Poison @ Sprint Center, Kansas City

The first half of my birthday was reasonably uneventful. Despite our original plan to leave for Kansas City by 2, we didn't make it onto the road until 2:45. Which was also immediately delayed when we couldn't get the GPS to work, and thought the connection had broken off the power source socket. After about five frustrating minutes of trying to pry it out, we thankfully realized that the end of the GPS wasn't stuck in there, before doing any damage. As it turned out, the end of the GPS had come apart in the backseat, parts of which we'd found the other day and had no idea what there were. Thankfully, we still had all that parts, got everything back together and were able to hit the road once again.

On the way, more about the show unfolded. Since uncovering that my present was seeing Poison on my birthday, I've particularly not asked Katie any questions or looked up any information. So, along the way, she revealed that the gig was Cheap Trick, Poison and Def Leppard. And hence, unfortunately the Poison set was going to be shorter than if they were opening. But still, back in the day I was into Def Leppard, and seeing Cheap Trick would be cool. It was a nice drive up to Kansas City, of course with the hits of Poison playing.

On getting there we found the Sprint Center easily enough, and set out to find some cheap parking - some lots were $10, some were $20, both pretty expensive. I was cool to just drive around, but in the back of my head I was aware that Katie might have something planned, and hence time might be an issue. But before long we found some street parking just a few streets away.

On getting out of the car and getting ready, Katie handed me my present, which I jumped back into the car to open - by which point it was about 5:10pm. I opened them up to find a set of drumsticks (which turned out to be Rikki Rockett stick) guitar picks, a Poison coloring book, bandanna and t-shirt - all of which I was pretty stoked with as it was. Once I'd gotten a brief look at everything, Katie interrupted saying "and you may notice I'm also wearing a Poison t-shirt...because part of your present is also a VIP backstage tour at 5:30, so...we've got to go!". Which was clearly part of this whole thing that she'd managed to keep a secret! Unaware of whether I needed to be wearing the VIP t-shirt in the package, I threw it on over my OTHER Poison t-shirt, and was ready to roll. Which kinda made the effort put into looking for my other Poison t-shirt last night funny.

So, we needed to find the box office to pick up the tickets, and getting from the back of the Sprint Center to the front proved to be quite a pain. Ironically, we walked up where a bunch of Def Leppard fans were no doubt waiting for their VIP tour to begin. We made it around to the front, noticing that the Power And Light District was right across from the Sprint Center (where Better Than Ezra are playing on Friday night), and found where the Poison VIP tour crowd was congregating. We quickly got our tickets and went over there. Ironically, we weren't on the list, but were added without a problem by the guy running the show, no doubt because the ticket said the ticket price.

After a bit of waiting around, the guy giving the tour did some introductions - introducing himself as Rob Stevenson, whose name I immediately recognized from the Sight For Sore Ears video, and the kid handing out the laminates as Zac Dall - Bobby Dall's son. Too cool. Katie said that she could tell it was Bobby's son as soon as she saw them. Rob ran through all the rules, and I particularly liked his rules about the band - "Treat this like you are at the zoo. The band are wild animals. DO NOT approach the wild animals, let them come to you.". He also explained that the Def Leppard backstage experience was food and drink backstage, where as his was a tour and a rundown of how everything works backstage, which is clearly a lot cooler.

We headed into the arena, which in itself was a cool experience. As we went down through general admission, past all the seats, I thought how cool it'd be to have one of those seats for the show. Given the whole thing was a surprise and exciting, I hadn't had time to think about it much, and still figured that we'd probably have seats pretty far back. The first part of the tour was to go up on stage, so we waited for a bit however, Bun E. Carlos started soundchecking, so Rob abandoned that part of the tour for the moment, and took us through the backstage area.

We went past Bret and C.C's dressing room, with the first stop being Bobby Dall's dressing room. A great thing with Rob's tour is that it really wasn't rushed, and there was plenty of time to check everything out.

From there, we went out the the back of the arena where all the gear trucks and Leppard's buses were. Rob gave a rundown of what went on back there, and that Poison had 12 buses on this tour, each worth a measly $800,000 each! He also gave a rundown on their lighting rigs, and the fact that on this tour they were allowed to have their own lightning, pyro and could use Lep's led screen but couldn't use their confetti because "Def Leppard doesn't want to clean up the stage". And then recounted how they weren't allowed to use pyro on the Kiss tour a few years ago because pyro was "Kiss' shtick". Which did absolutely make me think how tonight is going to be awesome, but I'd also love to get to see a Poison headlined show in the future.

Their buses were parked out the back of the arena, so we headed out there, and Rob took groups of 6 onto the bus for a tour, and gave us a rundown of the buses, and the fact that the one we were on was Bobby's up until a week ago.

After the bus, we went down for photo ops by Bret Michael's traveling gym, which had a huge advert for his new book. Both Katie and I were really impressed that they were lugging around a portable gym, and could afford to do so. Like we've been saying each time we'd gone into JB HiFi and passed the ever growing Poison rack of CD's, Poison is the new black! While out there, Rob explained that these days the guys have found ways to fill in their days to avoid the "problems" of the road that they've had in the past. Bret works out, Rikki takes his motorbikes on the road (the trailer for which was parked in front of Bret's bus), C.C runs and Bobby plays golf (which explains the golf clubs in his dressing room).

The tour went back inside, past the dressing rooms, and stopped abruptly with C.C DeVille standing outside of his dressing room. This was the only band member we saw one the whole tour, and I was very happy that if we were only going to see one band member, that it was C.C DeVille! In my mind it all happened really quickly, and there was may people scurrying to get a photo of C.C, including us. It would have been really cool if it was the days of C.C charging $1 for a handshake, $2 for a photo, because I would have gladly paid. We both think that if we'd been in a smaller group there might have been more opportunity to meet him, but apparently the VIP package tickets sold like hot cakes in Kansas City, because there were close to 20 people on the tour. It wasn't long before Rob called out "thanks Cecil" and ushered us back towards the stage. Probably to C.C's relief, as a few in the group were struggling with the "don't approach the wild animals" rule. Despite it all happening very quickly, and not getting to "meet" C.C per se, it was pretty fucking cool having the opportunity to stand within a few feet of my guitar hero since age 11!

The tour was supposed to only go for half an hour, but must have gone for longer as we didn't get to go up on stage because it was so close to show time. At some point on the tour I'd broke, and asked Katie about our seats, to which she told me that I'd "be really happy with them". And let's just say that I was - second row, right in the center, in front of the stage runway. We initially thought we would have been on the left (which would have been great as a C.C vantage point, but our actual seats were much better for an overall view of the whole stage). After getting to our seats, Katie went to get a drink and some food, and Cheap Trick came on moments later, at 7 on the dot.

Cheap Trick were enjoyable, but of course I'm not as familar with Cheap Trick as the other Jensen's. Obvious highlights were I Want You To Want Me, Surrender and The Flame, which I think was my favorite of the night. The throwing of the Kiss record into the crowd during Surrender was also really cool. Something completely expected by Katie, but like I said, I'm not as educated on what a Cheap Trick show entails. Another enjoyable factor was the handfuls of guitar picks that Rick would grab and throw out to the crowd.

There was only 15 minutes between sets, and pretty much right on 8pm the lights dimmed and the recognizable voice over boomed "Make welcome, all the way from Hollywood California, the grand slam kings of noise...POISON". Woo! Pretty cool that to this day they're still using that intro. And so, after 21 years of being a fan, I was finally getting to see them live! Our seats were amazing, I had a great view of everything, which wasn't lost of me, and was...just such the best way to get to finally see Poison for the first time! They came out, launching into Look What The Cat Dragged In. One of many things I really enjoyed was that C.C has his long hair back, which was teased. Albeit it wasn't as high as in 1988 , but even so, was glammed up relative to him now being in his late 40's, which was...another thing that wasn't lost on me.

Despite being an opener, it was really worth the money, with them playing an hour, and getting through all the hits. There is no doubt that I'd love to see them headlining in the future and play for longer, but I absolutely didn't feel ripped off by the fact that they were opening. One thing that hit me pretty quickly was the fact that...it's 20 years after their hayday, but the show really didn't feel like I was missing out not getting to see them back then - lighting was great, the sound was great, and they had the pyro and fireworks just as they would have back then. The only slightly disappointing thing, which had nothing to do with them, was that neither they, nor Cheap Trick were allowed to use the stage runway (though Robin and Rick did actually come about half way down it at one point). Now that would have really been something, as they would have been right on top of us if they could have. (Again, why weren't Poison the headliner!?!).

Their set list was:

1. Intro
2. Look What The Cat Dragged In
3. Ride The Wind
4. Fallen Angel
5. Your Mama Don't Dance
6. Guitar Solo
7. Something To Believe In
8. Drum Solo
9. Every Rose Has It's Thorn
10. Unskinny Bop
11. Talk Dirty To Me
Encore

12. Nothin' But A Good Time

Despite being the openers, we still got both the C.C guitar solo and Rikki drum solos, both being abbreviated, which was appreciated given the hour stage time - but I was glad that they were still in the set.

Highlights:

1. Ride The Wind - not something I would have expected given the shorter stage time, so that was really cool
2. Fallen Angel - for no particular reason other than it was Fallen Angel and I rocked the fuck out to it
3. Unskinny Bop - Bret and C.C doing a jam at the beginning that I've never head before. Something Poison do live that I haven't heard before? What a rarity! I will also say that, unlike probably the rest of the population, Unskinny Bop has never been one of my favorite Poison songs - but it sounded fucking great tonight! I also enjoyed Bret telling the roadie who ran out to take the acoustic guitar, that he wasn't ready because he was rocking out too much

The whole show was amazing, and was really as good of an experience as getting to see them back in 1988! Given the fact that they were openers, I wasn't expecting an encore per se, and wasn't sure what to think when they ended with Talk Dirty To Me and said their goodbyes without having played Nothin' But A Good Time. How would that be? Finally seeing them live and not getting Nothin' But A Good Time? But thankfully they came back out and launched into it, which was obviously another highlight.

Right after they finished, we went over to the left hand side of the stage to meet Rob to pick up our signed photographs. I couldn't work out why we had to wait, but Katie has since reminded me that the band signed them right before the show - so although we didn't get them signed in a meet and great setting, the actually were personally signed at the show.

After picking up the photos, we milled around near the sound desk while Def Leppard set up, and had a post game wrap up. Despite having been into Def Leppard at the time (and still enjoy listening to Hysteria from time to time) and it being a sweet deal getting to also see them, my load was blown on Poison. Despite having JUST seen them, get them back on stage, sign me up. Y'know, you get that after waiting 21 years I guess!

In anycase, we went back to our seats and waited for Def Leppard. Admitadly, their stage setup was quite impressive. And I can't help but be impressed how well all of these bands are doing, years and years after the fall of hair bands. Though, clearly there is a resurgance. Which was obvious to us last year after going to Monsters Of Rock 6 in Melbourne, with no shortage of tribute bands, even in Australia. And being here, clearly hair bands are the darlings of VH1 classic. To quote Josh Kennedy, "rock is fucking dead, right?".

It took me a couple of songs to really get into it, purely just because of coming off seeing Poison. It was pretty impressive how good the guys looked, definitely given their age - in particular the ripped Phil Collin. It took no time before different members strutted down the cat work, which futher rubbed in the fact that Poison didn't get to, and how unbelievable it would have been if they could have. I must say that suppressing openers when everyone on the bill is a huge international name is stupid. I actually hate it even when you've got unknowns opening - give everyone the same PA / sound / lighting, let the best band win. But even moreso when you've got three massive bands. Poison and their confetti I can understand when the headliner is going to come on 15 minutes later, but restricting openers to particular parts of the stage? Come on. Similarly, if an arena has screens, let everyone use them. It actually was no issue to me in this instance, because our seats were too good to even bother with the screens, but if we'd been way back, not really been able to see the stage and the screens hadn't been used for Poison I'd been really pissed. But anyways...

I'd expected Def Leppard to pull out a lot more newer songs, as I think they have a new record out, however I think they only played one new one, and otherwise belted through the greatest hits, which was quite enjoyable. They put on a good show, testament to that fact was that Katie, who has never resisted any bashing Def Leppard opportunities over the years (or bashing me because I liked Def Leppard) really enjoyed the show.

One of the highlights for me was Animal, again, something that I wouldn't have neccesarily thought they would have played. Another cool thing was that Phil Collin had a neck mounted camera on his guitar, which was really cool, and it's been quite a long time since I've seen one of those.

The acoustic section, where they did Two Steps Behind was pretty cool for us, given that they all (minus the drummer) came out to the end of the runway and were right on top of us for that whole portion of the set.

During the encore break, Katie turned to me and asked what Def Leppard hits hadn't been played, to which I replied "Let's Get Rocked". Moments later the band came out and Joe Elliot posed the question "Do you wanna get rocked?". Which just goes to show my knowledge of hair metal.

After the show we headed back to the car, and then proceeded to take an elongated tour of Kansas City, trying to find somewhere to eat. Finally we gave up after heading to a Wendy's that no longer existed and settled on McDonalds. Tough times call for touch measures. And then headed to the hotel. When all was said and done, we got bed at sometime after 3am, which was pretty impressive given that the show ended at 11!