It isn't very often that a big music act makes a free in-store appearance in my hometown of Thousand Oaks. We call it "T.O." for short by the way... our city had the moniker long before controversial NFL star Terrell Owens did. It was only by a matter of good luck/fate that I even knew that the band Lifehouse was going to be performing at the T.O. Best Buy yesterday - long story short is what happened is that I had gone to the Wal-Mart in Oxnard after work on Tuesday to pick up the new Brad Paisley, Bon Jovi and Lifehouse CD's... I usually go to one of my local Wal-Mart stores because they have the lowest prices (usually $9.72 during the first week of release). I purchased several copies of the Paisley and Bon Jovi CD's, however the Lifehouse CD wasn't on sale - it was $12.99. So, I decided to head to my local Best Buy in T.O. (where it was only $9.99) and I purchased five copies... In the process I got four wristbands which would guarantee spots in line for those that wanted to get autographs from the band after the live acoustic set they were performing. I contacted a lot of my close friends to advise them of the show, but given it was such short notice, most could not make it. My longtime friend and also neighbor of almost five years, Bryan Boggs (pictured with me) was able to make it for the performance though.
Lifehouse took the stage a little after 6:45 and opened the acoustic set with their top five hit from their last album "You And Me." They then performed the first single off of their new Who We Are release "First Time." The crowd of was REALLY into it and then everyone went wild when they started performing their number one hit, "Hanging By A Moment." The crowd gave a big ovation and then the band went off the stage... the people continued to cheer and screamed for an encore! The crowd got their wish as the band came back out for one more song... A very nice performance of their song "Broken" (which is also on their new CD) closed the performing part of the evening...
The band went backstage for a bit after that, and they organized us into line... we waited for what seemed like forever for them to come back out - it really was only about fifteen minutes... By 7:30, I was at the front of the line and talking to the band and getting their autographs. I then hung out for an hour or so with other fans after the show for a good hour and spent a lot of time talking to a guy named Nick - a longtime friend of founding bandmember and lead singer, Jason Wade (above left).
Just before I left, I ran into a couple of their younger fans - a couple of girls in their late teens... The two sisters were sad because they weren't allowed to keep their wristbands as souvenirs of the event... As they didn't have copies of the CD with them, they only had their autographs from the band on plain pieces of paper. The pink wristbands actually had the band name "Lifehouse" on them and would definitely make nice momentos... Well, since I had two unused wristbands just sitting in my wallet, there was only one thing left to do: give them to the girls!!!... You should have seen the smiles on their faces!!! Actually, you can see their smiles as they're in the final picture of my set below! It certainly gave me GREAT joy to do something so simple, yet so meaningful to these two!!!
A fun time was had by all... I can't say I've ever spent two hours at one time at my local Best Buy before - I was amongst the last to leave, by the way... Yes, I had myself a good time! I certainly wish that more big music acts would do that kind of thing here in T.O... Finally, kudos to the GREAT staff at the T.O. Best Buy for doing such a nice job in organizing things there!!!
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After that fun event, I came home to watch a little baseball. Much to my surprise, the Angels and Ervin Santana were losing 4-2 to the Houston Astros in the top of the 7th inning. Santana always pitches well at home, so it shocked me to see he had given up so many runs... Not to fear though, the Angels would come back to score six runs in the bottom of the frame, highlighted by a mammoth 3-run homer by Vladimir Guerrero. For "Vlad" it was his 13th dinger of the year. Scot Shields and closer Francisco Rodriguez would close things out in the 8-4 Angels win.
The Dodgers on the other hand didn't have a comeback in them... Hong-Chih Kuo didn't homer, toss his bat, or pitch very well on this night... Actually, he was downright awful in giving up eight earned runs in only 1 2/3 innings last night against the Toronto Blue Jays. The rout was on, and Roy "Doc" Halladay breezed through eight innings to pick up his eighth win of the season, only allowing a run on six hits, while walking one and striking out four in a 12-1 Blue Jays win.
In another game of note, the Chicago Cubs took on the Texas Rangers and longtime Cub, Sammy Sosa. In his first appearance against his former team, Sosa made some history, bashing his 600th career home run in the bottom of the fifth inning off of Cubs starter Jason Marquis. Sosa becomes only the fifth player to reach that historic barrier, joining Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays. For someone that didn't play at all last year, this was certainly a nice, though unexpected, accomplishment. Most people thought the 38-year-old Sosa wouldn't do much this year... but so far he's proved the naysayers wrong, hitting 12 homers and driving in 53 while hitting .242.
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