Have I Forgotten How to Count?

What a bizarre night.

Three still comes after two, which still comes after one, right? OK, just checking... I'll get back to that later, but let me start at the beginning.

Tonight Bon Jovi opened the Prudential Center in Newark. It's the first event ever held there. (This is what the Center, nicknamed "The Rock," looks like.)







So my orders are pretty straightforward. Red carpet at 5, The opening band, My Chemical Romance, at 7:15 and Bon Jovi at 8:30. Easy enough.

First of all, being on the red carpet at 5 meant missing the grand opening ceremony of the Prudential Center. Our coverage was being coordinated by our entertainment department, not our news department, so I didn't even know there was a grand opening ceremony. It was a kind of big deal, too, because there was speculation that Governor Corzine wasn't welcome at the ceremony, which obviously wasn't true, since he participated in the festivities.

So there I am on the red carpet, and the list of celebrities is less than impressive. Forget A-list, these guys barely make D-list. Newark Mayor Cory Booker? He's a red carpet celebrity? Aida Turturro? That's the best "Soprano" they could muster up? I don't even know who the third person is, but the paparazzi told me she's on Law and Order. --shrug--





Then out of nowhere, a car blew up in the parking lot. No, really!






It's not an area my paper covers at all (let's face it, I was there only for Bon Jovi) so I grabbed a few shots for myself and went back, just in time to be escorted into the arena for the My Chemical Romance performance.









Came out of that with some good stuff, sent it from the media workroom along with some of the red carpet stuff, and called my editor to check in. Turns out no one told her to expect anything from the red carpet. (Translation: I was wasting my time there.)

Then we were escorted back in for the main act, Bon Jovi. Before Bon Jovi took the stage, though, I ended up getting my shots of Corzine, who was sitting smack in the middle of the fifth row. Nothing great, but at least I got him in case we needed it. He appears to be checking out the lay of the land inside his state's newest arena.







But back to the matter at hand. We were told we'd get to shoot the first three songs. The first song was "Lost Highway," the title of his world tour and a song I'd never heard before. Then he went into "You Give Love a Bad Name." Finally, something of a vintage I'm more familiar with. Then he launched into a monologue, "I'm the Jersey Devil and this is my new house." Then... well, then I don't know what he played next, because the photographers were escorted out during his monologue. The monologue that followed his second song. We were assured we would be shooting the first three songs, but as he played the first few chords of the third song, we found ourselves being herded up and chased out the tunnel into the bowels of the arena. Here's what I got during the two songs...

















As I type this, FOX 5 News is showing the ribbon cutting ceremony that I missed for the useless red carpet garbage.

Anyway, I got what I needed as far as photos, but all around the night just kept getting weirder and weirder as it went on.

Tomorrow: Breeders' Cup. Take care!