Of course, the rumors have been going around for weeks. According to Art, the CEO, though many people got close, no one guessed it exactly right. Considering they had such a broad age range they were trying to appeal to, they did a really good job choosing the music. (Other rumors included U2, the Stones, Sheryl Crow, and Paul Simon. Green Day would have been cool; they’re local guys.)
After nearly eight years of Genentech parties, we have our strategy down: First, we made a bee-line for the ice cream cart. Starbucks Mud Pie (coffee-flavored ice cream between two chocolate cookies, covered in chocolate = YUMM!) and Dibs. Oh, yeah. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Some water and a little bit of insalata caprese, and over to the stage we went.
The 30-year retrospective video was cool. Next, Art said a few words, followed by Herb Boyer, the only surviving founder of the company (Bob Swanson died a few years ago). Just imagine how that would feel to start a company with yourself, another guy, $1,000 total and a dream, and end up starting a whole industry that saves thousands of lives each year. Brain snappage, eh? Herb was followed by Dr. James Watson. Who’s James Watson (besides a cute old man in a fishing cap)? Oh, just one of the two guys who discovered DNA. DISCOVERED DNA. OK, I flunked high school chemistry and barely passed Physics for Poets in college, and even I know this is a big deal.
Next up, four patients who each thanked everyone for either saving or radically changing their lives for them. How can you keep a dry eye listening to a widowed single mom who was diagnosed two years ago with stage three breast cancer? For me, even though I’m a GenenSpouse, not an employee, this is really exciting. Me, I’ve worked for a law firm, one of the “Big Six” accounting firms, a technical recruiter, a restaurant company, and a high-tech public relations firm. I’ve never worked at something that actually saved people’s lives. Uber cool.
The concert was great. Here’s the run-down…
Foo Fighters: Dave Grohl has a great, wry sense of humor — talked about how playing office parties is his favorite thing, he loves copying his butt on the copy machine, teased a lady in the front row about drinking, gave her another beer, etc. They played mostly acoustic, which was great. He ended with Best of You. Oh, yeah. Gotta love an occasional screaming song. There are few who can scream well (Janis Joplin and Melissa Etheridge come to mind), and he’s one of them.
Bob Dylan: Well, Dani pegged it when I said one act had been dead for 15 years, and they were just carting his body around to concerts and propping it up. I saw Bob open for Santana at Shoreline back in 1993(?), and he was terrible. You could understand about one line of each song (great songwriter, but his songs sound much better when OTHER people sing them). He was actually better this time. Maybe it was b/c I was about 20 feet from the stage at this point. He & the guys with him had a cool, rockabilly sound/look going. Kind of weird for an old, half-dead guy, though. Anyhow, this time I could understand about 1/3 of what he sang. Two best songs were Highway 61 and All Along The Watchtower (OK, what did I say about his songs being better by other people? Definitely would have been better if Jimi had done it, not Bob, but since Jimi is actually dead, not very possible.). Couldn’t help thinking, though, that I would have rather seen Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers.
Black-Eyed Peas: I’m too old for this stuff. OK, I think I was born too old for this stuff. Um. Um. OK, overall I didn’t like them, but here’s what I did like: Da bimbo did the first stanza of Sweet Child of Mine (and did a passable snake-wiggle Axl Rose imitation). Da Filipino guy sang a song in Tagalog. Being as how South City is right next door to Daly City, which has the highest concentration of Filipinos outside of the Phillippines, that was pretty cool. I liked the cholo guy. What’s really funny about this is that Nana & I turned the channel the other day when BEP were on the Today show b/c we thought they were awful, and we had this conversation (I kid you not):
Wouldn’t it be funny if this is who Genentech got for the party?
Oh, no. They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t get THESE guys.
A couple of hours later, I got an email from Hubby saying that the latest rumor included them. Oy.
The Eagles: Wow. By the end of the show, there was one person between me & the barrier, and about five feet from the barrier to the stage. Oh, yeah. Encore was Hotel California. T and I saw them play at Shoreline back in 1994(?) on the Hell Freezes Over tour, and they’re still terrific. At first, Joe Walsh was the only one who looked like he was having fun, but by the end all of them (well, maybe not Don Henley) did. Joe’s just as crazy as he always was. Wish he’d done Rocky Mountain Way, but he did do Life’s Been Good to Me So Far (and clearly had fun with it, changing the words a couple of times b/c everyone was singing along to what the “real” words are). They have such a huge repertoire that they could have gone on & on & on for hours, but they did a pretty representative set of their group stuff and their individual solo stuff. They didn’t do the “four guys with guitars sitting on stools, all playing & singing” thing, but hey, you can’t have everything in 45 minutes to an hour, ya know?
Once again, another fab party. Thanks, Art!
P.S. T, I tried to call you and leave you a “music from the concert” message on your voicemail, but somehow I don’t have your number in my cell phone! Christine, silly you for thinking it was me singing in the car. Really, now! Dani, good job hearing the song and realizing it must be me at the concert!
Thing One will be eight on Friday, so while she’s at school, I’m doing some birthday knitting. I had planned to make her some lace bookmarks (I’m getting tired of the little slips of paper all over!), but since I’m still on the dopey meds, I don’t have the brainpower to do lace on size 1’s right now. Hence, some Very Special Things in the Peace Fleece I won from Lu’s contest a while back. The other pink wool will be for the embellishments.
