Billboard Interview With Richie

Yay for the Circle and Slippery, no for LH. Kid Rock's is the only concert I've ever walked out in my life, but who cares, it's better go for drinks and dinner anyway than bother with an opening act.

I haven't bothered with the opening act in years. I always time my arrival to just before the headliner hits the stage.

You can't do this at open air shows if you want to have a good place to see.

True, however l havent done general admission since was 17.

I forgot that I actually did go for The Sword opening for AC/DC. They actually were pretty good on a couple of songs. You never know who you might discover that way.

To be frank, California doesn't allow smoking in any public place, so the time honored tradition of the concert doobie passing is not so easy to do without risking security. Any smoke at all is chased down.

So timing for the headliner..... Hey, I hate drinking and having to urinate during the show.

And I saw Davy Knowles and Backdoor Slam open for Chickenfoot last summer and they were awesome. However I skipped most of the openers at the Bon Jovi Prudential shows.

And I NEVER drink at a concert. I refuse to miss even 1 note of the music. I sip at water and nothing else. I can drink at home very comfortably - I don't need to pay a lot of money for tickets and spend it in the bathroom.

And yeah - passing the doobie doesn't happen too often even here anymore. Though I remember the Bon Jovi show in Philadelphia in 2003 where everyone around us was smoking and passing doobies. That was outdoors though. The guards in Madison Square Garden will hunt you down if they smell smoke of any sort.

It is possible to make an entrance as the band takes the stage in the US. Most of the people have actual seats.

Not uptop, trust me.
In fact, I've gotten much worse contact highs at indoor shows, due to the sheer amount in an enclosed space. Foo Fighters was a hell of a night for that.

Yeah - but who wants to sit way up there if they have a choice. Actually, now that I think of it, I was way up there for the Pete Seeger show and there was still no smoke. Maybe everyone there was too old LOL.

Foo Fighters are pretty high on my list of must-sees. I've missed out all of these years. Dave Grohl has th kind of honest passion I look for.

Oh that's right! I forgot the laws are the same there now. When I lived there it was still legal to smoke inside and I was a smoker then. Smoking did have it's usefulness as a disguise.