So on June 23, we took the Rolling With Scissors vehicle to the great city of Orlando. I know you’re all saying why the hell would you go anywhere near that complete shit show. Well Ashley has never experienced the mighty Dream Theater, they have been on tour with Devon Townsend and Animals As Leaders.
This show was at the Hard Rock Live. A very impressive venue by the way. We got some great pictures which I will put in this post.
So when I ordered tickets through Ticket Bastard of course, I specifically clicked on the wheelchair seating right? You know the seats with the little wheelchair pictures on them, the seats were in the balcony, dead center of the room like absolutely fucking perfect, right. More about that in a minute.
We figured we would get down there early grab some food, then go to the show.
Hell, I even did the homework three weeks before the show, after purchasing the tickets, I emailed the venue to inquire about parking, because neither of us had been there before as well as general wheelchair accessibility, everything looked all good.
OK now time to figure out where we’re going to eat. What we rapidly discovered was the Hard Rock Live is basically inside universal studios, OK whatever all of the really cool places to eat right around the venue, and there are a lot you had to set a reservation and they were all booked up until about the time that the show was going to start, except Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, neither of us had been there. I will say the atmosphere is pretty cool if you’re into Forrest Gump, the food is definitely not worth the $120 bill for two people. Not quite fast food, seafood and steak but not that far off. Probably won’t do that again.
After dinner we made our way back to the venue with a quick little stop in the Harry Potter store.
I do have to say that this is the first show. I have been to where I don’t have any form of physical ticket. We arrived at the venue, and they scanned my phone, go ahead kids. I am old I remember the days of holding the ticket in my hand, and letting them rip it off, so you could keep the stub.
Since we had never been there, I didn’t know where I was going. Neither did Ashley. So I roll up to the venue staff, and again show her my phone and she says, can you get out of your chair to which I reply no, she says hold on a minute and disappears. Never a good sign in a disabled guys world, or not usually. She comes back about 10 minutes later and says those aren’t accessible seats. my response was Ticket Bastard said they were she says hold on a minute OK now I’m like what the fuck. She comes back about five minutes later and says come with me, so we follow, she said next time contact them directly about seats as we are walking towards an elevator. We get on and she says these seats are better. Also, there’s a man on the elevator whose job for the entire day is to operate the elevator. Man, that had to be a shitty job sit in a box all night, OK we get off the elevator walk through a bar to seats, overhanging the stage on the right side, with a completely unobstructed view. You will see in the pictures. We also had a waitress to bring us drinks talk about the fucking rockstar treatment.
The show opener was Animals as Leaders, if you haven’t had a chance to see these guys live fucking do it no excuses go. I’m going to use words that my buddy “Matt said so many notes” so so many. But absolutely beautiful here is their set just my opinion, but they did, and do an amazing job of fusing the intricacy of things, such as Dillinger, escape plan, and the beauty of Steve Vai and Buckethead. At least that’s what my brain went to win seeing them live. Absolutely fucking amazing.
Devon Townsend was next OK I have his stuff I listen to his stuff and really dig it, he did not connect with me or Ashley live whatsoever. I understand why they put him on the tour. I was honestly really excited to see him live it was a disappointment. Here’s his Set.
Now it’s time for the mighty Dream Theater if I am 100% honest, this is the first time I’ve seen them since Mike Portnoy left the group he was replaced with Mike Mangini what a fucking engine that man is a fucking monster. They put on a great set and included some old numbers which was really cool. Here is their set.
Both Ashley and I agree that the vocals could’ve been better for everybody. But all in all pretty impressive adventure. When you go to look at the photos, take a special note of the few photos of the guy in the white shirt they’re probably blurry and that’s because the man never stopped headbanging as long as there was a band playing he was slamming his head. It was kind of entertaining to watch. I don’t believe he actually saw the show.