| USA Winter Tour 2007
The Las Vegas Hilton Las Vegas, NV Friday, Feb 9 On the Road with MaggieMay... It seems to me that the worst job to have in a touring band would be the Sound Guy. Everybody KNOWS what the cds sound like and everybody has a strong and often vocal opinion. I suppose if you were the Sound Guy for a resident artist at a venue you’d be able to tweak things around until 90 percent of the audience was happy. The Moody Blues are a touring band and the 3 days at the LV Hilton were an exception on the tour. Surely, most of the day is spent just loading in and making sure there’s a good QUANTITY of sound. The more I know about the job, the more patient and understanding I’ve become. (Really!) The Sound Guy’s job is nearly impossible and his life FILLED with complainers and know-it-alls. But darn it, I expect to hear SOMETHING! I was at the stage Thursday night, one step faster than the thundering herd stampeding up to the stage from seats in the back row, mowing down slight women and children in their rush. Question started and I heard Justin’s guitar. And that’s great! But I was fairly sure Question included a pretty fancy bass part. Um, no bass. See-Saw began, and again, no bass. And no vocals from the bass player! Doesn’t he sing lead on that song? I was no more than 3 ft from John Lodge and couldn’t hear a thing. I could SEE his lips moving, but there was no sound. How Bizarre! I left bitchin’ and moanin’ to everyone I saw; fortunately the Sound Guy was sequestered where I couldn’t rag on him. Poor Hubby got most of it, though he was completely in agreement with me. As luck would have it, DH ran into the Sound Guy and tactfully approached him about it. Would the Sound Guy give us some sound at the front of the stage? Could he? Gabe said he seemed puzzled. I growled “What part of we can’t hear ANYTHING at ALL does he not understand?” Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. Darling Hubby steered me to my video poker game at the bar, hoping to distract me with a myriad of vices. I had learned *my* lesson Tuesday night: No more Margaritas! A ton of great people turned up and a large party ensued. I love being surrounded by brilliant, witty and handsome men and that perfectly describes The Moodies crew. I also spent some time working on Randey, trying to find out the tracklist for MBG 2. My fishing expedition caught at least one big one. Woke up miserably at 4am. Why? Because that is 7am in Indiana! Shoot me now. I turned around 3 times and lay back down. That’s what my dog does, and it works for him. I had done some preplanning prior to this trip. I had front row tickets for O at the Bellagio on Wednesday night. One friend asked if I was seeing The Story of O – boy, wouldn’t THAT be an “interesting” show! That may not be legal even in Nevada. I don’t think I could watch that one. O was Brilliant, Incredible, Beautiful. And I’ll tell you, if you are in to perfectly ripped, athletic men, THIS is the show for you! They’re 5 ft tall, btw – I considered tucking one under each arm for a “snack” later. The show truly was exquisite. You find yourself holding your breath a lot, and wondering where those performers go when they disappear underwater. They DON’T come back up! Someone had to go to a conference Friday afternoon. That someone was *not* me. I asked him 3 times what the afternoon topic was and never understood what he said. Darling Hubby speaks a different language sometimes. Sometimes it’s Hungarian. Most of the time it’s Medical Jargon. I finally understood that the meeting was about gastro-intestinal biopsies. BLEAH! My job was to encourage the Hilton casino to invite The Moodies back for an encore performance later in the year. How do you encourage a casino? By gambling! Duh!  Photography was allowed at the Hilton. It was kept pretty low-key
and fairly flashless. Remember: NO FLASH! If you blind
the performers they could get hurt. Or they could fall off the stage
onto a fan that could get hurt. A little consideration goes a long
way.
In all things! THE FASHION REPORT – FRIDAY JL – Long-slvd white shirt with fancy placket, black jeans with leather pockets, black jacket. Probably the same as the prior night, very nice. Hopefully, different socks. JH – Long-slvd oxford style shirt with small checks, blue jeans. NICE! Justin’s blue jeans are REALLY pegged in and show off those long, skinny legs. Longest legs in the business! Interesting tan shoes or boots GE – Short-slvd color block shirt light blue/dark blue, black slacks Norda – Black bustier, black long skirt Julie – Spaghetti strap black top, cool wide belt, long black skirt, boots Obviously Paul and Gordon have been going nekked. What can I say? “GREAT” springs to mind! THE CONCERT – FRIDAY Same song, second verse. A ton of excited fans filled the front of the Hilton Theatre. I have no idea who all those people in back were. I had a different vantage point for Friday night, moving from JL’s side to in front of Norda. I don’t buy my own tickets anymore. The Moodies have hired a marketing organization to broker their tickets for them. 
I send them money and GSG Entertainment picks out a seat for me.
It was their deal, or row M on the public sale. I don’t like row
M! It’s not a perfect situation. I will say that GSG has made
some positive changes in the way they did things in 2006. Hey, I
not only get a ticket, but also a blanket! I did not see the fan
club/GSG representative Jenn at the Las Vegas concerts, but perhaps she
ducked behind a pole when she saw me coming.
The 2007 setlist was performed in its entirety without an intermission. It was another very good concert: great vocals, a nice balance, lovely flute, really, everything was good, particularly One More Time to Live. Until we got to Higher and Higher! What happened??? I was looking at Graeme and all of a sudden, things fell apart. Graeme was looking at Justin and Justin was, was, was, what the hell was he doing? He wasn’t playing! Now the beauty part of it was that Gordon and Paul held things together and earned their salary for the evening, perhaps for the entire tour. Everyone on stage kept smiling and vamping until Justin once again found his purpose in life. A senior moment from the sexy sexagenarian? We’d wait forever for you to recover, Justin, and it seemed like we did. Ooooh, cool, cool lighting both onstage and on the screen for Graeme’s H&H drum highlight. Electrifying! The Band ended the song with a sense of relief and Justin turned to Graeme and said: “I think it was YOUR fault, but I was sitting on your lap!” That one took me a while to suss out and then the disturbing visual was with me the rest of the evening. It was wild and GREAT fun. Singer saw a number of people running down the aisle to the stage. While security’s away (or nonexistent in the Hilton case) the mice will play. I haven’t seen such chutzpah since Atlantic City. Hey, if you so want to be at the stage, buy a front row ticket!  At
the end of Singer, a group of women lingering around the stage were “encouraged”
to go back to their seats, and finally and reluctantly did. Please note:
we can NOT see over you! A few naughty interlopers on John’s
side just plopped down on the floor for Nights. I was amazed.
When Nights ended, the rush was frightening. I barely got to
the stage from my seat on the front row, but saw another gal pushed out
of the way by really aggressive behavior. I grabbed her by the shoulder
and squeezed her in between me and Darling Hubby. What rudeness,
what a total lack of consideration or respect, not just toward other fans,
but toward the ARTIST. Thank God no children were there to be trampled.
It was people who should have KNOWN better. Tsk, tsk! Having survived the fan rush, more or less, we were treated to quite decent renditions of Question and See-Saw. And there was SOUND! The Sound Guy heard our prayers and fixed the problem. It sounded pretty darn good at the stage. Thanks, Sound Guy! (Thanks to Tim) MaggieMay Now we’ve learned to play with fire, Go higher and higher and higher! Photos courtesy of MaggieMay |
ADDITIONAL CONCERT PHOTOS
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