Concert Report...

My special meet and greet lanyard

The official autograph card, designed by Jose (the drummer) with all their signatures. Hi Deborah in the high left corner is with Kimore's autograph, in the lower right corner is Brandon's.

Back to reality now…It was great to have a break from the daily grind with our quick trip to the River Riot in Iowa, where we were able to ‘meet and greet’ the members of the band Incubus, and attend their concert. We flew out on Thursday, went sight-seeing on Friday and also attended the concert that evening. Then, on Saturday we flew home. Even though it was a fast trip it was a welcome one. Work has been so busy lately that being able to get away was ‘good medicine’ for me. I always have a blast with my sweet daughter-in-law so I knew we would have a good time. She’s been my concert buddy lately.

When we landed at the airport we collected our bags and trotted over to the rental car booth to pick up our car. The employees there asked us what brought us to town and when we told them we were attending the Incubus concert they got all excited. Since we were going to a hot concert (their words) they thought we should have a hot ride to get there in so they gave us a killer rental deal on an awesome Mustang!

Our hot ride

Our hotel turned out to be right by the Omaha Cabelas, and of course we had to go check out the fish in the huge aquarium and get some of their tasty fudge (moose drool anyone?). We still had more time to sight-see after that so we decided to visit Old Market, which is a historical area with shops and restaurants and cobblestone streets. We visited some unique shops and enjoyed walking around and taking in the sights.

DJ Chris Kilmore

Kilmore at the 'Meet and Greet' I couldn't resist snapping it with my cell phone, bad me.

As we were walking down the avenue, just past the guy playing his harmonica on the street corner, I noticed something familiar about these guys sitting at a sidewalk café having lunch. My first thought was…that guy has really long dredlocks, like the DJ from Incubus. Continuing the thought, I figured if it was the Incubus guy (DJ Chris Kilmore), Ben Kenney the bass player couldn’t be far away, and low and behold-who was sitting on the other side of the table…a guy wearing a baseball cap like Ben often does, it was Ben! My mouth dropped open and I had a look of shock on my face. Then I crazily walked right up to them (don’t ask me how I had the nerve) and boldly pronounced that I was really looking forward to seeing them tonight in concert. They were taken aback because they said that nobody really recognized them there. I blurted out that a true fan, me, would and that I would recognize that profile with the dreds nearly anywhere and got chuckles from DJ Kilmore.

Ben Kenney

Ben

 What a thrill to meet them right then and there. Of course we asked if we could get a picture and gave the camera to a passerby to snap one for us, but unfortunately that guy did not do it right so we were sad later when we found out we had no photo. Ben also said he felt a bit sick (he had a hangover from going to a baseball game the night before in Minnesota where the last concert was). We did not want to be annoying fans so we exchanged just a few more pleasantries; they said they would look for us at the meet and greet and we said “See ya tonight!”  About an hour later when we were walking around some more, we saw Ben and DJ Kilmore again, and lo and behold, Brandon Boyd, the lead singer, was also with them! We smiled happily and said Hey!, as we passed by. All three of them gave us a nice wave and later on that night when we met them at the official meet and greet event they remembered us and said “There you ladies are!” as we came around the corner to get their autographs and shake their hands. DJ Kilmore came over and talked to us like we were old friends or something, sigh!!!! We mentioned that we were thinking of going to the San Diego concert and he said “You better!” :)

Mike E.

Mike and Brandon

While we were shaking hands and getting their signatures, I was so busy dreamily staring into their faces that I realized I couldn’t remember which signatures were which, but another fan pointed them all out to me later. Overwhelmed much? Yes! I really had the chills and seeing them earlier in the day made it all perfect!!! For the official photo at the meet and greet, Mike E. the amazingly talented guitar player, came over by us and I happily said Yay! We get Mikey! He gave me a big hug during the pic and afterwards, too. I said he was Awesome! and gave his frizzy hair a pat (I definitely was crazed right then and there and embarrassed that I did it afterwards) Gee, maybe I should have slipped him my phone number as well, lol!

Mikey

At the concert, which was standing room only style, we couldn’t get very close to the stage, darn, in fact we were kindof in a mosh pit and got so squished, and jostled by the drunkards attending we got the heck out of there! Jo’Dee even got punched in the back and nearly knocked down so we found a safer place to watch the concert after that. Man, that place, Mid America Motorplex, was a dive and only had porta potties for facilities. With all those drunk people attending the concert it was a free for all on the fence by the porta potties as the guys just wizzed away in public! So much for gaining wordly experience….but, I am so thankful that I can have a good time at a concert without being drunk or high, because those people were embarrassing themselves. I can’t wait to see my next Incubus concert!

Our official Meet and Greet photo (the only photo we were allowed)