A to Z Challenge - 2020 - Zoo

We come to our final letter of the alphabet today!  "Z" is for "Zoo" sung by the Scorpions.  We saw the Scorps for the first time in 1982 at Day on the Green.  When we started going to concerts more regularly I had a goal to see all of those bands again.  With the exception of Iron Maiden we have!  I don't really care about Iron Maiden anyway -- a little too heavy metal for me.

The next time we saw the Scorpions was in 2012.  I've had this set of papers from Creative Memories for a long time.  I think it's really pretty.  

I have a stack of pictures an inch thick again so I didn't have time to scrapbook them all for today's post. 

This was kind of a spur of the moment concert.  I think we got our tickets four days before the show and I was excited to get them so close.  We were in the third-ish row!  A little off to the right of stage but still great.  They called the tour the Final Sting tour which might make you think they were not going to tour again.  Fortunately that wasn't true.  The opening act was Tesla, a band I was not familiar with but I did like some of their songs.  This page is not finished but I think you get the idea.  The card on top was something they were handing out at the door.  I keep ALL memorabilia - LOL.

They did in fact sing "The Zoo."  They are a very energetic band and it seemed like they were so close we could touch them. 

Here's the setlist from that show.  

These are a few of the other pictures I have to add.  

I think he's looking at me, right?

Their drummer at the time was James Kottak and during his drum solo, the stage lifted so he was high in the air.  

At the end, he took his shirt off and stood on his seat. 

Then turned around to show his back tattoo - and possibly his butt-crack?!     

A lot of the time the guys were right in front of us.  

I think they are asking for their picture to be taken don't you?

Rudolf Schenker is a character for sure.

Klaus Meine, Matthias Jabs, Rudolf Schenker and Pawel Maciwoda.

And here is "The Zoo" from the last time we saw Scorpions in 2017.

I made it!  Do I wish I had been able to completely scrapbook each event?  Absolutely.  But I am also truly grateful that I had some transcription work come in.  Could I have spent less time embellishing each set that I did scrapbook?  Sure but then I wouldn't be satisfied with the results.  Am I thankful that I had some letters already finished a while ago or a few with less pictures?  You bet!  I enjoyed reliving these concert experiences as I was cutting and pasting.  With the current state of affairs, who knows when we'll be able to get up close and personal experiences like this again. 

I hope you have enjoyed this series.  I am very appreciative of all the kind comments and visits I've had from everyone.   Side note, I think I could do this one more time. There are at least 26 more entertainers we have seen that I have not showcased either in 2017 or this year.  Tesla, the opening act for Scorpions in this show is one.  Melissa Etheridge we've seen a couple times too and I haven't used her in either of the challenges.  Maybe if I start now... 

A to Z Challenge - 2020 - Your Smiling Face

James Taylor is the artist I am using for the letter "Y" as in "Your Smiling Face."  We were able to see Mr. Taylor along with Bonnie Raitt at AT&T Park, home of our San Francisco Giants.  Gosh I miss baseball!  They had lights on the trees and it was gorgeous.

I found this set of papers that I thought would work well.

Here's the first page.  We even had regular tickets!  We had seats on the lawn and we got to go through an underground tunnel that we had never been through before. It made it even more exciting to get to the field that way.  We had to pick them up from Will Call and that's why we went in through the special entrance. 

I have to put Bonnie Raitt's pictures together as well and I only had time to get one page done for James Taylor.  It's really not done either but I don't want to miss the deadline for the A to Z.

Here's the setlist from the show.  He sang a bunch!  He was really engaging with the crowd and told some stories about his songs.  He's been around a long time.  

A few more pictures.  I got a lot of good ones so it is going to be fun putting it together. 

Here is "Your Smiling Face" from that night.

I think given the name on my blog is "Janet's Smiles" that's a perfect song for me.  One more day!  Who is Z going to be?  I'll give you a hint.  It's NOT ZZ Top.  I did them in 2017.

A to Z Challenge - 2020 - StyX

I'm using the letter of the day at the end of the word with StyX.  We've seen Styx twice, the first time in 2009 with REO Speedwagon at Shoreline.

We had relatively good seats, right of stage.  These concerts were scrapbooked a while ago so I don't have the before pictures.  I was using my old camera at that time too, so the quality isn't as good.

I see I did use some of the Rhapsody embellishments.  

The bottom picture is the confetti coming down.  I'd hate to clean the place after that!

The second time was a year later, this time with Foreigner, at Sleep Train Pavilion in Concord.  

Again, these were scrapbooked already.

It looks like I used one of my stencils for this one and some washi tape across the top to make it match the background paper on the next page.

I used the bubbles corner punch on the pictures, again to match the background paper.

Sometimes I get a shot of the screens behind the band to show what song they were singing.  This one is "Too Much Time on My Hands."

I had a watch embellishment so I used it here.  I think it adds a nice touch.

I think Styx was the headliner for both of these shows but in my opinion, both REO Speedwagon and Foreigner put on better shows.  Styx is good, but obviously not one of our top five if we've only seen them twice. 

I'm going to eXit now.  Two more days. 

A to Z Challenge - 2020 - We Belong

I am surprised by some of the things I am realizing about our concert experiences by scrapbooking them for this A to Z.  For instance, we have seen Pat Benatar and her husband, Neil Giraldo, a total of six times!  "We Belong" is one of the songs she most always sings.

The first time we saw Pat and Neil (I think after seeing them so often we can be on a first name basis, don't you?) was in 2010.  They were the headliner at The Mountain Winery and REO Speedwagon was the opening act.

I'm using paper from The Artful Watercolor collection.  It has a page of die cuts and tags to go with it.  It also has some 3-D embellishments but I'm not sure if I'll use them or not.  Nice to have options.

This is the first page of that set.  I'm not done scrapping the pictures of REO Speedwagon yet because I wanted to concentrate on the Pat Benatar photos since they are the ones that go with the A to Z.  We did an unusual thing and had dinner at the Winery first.  It was not that impressive actually and we've never done it since. 

We had pretty good seats down in front for this show and they hadn't even started the Loyalty Club at the Mountain Winery yet so we were lucky.  

Instead of mounting every photo I used the corner rounder for the corners of the pictures and then had some stickers that matched for the corners of the paper.  I also added some Dazzles stickers to the top part of this page after I took the picture. 

Neil Giraldo's nickname is "Spyder." I think the Dazzles stickers I put around it look like spider webs a little.   

I added some Dazzle stickers to enhance the page a bit.  I also put the corners on this page after I took the picture. 

They did a portion of the show acoustic.  They were engaging with the crowd and told some of the background of the songs.  

Pat dances around the stage and it really looks like they are having fun. 

"Hell is for Children" is one of my husband's favorite songs.  They did sing most of their hits.  

The set list.  

Theoretically this is how it will look in the album.  As I said, I do have the pictures from REO Speedwagon to scrap so hopefully the pages will match up.  I am using the same collection for both groups so even if it gets moved around, it still should look okay.

Here is "Love is a Battlefield."  You can tell it is not from the same show because Pat Benatar's hair is short but it is still the Mountain Winery.

"W" is done!  Thanks for sticking with me!