Well, I have to say that I hit a new high on Saturday night at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in Orange County at the Rush show. As I probably have told others before, Irvine is one of my most favorite places to see a concert for so many reasons. It's hard to list them all. It is very large, outdoors, nestled in the hillside of Irvine, a place I've often thought I might actually consider living and working in. This city on the edge of Costa Mesa and a suburb so to speak of Los Angeles...is close enough to San Diego and far enough from L.A. to be attractive to me. Anyway, as far as Rush goes, the venue is usually the last stop for the band in the west for some reason. This is special to me. Sometimes it's been the end of their tour. Memorable moments there have included an incredible Presto Tour, Roll the Bones Tour and now Vapor Trails. A non-related Rush story includes meeting Robert Plant during the Unleaded Tour back in 1994 or something like that with a special person along with me. Seeing a show that might have been Led Zeppelin 14 years prior - a show that I missed because of the death of John Bonham (drummer) in 1980 kind of helped with not seeing Led Zeppelin as a whole act. There has also been a curse on me at the venue. I've never had good seats, not ever. I've seen Grateful Dead shows from the lawn and other shows from the high terrace seats. No matter what I have done in years past, never have I had a decent ticket. How horrible it has been to have such a love for a place and not to have a good seat. That kind of changed on Saturday.

Emotions were running high. I saw Rush on Monday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, then on Wednesday night here in San Diego, and now I was in Irvine at 3 p.m. with no ticket for what was going to probably be my last Rush show of this tour that began back in June, and everything that led up to it, going all the way back to March. So much work on the websites, the CD releases, all the news, flying to Hartford and Scranton to see the opening shows. This was all running through my mind as I arrived at the box office and started a vigil for a ticket. Our usual group was there, plus, it was so interesting to meet a woman named Andrea by chance after I handed her my website business card. It was such a coincidence. See, she ran one of the most elaborate Vapor Trails websites from the start of all the news back in March. Even Charles and I with all of our sources, connections and suppliers...we couldn't understand how she was getting so much inside information and scooping us on my website day after day. She just got into the band a couple years ago, and had never seen them live. I said "Andrea?" And if you can believe it, she moved from the East Coast to California two months ago. Not only that, I had noticed that the car that I parked my truck next to had Jersey licence plates. I thought that might be the vehicle of some hardcore fan immediately. What would Jersey plates be doing at Irvine Meadows? She was a new graduate of Rutgers University (Charles and I knew this because of her URL and her email address was rutgers.edu), and there was a Rutgers sticker on the rear windshield of the car. I saw all this before I handed her my card. That was really interesting. So her, her friend and I started a conversation that lasted most of the afternoon, milling about for tickets, talking about maintaining our websites and how much work it all has been.

I noticed that I guy was picking up tickets from Will Call. I always listen closely to what people say at the windows when I'm looking for tickets, and we needed at least 7 for our group. I heard this guy say the promotor left him some tickets, yada yada, I perked up, and then heard him say he didn't need all four, he just needed two. So I ran over to him and said, "No! No, you need all four. Don't leave those tickets at the box office. Take them!!!!!" I just knew they had to be good tickets.

Sure enough, he got the tickets and they were third row orchestra seats. Unbelievable. But he only had two extras, and Andrea, friend and I needed three. Plus, the guy wanted $100 each for them (which was face value), and I'm sure he didn't pay for them. I wanted to buy them, but I didn't have $200, and Andrea and friend had walked away and were no where to be seen. I passed on the tickets, and two other guys bought them immediately and went ballistic. It was kind of a bummer, but based on past experiences, I knew we'd get our tickets. I was going to buy them for Charles and me and our group....but we needed a minimum of four seats for us, and seven total. So two was not a good number.

I felt totally foolish not buying them...hell, I could have sold them. But after almost getting arrested for trying to sell extra tickets at the San Diego show, I wanted no part of re-selling, especially since this was the last show. I wanted everything to be perfect. No added stress.

But Andrea was stressing after I told her the story. They were bummed they were gone for 10 minutes and had missed the tickets and really felt bad. That would have left me with Charles and our other group looking for four if they had been there. No big deal. I would have got a ticket.

(we got tickets at face value later from another source, but I'm not telling how).

Orchestra Section 101, Row A, seats 1, 2, 3. My mouth just about dropped open and my knees really started to give way. I almost fainted right there. I had to read it a second time. I took off my sunglasses and read the top of the ticket again. We just got first row seats on the inside aisle on the right of the stage on the bassist side (Geddy's side, my favorite for the last three tours). I just looked at Andrea and her friend and just said, literally, with tears in my eyes..."You're not going to believe this shit at all." And the look on their faces conveyed that we got shitty tickets because of what I just said.

I handed them the tickets and said, "Look at the seats. These are first row seats. THESE ARE FIRST ROW SEATS! I think I was still trying to even convince myself. Row A, Section 101, Seats 1, 2, 3. My eyes kept scanning over those three parts of the ticket at the top. It was just unbelievable. It was like the heavens had opened up, the ticket gods had looked down upon my sorry soul for all the past crappy tickets I had at this venue and said, "Awww, okay, here, take these." I just stared in the palm of my hand at that ticket...that Golden Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory Ticket Wrapped in a Wonka Bar. And now I had my ticket to go see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and the feeling was as sweet as chocolate.

Now I was at Irvine Meadows with a first row seat in my hand. My favorite venue, my favorite band, the last show in the western United States and presumably my last show of this tour. It's about 5:30 p.m., getting a little rainy and sprinkly with mist and fog coming over Laguna Hills. Charles and that group scored sixth row center seats. Everyone was in, everyone was happy, and everyone who got those tickets were incredible Rush fans, not just ordinary concert goers. Now it was just two hours away from the start of the show, and I walked to my truck and just sat in it in disbelief for a few minutes.

Charles said something to me at the San Diego show, I think. He said something like we or anybody else haven't sat in such incredible seats for the number of shows we've seen - Rush or other - consecutively like we have. I'm talking EVERY show. We flew across the country and sat in the eighth row left side in Hartford, the sixth row dead center in Scranton, the seventh row dead center at Los Angeles, I had a fourth row inner aisle Geddy seat for the San Diego show, and now, the last show for me, I had a first row inner aisle Geddy seat for Irvine. Five shows in a row. Five incredible tickets.

And if you look further back at the last tour....it gets really interesting. In seven of the nine Test for Echo Tour shows I went to in 1996 and 1997, I had third row seats. One show at Toronto I was a full section back and at Blockbuster Pavillion out in Riverside in California I was in the 23rd row. So, 12 of 14 shows...have you ever heard of such a thing? I personally haven't ever heard or seen such luck, such work, such mastery of getting these types of tickets.

The true feeling of....complete redemption and exhilaration swept over me as the lights went down and Tom Sawyer opened the night. My last Rush show of the tour. My favorite venue. And a first row seat at Irvine. The view was so incredible, our seats were exactly even with the floor of the stage, and the full effects of the lights, sound and show were utterly amazing. It was about mid-way through the first set, maybe during the song, "The Pass" that I just thought to myself that I was floating...that I had no idea that anything else existed at that moment, and that nothing else mattered, or ever would, and it was not even like anything really existed outside of the show unfolding in front of me. It was really out of body - and continued like that song after song.

After the show was over and we all gathered in the parking lot for the post-show reviews and glowing, the group turned to me and a couple of people commented on how they saw me, some 37 year old guy, "just rocking out for the whole show" like they haven't seen me do before. I mean, it was just natural. I was totally rocking out, screaming, yelling, singing the songs, beakoning the performers closer (if that could be possible), air drumming, air guitaring...it was one of the most perfect Rush shows I have ever attended.