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Meeting Rico Petrocelli at the Cross Border Expo

Friday, October 28, 2011

When I signed up for a booth at the 2011 Cross Border Expo in Rockingham Park, NH, I didn't realize that I would get the chance to meet a true Red Sox legend. A week or so before the event, I received an updated announcement from the Salem, NH Chamber of Commerce announcing that Rico Petrocelli and the two recent Red Sox World Series trophies would be making an appearance at the Expo. I didn't think much about it at the time except that I thought it was a great idea to help bring in foot traffic. Then, of course, Rico arrived.

I had left the booth to see if I could drum up business from some of the the vendors on the expo floor, when my wife started waiving me back to the booth. It turns out Rico was in our booth commenting on the videos running on the big display! Oh, I missed an opportunity to have a picture of Rico Petrocelli in our booth in front of our logo. Oh well. So I grabbed my camera and followed him to the table the arrange for him to sign autographs and have pictures taken with him.

Rico Petrocelli

I was stuck by how kind and unpretentious Rico was. He engaged everyone who wanted to talk, and he carefully signed everything that was handed to him. I quickly realized that I could have brought one of the many baseballs I had gotten with the kids at Fenway Park over the years, but it never dawned on me prior to the expo.

Photo For a Friend

Later in the evening, a friend swung by our booth to chat, and he told me he brought a baseball with him to have Rico sign it.

So I offered to take a photo of him with Rico. When we got to the table, there were only a few people in line. When it was my friend's turn, there was no one else around, so we just started chatting with Rico on a wide variety of subjects. He was so nice. Not in a hurry and genuinely happy to talk with us. After a few minutes, I thought it would be silly not to leave with something signed, so I pulled out a business cards which he promptly autographed (see first photo).

Red Sox World Series Trophies

The other bonus was seeing the two recent Red Sox World Series trophies. People were allowed to stand behind them and have their picture taken with them. I was having fun taking creative shots of the trophies when someone nicely volunteered to take my picture with the trophies. Very cool! I noted with interest that the Red Sox ambassador was quick to point out that the Yankees do not lend their World Series trophies out to be seen by the public. I wonder why?

The Expo

The expo appeared to be well attended by the public, but our customers are typically other businesses. However, we did get a few visitors to the booth were other business owners. We also made some excellent connections with many of the other vendors that attended the expo. Overall, an excellent night.

Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden June 11, 1977

Sunday, January 3, 2010

I was a Junior in High School when Led Zeppelin booked Madison Square Garden in New York City for a week of concerts in June of 1977. We were able to score tickets because they were sold by mail order - the promoter's brilliant plan to circumvent the scalpers from getting the best seats. The downside, of course, was that we had no control where our seats would be. To our great surprise we received seats in the first tier of the Garden right next to the stage (stage left). Simply awesome seats! The last photo below shows the perspetive of where we were.

I shot Tri-X, Kodacolor II, and Panatomic-X. A whopping three rolls of film! Today I would easily snap off a thousand shots at a concert. Boy, how times have changed.

I had a 50mm and 200mm lens and my Dad's Pentax body. Looking back at the photos now, I'm disappointed to see blurred shots and the graininess of the film. I kept the negatives in plastics sheets, but they still had tons of scratches and dirt on them. I discovered that the anti-scratch software on the Nikon Coolscan 4000 scanner would not work on the black and white images at all, so these shots were cleaned up entirely by hand - not the most fun Photoshop work.

I was amazed to see how much information there is on the web for this specific concert date. Personal accounts. Photos. Even audio from the entire concert! All these years I had no idea.

The first black & white photo of Jimmy Page was just as the show opened with "The Song Remains The Same" playing his famed double-neck Gibson guitar and sporting nice, blown-dry hair (that didn't last long). The color picture was taken during his extended guitar solo towards the end of the show. You can't see it, but he is wielding his bow above his head. During the solo he was touching the laser beam that was passing over his head. This scattered the light all over the arena. I remember at the time thinking it was a very cool effect and a novel use of the laser.

I know people might find this hard to believe, but I found the concert to be both one of the best shows I ever saw while also having the distinction of being the most boring at times (during the extended keyboard and drum solos). I think I would have appreciated those moments more now. Back then I was probably more interested in just hearing what I was familiar with from the albums. With age I've come to appreciate and enjoy the improvisation more.

I remember at the end of the show that the lights came up in the arena and no one left. The crowd continued to scream loud and unabated. After what seemed a VERY long time, the lights cut out and Jimmy starts playing those great notes from the beginning of "Heartbreaker." In looking at the play lists for all the shows during the week at the Garden, they didn't play this every night, so I think it was quite special to see them perform it. Great way to finish a Led Zeppelin concert.

I hope the die-hard Led Zeppelin fans find this article so they can enjoy the photos. I have more to post if there's any interest.

Go here for more first-hand accounts for this concert.