Read on and you'll see why I wasn't able to capture any...
Alright, for those of you who pay attention to the bulletins I post (this is a MySpace reference, where I originally posted this blog), you know I was going to see Tesla on Friday night in Clifton Park, NY and was looking for someone to go along with me since 3 different people who originally said they wanted to go all bailed for different reasons (and legitimate ones I might add...I don't want anyone to think I'm pissed over it). Anyway, nobody else from here replied that they were interested in going (well one did, but way too late) and of course none of my friends that live close by could make it. They're all married and never go anywhere anyway.
So I headed off to Firkin & Fox where all the festivities were beginning alone.
Firkin & Fox
OK, I leave my house at about 4:10...it takes me about 45 minutes or so to get to Colonie. I arrived at Firkin & Fox just a couple of minutes after 5:00. I walk in and step up to the bar to get a beer. Which I wait a good 10 minutes before one of the Firkin Foxes asks me what I want. So right away it starts. I mean, come on. The minute I step into the place, somebody should be yelling, "Hey, Dave fuckin' Lazer is here. Get the man what he wants." But, no. I have to wait. And PAY for a beer. Can you fuckin' believe it? I'm tellin' ya, Armageddon is right around the corner.
Alright, I'm kidding. The place was pretty damn busy. So I get my beer and start heading out to the patio where my buddy Mrozek is broadcasting for Q103. But Jeanette from the radio station stops me and says wait, you need to sign this contest thingy. Not in those words, but that's what I had to do. See, I won the tickets to the show from the radio station. Part of that winning was that I and everyone else who won got to be in a guitar playing contest in front of the members of Tesla and everybody else that was there and I think it was broadcast live on MTV, VH1, CMT and MuchMusic. LIVE! I know I got a phone call from Damien Fahey later in the evening asking if I'd be willing to make an appearance on TRL to showcase my mad guitar skills.
But I digress. I tried protesting to Jeanette that I didn't want to participate in the contest but she made me. If she didn't know me from Adam, I'd have been able to get past her without her ever knowing I was one of the dudes that won the tickets. But I've been to enough Q103 events that most of the staff has gotten to know me, much to their benefit. I mean, let's face it, everybody's life that has Dave in it is better.
Nicole from Q103 is also hanging out in that vestibule and she comes over to the table and after I sign everything away over to Q including my first born (they can have her), I start talking with Nic and Jeanette for a little bit. Jeanette asks me if I found someone to tag along with me yet and I said no, and she told me Scottie B was looking for a ticket. So I said he could have my other one. I'm about to call him up, she says she'll call him and I noticed on my phone that I had a missed call and there's a voicemail.
The voicemail is from my long-time MySpace friend, Dawn. I remember giving her my phone number one time but we had never spoken outside of MySpace or AIM. I had emailed her earlier in the week regarding what was going on at Firkin & Fox and that she and her boyfriend should come over. Well the voicemail was just that...a message saying they had made it and they were out on the patio. While I'm listening to that message, Jeanette is leaving a voicemail for Scott telling him about the ticket.
Oh...I almost forgot. Just before signing my next house away to Q103, I spotted a familiar face in the bar...Nancy, someone I had met at another Q event earlier in the year, the man cave party at the Skyline in Albany. Went over and said hi to her and she didn't remember me so I said, "I'm Dave fuckin' Lazer" and then of course she remembered.
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She'd be the second one in from the left.
OK...out to the patio I go after signing my first car worth more than $750 over to Q103 and I spot Dawn. Yep, like she always says, she's a hugger. She was there with her boyfriend and her son and it was really nice to meet them all. Dawn and I had been each other's therapists at various times when we each were facing rough times in our lives and this guy she found is a really good guy. I can tell he is just from hanging out with them for a few hours and it makes me feel really good that she has this happiness in her life.
Q103
So like I said, Mrozek was broadcasting live for Q103. I was talking with Dawn and John, and I excused myself to go say hi to him and the rest of the Q103 people that were there...Levack, Flounder, and Dawes. Went back to talking with Dawn & John and Mrozek started doing a radio interview with the Firkin Fox of the Week.
I think that's what he was supposed to be doing anyway. I don't know if any words were ever spoken or exchanged because I was pretty much staring at boobies the whole time. And by the looks of things, so was Mrozek.
Go over and talk to Nancy for a while. Find out she loves Queensryche as much as I do. Rock on. All the good ones are married. At some point I placed a phone call to Scottie B. as I hadn't heard anything from him since Jeanette had left her voicemail. Left my own voicemail. A little while later I get a text message from him saying thanks anyway but other plans had been made.
Tesla arrives
Well, two of them anyway. Turns out it's guitarist Dave Rude and drummer Troy Luccketta. So they sit down to do an interview with the boob-staring hippie.
Nice, affable guys. I had brought my Real to Reel CD along with me to get it signed. I had been under the impression the entire band was going to be showing up at F&F until I was on my way in to the place and heard Mrozek saying a couple of them would be there. So I got two of them to sign it anyway. Guitar contest time.
OK, so here's where things get interesting. It's time for the guitar playing contest. Winner gets a guitar autographed by the entire band plus gets to perform with them on stage later that night. I'm pumped because I've been playing guitar since I was 6 months old. I got this thing in the bag. Alright, the truth is I don't play guitar. Not really. A little more than I let on last night, but not enough to win any contest. I play several instruments...guitar just isn't one of them.
The Kid
I can't remember if the kid was before me or after me. All I know is I was the first person to get called up that DOESN'T play guitar. Great spot. So I did the opening notes to "Blister in the Sun", said that was all I know and got the hell out of there. The Kid was amazing. 15 years old and he comes out and starts playing Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World"...not only playing it but singing it too. After everybody's had their turn, the Tesla guys narrow it down to 3 finalists. The Kid and 2 others. The Kid does "Purple Haze". The Kid wins. The Kid is going to play on stage with motherfucking Tesla.
OK, game over. Dave and Troy hang around to do pictures and autographs with everyone. Nancy, who wasn't going up to the concert said goodbye and left. Dawn and John, who WERE going up to the concert had left before the contest started so they could get her son home and fed before heading up the road to Clifton Park. So I do the picture thing and off I go...
Northern Lights
I thought the evening had been pretty damn interesting so far. Little did I know how much more interesting it was going to get. Get up to Northern Lights, check in at will call window where my name is on a list and in I go. Dawn and John spot me and call me over and I go and sit with them and we start talking. John asks me if I got my CD. I mentioned earlier I brought my Real to Reel disc to get signed. Well the deal on the disc is this. It's technically a double disc set, but when you buy it in the store, there's only one disc in there. You get the second disc when you go to one of their headlining shows. When I won the tickets on the radio, Mrozek explained to me I'd be getting the tickets to the show, plus the disc. Anyway, when John asked me, I said, "no, how do I get it"? He said I should have got a green ticket at the door when I went in. So I go back over to the will call table and ask. They said no, only if you bought the ticket, not if you won them. Well, Dawn and John had 2 CD's so they gave me one of theirs, which I'm tremendously grateful to them for. That was a really nice gesture on their part.
A half hour or so after I got there, the opening band came on. Poets & Pornstarsis their name and they are REALLY good. Hard driving, 3 chord, sleaze rock that just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, especially if that was the stuff you loved growing up, as I did. And a really hot bassist whom I'm now in love with. I want to marry her and have her babies.
They play their set, and head over to the merch table where they sell their own merchandise, and would actually carry on a conversation with the fans, and I had a fairly lengthy one. Actually, it was more of a stern talking to. I probably shouldn't have flopped my pecker on the table and said "Sign this, bitch". I probably should have asked nicer. Anyway....
Some time later....
Dude comes out on stage and I'm like, "Holy shit! Jeff Keith put on a little weight since the last time I saw him!" But it wasn't Jeff Keith at all. It was Jeff Levack from Q103! He really had the crowd fooled there for a while. So this Yankee lover comes out and announces that Tesla will be taking the stage very soon. Yay!
Some time later....
Tesla takes the stage! So I'm standing off to stage right, behind Dawn and John on an elevated section of the floor, taking pictures. And this is where the first big adventure takes place. I'm holding my camera up, trying to get the damn thing to focus right, because sometimes it's just a pain in the ass in low light and DUDE WITH STAFF WRITTEN ACROSS THE BACK OF HIS SHIRT jumps up and says "You gotta put that down." OK. I'm thinking he just doesn't want me holding it up for any length of time because that would maybe be taking a video. Gasp! So a few minutes later I'm taking more pics with it. This time dude comes from behind and motions for me to follow him. He tells me I have to put my camera in the car. I say, "why, i'm not allowed to take pictures?" He tells me not with that camera. I'm explaining to him it's just a regular digital camera....that it's no more special than any of the other hundred digital cameras being held up, but he tells me the tour manager told him I couldn't be using that camera. I guess because it LOOKS like a professional SLR camera. Which it's not. It's just a Kodak EasyShare Z710.
Whatever. I bring it out to the car and come back in. But I'm pissed. And I'll be damned if I'm not gonna take some more pictures. So I go out to my car and get it. Stick it in my pocket. Stay on the low part of the floor this time so I'm not so easily spotted. Dave is going in stealth mode. I'm in the middle of the crowd now. Bald headed guy standing in front and to my right. Blonde girl standing just behind him. They keep bantering back and forth, she touches his head a couple of times. I figure they're a couple. I pull my camera out of my back pocket and feel something hit my foot. It's dark and I can't see what it might be so I assume somebody dropped something. Go to turn my camera on and nothing. The thing that hit my foot was the batteries...the battery compartment door must have opened as I was pulling it out of my pocket. I find one battery with my foot, bend down and pick it up and while down there am looking to see if I can spot the other one.
This is where the night REALLY got interesting...
I feel a hand on my back....then moving down my back and actually slightly into my pants. I turn around and it's that blonde chick I mentioned. She asks me if I lost something. I stood up and told her I had dropped my camera batteries. Tesla had just started sing "Love Song" at this point. All of a sudden this woman....and she was very attractive...started kissing me. And I mean kissing. I think we made out for about 3, maybe 4 songs. Then she excused herself and that was the last I saw of her all night. Just like being at a concert back in the 80's...except usually the move would be made by offering a girl to sit up on my shoulders. Then the makeout with random hot chick would take place. But this was weird in more than one way, and it's really caused me to do some hard thinking. See, I haven't been with a woman...not even "made out" with one in over a year. Not since my last girlfriend whom to this day I consider the absolute love of my life. And kissing this stranger should have been exciting. But it did nothing for me. Didn't cause any desire within me. And it makes me think that there really is only one woman for me. And she's gone.
Anyway, I snapped off only a couple more pictures, after going back out to my car and putting in the extra batteries I had with me. I didn't want there to be any kind of scene or incident. I did manage to get one of The Kid though:
All in all, a good time. Tesla rocked. They're such a talented band and I've been a huge fan of theirs since the beginning. I hadn't seen them since 1989 and I'm glad I got to go to this show.
Oh yeah, and Scottie B's other plans? He went home and fell asleep! He's regretting it today though....
Listen to Q103
Alright, for those of you who pay attention to the bulletins I post (this is a MySpace reference, where I originally posted this blog), you know I was going to see Tesla on Friday night in Clifton Park, NY and was looking for someone to go along with me since 3 different people who originally said they wanted to go all bailed for different reasons (and legitimate ones I might add...I don't want anyone to think I'm pissed over it). Anyway, nobody else from here replied that they were interested in going (well one did, but way too late) and of course none of my friends that live close by could make it. They're all married and never go anywhere anyway.
So I headed off to Firkin & Fox where all the festivities were beginning alone.
Firkin & Fox
OK, I leave my house at about 4:10...it takes me about 45 minutes or so to get to Colonie. I arrived at Firkin & Fox just a couple of minutes after 5:00. I walk in and step up to the bar to get a beer. Which I wait a good 10 minutes before one of the Firkin Foxes asks me what I want. So right away it starts. I mean, come on. The minute I step into the place, somebody should be yelling, "Hey, Dave fuckin' Lazer is here. Get the man what he wants." But, no. I have to wait. And PAY for a beer. Can you fuckin' believe it? I'm tellin' ya, Armageddon is right around the corner.
Alright, I'm kidding. The place was pretty damn busy. So I get my beer and start heading out to the patio where my buddy Mrozek is broadcasting for Q103. But Jeanette from the radio station stops me and says wait, you need to sign this contest thingy. Not in those words, but that's what I had to do. See, I won the tickets to the show from the radio station. Part of that winning was that I and everyone else who won got to be in a guitar playing contest in front of the members of Tesla and everybody else that was there and I think it was broadcast live on MTV, VH1, CMT and MuchMusic. LIVE! I know I got a phone call from Damien Fahey later in the evening asking if I'd be willing to make an appearance on TRL to showcase my mad guitar skills.
But I digress. I tried protesting to Jeanette that I didn't want to participate in the contest but she made me. If she didn't know me from Adam, I'd have been able to get past her without her ever knowing I was one of the dudes that won the tickets. But I've been to enough Q103 events that most of the staff has gotten to know me, much to their benefit. I mean, let's face it, everybody's life that has Dave in it is better.
Nicole from Q103 is also hanging out in that vestibule and she comes over to the table and after I sign everything away over to Q including my first born (they can have her), I start talking with Nic and Jeanette for a little bit. Jeanette asks me if I found someone to tag along with me yet and I said no, and she told me Scottie B was looking for a ticket. So I said he could have my other one. I'm about to call him up, she says she'll call him and I noticed on my phone that I had a missed call and there's a voicemail.
The voicemail is from my long-time MySpace friend, Dawn. I remember giving her my phone number one time but we had never spoken outside of MySpace or AIM. I had emailed her earlier in the week regarding what was going on at Firkin & Fox and that she and her boyfriend should come over. Well the voicemail was just that...a message saying they had made it and they were out on the patio. While I'm listening to that message, Jeanette is leaving a voicemail for Scott telling him about the ticket.
Oh...I almost forgot. Just before signing my next house away to Q103, I spotted a familiar face in the bar...Nancy, someone I had met at another Q event earlier in the year, the man cave party at the Skyline in Albany. Went over and said hi to her and she didn't remember me so I said, "I'm Dave fuckin' Lazer" and then of course she remembered.
She'd be the second one in from the left.
OK...out to the patio I go after signing my first car worth more than $750 over to Q103 and I spot Dawn. Yep, like she always says, she's a hugger. She was there with her boyfriend and her son and it was really nice to meet them all. Dawn and I had been each other's therapists at various times when we each were facing rough times in our lives and this guy she found is a really good guy. I can tell he is just from hanging out with them for a few hours and it makes me feel really good that she has this happiness in her life.
Q103
So like I said, Mrozek was broadcasting live for Q103. I was talking with Dawn and John, and I excused myself to go say hi to him and the rest of the Q103 people that were there...Levack, Flounder, and Dawes. Went back to talking with Dawn & John and Mrozek started doing a radio interview with the Firkin Fox of the Week.
I think that's what he was supposed to be doing anyway. I don't know if any words were ever spoken or exchanged because I was pretty much staring at boobies the whole time. And by the looks of things, so was Mrozek.
Go over and talk to Nancy for a while. Find out she loves Queensryche as much as I do. Rock on. All the good ones are married. At some point I placed a phone call to Scottie B. as I hadn't heard anything from him since Jeanette had left her voicemail. Left my own voicemail. A little while later I get a text message from him saying thanks anyway but other plans had been made.
Tesla arrives
Well, two of them anyway. Turns out it's guitarist Dave Rude and drummer Troy Luccketta. So they sit down to do an interview with the boob-staring hippie.
Nice, affable guys. I had brought my Real to Reel CD along with me to get it signed. I had been under the impression the entire band was going to be showing up at F&F until I was on my way in to the place and heard Mrozek saying a couple of them would be there. So I got two of them to sign it anyway. Guitar contest time.
OK, so here's where things get interesting. It's time for the guitar playing contest. Winner gets a guitar autographed by the entire band plus gets to perform with them on stage later that night. I'm pumped because I've been playing guitar since I was 6 months old. I got this thing in the bag. Alright, the truth is I don't play guitar. Not really. A little more than I let on last night, but not enough to win any contest. I play several instruments...guitar just isn't one of them.
The Kid
I can't remember if the kid was before me or after me. All I know is I was the first person to get called up that DOESN'T play guitar. Great spot. So I did the opening notes to "Blister in the Sun", said that was all I know and got the hell out of there. The Kid was amazing. 15 years old and he comes out and starts playing Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World"...not only playing it but singing it too. After everybody's had their turn, the Tesla guys narrow it down to 3 finalists. The Kid and 2 others. The Kid does "Purple Haze". The Kid wins. The Kid is going to play on stage with motherfucking Tesla.
OK, game over. Dave and Troy hang around to do pictures and autographs with everyone. Nancy, who wasn't going up to the concert said goodbye and left. Dawn and John, who WERE going up to the concert had left before the contest started so they could get her son home and fed before heading up the road to Clifton Park. So I do the picture thing and off I go...
Northern Lights
I thought the evening had been pretty damn interesting so far. Little did I know how much more interesting it was going to get. Get up to Northern Lights, check in at will call window where my name is on a list and in I go. Dawn and John spot me and call me over and I go and sit with them and we start talking. John asks me if I got my CD. I mentioned earlier I brought my Real to Reel disc to get signed. Well the deal on the disc is this. It's technically a double disc set, but when you buy it in the store, there's only one disc in there. You get the second disc when you go to one of their headlining shows. When I won the tickets on the radio, Mrozek explained to me I'd be getting the tickets to the show, plus the disc. Anyway, when John asked me, I said, "no, how do I get it"? He said I should have got a green ticket at the door when I went in. So I go back over to the will call table and ask. They said no, only if you bought the ticket, not if you won them. Well, Dawn and John had 2 CD's so they gave me one of theirs, which I'm tremendously grateful to them for. That was a really nice gesture on their part.
A half hour or so after I got there, the opening band came on. Poets & Pornstarsis their name and they are REALLY good. Hard driving, 3 chord, sleaze rock that just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, especially if that was the stuff you loved growing up, as I did. And a really hot bassist whom I'm now in love with. I want to marry her and have her babies.
They play their set, and head over to the merch table where they sell their own merchandise, and would actually carry on a conversation with the fans, and I had a fairly lengthy one. Actually, it was more of a stern talking to. I probably shouldn't have flopped my pecker on the table and said "Sign this, bitch". I probably should have asked nicer. Anyway....
Some time later....
Dude comes out on stage and I'm like, "Holy shit! Jeff Keith put on a little weight since the last time I saw him!" But it wasn't Jeff Keith at all. It was Jeff Levack from Q103! He really had the crowd fooled there for a while. So this Yankee lover comes out and announces that Tesla will be taking the stage very soon. Yay!
Some time later....
Tesla takes the stage! So I'm standing off to stage right, behind Dawn and John on an elevated section of the floor, taking pictures. And this is where the first big adventure takes place. I'm holding my camera up, trying to get the damn thing to focus right, because sometimes it's just a pain in the ass in low light and DUDE WITH STAFF WRITTEN ACROSS THE BACK OF HIS SHIRT jumps up and says "You gotta put that down." OK. I'm thinking he just doesn't want me holding it up for any length of time because that would maybe be taking a video. Gasp! So a few minutes later I'm taking more pics with it. This time dude comes from behind and motions for me to follow him. He tells me I have to put my camera in the car. I say, "why, i'm not allowed to take pictures?" He tells me not with that camera. I'm explaining to him it's just a regular digital camera....that it's no more special than any of the other hundred digital cameras being held up, but he tells me the tour manager told him I couldn't be using that camera. I guess because it LOOKS like a professional SLR camera. Which it's not. It's just a Kodak EasyShare Z710.
Whatever. I bring it out to the car and come back in. But I'm pissed. And I'll be damned if I'm not gonna take some more pictures. So I go out to my car and get it. Stick it in my pocket. Stay on the low part of the floor this time so I'm not so easily spotted. Dave is going in stealth mode. I'm in the middle of the crowd now. Bald headed guy standing in front and to my right. Blonde girl standing just behind him. They keep bantering back and forth, she touches his head a couple of times. I figure they're a couple. I pull my camera out of my back pocket and feel something hit my foot. It's dark and I can't see what it might be so I assume somebody dropped something. Go to turn my camera on and nothing. The thing that hit my foot was the batteries...the battery compartment door must have opened as I was pulling it out of my pocket. I find one battery with my foot, bend down and pick it up and while down there am looking to see if I can spot the other one.
This is where the night REALLY got interesting...
I feel a hand on my back....then moving down my back and actually slightly into my pants. I turn around and it's that blonde chick I mentioned. She asks me if I lost something. I stood up and told her I had dropped my camera batteries. Tesla had just started sing "Love Song" at this point. All of a sudden this woman....and she was very attractive...started kissing me. And I mean kissing. I think we made out for about 3, maybe 4 songs. Then she excused herself and that was the last I saw of her all night. Just like being at a concert back in the 80's...except usually the move would be made by offering a girl to sit up on my shoulders. Then the makeout with random hot chick would take place. But this was weird in more than one way, and it's really caused me to do some hard thinking. See, I haven't been with a woman...not even "made out" with one in over a year. Not since my last girlfriend whom to this day I consider the absolute love of my life. And kissing this stranger should have been exciting. But it did nothing for me. Didn't cause any desire within me. And it makes me think that there really is only one woman for me. And she's gone.
Anyway, I snapped off only a couple more pictures, after going back out to my car and putting in the extra batteries I had with me. I didn't want there to be any kind of scene or incident. I did manage to get one of The Kid though:
All in all, a good time. Tesla rocked. They're such a talented band and I've been a huge fan of theirs since the beginning. I hadn't seen them since 1989 and I'm glad I got to go to this show.
Oh yeah, and Scottie B's other plans? He went home and fell asleep! He's regretting it today though....
Listen to Q103
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