Thursday, September 02, 2004
Went to another concert, this time at the new Antelope Valley Fair grounds. I thought Anaheim was bad with traffic, they don’t have anything on Lancaster. They should fire the dip that came up with the design for parking. They go from having five or more entrances at the old location, down to only one entrance. To make maters worse, they have four rows of cars merging down to one, the handicap parking had to cut across all the rows to a lot on the opposite side, pedestrians walking in front of traffic to get to the fair entrance, and if that was not enough toss in turn signals that did not work, and a shooting in the large open dirt field turned unofficial parking lot right across from the fair. I am surprised all the dry weeds did not catch on fire and burn up all the cars. Some people just jumped the curb and skipped the lines and skipped the parking fee. Dumb city did not put up a fence.
I did not get a chance to walk around the fair grounds much, because parking took up all the time I planed to use to do so. The concert was REO Speedwagon and Styx. Great seats. The first ten rows are $50 a pop, and everything else at ground level was $25. The bleachers were free to first come first serve, which was a cool gesture, considering it is a family affair. Actually the free seats may have been better, because the paid seating was just a bunch of folding chairs zip tied together, making for some crowed seating. Luckily not everyone showed up so it was not too bad.
REO was first group up. They were great; I just wish I had known more of their songs. They were all over the stage trying to get the crowd going. About half way threw one of the guys from Styx came out and joined them on for one of their songs. Lot of fun.
When Styx came out they right away got the crowd going. The way they were dressed reminded me of ring masters for a circus. The electric keyboard was on a spinning stand, and he just danced all over playing that thing. In the second song there was some technical difficulty and they lost all power to the speakers, but everyone just sang right along. About half way threw one of the guys from REO came out again and joined in for a song.
Both groups had a lot of power and a lot of energy and some kick ass riffs. Lots of fun.
Traffic getting out was even worse, some lines did not move at all. Watched as one guy in his truck just jumped the curb and then someone in a BMW tried the same thing. Messed up his undercarriage, thought for sure he was going to get stuck. I wanted so badly to be able to drive by, point and laugh at his dumb ass. No such luck, somehow he kept enough traction to get free. Darn.
The AV Fair's new location gets a rating of fair, what little I did see, but the parking gets a major flunking. Only Lancaster can take something good, and make it worse.
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I did not get a chance to walk around the fair grounds much, because parking took up all the time I planed to use to do so. The concert was REO Speedwagon and Styx. Great seats. The first ten rows are $50 a pop, and everything else at ground level was $25. The bleachers were free to first come first serve, which was a cool gesture, considering it is a family affair. Actually the free seats may have been better, because the paid seating was just a bunch of folding chairs zip tied together, making for some crowed seating. Luckily not everyone showed up so it was not too bad.
REO was first group up. They were great; I just wish I had known more of their songs. They were all over the stage trying to get the crowd going. About half way threw one of the guys from Styx came out and joined them on for one of their songs. Lot of fun.
When Styx came out they right away got the crowd going. The way they were dressed reminded me of ring masters for a circus. The electric keyboard was on a spinning stand, and he just danced all over playing that thing. In the second song there was some technical difficulty and they lost all power to the speakers, but everyone just sang right along. About half way threw one of the guys from REO came out again and joined in for a song.
Both groups had a lot of power and a lot of energy and some kick ass riffs. Lots of fun.
Traffic getting out was even worse, some lines did not move at all. Watched as one guy in his truck just jumped the curb and then someone in a BMW tried the same thing. Messed up his undercarriage, thought for sure he was going to get stuck. I wanted so badly to be able to drive by, point and laugh at his dumb ass. No such luck, somehow he kept enough traction to get free. Darn.
The AV Fair's new location gets a rating of fair, what little I did see, but the parking gets a major flunking. Only Lancaster can take something good, and make it worse.
