Brittney and I have talked a lot about using our flight benefits better before we have any rugrats running around. So we threw around the idea of flying to an away show from our fav rock band, Royal Bliss. They just happen to be playing a big show called Rockfest in Portland during the weekend of Sept 11th, I know scary to fly right. Nah, I wasn't trippin. We didn't have a U of Utah game that weekend, so it was a perfect opportunity. I threw around the idea to Neal, Chris, and Taylor, from Royal Bliss. Neal said he would work on tickets and both Taylor and Chris mentioned about coming up to Seattle to watch them there the next day. He said he'd talk to the boys about just having us jump in the motorhome with them and roadtrippin up there. So of course we said "hell yeah", groupie-life here we come.
We flew up to Portland friday morning and picked up Natalie, who works with Brittney at Skywest. She was doing some instuctor work up there and it worked out perfect. We grabbed a rental car, and off we went. Let me just say that Portland is absolutely beautiful when the sun is out. There were trees everywhere, and the city is located near all of this water, like rivers and streams everywhere, intersecting throughout the area. It would be awesome to live there if it didn't get so dang rainy all of the time.
We had to drive past downtown Portland and drive another 30-40 min to the middle of nowhere to reach a big cornfield or farmers land where the concert was gonna take place. It was just a big open area with some small mountains or more like hills covered in trees as a back drop. It was pretty effin hot during the day, and I wore pants. Needless to say I got a little swass from walkin around. Royal Bliss was the 2nd band to play there. And like always they tore it up. It was fairly early in the day, there were like 10 bands playing, so not everyone was there to see them, but they always sounds so great live, and they no how to get any crowd up for their music no matter how big or small. Us 3 of course were singing as loud as we could, cause the music rocks. On "Here they come", a small mosh pit started and I watched this kid, no more than 15-16 jump in and get his butt handed to him. He got elbowed right in the head and it dropped him. He later wanted to get some revenge or was just plain retarded so he jumped back in, and this time was elbowed in the face, and lost a tooth. Needless to say, this type of people were in the crowd that day. I did not fit in at all.
So I texted Chris and he was backstage after they played. We met up with them and chatted for a while. Their was a little autograph booth they had to sit so people could meet them. They are famous you know. So anyway, they got us some backstage passes so we could chill in the back with them. We did that for a while. Got to eat some band food, got to listen to band tour stories which I cannot repeat. It was a blast. We mostly listened to the music from the backstage, which was alright, cause we didn't have to deal with the crazy people at the concert.
Towards the end of the night, after REHAB, and Atreyu, played it was time for Kid Rock to finish the night. Chris have developed a little crush on Natalie, even though she is now married. We tried once upon a time to get them to meet for a possible date but it never happened. She got married a few months ago. Even still he enjoyed her company which was cool. He hung out with us 3 for most of the night. One interesting thing I got to see was just before leaving backstage, I went over for a chat with Neal. He was watching the bus that Kid Rock was in and waiting to see how he made his entrance. He told me he wanted to see how he does it, how he gets up for his show. And out came Kid Rock in a typical all white jumpsuit looking get up and behind him was Rev Run from Run DMC. It was pretty cool to be 25 feet from them walking on to the stage. So we all went out to the front and watched the beginning of the show, which was pretty damn cool. Apparently Kid Rock does not do any type of lip syncing or dubbing in any of his shows and he made sure to tell us that. The RB boys had said they have played with some bigger bands who have done that.
Kids show was good. He is a funny dude. He can't dance for squat. He jumps around and throws his mic from one hand to the next. I can do a pretty good imitation if you ever wanna see it. I had a couple good laughs about that later. Just before the show ended we skipped out cause we had to meet Brittney's boss, whose parents live just outside of Portland and we were staying at their house for the night.
We woke up and went and got some breakfast. We had to drop off the car and I thought we were gonna be late to meeting up with RB to head off to Seattle. Luckily for us they were at a hotel no more than a couple hundred feet from where we had to drop off our car. We got there and only one of the guys was awake, and that was Chris. He told us what went down after the show, and where they went, and with who, and once again, I'm not gonna repeat the story. Lets just say I don't know how they do this each and every night on the road. But good for them, for living it up and being crazy rock stars while they can. It needs to be said that Neal is the only married one, and he while he can get after it and put down the booze, that's as crazy as he gets. You can tell how much love and respect he has for his wife, which is awesome and admirable. He is the lead singer and gets a lot of attention, but is cordial and nice to everyone, but leaves it at that.
Lucky for us the guys had rooms that previous night cause they all came walking out to the motorhome with smiles on their faces. And that was only cause they got to shower that morning. Like I said, lucky for us. So they were all pretty pooped, but were hungry as well. We weren't cause we'd eatin breakfast, but they were. Apparently there is a local SLC guy who loves their music and gives them gift cards to Chili's and so they wanted to save some cash and eat there. What a mess that turned into. The only type of Navigation system they have is an Atlas and a GPS cell phone. We couldn't find the first Chili's, the second Chili's was closed, and the third and final one was in a mall, and we couldn't see the mall, so we kept driving up and down this road trying to see it. Keep in mind none of these Chili's were by each other, and we were driving around in a motorhome with a trailer behind it. They were scattered throughout the Portland area. This had to have taken 3 hours to find. So everyone ate like horses, Neal didn't. He was still hungover from 2 nights ago, when they blew out a tire and stayed and partied in some po-dunk little town in Portland and played beer pong all night. He was not doing so good, so he went back and crashed. When we all got back there, we crashed as well. I took a small nap, and then went and sat up with Taylor who was driving. Someone had to be his wingman and I was willing. I hadn't been had the crazy nights the rest of the guys had. So off we went.
We got stuck in traffic, we were already gonna be cutting it close. We got to Seattle, but got lost there as well in those steep and crazy hilled streets. I don't know how they do it. We got the gig, The High Dive is what it was called. Apparently Pearl Jam, Nirvana, & Alice in Chains had all played there before. It was small, but cool. The music was very loud. I wanted to go outside to cool down before Bliss came on, and the door guy started giving me shit about coming in through the back door and told me that Brittney and I had to pay. I told him I was with the band and he looked at me like, "yeah right". I grabbed Taylor and he walked over and told the guy we were roadies. The guy looked at Brittney and said, "yeah, u-huh, what could she carry?". Taylor laughed and said, "she brought in my guitar". And we walked outside. Like I said before, my jock, preppy butt didn't quite fit in with the normal crowd and neither did Britt. But we are friends with the Royal Bliss guys and love their music, so it didn't matter to them and doesn't matter to us.
Like always, they tore it up. I swear this sounds stupid, but it never gets old watching them play. Every time is enjoyable and it was cool to see a crowd not in SLC enjoying their music. Everyone in there was paying attention and singing along with the choruses. Their choruses are easy to figure out and follow, which makes it fun. Some other friends of RB, Dano and Melissa had flown up to Seattle to watch the guys play. We were initially planning on just staying up all night and taking the 6 am flight home, but Dano mentioned us just crashing on a hide-a-bed in their room. That was awesome for him to offer that to us. We could stay a little longer in Seattle and maybe see a little bit of the city the next day.
We woke up the next day and Chris calls me and say, "hey bro, I got tickets to
the 49ers/Seahawks game, you in?". Well I had to clear it with the boss, and was scared to ask. We were right by Lake Union and their was lots to see in Seattle, so I had Chris talk to Britt and she said yes. So Chris came over to our hotel and him and I scooted off to the game. We had some good tickets near the end zone where all of the action was. He is a huge niners fan and was wearing a Frank Gore jersey. All sorts for of people were giving him crap for it. I thought we were gonna have to beat this kid down in one of the bathrooms cause he kept grabbing us, and heckling us. So I've seen 5 pro football games in various stadiums, played college football in various stadiums. This was by far, times 2, the loudest place I've ever witnessed a game being played. It said 12th man all over the stadium and that was the truth. It was retardedly loud. The game went into overtime, and the 49ers kicked a game winning field goal to win it. Nobody gave Chris any shit after that. It was kind of funny.
So we walked downtown up to where Brittney was. She was a little upset it took so long cause Dano and Melissa flew out earlier and she was by herself in that big city for longer than she wanted. She let me know too. I felt horrible. I felt bad for going in the first place, and like a good wife she said I could go cause she doesn't want to be the wife who never lets her husband do things. So I did my best and used my irresistible charm to cheer her up. The girl who got Chris the tickets to the game met us at the Hotel where we had stayed and took us to her favorite restaurant. It was a sushi house and it was the best sushi I've ever eaten. It was the bomb. Well all of the flights for the rest of that day and night were full. We were gonna have to take the early flight the next morning. We didn't have a hotel or a place to stay. The rest of the RB boys had made their trip back home in the motorhome, Chris was gonna hang in Seattle with this girl for a few days.
So this is cool and was kind of fun. This girl was a realtor who sat in a completely remodeled old High School that had been converted into townhomes and condo's and were now for sale. She was a model agent. They had like 4 models still open. She showed us a few of the condo's and told us we could stay in one of them for the night as long as we left bright and early in the morning and made everything look like nobody had been there. These were fully furnished. We felt like bandits or house burglers. It was awesome. We woke up the next morning, jumped in a cab and headed to the airport. All of the flights filled up. We were stuck in the airport. I got creative and told Brittney we could fly to Missoula, Montana and then fly home. That worked. We got home, and what an experience and vacation. I will do a slideshow and post the pics up soon.
