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I almost missed this one if it wasn't for hearing a ticket offer on The Bone (local radio station) going into work one morning. Chickenfoot were playing at the Greek Theater in Berkeley (or Bezerkeley as the band were trying to get the place renamed). Chickenfoot's a new band of old heroes - Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith - all of whom have had distinguished careers on their own. I've heard their music and I really like, so it seemed like a good concert to go to. Found out that one of the guys at work was going, so he decided to sell his ticket and get two more and we went together (well, sat together anyway, we traveled separately).

Interestingly, his single ticket was further back from the stage. Not sure if we just timed it right when there had been some returns, however, we ended up with a couple of seats in row 6 - can't complain at that. In fact, the only thing I can complain about was the walk from where I parked my car - traffic was horrific getting to the venue due to its location in Berkeley and when I got there was told the disabled parking was full and so was the nearest car park. I was somewhat lucky that a space opened up on the street so I only had 4 blocks to hobble instead of 6 from the next nearest parking lot.

Enough grumbling, the show was fantastic. Mark who I was with commented that there wasn't a wasted note in the entire evening and I have to agree with him - it was really impressive. There were a couple of things that really made if for me - the first was that the band themselves were clearly having a lot of fun, Hagar commented a couple of times that he felt like he was the luckiest man alive to be doing what he was doing and there was no reason to doubt him. There was a fantastic dialogue between Sammy and Chad throughout the show with input from Mike. Joe didn't say much, but he doesn't have to - when you can play the guitar that well, you really don't need to say anything.

The second thing was that I've had a desire to catch a drumstick thrown into the crowd ever since I went to my first concert some 27+ years ago (Iron Maiden on March 5th 1982 at Leicester De Montfort Hall, although technically the first band I ever saw would have been The Rods as they were the support at this show). Well, 27 years later and a seat in row 6 and I got lucky enough to catch one of the (many) drumstick's Chad tossed into the crowd. I have to add the “many” comment as Chad did indeed generously impart many drumsticks which did increase my chances of getting one. Never-the-less, it was a clean take (all those year's playing as a goalkeeper not wasted) and given that I only have one free hand, that was pretty cool as there were many fumbles with all the other sticks that were being contested followed by a scramble on the floor to find it.

The only thing I disagreed with during the evening was in the middle of the set when I felt compelled to scream “42 Montoya” at the top of my voice. I doubt he heard me, but Sammy started it when he dedicated the song “Turnin' Left” to “the driver of the number 48 .... Jimmie Johnson.” The song itself makes me laugh as it has a chorus of “we go round in circles” which seems more than appropriate. Don't know if Sammy would have had the chance to see the qualifying results, but Jimmie did make the pole for this weekend's race at the Monster Mile (Dover). And I certainly wouldn't be someone to bet against Jimmie achieving what is now being called “The Chase 4 History”, however, my man Montoya is alongside Jimmie for the start of the race and you know he's going to take the race to Jimmie. Guess we'll see tomorrow who wins on the day, but I suspect we won't know the Champion until we close the season at Homestead, particularly given the number of drivers that have a realistic chance of claiming the title.