Preached the message of hunters (and gun) rights, as could be expected. The sound was good. Thankfully, not quite as loud as in his stadium rocker days! (I play through a 100w Marshall, but my 41 year old ears just don't have enough left to waste my hearing on one night.... one pitfall to surviving the '70s <g> ).

Ted shot a cardboard Saddam H. through the heart and sacrficed an old Byrdland with a flaming arrow (well, it was actually a prop... looks like it gets sacrificed on a regular basis.. the back of a Byrdland is carved out... arched like the front. The prop had a flat plywood back.. but who cares. It was fun.)

Got there 3 hours early to get good seats... there was a section of about 10 rows fenced off for sponsors and their guests, and we were 3 rows back from that, dead center. Actually they were better seats than the sponsors got, caus e you could see the whole stage and get the mixed sound from the stacks rather than the backsplash from the stage monitors.

The crowd was roudy.. bunch of 40 somethings acting like they were 16 again. Many of them waaaay too drunk. Stumbling all over each other. Yeesh.... bunch of animals. I'd like to think that I wasn't that much of a waste case back in the day, but can't deny that we were a bunch of hedonistic beer swillin' bong huffing stoners. It was sort of strange being clean and sober in the midst of a crowd of screwups. I couldn't help but think of the irony... them being all slobbering drunk and worshipping at the feet of a guy who rails against trashing yerself with poisons.

Anyway, my two daughters found it quite an experience, though the music wasn't to their taste (Ted's always been oriented more towards a testosterone driven fan base, obviously). The kids thought he was a wild man and generally had a good time.

Btw, there was a girl at stage right doing sign language for the hearing impaired. The kiddos wondered what the point would be of going to a concert if you were deaf. I told them it made more sense than trying to sit at home listening to the CD. <G>

Hey, you should have seen this girl signing to "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang". Clearly, there's no equivalent slang in sign for 'poontang'. Even I could tell what the sign was. But, the girl (looked to be maybe 17 or 18) was a pro and didn't even blush.

Ted came out for 2 encores. Guitars played were a battered old Byrdland with natural finish, battered black Byrdland, Flag motiff Gibson Les Paul standard, Honeyburst Gibson LP Standard and a black & white Ted N. zebra stripe Paul Reed Smith. Stage amps were Peavey 5150s... lots of them (8 heads, I think and a dozen cabinets). I believe these were for show.... you only need one head and one or two cabs, what with all the monitor action laying around the stage. But, you gotta have some sorta backdrop.

The drummer played a Sonar kit. I couldn't tell what the bass player was using, but from the headstock it looked sort of like a Peavey.

The sound company they hired had good stuff at the Front Of House tent. Midas 3000 board... (that thing costs as much as a house). Crest amps. FOH speakers were some cabs built by the sound company and filled (so they said) with JBLs.

Anyway, Ted still rocks. Looking fit and young still. No sign of tooth trouble.
Looks like he'll be hunting and bashing out 3 chord head bangers for a few years to come.

Robin
guitar teacher and amateur luthier http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rouge6string/