Musically Speaking: Chevelle-Sick Puppies-Janus. The Riviera, February 21 2010.

This concert actually has a great story behind it. Okay, when we ( my Mom and I) got to the venue it was PACKED so we had a hard time getting a good spot but we somehow managed to find one for Janus's set. Janus was an interesting band, I only knew one song (Eyesore) but they were entertaining all the same. The lead singer had his mic stand out to the side, and he kept doing this weird motion with his hands haha it was really weird. The next act were the Sick Puppies, who I really liked. My favorite songs by them are Odd One, All the Same and My World, to name a few. The main reason I went to this concert was that Chevelle and Sick Puppies were playing at the same time and I liked more than a few of their songs. Chevelle are from Grayslake so it was cool to see a local band that gained popularity! Sick Puppies were really good and had great stage presence. They interacted with the crowd and made us laugh too! The lead singer Shimon was absolutely hysterical. The bass player, Emma was really cool too! Both Emma and Shimon are Australian so that automatically makes them cool :) By the time they finished playing, the crowd was REALLY filled in and it was getting harder for me to see. We ended up getting ready to leave after walking around and trying to find a spot to actually see Chevelle.

If you've never been to the Riv, there are small balconies on either side of the stage. Apparently there's also access to these balconies from the ground floor. We were walking to the outer edge of the left side of the stage when we see this guy waving to us from behind a curtain. We were really confused but then saw he was motioning for us to come up. We snuck past the security guard and made our way to the balcony! I still have no idea to this day how we managed to pull that off, but it was the best seat in the house. Here we are looking down at Chevelle with NOTHING in our way when we were just about to leave the concert! CRAZY. The guys we ended up being next to must've been in from London because they all had British accents! We could tell that they were head honchos in the music business because no one can get up to the balcony unless they have ties to the band or something. It's safe to say that will never happen again and we got extremely lucky!

I also got to meet the Sick Puppies after the show which was really cool. I told Shimon that he was hysterical and made me laugh more than once during their set. Love the Australian accent! Emma was very shy and I told her that she was a great bass player. The drummer was also quiet but I told him he put on a great show. I'm sure Shimon has enough energy for the other two combined so I can cut them some slack for being quieter haha. :)