Seeing as how I live in St Louis, this little trip I took to Milwaukee (and later Detroit) was a pretty big deal. I went with my friend Elizabeth and we met up with my cousin Hannah, who lives in Milwaukee. We got into Marcus Amphitheatre around 7.15 just as Souls started playing. Luckily, we only missed the first two verses of the first song. I had so much fun -- I thought they were really good live so I was, of course, going absolutely wild! I was kind of irritated, though -- no one was listening, it seemed -- besides me and Elizabeth and Hannah, only a few people in the lawn were screaming (and being Summerfest and all, they were probably drunk by then).
Anyway, here's the setlist (and I do believe that this is the same set they've been playing for the whole tour):
The Jesus Lizard came on next, and that singer is alternately obnoxious and entertaining -- he jumped into the crowd and stuff and took off his shirt and what have you. (I heard that he gave a show completely nude once. No need for that, chief.)
I think that I need to explain the layout of Marcus Amphitheatre so that this next part will make sense: there's a chunk of about thirty rows that are the red section -- the really close seats. Then there's a walkway thing with rails on both sides, and it goes the full length of the amphitheatre. Then there's the yellow section, which is another chunk of about thirty rows, then the bleachers, then the lawn. We were in the first row of the yellow section on the far left side. So there were our seats, and then a rail in front of us, and then the walkway. So I'm sort of paying attention to The Jesus Lizard (but not really) and I see this girl walk past. It was Cecilia. And I looked at Elizabeth, then at Hannah, and I was like, "That was Cecilia. It was Cecilia." And I hesitated for a minute, then jumped over the rail and took off running down the walkway area -- it was too late -- she'd already made her way to the sound board, which was about four rows back from the rail in the center of the yellow section. So I tried to get in, and the guards wouldn't let me because you have to enter the yellow section from the BACK, not the front. (Stupid, yes?) So I ran around and up two flights of stairs, then went down an aisle and crossed in front of a bunch of people who were sitting down and stepped on every single person's foot as I was doing so. I got to the sound board and leaned over and tapped Cecilia on the shoulder and asked if she would sign my ticket stub and she looked stunned and goes, "Me?!" Now, The Jesus Lizard were louder than fuck, so I couldn't exactly talk to her or anything, but she signed it, and then pointed to the front of the sound board and gestured -- at first I thought she was asking if I wanted a set list, so I was like, "Yeah!" and I nodded vigourously, but then she walked right past it and tapped some guy on the shoulder, and he turns around and it's Andreas!! I totally didn't even see him there! And he signs it and then looks at me and I grinned and he smiled and waved and then hands it to the guy next to him, who I'd recognised by this time as Lars-Erik -- and he also signed it!! I was psyched. But Johan was nowhere to be found, so I only have three of the four. Which still totally rocks my world. They were so nice! And only two other girls even asked for their autographs. Wow. So that has been my only brush with celebrity!
Elizabeth and I were to go on to Detroit at 3.30 AM after the Milwaukee concert, but we almost didn't make it! We got to the bus station at 3.00 and waited. And waited. The bus didn't show up at 3.30. It wasn't there at 4.00, either. Finally, this totally obnoxious woman who didn't even have a ticket started harrassing the guy at the depot, who reluctantly informed us that the bus had broken down en route from Chicago to Milwaukee and that the next bus would be there at 7.00. Now that was just dandy, since our connection from Chicago to Toledo left at 6.15 and it takes about two hours to get from Milwaukee to Chicago. So I pretty much broke down crying in the middle of the bus station -- I wanted to go to Detroit, dammit. And I felt so dumb, because it's just a concert, but I had put *so* much effort into planning this trip -- not to mention money -- and I didn't want to spend the rest of my weekend in the Milwaukee bus station. I was pretty much resigned to hopefully catching the 7.00 bus and just going home to St Louis from Chicago (provided we got a space on the 7.00 bus, which wasn't guaranteed) when my cousin Tom goes, "Let's go. I'll drive you to chicago." It was 4.23 in the morning and he was driving us to Chicago so we'd make our 6.15 connection. I was dubious but grateful. We watched the sun rise as we headed south, and made it to the bus station at 6.12.
Anyway, we made it there on time and went to Pine Knob to see the concert, which started damn early -- 6.45!! Good God, I have never seen such a huge contingent of teenyboppers -- all these annoying thirteen year old Gavin-Lovers. (Not that all thirteen year old Bush fans are teenies, but most of these were, I'm afraid.) So I tried to meet up with my online friend Heather there, but we must've just missed each other -- as it turns out, she was practically sitting right next to us!! (We had lawn seats, so that's why we couldn't be sure of where to meet her.)
Souls came out on time, and I went totally wild again -- they played the same set to an even deader audience, but I thought that they were great! I looked for them again during The Jesus Lizard but didn't see them. I was very sad. I was even wearing my new Souls shirt and everything!! It's so cool -- it's white with the souls logo on front, and a fish with bird wings on the back.
All in all, though, the concerts were a ton of fun and meeting them was a huge surprise and I was grinning for hours afterwards! (So says Elizabeth, at least.) I'm very sad that I probably won't seem them again for a long time -- who ever comes to St Louis, anyway?
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