Florida 2011: Rockin’ The Magic

Day 250

Saturday January 29th - The last day of the 2011 SEARS Hometown Celebration “Experience The Magic.” And it was wrapped up with a dinner and a concert! The dinner was so-so; decent, but not exactly a feast! Still, free food is free food! Anyway, it didn’t matter because the highlight of this day was the concert!

At the 2009 Hometown Celebration the concert headliner was Clint Black; in 2010 it was Huey Lewis and the News; and this year it was…Foreigner! Ah, this took me back to the totally-awesome-to-the-max 1980s! I loved listening to Foreigner back in the day, loved most of their songs, so I was pumped up for this concert!

I’m not much of a concert person; in fact, I’ve been to a whopping total of 2 concerts in my life: Garth Brooks and Phil Collins. Seriously. Pathetic, huh? Well, I’m just the kind of person who prefers to listen to music in the privacy of my car or in my room, not in a crowd of thousands of people. And this may sound “grumpy old man” of me, but I think concerts are just too loud! Yep, I sound like I should be in my 100s, not my 30s.

Anyway, this concert would not be held in a stadium for thousands of people, but in a large convention room for hundreds of people, and that was just fine with me. There were lots of tables set up around the stage, and there was a booth set up where you could pick up an assortment of “swag” to get into the spirit of the concert, like inflatable guitars and microphones, glasses that lit up, etc. My parents, Jordan, Erin and I sat at one table with our “swag” and readied ourselves for the concert.

Thanks Jordan for having this picture of us!

As with any concert there was an opening act, and this opening act was a country group. I enjoy country music, in moderation, so I like a few of the songs performed by this talented group, but I was ready for the main act!

The concert kicked off with lights, smoke, lasers, video screens and then the group itself - Foreigner! It didn’t take long for the crowd to jump up and rush to the front of the stage, cheering, fist-pumping, and singing along to the music. Me and my family stayed at our table, but we still rocked out. I found myself singing along to a lot of the songs, and I was happy with the set list, which included “Cold As Ice”, “Head Games”, “Double Vision”, “Waiting For A Girl Like You”, “Urgent” and, of course, “I Want To Know What Love Is” (which was sung by the entire crowd!)

I was quite surprised when my mom decided to head to the stage, but I applauded her enthusiasm; then my dad followed suit and took some pictures of Foreigner in action. [By the way, thanks Dad for these pictures!] I finally got with the program and joined the rest of the crowd at the stage during the encore.

Then it was over and I realized that I may have suffered some hearing loss. Like I said, I’m just an old guy! But it was a rockin’ concert!