Eight miles high

That's no exaggeration friends. I went to see Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young in concert last Sunday night in Tinley Park. The show (including intermission) went about 3 and a half hours. All in all, I would rate it as very good.

Mom and I arrived at the venue around 5:30. The doors opened at 6 and the show started at 7:30. For the sake of cash, we had brought seats on the lawn. As we're walking up the ramp that led to the lawn, a guy handed us two tickets. They were upgrades into the main seating area and they were right in the middle section! The prices were so high that most people went for the lawn. Wouldn't it make sense that if they had dropped the price of the more expensive seats by about 10 percent they could have made more money?

And I hung around the concession and souvenir stands for a little bit. I have never seen more expensive items at any venue for a show. 20 bucks for flip flops. $100 for a Stephen Stills Hawaiian shirt. No CD's available. And the food was absurd. 5 bucks for a burger, 3.75 for water, at least 7.50 for a domestic beer, and 15 bucks for a margherita. The cheapest thing I saw were the $2 bundt cakes. Safe to say, I didn't spend a dime.

The first set was basically all electric. The problem was the words were hard to understand with the guitars so loud. If this was Aerosmith, no big deal. But for a group that relies on harmonies and lyrics, it was a big deal. But the second set, which began with acoustics and progressed to rock as the show ended was excellent. The one song I wanted to hear and didn't was Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, arguably CSN's best known song. The crowd popped big for Our House, Teach Your Children, Ohio, and the finale, Neil's Rockin' in the Free World. I was excited to hear Nash's "Immigration Man," "Southbound Train," Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair," and Stills' "Carry On." I loved that they had a more full band. Last time it was a bass player and drummer. This time, they also had a trumpet player, keyboardist, and a pedal steel guitarist! And I love a pedal steel and it made "Teach Your Children" sound like it does on the original record. It also gave a nice touch to "Helplessly Hoping." And Crosby and Nash are so good together I would pay just to see the two of them live.

And there was a strong political message as I knew there would be although I must say it was done well. While performing the acoustic classic "Find the Cost of Freedom," they showed a video of Americans who have died in the Middle East over the last 3 years. As the song went on, the faces were shown, and the number increased. The total is over 2,600.

As for the title of this post, well, let's just say the air was very thick. Even though there were "No Smoking" signs scattered throughout the seating area, half the people around me had cigarettes and cigars. And for a good part of the night, I would say almost half of it, I could smell marijuana. It was so nasty, I can't imagine why anyone would get involved with that kind of crap. And here's the ironic part. For security, you were not allowed to bring in cameras, or any beverages. Not even a bottle of water. I guess the policy is you can take a toke, get high all not long, use stuff that will give you cancer, emphysema, kill your brain cells. But if you try to bring in a bottle of water to keep you hydrated and healthy, they're like "What the hell do you think you're bringing in here?!"

Now have you ever seen that website Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers? Well I saw about 5 guys who looked like clones of David Crosby. I'm talking the mustache, the hair, the whole nine yards. The difference is Crosby cleaned up years ago and I don't think these guys ever did. One of them who was sitting two rows in front of me smoked all night, and drank at least 3 or 4 tall beers. He probably spent more money on drugs than he spent on his tickets.

But in closing, for about 85 bucks for the two of us, the band played a long time, and we got better seats. I'm not sure I would rate it as high as the 2000 show in the United Center when they first reunited, but these four guys can still deliver the goods.