The Ledge - Atlantic City/Philly-compare and contrast;-)

Not really. I will ramble at will with no great sense of style, as I always did when I posted 97 times a day on the classic ledge;-)

OK--because this is background information you must know--it was FREEZING in Atlantic City on Saturday. Cold. Colder than cold. Horrid, cold, gray weather. But I had the best time.
I met Farrah in Atlantic City (another old ledgie although she's a young 'un) and we had FAN CLUB seats (a/k/a Waste of Money). A couple of days before the concert, on a fluke, I went to ticketmaster and managed to get fourth row seats on Lindsey's side. The closest I've been in a Stevie concert (this was my first official FM concert--although I had been to the Today show taping) had been 11th row, so I was beside myself in ecstatictude.
OK--back to the boardwalk. Farrah and I arrived on our respective old lady buses and met up around noon. Later, we met the one and only Tracy G. And here I will go off into tangent #1 with a greater life lesson thrown in for good measure. Tracy and I met on this board and she has been one of my best internet friends. We've known each other for about 5 years now and I think I was probably more nervous about meeting her than almost anyone because we have been such good friends and there is always this little niggling feeling of "what if we hate each other in real life." But she's a wonderful, funny, bright, sweet person and a pleasure to be around and this, along with meeting someone else for the first time brings me around to life lesson number 1. The internet has this funky and probably well-deserved reputation but this place--this Penguin site and this system of message boards introduced me to some of the nicest, sweetest, most generous, giving souls I have ever known. And I think a lot of it is what is put out by Marty, originally. It was a site designed by someone who is a mega-fan and it was designed with love, and people who flocked here came here out of love for the group. It is not run by some meglomaniac who is out to get a buck and bans everyone who doesn't drop down and kiss his ass 297 times a day and post things like "Mick rocks" and "thank you, thank you, thank you for giving us peons the opportunity to buy tickets in the 212th row! Dude!"
Anyway, life lesson #1--Official sites mean nothing. Squat. Nada.
Life lesson #2--the good guys win anyway because they are always thought of with a smile and lots of love and good karma and all that.
Life lesson #3--you find your friends in many wonderful, unexpected ways.
Life lesson #4--Fleetwood Mac still rocks!
(Ha! I gave you a four for one sale there)
OK--on to the concert. Enough of the mush for now.
We get in the venue and we meet Vi (also formerly of the Ledge) and her mom who happen to have bought tickets and landed right next to us in the fourth row). At this point, the rather calm me has turned into Ms. Nerves and I'm thinking...hmmm...maybe I should go to the bathroom just one more time for insurance...when a note on a guitar was played. I sat my butt in the chair and never thought of the bathroom again until the concert was over. And, now that I'm thinking about it--not for several hours after that concert was over. (Should I throw in another life lesson about mind over matter? Nah.)
We waited about 20 minutes after that one guitar thing (I think someone was just testing something somewhere) and then the lights went out.
Well, folks. I can't even begin to tell you what I felt. I know all the set lists and stuff have been posted and gone into but I will give my highlights:
--simply seeing them walk on stage was an absolute dream come true for me. I remember becoming a fan during the Dance--but I came in during reruns on VH1 and missed the entire Dance tour. I thought I had missed the boat. Seeing them all walk out on the stage was such an incredible thrill (and it really, really helps that Stevie's hair is almost the way she had it during the Dance video. It just gets me right back to 1997).
--hearing them sound so wonderful. Oh ye of little faith. All the people who had them washed up and out because of two little tv show appearances better be eating a large helping of crow because they are SOOOO good. Better than the Dance, even, IMHO.
--During The Song Known As "Come"--Mr. Buckingham was doing his little pointing thing and Farrah and I were dying of laughter because he was pointing right at Tracy from our angle and we thought it was hysterical that she came all the way up to this concert and had Mr. B himself serenade her with smut.
--Landslide. I thought (dopey me) that I had enough of the song. But there is NOTHING like Stevie and Lindsey doing this song together. And the kiss that seemed to have rocked everyone's world over here was very, very sweet. It was a nice peck on the lips that, to me, didn't represent passion but represented two people with an incredible history together. A shared dream that had come true in a completely different way than they expected. And here they were decades later--probably better friends than they ever were and understanding each other and accepting each other more than they ever have--sharing a moment. It was lovely and poignant--not the beginning of a smutfest or grounds for Mrs. Buckingham to hit Lindsey over the head with a frying pan.
--So Afraid--Geez. This is a song I thought should be removed from the set list. But I have to say that hearing Lindsey do that guitar solo was incredible. I remember when I first heard him do that during the Dance video--I declared that the guitar was the sexiest musical instrument ever and he confirmed that again during the two shows I saw.
--Stevie almost missed her cue during World Turning and had the cutest little smile on her face as she came in maybe 1/2 of a second late (if that).
--Stand Back! Indeed! Another song I originally thought should be dropped. (Never listen to me give advice to FM music-wise). She was pumped and it was, without a doubt--the best version of Stand Back I've ever heard. It's also during this song that I noticed that she changed out of her boots to her ugly reeboks but whatever floats her boat and keeps her toesies comfy is fine with me.
--Say Goodbye. God, I love this song. But, alas, someone must know how much I love it and people keep interrupting the moment. The woman directly in front of me lost her shoe and asked me to look for it during SG--and then I was asked to sit down by someone behind me. I don't care about that--I should have sat because almost everyone was seated at that point and I just got carried away with the moment but it was another few seconds with my eyes having to unglue themselves from Stevie and Lindsey. Oh, and another jackass took that opportunity--during a quiet song to say, in an oh-so-clever way "Hey--I thought this was a KISS concert." Ha Ha.
In Philly--I also was interrupted by some oaf who needed beer badly and nearly knocked me over to get out of the row. Too bad he didn't run down to the corner bar and stay there.
Oh--the song is my favorite of the album so I was very moved to see it live.
And Beautiful Child and Goodbye Baby--WOW.
So lovely and touching and quiet. Almost as if you're in a room all alone being serenaded by this wonderful woman.
The new songs were wonderful. It's a fabulous thing to do--to play new songs live when you know there are some people who are into nostalgia-only. And they blended them very well with the older stuff and injected new life into the songs we've heard so many times before.
I was stunned and thrilled and so very, very happy by the time we left the venue. We met up with old friends, blackcat, Mo, Travis, Torri, Jes and a few new and wonderful friends and had a few drinks after the show. It was a very nice night and we nearly made a popsicle out of Tracy while walking back to the hotel but she made it.

I'm skipping Sunday's activities but will get to Philly. Tracy and I were going to meet up with blackcat, Mo, Travis and someone we met for the very first time after the Atlantic City concert. We had gone on a tour of the city during the day and were pretty excited. Seats were not great--Tracy had upgraded from fan club seats to 11th row and I still had my fan club seats. blackcat and I are in the car riding toward Tracy's hotel when we get a call. The friend we had met a couple of days before had arrived at the venue early and went to the box office where they had 2nd row seats available.
That's second row.
Down on the floor.
Second row.
The one behind the first row.
The second one from the stage.

Would we like to upgrade?
I think I hesitated for about 1.2 seconds before saying yes on behalf of both of us. I met Tracy at the hotel and said "you might be very, very mad at me." But she was not. AT ALL.
Again--a very special thank you to you-know-who-you-are. You made my night.

So, we sat in the second row.
One thing I have to say first--to get it out of the way. Banning smoking? Okay. I can see that. I'm now all for banning drinking, too. Or taking blood alcohol levels before you can buy something. Or--better yet--stupidity levels.
This little incident took me out of my concert zone-which I was firmly in--for about 4 songs. This blond next to me was zonked out of her skull. Every time she wanted another beer, she would climb over the seat of the person in the first row. The woman was very sweet and let her--even when she was using this woman's shoulder for support. Fine. All is well with the world. Well, during Say Goodbye--drunk girl decides that everyone should sit. The lady in the first row was standing. She tugged on her blouse and told her to sit. The woman didn't. Her perogative and blondie was pretty much leaping up and down during the show so she was hardly one to talk about who should or shouldn't stand. Well, there was no impoliteness from the lady in the first row but this drunken woman reached her hand out--with a half-glass of beer and was about to pour it on this woman until her boyfriend stopped her. Life lesson #5--even FM fans can be total ****-heads (can I say that here? I forget)
Security was much better (and fairer) in Atlantic City. Here it was sporadic and random. Some people could do anything they wanted while others were yanked back as if they were on that that little deck of cards of the most wanted folks.
Um--now, on to highlights.
--Lindsey was once again a maniac--a good maniac. Fabulous, fabulous job on everything. And the guy just cracks me up. He's so intense but once in a while he just smiles like he knows he's overdoing it a bit and he's got such a warm, wonderful smile.
--Lindsey and Stevie--when they sing together--well, you see the glances and intense looks but you also see this pulling for eachother attitude and this pride. Like they are out there to get the best out of eachother and are so happy when they know they've achieved that. It's incredible to watch up close and personal.
--And Ms. Stevie--she was very smiley during last night's performance. And the woman is just lovely. She is the poster child for growing older. I mean, how many people could sing "I'm getting older too" and have a massive roar greet her in response?
I love watching her. I saw her for the very first time during the Central Park thing with Sheryl Crow and remember thinking that this was the woman who wrote a good chunk of what is now the soundtrack of my life and I thought the same thing last night.
It's an incredible feeling.

And then it was all over. And blackcat and Mo took us back to the hotel after a wonderful, unexpected stop at Pat's Steakhouse where we had an original Philly cheesesteak sandwich (which you have to order in a special way--thank you for the coaching, Mo) and we listened to Philly's classic rock station WMGK, I believe--which played all FM after the concert which I thought was fabulous--they even were playing selections from SYW).

And it was a bunch of goodbyes.
To my older buddies blackcat and Mo.
To my old/new buddy Tracy.
And to Philadelphia which is a lovely, lovely city that I really enjoy.

And to my wild and wacky weekend of Fleetwood Mac and Friends.
It was great.
Both concerts were wonderful in very different ways with very different tones. And I think this is what I wanted to say when I wrote my title about 6 hours ago when I started this post. I remember seeing bootleg videos of the Dance and with the exception of maybe 2 concerts, I loved them all. They were all the same set list but each had something different and something wonderful and that's what I felt this weekend.
I couldn't even tell you which concert I liked better. Both were incredible and to have the power to do that is a true gift.
For Fleetwood Mac--I would lose money on sucky fan club tickets and walk a million miles in a couple of days--because they--as performers, personalities, and people--are worth it.

For anyone else, I'd be on the phone with Judge Judy;-)