Because my ears are still ringing from last night's Alice In Chains concert (and yes, the title of this post is a play off one of their song titles, for all you non- AIC fans), and I feel like someone beat my head in with ten thousand decibels... oh, wait. That happened. I'm going to recap last night for you, and explain why it was possibly one of the greatest nights of my life.

Upon my arrival at the venue, Ryan (another intern) and I parked the van, and after further instruction via-text message from my boss, met Gotts over by the entrance to the Mac Center (that's where the concert was). For all of you not familiar with Gotts, I'll fill you in quick before we continue. I'm convinced everyone in New Jersey knows who he is, as I was asked at east twenty times where he was by just about everyone in the arena. Needless to say, he's really awesome, and even got Ryan and I really good seats mid-show because he knew the security guards. It was awesome.

Anyway, we met Gotts, who then spoke some of the most magical words I've ever heard:

"Grab the stickers and the camera, we're going upstairs to the meet and greet."

Wait, what? REALLY? Well this is an exciting way to start off the night!

So we gathered up the Virgin Records label representative, the contest winners from the station (about fifteen people who had won tickets and the meet and greet package from the show), Gotts, Mallory (WRAT station girl), Ryan and myself, and headed upstairs. The contest winners were all really cool people as well, and yes, this is a common thread, I met a LOT of people cool people, as was the record label representative, who I ended up hanging out with for a little while. We took some pictures of the winners waiting online, with Mallory, with Gotts, and then Alice In Chains walked into the room.

When I tell you they were the most down to earth people you will ever meet, I mean it. I couldn't have asked for a better experience. They signed everyones stuff, and then Gotts gave Mallory and I posters to get signed, which as easily one of the highlights of my night. The guys signed, and we even talked about the tour and the show a little bit, which was beyond exciting. They then got up, took pictures with people and everything, and headed downstairs for an interview with Mallory and Gotts.

As exciting as that was, the next part is pretty boring, so I'm just going to give an overview (trust me, you're not missing much). The opening band played, The Parlor Mob, who would've been pretty good if every song didn't sound the same, and then Alice In Chains played. They were perfect live, and they put on a fantastic show, complete with projected images, lights, crowd interaction, the whole nine yards. Ryan and I took some pictures, sat down, ate some food, and got our heads pulverized by an hour and a half of pure metal. That's pretty much it for the concert.

Anyway, before the encore, we had to go outside to hand out stickers to everyone coming out of the show. It was fun, and we ran out of about 200-ish stickers a lot faster than one would think. This is also where I met some really interesting people, namely Chris. I can't quite do Chris justice in text, but imagine a short little chubby guy with grey dreadlocks and a bandana, in a tye-dye Led Zeppelin t-shirt, sporting baggy jeans a mustache/goatee combo. Oh, and he's out of his mind. As I'm handing stickers to everyone, Chris and I talked about everything from the concert to musicians we liked to his new motorcycle to what we were doing that summer, and we just had a good time all around. I actually met a lot of people that night, and all the conversations started off the exact same way:

"Hey, the WRAT rocks!" (or "where's Gotts?", to which the reply would be "I have no idea.")

"Thanks man! You enjoy the show?" would be the usual response, and we would go from there. It was really cool to be able to interact with so many people in one night, and they were all really friendly.

I think I'm really going to like this job.

Oh! Wait. I have to add this part in too, because it's actually pretty cool, and I forgot to tell you. So we're driving back from the gig, and some guy asks if he can follow us back to station because he's lost (we let him), and after about a twenty minute trip, we're back. The guy gets out of his car and asks us if he can write a note to Rockin' Robyn, because she had given him free tickets to the show for him to propose to his girlfriend (she denied him by the way. No, I'm kidding. She said yes), and he wanted to leave her a note to thank her. What a great way to end the night, and I really hope it works out for them.