with the afore-mentioned Police show in Dallas, and now with the added bonus of Norah Jones and ERIC JOHNSON (CAPS INTENDED) both playing in Little Rock. Yee-Fricking-Ha is all I can say. We have 6th row center for Norah and Eric is playing at Juanita's like last year (general admission, woo hoo), so I should be close enough to help him with tone control adjustments and brow wiping.
Juanita's is a small club about equivalent in size to an Applebee's (yeah, I've quite the discerning palate, get off me) with the stage taking up the corner. Last August we saw him there and I was about 5 feet away from him for the whole show. The downside is that I was also in a direct line of sight to his dual Fender Twin Reverbs and not far off the downrange hazard area of his Marshall double stack, all of which he had cranked loud enough for an arena sized show. I had a hard time communicating with my wife on the drive home, my ears were so fried. I even felt kind of sick and hung over the next day and listening to electric guitar and similar frequency sounds was painful for a few days after. This time I'll be taking an assortment of earplugs and hopefully they won't kill too much of the dynamic range. Amazingly enough, my hearing hadn't deteriorated on my annual audiogram this year, but I'm not going to push my luck again.
Last year I got him to sign a guitar player magazine from 1986 that I had kept all these years (his first cover article) and I'm debating on taking my Fender EJ Strat to have him sign this year. I hesitate because Juanita's isn't necessarily in a bad part of town, but it isn't right next to the police station either. I realize that's borderline fanboy behavior, but I'm not embarassed when it comes to my guitar idols. Eric is the closest thing to an exact model of how I would like to sound (most people don't realize how great he is at fingerstyle and other genres, knowing only his electric lead sound). Not to mention that he is a great pianist as well.