A to Z Challenge - 2020 - VIP

While we are in the Loyalty Club at the Mountain Winery and can get advanced tickets which leads to closer seats, we've never actually paid extra to get VIP seating until Lindsey Buckingham came to the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.  Fleetwood Mac is one of our favorite groups and we've seen them several times over the years.  We've seen Stevie Nicks (my muse and the letter "N" in 2017's A to Z) in solo performances but my husband's favorite is Lindsey and up until now we've never seen him perform alone.  We also had never been to any kind of show at the Palace of Fine Arts so when the opportunity came, we splurged a bit to get VIP seating.  It was not a meet and greet experience but we were seated in the 5th row.  There was also some pretty neat swag given away and we got to enter the venue before the commoners - LOL.

I decided to go with a set of papers called Handmade Memories.  It is from my favorite Paper Wishes and had a free download of tags and embellishments to match it.

We got some great pictures in front of the Palace of Fine Arts.  Turns out we parked at the back of the building so we had to walk all the way around.  I took shots from all different angles.  When we got to the front entrance we were able to go in and waited in a short line for our VIP goodies.  I had some salmon hors d'oeuvres that were delish.

I took the VIP badge they gave us, added some ribbon and attached it to a frame.

I loved the look of the buttons so I added some real ones on top.  

I think this butterfly matches pretty well, don't you?  

The bad news is that once we were at our really great seats, we were told there was NO PICTURE TAKING!  I was so disappointed and almost got in trouble trying to sneak a few.  Really, the usher was standing close to where we were and kept a watchful eye over the audience.  I was not the only one trying to take a shot.  We got our selfie in but even that's not a great one.  We were trying to get the stage behind us.  Frustrating to be so close and not be able to sneak good pictures!

We may not have had a meet and greet but we did get Lindsey's autograph and a really neat journal.  

Even at the end of the show when I wasn't so worried about getting kicked out I still couldn't get a good shot of the band taking their bow. 

He is a really talented guitar player and it is amazing that he does all that finger work with no pick.  

There was a pretty decent write up in the paper and so I cut that out to add to the event.  It talks about the breakup between Lindsey and Fleetwood Mac that had happened earlier in the year.  Interestingly, a few months after we saw him, Lindsey had a heart attack and during the surgery his vocal cords were damaged.  They did not know if he would be able to sing again but he announced earlier this year that he would tour again.  Hopefully he will be able to.  

Here's how it looks in the book.  

My husband's favorite song is "Big Love."  While he did perform this when we saw him at the Palace of Fine Arts, this version is from when he was still with Fleetwood Mac from their tour in 2013. 

Okay!  Tomorrow is a break day and then we have four more letters.  Can she do it?  Side note, Blogger seems to be having some technical difficulties at the moment so if you can't see some of the pictures, you can always check out my blog on Wordpress.    Have a great rest of your weekend. 

Rocktober Music Fest - 2019 and other October Oddities - Big Love

It's Day 10 in the Rocktober Music Fest and I'm going to keep it simple after yesterday's sad post. 

Fleetwood Mac has been around for a long time and anyone who follows them knows that Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham have had an ongoing "relationship."  At first it was as a couple and when that didn't work it was a "strained" relationship at the very least.  It got so bad that Lindsey is no longer with the group. 

We saw him perform at the Palace of Fine Arts last year.  He is one of my husband's favorites so we splurged and for the first time got VIP seats.  No "Meet and Greet" but some other cool swag:

They wouldn't let us take pictures and I almost got in trouble with one of the ushers but I managed to sneak this one.

A scrapbook page I made from one of the times we saw him with Fleetwood.  

Shortly after we saw him he had to have emergency heart surgery.  They said that he may not be able to sing again.  I saw online that he recently performed at his daughter's high school graduation.  Bet that was an emotional experience for both of them.  The clip only shows him playing the guitar.

I'm sending you some "Big Love" by way of Mr. Buckingham from 2013. 

Have a marvelous Thursday. 
 
   

Observations in October - #31Things - Evening

Most evenings around our house are pretty much the same.  I'm usually working in the craft room while my husband watches TV.  Sometimes we watch movies together, like last night.  We watched Hotel Artemis.  It was a pretty weird one.  Jodie Foster was very interesting as "Nurse."  Definitely not a glamorous part. 

For this prompt, though, I'm going to talk about our Evening with Lindsey Buckingham.  I mentioned that we had VIP tickets at the Palace of Fine Arts which is a very small venue with only about 1000 seats.  We left our house early since you never know what kind of traffic you're going to hit at 5 PM going through San Francisco.  We arrived in plenty of time and I got a chance to take a few pictures of the outside:

I wish I had stopped to take some more but not having been there before we didn't realize we had parked on the opposite side of the venue and since we were supposed to be there at a certain time, we wanted to find the entrance.  We decided to go again another time so I could take more pictures.  I think a general sightseeing tour of San Francisco is in order! 

We finally found the front door (which we would have found sooner had we gone right instead of straight ahead).  The usher scanned our tickets to make sure that we really had VIP access and let us in.  Once inside there were about 35 or so people in line and as we checked in, we got our special goodies.

A signed poster, a photo lanyard and a Lindsey Buckingham blank journal.  It would have been nice if he'd have written a note inside it or if we had gotten to actually meet him but cool stuff nonetheless.  We also get a copy of his new CD, Anthology, that is being mailed to us.  It was most unusual that no one checked my purse.  Usually at every concert we go to now we have to go through a huge security check point, almost like TSA at the airport. 

There was neat stuff to look at inside the lobby area and I had a glass of wine and a little snack - salmon on cream cheese and bread.

Once we got inside, we took our usual selfie and as we did that, the usher came up and told us that Mr. Buckingham requested no photography or videos taken during the show.  Bummer, because we were in the fifth row slightly right of center stage!

Well, you know that I am a bit of a rebel when it comes to taking pictures at concerts so of course I had to sneak a few.  Naturally they are not of my usual quality but I'm sorry, when I pay $200 for a ticket I want to get more than just a blank journal.

The drummer was really good.

He sang a few Fleetwood Mac songs, including Big Love, which is my husband's favorite, so all was good with him.  

He did some songs that were new to me and I really liked them so I'll be interested in hearing the Anthology album to see what other gems I may have missed.  It was funny that while he did not specifically say anything about his parting with Fleetwood, he did seem to particularly emphasize the words "Never going back again" when he sang that song :)

The usher was being REALLY strict and even went up to a few people who were taking pictures and made them stop so I didn't want to get us kicked out but when the show was over I figured I'd get a picture of them as they took their final bow:

Not the high quality type I am usually able to get but at least I have a remembrance of the evening and we did have a good time. 

I'm a day late with this one but, hey, it's my blog and I'll do what I want to.  Yesterday I took a free Creative Live class about blogging and email and things like that.  It was VERY informative and I'll be posting more about that.  Would you subscribe if I did a weekly newsletter?  

Also side note, if you are reading this on the WordPress site, check out the new link I put up on the right side of the page to get to my Etsy shop and tell me what you think!