Hey Steve!

Lemme just say, from a 19 year old fan of Ringo Starr and her 2nd time going to See Ringo at A/C it was FANTASTIC! His performance was even better than the last time and he was in such great shape! His singing voice was outta this world, and he really did a fantastic job on Never Without You! I dunno if anyone from the A/C show noticed but from what I heard he sounded as if he was gonna cry while doing the song but he got himself together and did a killer performance! ALSO when he did "The No No Song" he started it out but forgot the first 2 lines I think it was! It was hilarious!

Colin Hay was amazing, he sounded exillent! Who Can It Be Now and Land Down Under were stupendious!! Sheila blew everyone away, she is a powerhouse on the drums in her own right. And I gotta agree when she started her song off and said "Ringo's the Funkiest Drummer in the whole Wide World" That was funny and got a great responce from the crowd! All in all It was a fantastic Night! And near the end of the show so many people came up to the stage and Ringo took flowers and let people take pictures! It was one of his best shows I've ever been to!

The other band members with him like Paul Carren, John, Colin and of course Sheila I already mentioned did a wonderful performance of each of their own songs! Colin who was hilarious was saying how he was in Atlantic City about three years ago with his former band Men At Work, and he was in a casino elevator and a guy asked him what band he was with and he said "Men At Work" and the guy in the elevator said "Noooooo. That band broke up and the lead singer died years ago" Well Colin now proved the man wrong, by saying after "Land Down Under" "This is living proof that the British Empire is still going strong!"

All in all, it was a fantastic concert! And just for you, Steve, and people who visit the site here are pictures that I took from the concert. Please forgive the blurriness of the pictures. It was with my mom's digital camera.

I was at the Taj Mahal concert and have to agree that the band sounded great! I also noticed security was not especially tight, there was a bag check for cameras but as far as I could tell many fans were going up close to the stage to take pictures with flash and digital cameras with only minor efforts by security to discourage the photographers. Toward the end of the concert, Ringo said, now this is usually about the time we leave the stage and everyone makes a lot of noise and then we come back to play. But we're not going away, we'll just pretend to leave and play some more. His statement got great cheers from the audience and then they started playing "With A Little Help From My Friends". It was a great concert and the members of this All-Starr band worked together well and each contributed with several of their well known songs in the format that has been very successful for Ringo's tours.

(8/4/03) From Liz Lackey:

I saw the Atlantic City concert at Taj Mahal last night. Here are some highlights I could remember:

When Ringo was introducing the band, he referred to them as "the guys," and there was an indignant crash from the drum set. Ringo quickly corrected, "And the lady." Grinning, he said, "Wait, that's no lady!....(huge pause)...That's a princess!"

After "Who Can It Be Now," while Ringo was coming back up from behind the drums, Colin Hay said, "If you asked me a few years ago that Sheila E. and Ringo Starr drumming behind me, I would have said you're crazy!" And Ringo said when he reached the microphone, "Colin...I would have said the same thing." Ringo then started singing a bit of "Who Can It Be Now," and seemed a little surprised when the band started to back him up! He turned around and said "All right, that's enough of that!"

When Ringo asked before "You're Sixteen" if there were any young girls in the audience, it turns out that there was a girl about five years old in the front row, who handed Ringo a letter that said "I love you." Awwww.

During "Photograph," a kid somehow made it onto the stage, and Ringo sang a verse with his arm around the boy, holding the mike out to him for one line, but the kid didn't know the words. He was then led backstage.

Colin Hay said that the last time he was in Atlantic City he met someone in an elevator who claimed that the lead singer of Men at Work had been dead for years. "This tour is for him!"

After "Photograph," Ringo started a call-and-response "Hey! Ho!" with the audience, and then announced "What song this goes to, I have no idea!"

Sheila E.'s drum breakdown after "A Love Bizarre" included a chant of "Ringo...he 's the funkiest drummer in the whole wide world!" After playing her first of three really really good drum solos that night (this was the only one on a kit, the other two were on the timbales), Ringo said, "I only gave Sheila ONE lesson, and look what she did with it!"

Before "When I See You Smile," John Waite said, "This is a song I wrote about my ex-wife. It's very sentimental, and it's called "Boom Boom, Let's Go Back to My Room!"

The concert itself was a fantastic performance. John Waite sang the hell out of "Missing You," Sheila E. played drums with her feet, Mark Rivera played every instrument possible, the harmonies were well blended, the instruments well played. I enjoyed it immensely.

Back from Atlantic City at my buddy's house before we are off to the PNC Arts Center for the next show... Atlantic City was...well, Ringo and the band were great they are improving, but the crowd was the usual casino crowd... more details later... one comment further about the crowd...standing in line after the show for refreshments on our way out of the casino, one in our party heard this woman say, "well, it's not my thing, but I figure it's a Beatle and I had better go see him..."