One evening I’m checking my email and happen to see that there is something in my junkmail.  Unusual, as I luckily get little spam.  I check it out and the subject says BNL Blogging Contest Nov. 19.  My heart starts racing and I get a little light headed as I plead with my computer to quickly load the message.  Could it possibly be that I actually won something for once in my life?

Yes, it was possible!  The message was from Holly Gray telling me that I was indeed the Blog Winner for St. Paul.  I literally started jumping around the room and then wondered how I could possibly survive the wait until the concert.

Fast forward to Sunday, November 19, 2006.  This was my eighth BNL concert and each one has always been amazing.  My concert buddy this time was Aaron, who I had come to know through one of the fan message boards.  He is also a huge fan.  We got to the Xcel Center shortly after 6:00pm and had to anxiously wait another 45 minutes or so as the tickets were delayed in getting to will call...the only issue we had the entire night.

After a brief stop at the merchandise booth where I bought the live USB stick and the eye chart shirt, we headed down to find our seats.  We were a couple of seats left of dead center, which was fine with me as it put us slightly side Steve.  I had never had front row to a BNL concert before and don’t know now how I’ll ever be able to go back to anything less!

After a bit of confusion, we found out where the meet and greet was going to be and headed over.  There was actually quite a large group for it, so things were kept fairly short.  I did get all the guys to sign BLAM and got pics with Steve and Ed.

Back in our seats we saw the last couple songs from Mike Doughty and then began the most amazing concert experience I’ve had yet.

Setlist:

Wind It Up

Old Apartment

Sound of Your Voice

King of Bedside Manor

Great Provider

Straw Hat

Alcohol

Off the Hook

Testing 1,2,3

Peterborough & the Kawarthas

Half A Heart

Be My Yoko Ono (acoustic)

Have You Seen My Love? (acoustic)

Too Little Too Late

Bank Job

Angry People

Pinch Me

Some Fantastic

It’s All Been Done

One Week

Brian Wilson

Easy

If I Had $1,000,000

When I Fall

After Old Apartment, Ed confessed that he feared he had committed a rock and roll faux pas by skipping in order to get back to his mic at the right moment to sing a back-up vocal.  Not only did this become a running theme for the night, but turned into a “Skip to My Lou Reed” ad lib, complete with “Walk on the Wild Side” doo-do-doos.

King of Bedside Manor was great to hear live, and it was complete with Moondance!  I was so glad to be able to hear Great Provider and Off the Hook as they have been on my list of songs I must hear live.

When Straw Hat started I couldn’t believe what I was hearing again.  The first BNL album I owned was Rock Spectacle and the first time I heard Straw Hat there was no turning back, I was hooked on BNL.  I had to listen to it about 5 times before I could go on to the rest of the album.  It was actually at last year’s holiday concert that I heard Straw Hat live for the first time and nearly died!  I was amazed that I had the luck to hear it again Sunday night.

I was thrilled to be able to hear Jim do Peterborough and also to hear Half A Heart and Bank Job off of the new album.

After the acoustic set the band played a little trick on Mark, the head of the band’s security.  The appearance of a “crazed fan” lured him out on stage, but Mark was quickly greeted with a cake and the singing of Happy Birthday.

The Angry People dance was great, which then brought me to the moment of truth:  Pinch Me.  Seeing as how I had never had front row seats before, I had never even attempted throwing underwear onstage.  I knew I had to take my chance and came prepared with a red pair with electric guitars and flames on them.  I choose my target (slightly to Steve’s left), launched at exactly the right moment and held my breath.  They just made it and Steve immediately grabbed them and somehow saw the design on them, holding them up and pointing it out to everyone.  At the end of the song, he flung them at Kevin during his solo.  After Pinch Me, Steve announced that Kevin would now be doing a Synthesizer solo, to which Kevin commented, “I sure hope you throw underwear in my face in the middle of this solo as well.” 

I had always wanted to hear Some Fantastic live, so when it started I was really excited.  But this version was a little different.  Steve came in singing Ed’s part, so they decided to switch parts for the entire song.  It was very entertaining, as words were forgotten and mixed up.

It was wonderful to hear When I Fall as the final encore, but that meant that the show was over.  The whole concert went by far too fast, as every BNL concert does, but I had an absolutely amazing time and am incredibly thankful for winning the contest.  I can’t wait for the next concert to come around.

I posted all the pictures I took at the concert on my main livespaces page in the albums.  If you’d like a best of selection, along with a few others, please go here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/26433434@N00/sets/72157594385167694/detail/).  Also, Aaron took some absolutely amazing photos which can be viewed here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/dietpoison/sets/72157594383853456/detail/).

Thanks for reading, thanks to BNL for always putting on an amazing concert, and thanks to everyone involved in this contest.