Air Supply

For my fantastic "39 Forever" birthday gift, The Jonnie decided to make right the fact that I had never managed to see Air Supply in concert back in the day when they were totally, positively my favorite group in like the entire known universe. Fer sure! They were also pumping out hits nonstop. I was a major fan of their tunes.

Since this fact kept The Jonnie awake at night and she knew she'd never manage to experience a fulfilled life if she let the situation stand, she sync'd up with Doc to make the plan, and the two of them set up a fabulous little get-away for me. Me and Doc, that is.

Wendover Nevada is less than 2 hours from our house. It also happened to be the site of the latest Air Supply concert. Based on my previous experience, I fully expected to be snowed in yesterday. Or contract ebola virus. Something would prevent me from fulfilling my destiny.

But miraculously, the day went off without a hitch. Gator and his buddy cousin were happily whisked away for a boys get-away with Gramma & Grampa, and Bunch had an overnight with her girl cousins. With the kids set for a grand ole' time, Doc & I took off on our first road trip in 13 years. (We've had 2 "air trips" without kids in that time, and 2 other single nights away without them, but really, we haven't had much kidless time together.)

In a spiffy jiffy we pulled into town where this guy stands to greet you:

We checked into our sweet hotel suite at the Peppermill. It was the nicest room Doc & I have ever stayed in. Coincidentally, it was also the most expensive room we've ever stayed in too. Here's a shot of the bed/jacuzzi half.

After getting settled, we enjoyed a lovely dinner. Our nice waitress kindly snapped a photo of us:

After dinner came the big moment. The moment I've waited 20 years for. THE MOMENT I would behold the two men who filled my tender twelve year old heart with the hope that I might possibly be "every woman in the world" to a great guy someday.

We got to the concert hall. The Jonnie had gotten us some wicked seats...center section row 5 on the aisle. Beautiful. I could sing and dance away with only Doc on the one side to embarrass and annoy.

The lights went down and the guys came on stage. Now it should be noted that Russell and Graham have been performing together since before dirt was invented. They're not the spring chickens they were once upon a time.
But the deal is, they've still got it. Thirty years of singing the same 15 or so songs they made a name with. Thirty years of crazy touring. They do about 103 concerts a year, and they still pack the house. As one of only two western bands ever to play in Cuba, two years ago they played to an audience of 175 THOUSAND raving fans. There were over a thousand people in tiny Wendover last night...it was sold out. And with good reason. They really have fun. Humored us by singing the songs we grew up on and obsessed over. Didn't take themselves too seriously. It was a total karaoke concert too...we were invited to join in and sing along. They play the audience and seemed to really enjoy it. If they didn't, they're masters of disguise, because we couldn't tell. It's impressive to maintain that level of energy and presence when you've done the kind of touring these guys do.

Their band members were phenominal. Jed Moss on keyboards, Mike Zerbe on drums and Jonni Lightfoot on bass. These guys rocked it. I'd listen to any one of them solo.

All too soon, the evening drew to a close. The last encore was sung, and the last bow taken:
Russell announced that they would be in the lobby to sign CDs and souvenirs for the fans after the show, and so all 1000 of us rushed out pell-mell, jockeying for a good position, in hopes of snapping that much-sought after photo, perhaps getting a sig on a tee.

Doc and I were among the crowd. There was just a crush of people all around us, and the band hadn't come out yet. We'd been standing there for about ten minutes when a woman walked up to me.

"Hi there. I was wondering if you two would like a pair of backstage passes", she said.

"What did you say?" I replied, not sure I'd heard her. Maybe she wasn't actually even talking to me. But it sure seemed like she was. Did she just ask if I wanted back stage passes?

"I have 2 passes to go back stage, where you can hang out with the boys, and I thought maybe you'd like to take them."

"Wow! How did you get these passes?" I asked her, not sure what to think.

"I'm friends with one of the guys. He's their sound tech, and he gave me them" she explained.

"Wow." (I am as near to speechless as I ever get. Unless I'm in drug-free labor, that is. If I'm in that much pain, I retreat to some dark corner of my soul, and don't make a sound. But I digress). "Why did you pick me to give them to?" I asked her. I mean, she seemed to specifically seek me out.

"I just saw you during the show, and you looked like you were really enjoying yourself. I thought you might like to meet them."

I couldn't believe it. I told her my little tale of how I've tried to see them in concert over the past 20 years, and she was really happy she'd found me. We asked her the name of the sound tech, she told me Nate, we gave each other an excited "fan to fan" hug, and Doc and I headed off back into the theater.

We flashed our "Love Zone" passes to a security guard, and he led us back stage to the green room. There were about 20 people milling about. Someone told us that Russell and Graham were still in their dressing rooms, but my first step was to find Nate The Sound Guy and thank him. I asked someone if they knew him, and they took us to introduce us.

Nate was breaking down the set. We explained why we wanted to meet him, and thanked him for the passes we'd gotten because of him. He was really nice, and then introduced us to Mike (the drummer). We chatted with Mike for a bit, and then he introduced us to Jonni Lightfoot (the bassist). Here's a picture of me with Mike (L) and Jonni (R)
They were both totally down to earth and personable. Jonni teaches PADI SCUBA lessons through the UofUtah. He loves diving.

Finally, Russell and Graham came out of their dressing rooms, but they were there for just a few minutes before they were ushered out to go to the lobby where all one thousand 998 of their fans were clamoring for the chance to snap their picture of get the much-sought-after signature on the CD or tee shirt.

As far as I could tell, we were the only ones in the room who weren't personally connected to the band. They were spouses and friends, and all having a good time. We met a few people and got to know about their work. I don't remember exactly what possessed me, but at one point Mike wanted an apple from the fruit basket, and I asked if he wanted it in half. He seemed confused, so I told him I could rip it in half for him, and then did it. He was totally impressed, and kept handing me apples to tear apart with my bear hands, then passing them around to people to eat. They'd never seen anyone do that before...and were like "does anyone have a watermellon they could hand this girl?" I am a bit of a freak I think.

Jodi Russell, Graham's wife is a lovely, talented woman, and we had a nice chat about her work. She's starring in a movie that's in post production right now, and has a line of jewelery she makes and sells.

Then the guys were back. They'd only spent maybe 15 minutes with the masses out front. Even if we'd waited in that line, we'd never have gotten close to them in that short amount of time. Within a few minutes, we'd been introduced and they'd taken pictures with me. Here is Jed Moss. He's unbelievable on the piano. I have rarely seen someone who could play as effortlessly as he does, and he just LOVES to play. You can see it in his eyes and the joy in his face. He's classically trained, and his fingers FLY!
Jed introduced us to Graham and Russell. They were genuinely kind...asking questions to get to know us a bit. I told them about my 20 year saga trying to see them perform, and showed them the little CD and package that The Jonnie had put together for my birthday. They thought it was hilarious. Russell gave me a kiss on the cheek in one picture, and then he suggested we take a picture looking straight at the cameraGraham is so tall! At 6'5" I felt positively dwarfish next to him! But Jodi is tall too, and they make a lovely couple (note, that is ME, not Jodi, with Graham!)
Even though everyone was so gracious and kind, I didn't want to do a Blackburn and be the last one to leave the party. So after about 2 hours of hangin' out with the band, we thanked them for a great time and left....autographs, photos and amazing memories in hand. As we walked out, Doc's comment was "That was surreal!".

Sometimes I have the most interesting and random things happen in my charmed life.

Sweet Dreams! (great song, btw!)