Not long ago, I was listening to the radio on my way to work and answered a few trivia questions correctly -- my prize for this? Tickets to see Gallagher. I showed up when they told me to pick up the tickets ... Now what they didn't tell me is that I was showing up 2 hours prior to the show. OK, so what is a person to do for 2 whole hours? Well, we had our choice of seats, since we were the second ones in. Now choosing the perfect seat at a Gallagher show is takes a bit of planning actually... You have to decide whether you want to be close enough to wear the "props" out because it gets messy for any of you who don't know what a Gallagher show consists of - his "Sledge-O-Matic". The hostess said the first 10 rows were the ones to sit in if you wanted to go home with souvenier mess on you. OK, so row 11 was the row for us... close enough to see without wearing it home.
Next, once that we decided on the seating ... what to do with the time until the show began. Luckily we ran into a couple of young guys who were fans since they were kids. We compared stories, reminisced about previous TV specials we had seen Gallagher do, wondered how it would be in person. We pondered on his age (he is 64 for those of you wondering), and discussed how much longer he could swing that big mallet so to smash that watermelon he is so well known for.
Well, we were feeling especially helpful, and wanted to help him keep his career going even after his shoulders sustained a potential career-ending rotator cuff injury, so we came up with a spin off of his original trademark mallet smashing show.
For example, instead of a big heavy mallet, he could use a little one if he was smashing little things like ketchup packets or individual creamers... He could call his his show Gallagher's Travels, he could be the giant smashing little things. If he wanted to get really warped, he could smash the Lilliputians by smashing tiny action figures too. Ok, maybe that is going too far, but since when has Gallagher ever been PC??
So after we had his future career figured out, we still had about an hour and 15 min left before the show started. What to do, what to do??? About then is when Gallagher came out among the audience members for a meet and greet before the show for pictures and autographs.
Which was cool, but I thought he was going to kill me or just take my phone and throw it across the room - no one could get it to work to get a picture of me with him! Everytime we posed, I got the "I don't know what happened to it" I got the shirt signed first time (at least the marker worked!!!)
I got a shot of missing the shot for the third time... yep, that's right -- Gallagher nowhere in the picture.
We (or should I say "I") kept trying -- everyone around me pretended not to know me just in case security kicked me out for stalking Gallagher. But finally got the picture - yay!!
He was a good sport about it. His show was a hoot.... and yes, he is just as un-PC as ever. I think if the show-goers didn't know what to expect, he could manage to offend everyone in the audience -- he didn't hold back on any gender, race, political view, or any other group you could think of.
I remember his shows on TV when I was a kid, it would have been cool to see his trampolene that looks like a couch or his adult sized Big Wheel. But since in was at a tiny venue, can't have everything. What I did walk away with was sore sides and jaws from laughing so hard, and good memories. If you have a chance to see him, get there (But a word of advice, even though they say it's a family show, I would leave the kids behind, there were a few jokes he threw in that were not for the kiddies... just sayin')
