It was a long, tiring drive roundtrip, the opening band was god-awful, but my trip to Chicago was worth it, because I got to see Blur! As one might expect, they played a good portion of songs off their latest album, "Think Tank," which is a great album anyway, in addition to many old favorites. I think "Leisure" and "The Great Escape" were the only albums they didn't play any songs from. Among the songs they played other than those from "Think Tank" were "For Tomorrow" (off "Modern Life is Rubbish"), "Girls & Boys," "Badhead," "To the End," and "This is a Low" (off "Parklife"), "Beetlebum" and "Song 2" (off "Blur"), and "Tender" (off "13"). I know there was at least one other song in there which I didn't immediately recognize, meaning it probably off "Blur," since I rarely ever listen to that album. I love it when a band really gets into their songs and plays to the crowd (like when I saw Radiohead in Chicago), as opposed to just showing up and performing some set list (like Bjök did). Damon and the crew were in it the whole way, blasting out lyrics at the top of his lungs and shooting out explosions of emotion from the guitar. This was in much contrast to the shitty opening band, who cranked their equipment much to loud - I'm sure the band could be heard out in Schaumberg - and who were full of all sorts of pretentiously manufactured excitement and angst. Can the schtick guys, buy a clue, turn down the volume and learn how to play your instruments. I think I can fairly say that this concert overtook Radiohead as my new favorite.

My trip down to Chicago wasn't all about the concert. I stopped in Milwaukee and picked up Molly. Then we drove down to her dad's place in Mount Prospect to drop off some power tool. We took the long and slow route to the concert down Milwaukee Avenue. After the concert, we went to Erik's apartment, and the three of us went and hung out at Golden Nugget - a restaurant near Erik's place. I should like to have stuck around and visited with Erik longer, but I was getting tired and Molly had to get up to get her car to the shop at 9 this morning, so we left a little after midnight and headed back to Milwaukee. We thankfully missed almost all of the storms on the drive back. We saw plenty of lightning and drove under about 2 minutes worth of actual rain, but for the most part we missed it. I'm not sure if we got hit with anything late last night, because I was so tired that I was out before my head ever hit the pillow. I got up this morning, Molly made breakfast for she, her mom, and I, and then I left about 11:30 to head home. I think I got back here about 1. Now I'm starting to feel tired again.