Looking back on the concert

It's comforting that when nostalgia goes wrong, nobody ends up bleeding or dead. The closest comparison is to eating stale bread (not moldy, just a bit hard) or drinking milk that's not spoiled, but not Little-House-on-the-Prairie delightful.

We missed all but two songs of Nightranger's set, but since we did catch "Sister Christian," I can't complain. "Sister Christian" was penultimate, and the last song they did was "Still Rock in America." Again, no complaints from me.

Foreigner came out ahead of the three bands because they embraced the nostalgia schtick and didn't play any new shit. The lead singer (a replacement- which kind of sucked because even though I don't know who the original singer was, I was completely invested in his being at the show) thought he was Steven Tyler, but he gave his heart to all the songs. The sax solo in "Urgent" was brutal and killed a little bit of my soul, but I gave the sax player an A for effort even though he should've brushed up on his part before the show. I didn't know musicians could forget or gravely screw up on songs they've performed hundreds of times. Yet they played "Jukebox Hero" and "Cold as Ice," which were my must-play songs, and they played the hell out of them.

"I've Been Waiting" was played as well, and as much as I tried to summon up my high school pain, I couldn't. I could actually see the humor of the situation.

One more thing about the Foreigner set: When they played "Dirty White Boys," they showed a picture of Marlon Brando, Elvis, and James Dean. And they kept on showing the same pictures. How hard would've been to get more examples of dirty white boys and/or different pictures of those paragons of dirtiness and boyness? Don't they have access to google images?

Journey made the colossal mistake of playing new shit. Bands need to understand that they should stick with the oldies because that's why the fans are there. Journey needs to stop trying to make New!Journey happen- it's not going to no matter what they do.

But they did play "Wheel in the Sky" and "Don't Stop Believing," which were my must-play songs for them.

Even though the show wasn't as good as Heart/Def Leppard, I still enjoyed the tailgating and concert. The 80s bands may be showing their wear, but I don't regret this nostalgia phase.