Day Off in Milwaukee

Pull up to the hotel at 5am. Tossed off, and head to my room. And as usual, it's hot as hell. Crank up the AC, and lie down in hopes of a little more sleep.

Sleep for about an hour, then get up and read the paper. Head across the street to the George Webb restaurant for some breakfast. Good place, good food. Cheap, and they have a counter you can sit at if you don't want a table.

Go walking around downtown for a couple of hours, then back to the room to work a bit.

Take off about 7 to walk over to Summerfest. According to Mapquest, it's 1.7 mile from the hotel to the festival site.

Unbelievable. Insane amount of people there. I buy a ticket and head in.

First stop I make is at Train's stage. I call their TM Tom, and he comes out front to meet me. We walk over to Cheap Trick's stage and hang out for about 30 minutes, until he has to go back and babysit his band dudes.

I wander all over the site. There's like 10 stages or so, and tons and tons of bands play over the 11 days of the festival.

I worked here with various bands every year from '93 to '99, with the exception of 1997.

Kinda bummed – couldn't get close enough to Cheap Trick to hear them well or see them well. I only watch a couple of songs, then split. I pretty much do the same at the stage that Styx is on, and again at the Train stage, the P.O.D. stage, and the Yellowcard stage.

After I've had my fill of frustration, I head out and start walking back to the hotel. I'd passed a cool looking old man bar on the way down, and wanted to check it out on my way home.

It's not too bad. Looks like an old man bar, but I'm the oldest person in the place, other than Sandy the bartender, who's 50. Her mom opened the place many years ago, and now her brother owns it. She's a hoot and I wind up staying and talking to her for whatever amount of time it takes me to drink 6 beers.

She tells me to come on back tomorrow night, as she's off and will be on the drinking side of the bar. I tell her maybe, and off I go into the night.

Home in bed around 2:30.