I went and saw the Time at the Stewart Amphitheater in Lithonia, GA on Saturday July 1, 2006. This was show #27 and as usual we had a fantastic time.

Unfortunately, this tale starts like most of them lately. Doom and Gloom. I had crap going on and so did Jason and we were both in rather pissy moods leading up to the show. We didn't finally decide to go for sure until 10 a.m. the day of the show so that left little time to get ready and get ready for the long drive to Georgia.

Jason and Ashley showed up around 12:45 p.m. Neither one of their cars were in any condition to make that kind of trip so that left me to do the driving. Let's just say I would rather have a root canal than drive on a road trip. I had two years of driving four hours a day six days a week and that got rid of desire I had at all to drive any more than I absolutely have too, but you have to do what you have to do I guess. We loaded up the car, squeezed Ashley into the almost non-existent back seat and got on the road.

The drive was actually about as good as it was going to get. We made decent time, even with my slow ass driving. No bad weather. The traffic got a little hairy in Montgomery again, but nothing major. About an hour out of Atlanta, we got our confirmation that we were hooked up for the show. Luckily we didn't have to go to downtown Atlanta so we got to bypass most of the traffic and only had to deal with a little congestion at the end of the drive. We had enough time so we went to the hotel and checked in. Got a bite to eat and went back to the hotel to get dressed for the show. We bailed and after a few wrong turns found the venue.

We went to the will call to get our tickets. They didn't have my name quite right, but close enuff for them to figure it out. Much thanks to Jerome for hooking us up. We made our way into the festival. Another outdoor show and it was already packed solid. Confunkshun was playing and Jellybean was at the side of the stage watching the show. He spotted us right off and waved at us so we went to talk to him. The cop working security immediately came and tried to run us off saying we needed wrist bands to be in that area. Jellybean was kind enuff to go get us three as we were going to have to leave from our spot and watch in the hills somewhere if he didn't. Big props to Jellybean for helping us out of this jam.He hung out with us for awhile and then went back stage. We stayed in the area by the stage and waited for the show to start.

Around 11 p.m., The Time finally came to the side of the stage. Jerome spotted us and greeted us warmly. Security came again and ran us off saying we couldn't stand on the steps. Aside from their shitty attitude, it was a blessing in disguise since we moved more toward the front of the stage and actually had a better view of the show than if we would have stayed where we were


The line up:
Morris Day - Vocals and Cool
Jerome Benton - Vocals, percussion and general mischief maker
Jellybean Johnson - Drums
Monte Moir - keyboards
Brice Myles - keyboards
Ricky "Freeze" Smith - Bass
Tori "Freakjuice" Ruffin - Guitar

Here is the setlist with my general impressions to follow:

1. Ho Parade
2. Wild and Loose
3. The Stick
4. Fishnet
5. The Oak Tree
6. Jerk Out
7. Get it up
8. Cool
9. 777-9311
10. Gigolos get lonely too
11. The Walk
12. The Bird
Encore
13. Jungle Love

No DAT intro tonight. The cd didn't make the trip to Lithonia this time around.Tori came out playing some different stuff right out of the gate and I got hyped as a mug(now a certain somebody has heard me say that twice so she had better not give me any shit). I was hoping that my long wait for the Skillet was finally going to end especially since I've been told that they actually want to open with that, but atlas after a few moments we were on the Ho Parade(which still kicks ass by the way). Morris had some problems with his mic during Wild and Loose and Freeze was cutting in and out some, especially during Fishnet, but these problems were taking care of quickly and did little to distract from the show. Yet again we had a different angle to the show than normal. This time we only caught glimpses of the Brice, Monte and Jellybean as opposed to the last show where that was our main view. We were to the side of Freeze and we caught his eye right off. We had good views of Morris, Jerome and Tori except when they went to the very end of the stage. At the end of The Stick, I was waiting for Blondie to kick in, but when Fishnet started I knew the rock n' roll was getting cut out and we were in for the short setlist. We got a tip of the hat from Tori after 777-9311.

We had some rather over enthusiastic audience members in the house. The stage was low and they got up their a few times. Sometimes invited, sometimes on their own in which case security ran their ass off pretty quick. The one guy was pretty good and Jerome had him up there again near the end of the show. The other guy, aside from reminding me of the dude from the chettoes commercials in the 70's really needed to lay off whatever he had before the show(or atleast share with everybody else) WAACK.
The band was tight and aside from the previously mentioned minor glitches, sounded fantastic. Defiantly better sound wise than the Birmingham show(which was in turn better than the Dothan show ) We did have to endure some rather rude comments from the cops working security. "Why are these white folks doing over here ?" and " I don't know, but I'm going to keep my eye on them"
They probably should have been more worried about the crack heads getting on stage than us since all we were doing was enjoying the show and not bothering anybody. Ashley was hiding again when The Bird started, but Jerome had more than enuff eager participates to even worry about coming our way. Don't worry Ashley. Your day will come : ) The show ended right around midnight.

Tori came over and talked to us and invited us to the backstage area. He told us to go on back while he was talking to someone else. Well we start back there and that same guard that gave us crap at the beginning of the night stopped us and wanted to know who said we could go back there. We told him Tori the guitar player, but he still made us stop. Luckily Jellybean was on the way back and he let us go with him. Well we get to the trailer and again we are stopped by security and told to wait outside. Ain't that a bitch. We had our wrist bands, we were seen talking to the whole band and in their presence and they are still fucking with us. Needless to say we weren't happy about the situation at a all. Well after about five minutes of people coming and going , a lady opened the door and asked us who we were with and we were finally let in.

I won't even mention the "bathroom incident" because there are just something's you have to leave off the internet report(get your minds out of the gutter, its actually more funny than anything like that) We hung out for about half an hour or so with the fellas. At that point, they headed to the hotel and we were invited to come back and hang out. After getting directions from the one decent cop we met that night, we made our way there. We went to the lobby and waited. There was no bar in the hotel so we decided to go down the road a little ways. We got in my car and Tori and Brice got in another. The bar was packed so we ended up at Applebee's.

We were a minute or so behind them and joined them at the bar. Jason and Ashley sat by Tori and I sat by Brice. Again we had to deal with the little comments " Well you guys can slide down so those three can sit together" Of course we were all together so we didn't care about who sat by who. Strange that Lithonia evidently hasn't made it into the 21st century yet(atleast almost everybody we had to deal with that night) Whatever. Aside from that we had a good time talking to the fellas and just hanging out. This was the first time I had gotten to talk to Brice since he hasn't been with the band very long, but he's going to have no problems at all fitting in with the fellas. He's very down to earth and anybody that can keep me talking for an hour is doing something right. Well they did the last call for alcohol and Tori did the "You ain't got to go home, but you got to get the hell out of here" line and they actually locked the doors after we walked out since we were the last ones to leave. We said our good byes and headed off to our hotel.

Well its been almost 10 years since my first Time show and I still enjoy the experience every time. Especially lately with all the great hospitality we have been showed by the fellas. Ashley is officially our good luck charm now. Four shows, four shows hanging out. I guess she gets to go to all of them with us from now on : ) Thanks again to Jerome for the ticket hook up, Jellybean for the wrist bands, Freeze, Monte and Morris for the backstage visit and Tori and Brice for the after show fun. I can't wait for the next show !!!