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WOWOWOWOWOW, Spundae NYE was incredible!!!
We arrive at Arena at around 8:35 looking for parking at the lot across the street. Nada...so we drive around, and see the self-valet open in the lot right against Arena/Circus open for only $10. Whoot! So we get in line and I go try to figure out what the heck is going on with the lines. Yep, lots of confusion with the line. Groovetickets confusion, other general confusion. Anyhow, finally am told to get into a certain line...wait, see Markus heading in and say hi to him then get all the way to the window, just to be told that I need to go talk to someone that's at the bottom of the stairs. Anyhow, go talk to him, get situated and I'm in. Time, about 9:30pm. Could have been in at about 9:10 if I had known to talk to Pat in the first place. Ugh! Oh well!
Walk in, incredible decorations! I loved it! And FOUR lasers...although two of them were turned off eventually (I think), probably because they were blinding people, including me!
Anyhow, yeah it was empty....which is why I kinda wished they started the night at 8pm to give a good 60-90 minutes for the place to get filled up with a local opener before the headliners started to come on. Anyhow, Markus gets on a little late, about 9:45, 9:50 and plays...well, an odd site. I loved it! But odd. Lots of tracks I hadn't heard him play before, I don't think. Place slowly starts to fill up. The people in the club while Markus plays are totally into him! When he dropped Breath, the crowd that was in there blew up!!...
Near the end of Markus' set, decide to take one break for the night and go outside. See lots of people I know, lots of people I don't know and who know me. I always feel weird in those situations. Any of you have people come up to you knowing you from your posts on this boards yet they don't post themselves? Just odd, lol. Continuing, after the breather get back in, and almost run over someone by accident....am all apologetic as we both turn around...just for it to be Josh...we get a good laugh out of it. See Dave, say hi to him..and they go up and get set to go on...
Markus finishes up right at 11 and G&D come on. They start off with Without Your Near...and I'd hope they'd all do like a little celebration with Markus since it was a whole co-production and all, but Markus didn't really hang around at all...pretty much bolted. I'm sure it was because he wanted to get back to his wife and kid and head over to TAO to celebrate the new year.
Stage craziness started to ensue and I found myself helping Kristina help keep control of it. So I found myself on stage pretty much the entire G&D set either going nuts or helping keep control over it.
G&D's set was awesome!! Lots of new stuff, I think! BTW, G&D did have a countdown in one of their tracks. It was a slow countdown from 10, and most of the crowd obviously heard it because everyone started roaring, but there was obviously a lack of coordination because the balloons didn't start falling until about 15-30 secs after the countdown ended...then they had trouble releasing the huge sack of balloons near the stage and shoot the confetting in the air. Oh well. 
Anyway, G&D finished a fun filled set and J00F came on and started rocking it....but we didn't stay for too long. We made a spur of the moment decision to go to TAO and swindle our way in --- to check out Markus' set there . By swindling I mean get hooked up by someone who works with GoVentures that my girlfriend happed to work with back in the day at Fox Studios. ANYWAYYYYYYYYYY, we get over there and simply aren't able to get in touch with him anymore. ARGH ARGH!!!!
Although it wasn't that huge of a deal to us. Michelle had been sick all week and my should and back had been bothering me hardcore, so I was just happy we made it through midnight. Even there we were there for only four hours, it was a very memorable night.
The setup and props were just amazin!
I really wish I brought my super nice camera the moment we got into the place, but I didn't it. I had a feeling with all the lasers and crazy props, reflections, even my old small "magical" camera wouldn't do well...and it didn't. Basically zero useable pics. I didn't realize the stage at Arena was a perm. setup and I could use that to take pics, store my camera bag, etc...if I had, would have surely brought the good camera. Oh well.
I think one thing that should have DEFINITELY been done for this night is for Spundae to have rented a Funktion One system....because that sound system at some points, pure distortion. Whenever it was turned out real loud...I mean, a good loud. A good rented system would have probably been better. And rented Funktion One systems tend to sound very good.
On a final note, what was up with the vibe in the place. It was incredible! Out of all the nights I had been to Spundae LA at Circus, and Henry Fonda, none of those compared to the insane vibe at Arena on NYE!!! Kristina Sky always talked about how incredible the place was and now I see why! WOW! I am sure the setup and everything really helped, but sitll have to say WOW!!!
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My ride home from HELL!!!!
Left Torrance, CA at 1:30pm. Arrive in San Francisco, CA at 11:30pm. Yikes!
OK, so we decided to come back today (or yesterday, January 2nd).....and left around 1:30pm after the rain passed. As you may know, I actually found gypsygirl's phone at Arena. Found the main piece on the stairs of the stage. The battery about 5 feet from it on the floor, and the back casing about 15 feet away (by luck...just happen to turn around and see something in the distance)....so on the way back up, we drop the phone off to her since she was only like a 5 minute drive out of the way we were going as it is....so not a problem....
After dropping the phone off, we work our way back to the 405 and get on I-5...then all hell breaks loose.
Once we started going through the hills, though, traffic basically haulted...to like 5-15mph, most of the way through. It sucked.....Anyway, get past all that then get on the grapvine, and holy crap!!!
I-5 was WINDYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!! I would say 50-60mph winds (constant -- going by experience in tropical storms/hurricanes growing up in Florida) with gusts up to 80mph....had just passed a major gas stop area near Bakersfield not worrying about filling up because I wanted to get to the next set of gas stations because they generally are much cheaper...but a mile past the stopped we just passed, I-5 was CLOSED ... worrying that I'd never make it on gas, I did a bitch moved, went across the median , and busted a U-turn and went back and filled up at the stopped we just passed.
So we sit at the gas station seeing all kinds stuff flying everywhere, thinking the gas-overhang was about to fall over waiting for the highway to open back up but no sign of it happening. This was at about 3:30pm.
So we start asking around if there are any side roads we can take to get way down the I-5. While asking around, we found out a tour bus had overturned and that there was some other accident on I-5 North. Anyhow, we get directions for a backroute and on our way we went. But on our way we get to an intersection a poll had fallen over...power lines laying across the right. But there were a few semis who seemingly knew ways back to I-5 so we turned a right and followed them. After about 25 minutes we actually did find our way back to I-5 and we could get on it. WHOOT! Was weird, though -- no one else was it!
At this point we noticed I-5 SOUTH was closed (since there was no traffic going south ). Why? A fully loaded semi toppled over blocking both lanes. Tow trucks not even trying to do anything because the rig is too heavy...we kept moving on up north. What was funny is every once in awhile, we could see other people trying to cross the median to turn around, but getting stuck because the median because it was full of water and mud! There are those little built in u-turns about every 1000 feet for cops to use that they could have easily used, but noooo...they though their cars could make it through the water puddles and mud...but didn't. It must have really sucked for them because they were stuck and the highways were backed up for miles upon miles so getting help would take hours.
We continue going north and at exits about 20 miles apart, all traffic southbound was being forced to get off....noticed this at about 5 or 6 spots.
I am lucky to get above 65mph because everyone is going slow because of the high winds knocking everyone around.
So we get to Coalinga and the highway signs say "warning: congestion ahead. prepare to stop..." so I'm like, SHIT!!! So I decide to get off at what luckily is the perfect stop because we can get dinner at Denny's or something...good thing because when we were exiting, we could see the highway was closed maybe a mile ahead so we would have been stuck! This was another exit I-5 south traffic was being forced to get off.
So we go to Denny's, waiting about 20-30 minutes to get seated, take another 30 minutes to get our food and eat. We found out from people who worked at Denny's that all I-5 traffic (both directions at the time) was being diverted to some highway that was well east. Highway 99 or something.
Anyway, we finish eating and head out, I-5 north is opened! Whoo! I-5 south, still closed.
The ride the rest of the way was pretty smooth. Soon after getting back on I-5 north, we finally figured out the highway updates radio stations, AM530 or AM1620. This was after 8:45pm. Turn it on, I-5 south is completely shut down in five spot south bound because of accidents/overturned trucks and downed powerlines. I-5 north is still shutdown way down near burbank....this was over 5 hours later people!!! Thank goodness we figured out the side route, or we'd be stuck down there still!
Anyhow, got back safely at about 11:30pm. Winds were crazy the entire ride except maybe the last 45 minutes of it. Cars wrecked on the side of the road all over the place. Felt like I was in a tropical storm...without the storm, really (not much rain involved with all this wind...oh man, how that would have been so much worse!).
I-5 north way down in Bakersfield finally reopened ... at 11:45pm. YIKES. If I hadn't done the u-turn, I would probably be on the highway way down there somewhere. Yikes.
The issue I am having right now is that my balace is messed up. Ever been on a cruise ship or a huge boat that slowly sways. Then you might know what I mean. For some people, their inner-ear balace has to adjust so much on huge ships that when you get off your inner-ear balace once again takes awhile to adjust to not swaying side-to-side. While it does this, your balace is a bit of whack and you feel like you are moving from side to side still. From our car being pushed around so much from the wind, and having to get control of the car so much, I am having this issue now. I hate it!
Last edited by DaveT on Jan-04-2006 at 06:37
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Spend half an hour tearing thru the car looking for them. Still can't find them. FCK!!!
Can't really blame them though, it was our fault for loosing them. 
They had ended GA purchases so I guess they were cool about that. 
