06/27/2009
Night Ranger
Taste of Joliet
Joliet, IL
We should have gone to the show in Downers Grove last night instead of this one!!
I checked the weather forecast before we left home, and storms were forecasted to move into the area after 10 PM. That was well after the time that Night Ranger was supposed to finish their set, and I was neutral about seeing Joan Jett. We staked out a claim on the lawn area, and sampled many of the food items. As they were setting up the stage for Night Ranger, they announced that severe weather was forecasted to move through in about 35 minutes. If it did, they would stop the show and everyone was supposed to move under the concrete bleachers to the east, which would provide a shield from the storm. Right before the band was supposed to come on at 7:30 PM, they said that it looked like the storm would move through quickly and the show would continue while it moved through.
The sky looked like this...
Night Ranger came out and played about 5 songs. The sky got darker and darker, and it got windy. We felt a few drops of rain, and saw quite a bit of lightning. We noticed that they had deflated the giant balloons at the entrance, and had lowered the roof of the stage in anticipation of the storm. The band was in the middle of a song when they abruptly stopped and said that they were instructed to stop and get off of the stage because of weather. We headed under the bleachers, as instructed earlier. There was a lot of rain and lightning. After about 45 minutes, I called my brother and had him look at the radar. He said that it looked bad for quite a while yet. We decided to cut our losses and go home. By this time, it was about 9 PM, and saw that all of the equipment was being removed from the stage. Night Ranger was not coming back out, and we doubted that Joan Jett would play, either. This morning, I read that she never did play.
