Maroon 5 Concert!!

For anyone that knows me, will know that I am a HUGE Maroon 5 fan and have been for years (way before everyone got on the bandwagon). Maroon 5 and I go back at least until 2002. They are one of those bands where their music really ‘spoke’ to me at one point in my life. Honestly, their first album ‘Songs about Jane’ helped me get through some rough relationship times. I remember driving around in my jeep, with the music so loud feeling like each one of the songs was speaking to my experiences personally. I just gravitated toward their music and have been a huge fan ever since!

So far I’ve seen them twice in concert. Once was for a small show at the Chicago Theatre four years ago. It was awesome; it was a small, intimate venue. I think we were in the fourth row, super close to the stage. Rob had even run into Adam Levine in the bathroom. Then they came to Chicago again in 2012 to the Allstate Arena. At the time I joined the Maroon 5 fan club so I could access to their presale. I ended up with tickets on the main floor in the 20th row. Both times were amazing shows!

Six months ago tickets went on sale again for another Maroon 5 concert at the United Center. I knew right away that I wanted to go! Once again they were hosting a fan club pre-sale. I wasn’t a ‘member’ anymore, so I decided to cough up the $50 to join again. I wasn’t going to miss this! The morning tickets went on-sale I got on my laptop and tried getting tickets through TicketMaster. Holy smokes – each search I did said no tickets were available!! I must have tried for 3 hours and had NO luck! I was getting frustrated!! Tickets hadn’t gone on sale to the general public yet so how come I couldn’t find ANY tickets?! I adjusted my quantities and still nothing was coming up, yet there were already a handful of tickets available (over-priced) on sites like StubHub. Those darn ticket scalpers! They must have only released a very limited amount!

A few days later I read online that they were doing an American Express Pre-sale the next day too. I was bummed because I didn’t think I had an Amex….but then I remembered that I had an old Macy’s card that I never used, but was an American Express!! I hadn’t even activated the card. I dug through my wallet and called to activate it! I went online again to TicketMaster and entered in the American Express Pre-Sale code and sure enough tickets were popping up! Tickets for the first row came up too but I couldn’t justify spending $800 on one ticket! After looking around for a little bit, I found great seats in section 104. I bought 4 tickets and was SOO excited!!

Fast forward 6 months and it was finally time for the concert!! It ended up being me, Melissa, Jaime and Nicole! We got the United Center around 7:30 pm. Our seats ended up being pretty decent! I wasn't able to get 4 tickets all in one row, but got two seats in one row and the two seats directly behind them in the next row. It actually ended up working out pretty well, so we could easily chat with one another. Magic opened up for them and then Maroon 5 finally came on around 9:15 pm. It was such an amazing show! Although it seemed to go by too fast, the concert was a blast! They played a good mix of old stuff and new songs! Next time, I seriously may consider coughing up the $800 for a front row spot, at least just once in my life, I'd love to be that close! They closed out the show with "Sugar." It was awesome! I heart Maroon 5!!

Fun girls to see a concert with!

Selfie fun!

The closest we ended up getting to Adam Levine

 A view from where our seats were - section 104

 Mr. Levine!

St. Patrick's Day Shennanigans

I love St. Patrick's Day because it usually means green beer and fun with friends. For the past few years, we've made it a tradition to get together with friends on the Sunday before St. Patrick's Day and celebrate! Before kids, it used to be a much bigger production and we'd head to the city and start day drinking at 8:00 am! Now things are a bit tamer and we'll meet around noon, have lunch and have a few beers before calling it a day at 5:00 pm. This year we had a smaller group, but it was just as fun! It was the Csorba's, the Doyle's, the Shannon's, the Ross' and the O'Connell's. We met for lunch at the Wise Boxer Pour House in downtown Naperville. It was pretty good! Once we finished up lunch, we walked over to Quigley's Irish Pub. It was pretty empty considering it was Sunday. We had a few beers before heading home. It was great seeing friends and catching up! I look forward to it every year! I hope it is a tradition we can continue in the future!

 

I always like to reminisce too, here's a few pics from the past few years -

 

The girl's from last year - 2014

 

 2013!

Same restaurant back in 2013!