The Adventures of Frodo Baggins and Samkon Gado

I've always liked music. The 1st "real show" (non-local bands) I went to was the Vans Warped Tour in 1999. The lineup included Blink 182, Eminem, Less Than Jake, Black Eyed Peas, Pennywise, Dropkick Murphys, Ice-T, Bouncing Souls, The Living End, a side stage band called Jimmy Eat World, and many others.

I went to 4 more Warped Tours after that with some other shows sprinkled in for fun during the other 11 months of the year. After graduating high school I decided that concerts weren't really my thing so much any more and that I'd probably go to only 1 or 2 a year.

I'm not one to dedicate much time to discovering new musicians on my own, I just have other things I'd prefer to do with my free time. However, I love it when people take the time to make me a copy of an album they enjoy and let me listen to it on my own.

It's because of these efforts by sharing friends (and my sudden desire to leave town every chance I get) that I went to not 1, not 2, but 3 different shows last week!

I'm not going to give an account of how awesome the shows were because it's been done. If you're curious check out the Nov. 15 post here:

http://benkeamy.blogspot.com/2008/11/weekend-of-epic-proportions.html

and the Nov. 18 post here:

http://justchecktheblog.blogspot.com/

The point of this post is to tell of my encounter with 2 of my favorite hobbitses.

Frodo Baggins

and his faithful sidekick Samkon Gado.

Now I've taken a particular interest in Samwise Gamgee because I drafted him in the 3rd round of the I Phelta Thi Fantasy Football draft after Team Boo snagged Sam's mate Frodo 1 pick before me. http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/113064

Gandalf went in the 1st round between Dumbledore and Merlin, wizards are ultimately more valuable than hobbits. The Pahoran Stars took Han Solo in the 7th round based on his solid performance last year, which I think was a dumb move since space pilots rarely lead the league in consecutive years, and it's possible to pick up someone just as valuable in the last round, but whatevs.

All in all, while he wasn't as spectacular as Joshua James, I thought Samkon gave a solid performance. I think some people decided he must be terrible before they saw him because he was on American Idol and is therefore not "Indian Rock" enough. I'm not saying I loved the guy or anything, but I do have a soft spot for anyone brave enough to cover Nelly and Marvin Gaye in the same song.

I completed my music junkie week (which started and ended on Tuesday) performing live at a happening venue in Idaho Falls with Wayne C. Bass, Myke, Sac and Thome. I'll blog more about that once the videos are up on YouTube.