Kid. Rock.

We went to a Kid Rock concert on Wednesday night. I know, many of you may be shocked, but my wife and I are fairly big Kid fans. I won't speak for my wife, but I really, really like Cowboy. And I mean a lot. So when she saw he was coming, we ran right out and ordered tickets at $71 a pop. My kids want to disown me as neither of them really likes Kid Rock (they see him as adolescent, I think), but that's OK. I can't explain why I like that song.

From when I was 17 until about two years ago, my favorite song has really been Aerosmith's Walk This Way. Other songs came and went, but I always went crazy for WTW. Then I heard Cowboy and WTW was history. Well okay, it moved to #2. The songs are fairly similar in that they are hard driving, hard core rock.

So we arrived at the Pala Casino at about 4:30 PM for the 7:30 concert (I figured it would be packed and I wanted a good parking spot) and picked up our tix at the Will Call window. It quickly became apparent that this concert would be well attended by the young and the middle aged, and everyone was really dressed very wild...our kinda crowd! Looking outside at the Starlight Theater, we were very impressed. It was tiny! Even the worst seat would have an up-close view of Kid. We were in row 17, and that was plenty close for me....it was awesome.

There was no warm-up band - it went straight to Kid Rock and no sooner had he struck the first chord than every butt was out of its seat and dancing. That continued for two solid hours as nobody sat down the whole time. It was just wild. He did play Cowboy and changed it up like most bands do, but right where the song breaks from a slow pace to a fast pace, he inserted The Dukes Of Hazard theme, complete with video on the big screen backdrop. Personally, I hate DOH and felt it really ruined the rhythm of the song, but I'm sure he's po-lenty bored of playing that song as he probably has to do it every time he plays.

And unbeknownst to us, Kid had brought a few special guests. The first was a female that gave the female perspective on a few of his songs (glad to see the fair play!!) and then...he brought out Joseph Ward Simmons. You all may know him by the name Rev Run, or better yet by the band he founded: Run-D.M.C. And here's the kicker....Rev Run played Run-DMC's best known song during his guest appearance. Do you remember what it is?

A remix of Aerosmith's Walk This Way!!!

Absolutely amazing. It turns out Rev Run and Kid Rock are close friends. It is probably no accident that WTW and Cowboy strike the same chord in my soul.

Two last comments: first, you should probably give Kid Rock at least half a chance - he does vary his musical style somewhat. His latest album, Rock and Rock Jesus, actually has a few slower tunes, a few John Cougar Mellencamp-y songs, and at least two pure country songs.

Second, these pictures are the first ones taken with my new camera phone. They are terrible, I know. Obviously my new Samsung M520 does not take good night photos. That's a good data point for me.