Mandatory Czar Experience

Look who Daddy met tonight - and he's wishing Madison a happy birthday!  Tonight was a mandatory sort of night, a little Father's Day present for Daddy, who got to go see the Mandatory Tour down at the dreaded Chastain Ampitheater.

What separated this concert experiences from other Chastain experiences is the VIP status we paid a little extra to enjoy.  Okay, a lot extra.  But we considered Chastain and how awful a venue it is, and thought going through what is called the 'Mandatory Czar Experience' would redeem the night.  And in many ways, it did.  For example, how many people do you know that have ever got to spin the Wheel of Fish?

That's right, Daddy did.  We got there a few hours early and just basically hung out, listening to Weird Al tunes as we did some catching up.  I went with my old friend Alan - the two of us have been Weird Al fans for quite some time.  Our VIP tickets got us to a place in the shade early, where we could enjoy appetizers and get involved in some games and/or polkas.

It was just like old times.  We used to go to concerts all the time, actually.  If you name a touring artist in the 90's, there are pretty good odds that we went to see them.  I think the one we missed was Dave Matthews, but other than that, we pretty much saw everybody.  Country artists included.  And Wayne Newton too.  Seriously, just off the top of my head:  Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, Aerosmith, Billy Joel, Bruce Hornsby, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, They Might Be Giants, Jimmy Buffett, The Outfield, Mike and the Mechanics, Garth Brooks, Joan Jett, and many others.  Of course, we saw Weird Al a few times in there as well.

The concert was great, although as mentioned earlier, the venue is awful.  Our seats were pathetic, these little wooden fold-out chairs squeezed in a tight area.  The diners are always present at the front, as if that adds ambience or something.  It adds distraction, of course.  And additional noise.  But our thoughts were that this was a different sort of concert, and in the end it was.  It was great - including the live cam following Weird Al through the parking lot at the beginning straight to the stage.  The standards were there, along with some variations of old songs and some of the newer stuff from his most recent release.

And the 501st was there too. The big finish had the two Star Wars songs, featuring stormtroopers and Darth Vader on stage in the background, the stormtroopers actually dancing a bit.  It was a big finish to a great concert - the audience was so into it, singing along and for just a short time we were all complete geeks and unashamed of it too.

And then the big moment:

Daddy did get to meet Weird Al afterwards.  It was part of the package, and pretty neat too.  Now, we didn't have an extensive conversation.  In fact, I could only imagine how tired he was after putting on such an incredible show.  But nonetheless, he gave Madison happy birthday wishes, and signed a Mandatory Tour poster just for her, with birthday wishes on that as well.  Alan and Daddy spent a few moments speaking with him, and then that was that - we were whisked out the door, and on our way.

So was it worth it?  Yes.  Again, Chastain is a terrible place to see a concert.  But Weird Al made up for that with a really fun show, and the before and after were pretty cool.  Oh yeah, and I didn't mention the complete card set we got, the t-shirts, the poster, and the nifty VIP tags.  Yep, it was pretty cool.  We probably won't do it again next time, but this time we decided to do it, just because we could.  Go big, or go home.  We decided to go big.  You could say it was mandatory.