by Hank Brockett
6/29/01
This is the last row, the scourge of seating charts everywhere. And the only thing separating these small pockets of fans from the singers and dancers are tens of thousands of fellow fans -- a sea of bare shoulders, visors and highlighted hair.
Just about everything going on at Saturday's B-96 Summer Bash can be seen from here atop the Route 66 Raceway, even if the main draws are a bit on the small side.
It's clear that less people showed up this year with higher temperatures and less star power than last year's event.
But a lineup with the likes of rappers Jay Z and Tyrese, boy bands O-Town and Faze 4 and girl groups Dream and 3LW drew a rambunctious crowd dominated by adolescents.
And the marquee names of Sisqo and Ricky Martin even drew a few older fans who still were young at heart.
As Dream sing one of their hits, Danielle Grosche sits with people she just met but acts as if they've been best friends forever.
Grosche didn't think she'd attend the concert, but she won a ticket by placing in a dance-athon at Lisle North High School.
"I was thinking about going, but the only tickets left were lawn tickets and I didn't think they'd be any good," said the graduated senior.
And in a shock to her and her compatriots, winning tickets doesn't necessarily guarantee the front row.
They were in the third row ... but in a back section of the venue.
"But you know what? We're the cool section," she said. "We're still going to have fun, because we're the party crew."
The long walk to the front of the venue isn't easy.
The pockets of empty seats slowly dissipate, and the aisles fill with tricky fans trying to outmaneuver frantic ushers. The tell-tale signs of sunburned necks and flushed seats give away that tempers may flare.
But not if Tyrese can help it.
The rapper/actor arrived in Joliet just as his Baby Boy movie hits the screen, and he received one of the biggest pops of the day.
At a simple suggestion (and a crowd-pleasing gimmick used plenty of times during the day), the crowd screams and throws its hands in the air, oblivious to any scuffles or the price of $3 bottled water.
The performances weren't flawless. Technical difficulties plagued pop singer Willa Ford and Tyrese's sets, setting the latter into a small rant about people backstage jumping up and down causing his recorded instrumentation to skip.
Again, though, he smoothed the glitch over with an invitation for one lucky fan to join him on stage, and a lifelong memory was created.
Far from that chaos, though, remained the back row.
Kym Milewski of Downers Grove sat back, a great view of the newly built Chicagoland Speedway dominating the skyline.
Milewski and her friends Barbie and Cindy Skoda admitted they didn't have the best seat in the house, but the sound set-up pounded each song into their ears.
"We like outdoor events," said Milewski. "...But I don't think there's anything good about these seats."
"Well, we get a better tan," joked Barbie Skoda.
By that time, they had been in their seats for four hours. They had the sun for a few more hours, and a few more until their main reason for being there, Jay Z, took the stage.
No bad seats could prevent them from waiting that out.
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