Cruefest 2008

Wednesday, August 6th, Amy and I took some time to go out and rock at Cruefest 2008 as it was held in Mountain View at Shoreline Amphitheatre. The line-up was awesome: Trapt (local boys from Los Gatos), Sixx A.M. (put together by Nikki Sixx from Motley to write and record songs as a soundtrack to his book The Heroin Diaries; wasn't really meant to be a touring band, but I guess they changed their minds!), Papa Roach, Buckcherry, and - of course - Motley. I had purchased aisle seats to make it easier for the very pregnant Amy to get to and from bathroom & food breaks and also splurged to get Super Premium Parking, which worked out perfectly.

The show was actually quite good. All of the bands totally rocked, sounded great, and the crowd was really cool (for the most part). The funniest thing to occur was that Amy actually got shat on by a passing bird! Not too badly, and she had baby wipes, but she was still annoyed, even as I tried to tell her it was considered by some cultures to be good luck (yeah....she wasn't buying it either...). By pure coincidence, we were also sitting in the same row - literally a couple of seats away from - Kat Gallagher, formerly Brandi Lee, former bass guitarist for M!SS CRAZY (my brother and I have directed/shot/edited two music videos for them - go to their site to check them out or on YouTube). Her mom was with her, too, and it was cool being able to catch up a little and enjoy the show. They disappeared after a bit, though; I think Kat met up with some friends. Also saw and chatted briefly with a very happily drunk Binge Matthews of Dirty Penny. Was very cool, obviously having a great time, probably won't recall ever having seen each other and talked. No worries, though....was still nice to see him after they have been on the road so much.

Amy and I were also highly amused and happy to see one fan in our section rocking a FlexXBronco t-shirt. Rock on, biotches!

We left a little early, as Motley was tearing into "Girls Girls Girls" and getting set-up for their encore of "Home Sweet Home" (I had seen the live on-line performance from Las Vegas last week - see below...somewhere), so we were actually home by 11:30 with little or no parking difficulties to deal with or real traffic on the way home! Score, baby!

Below is a link to the album of pictures we took. We were sitting in section 201 and could only bring in our smaller Olympus, but the digital zoom did pretty well for such a small camera. I apologize form some of the shots in the Buckcherry and Motley sections; as dark started to come down and the bands were using more lights from the stage (not to mention smoke), the quality dropped; these were the best we could get. But I was actually pretty impressed with most of what we got! Enjoy!

Cruefest 2008

Countdown

Today was Amy's last day of work before heading out on sanctioned maternity leave. This weekend we confirmed we had everything we will need bagged up and ready to go. Got a reclining rocking chair from my Grandfather's place and set it up, also cleaning house (that whole "nesting" bullshit is, well, not really bullshit, I guess.....). The Countdown is in full effect, kids.

And I have to say that I am stoked. Poor Amy has been dealing with so much the last few weeks. Overall, the pregnancy has been relatively easy, but the last month started wearing on her and the past few weeks has seen her suffering with pretty much every type of soreness one can imagine. I just know that if guys had to do this....lets just say the human race would more than likely come to a grinding halt.....

Amy's mom will be here next week, Sloan is with my mom this entire week. Still have to figure out when we will do back-to-school shopping with her, but then that might be something Amy's mom will get a kick out of. Good job for her.

CrueFest is tomorrow and I am DOUBLY stoked over that. Is going to be awe - wait for it - some. Have all day tomorrow to prep and all day Thursday to recover/work from home/get domestic shit done.

Working on a new CD review for my buddies in the Devil Himself. They recently put out an EP of 3 new songs which totally fucking rocks and I have been slacking on actually reviewing in light of everything else going on (sorry, guys). Look for it sometime this week.

Thats pretty much my update for now!