Al & Heart & Crowe

I am a geek. Believe me, I know that. But, I will make sure that I buy tickets as soon as they go on sale for both of these concerts.
Weird Al Yankovic will be playing the Utah State Fair (again) on September 7th, 2007. Anyone with me?
Also, On August 3rd, Heart will be playing in Wendover, NV. I already have Tayster watching out for tickets to go on sale there for me, but that is another definite must-see.
I have been an Al fan since I first heard Oh, Ricky on the Dr. Demento show at least 25 years ago. I have purchased each of his cassettes as they were released when I was a kid. When I got a CD player, I immediately rushed out and got his entire collection (it took me a while to find all of the Huey Lewis Cds- I told you I was a geek.) Since then, I have purchased all of the new Al Cds on the day they are released.
Heart, on the other hand, came from my love of films. I always liked their radio stuff, especially their 70's hits (Barracuda, Crazy on You, and Magic Man being three that I loved before I even knew who they were by name). When I got married almost 10 years ago, my wife held Heart in the same place that I held Al and Huey. I started listening to their albums in their entirety and their cds, along with Al & Huey, are always in our road trip music collections. It wasn't until I saw Cameron Crowe's film Almost Famous in 2000, that I truly got into them. What does Heart have to do with Almost Famous? A lot actually.
Almost Famous is the autobiography of Cameron Crowe. He was a 15-17 year old kid in the early 70's and he went on the road with many major bands(Led Zepplin and Black Sabbath to name but 2) in the early 70's as a reporter for Rolling Stone. They didnt know he was so young. When they found out, they couldnt legally have him on the road so they sent him undercover to see what real life in modern high schools was like. He wrote an article that was later fleshed out into a book that he then wrote the screenplay for which was called Fast Times at Ridgemont High. That started his film career which has also included Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, Elizabethtown and Almost Famous. In 1986, he married Nancy Wilson, guitar playing sister in the band Heart. She has done a few singing parts on the albums, but it is mainly her sister Ann who does the amazing vocals.
So, from all of Crowe's time on the road with bands, he kept a box in the garage with all of his memoribilia. One night, Nancy convinced him to write a fictional version of his story. In the movie, the band, Stillwater, plays 6 different songs throughout. All of them were written by Crowe and Nancy (on the same dining room table where ann & Nancy have written their songs for years). Also, Nancy has done the scores for Elizabethtown, Vanilla Sky, and Almost Famous with partial scores for Say Anything and Jerry Maguire.
For my wife's birthday in the summer of 2002, I got her tickets to see Heart in Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Beach and was amazed by the show! Ann was an amazing singer, and Nancy was an amazing guitarist. I even had to go to the bathroom halfway through the show and got to glimpse Cameron Crowe in the sound booth!
Ever since, I have been a much bigger fan of Heart even trying to find the latest release on the day it came out by randomly driving through Twin Falls, Idaho looking for record stores while we were on vacation. Fun fact- as Orlando Bloom is packing music in the film Elizabethtown, he puts Jupiter's Darling by Heart into his mix.
So, even though I have 6 months to wait for Heart and 7 for Al, I am already excited to see 2 great concerts thsi year!