Thru Barb's Lens: OMG! JBJ!!!

Wednesday night will live in my memory for a lifetime! For our 5th Wedding Anniversary, my dear husband treated me to an incredible Bon Jovi concert over in St. Paul at the Xcel Energy Center. It was amazing!!! He bought the tickets on eBay and completely surprised me with them while we were celebrating our anniversary up in Ashland. I remember squealing...he remembers me being absolutely speachless for the first time he could remember!

After a busy day at work, Brad and I made the 2.5 hour trek over to the twin cities. We arrived a little early so we would have enough time to take the camera back to the car if they wouldn't let me in with it. I had purchased the camera pretty much for this occassion...I had attempted to meet all of their criteria...no detachable lens, no lens longer than 2", no recording devices. The only rule I broke was the recording device...I didn't know I was going to break it until I had the camera and saw a little movie icon on it then found the little microphone...cool...I hoped they wouldn't pay attention when they let me in. They didn't! That allowed us time to get a t-shirt for me, a beer for Brad, and a big pretzel for us to share. We then took our seats...not only were we on row 14...yes 14...but we had aisle seats. YES! Brad scored incredible seats! One of the girls next to us was a HUGE JBJ fan...she was from Atlanta and had been to the show the night prior.

Promptly at 7:30, Daughtry hit the stage. He was even better than I remember on American Idol. He put on a great 40 minute set. I practiced with my camera on him...realizing that I was getting better shots using the auto mode rather than attempting to use the manual mode on the new little point and shoot Canon we purchased. I really didn't get any great shots of him during his set...too dark, too much movement. I hoped I'd have better luck with Jon! After a 15 minute break for set change, right on schedule, THE MAN, my dreamboat, JBJ hit the stage. From that moment on it was what Brad described as a 2 1/2 hour Bon Jovi juke box. They sounded incredible...and you know Jon looked incredible!!! What an absolutely beautiful man!!! I did what I do...I took photos throughout the entire concert. I went through one set of batteries and a memory card...the batteries were actually HOT! I had to use the LCD screen...it was the only way I could see whether or not I was in focus. I took a ton of photos...in an attempt to get at least 1 decent one. After the concert was over, 24 amazing songs later, I had three different sets of people asking me if I would send them copies of my top 10 photos. How funny!

Here is the set list for the show:

St. Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center - 3/19/08

LOST HIGHWAY

BORN TO BE MY BABY

BAD NAME

SUMMERTIME

CAPT. CRASH

RADIO

SLEEP

BLOOD MONEY

BLAZE OF GLORY w/ Daughtry

I GOT THE GIRL