The crowd remained pretty calm until it got close to the time for the Goo Goo Dolls to take the stage, somewhere around 10:45pm. There was a lot of pushing and shoving going on, of course everyone wanted to get up front. I have been to a lot of concerts and expected this to happen so it didn't bother me too much at first. The DJ from the radio station presenting the show came on and asked the crowd to please move back to give everyone more room and said something to the effect of everyone having a safe night. Of course no one listened they just pushed more. We ended up in about the second or third row (if you could call them rows) mostly due to the crowd pushing not from my own doing.
There were a couple things that bothered me, one was the crowd surfing -- I saw a few people land on their heads, and get thrown over the barrier in the front. I watched Johnny's reaction to the people getting tossed over and it didn't look very good, I also got kicked in the back of the head by someone. Also, I normally wouldn't mind if people wanted to mosh, but in the fifth row of a packed audience give me a break! There just wasn't room for it and someone could get hurt. Don't get me wrong I had an excellent time other then the few things I mentioned. It just made it hard to enjoy the show because you had to fight the crowd and watch out for everything around you.
Johnny stopped the band in the middle of Black Balloon because of a girl getting squished against the front barrier. I was surprised that they did that, has it ever happened at any of their other shows? I agreed with him that that was part of being up front at a concert. He then said, well I guess that's the end of that song, switched guitars and started the next one. I got the feeling that he wasn't really enjoying himself during the concert, but he did smile a few times. The rest of the band seemed to be having a good time. Robby of course wasn't wearing any shoes during the show.
I don't agree with Brian that they don't care for their fans, or that their heads are swollen from fame. We weren't up there and don't know what kind of vibe they were feeling. I have been to other GGD concerts and they were nothing like this one. I think that this was a very hard crowd to play for -- they were very wild and I don't think the band was sure what the crowd was going to do. The fact that it was New Year's Eve and there were a lot of drunk people in the crowd made it even more intense. I'm sure there were also a lot of people in the audience that weren't even fans, but were just there for the party. It seemed like they just wanted to play and get it over with. I would really like to get the bands impression of the night, if anyone has a chance to ask them about it I would really like to hear it. I hope it doesn't keep them from coming back to AZ.
At midnight they brought Tempe's mayor, the radio DJs and the band (with women who I assumed were their significant others, since it was New Year's Eve) up on stage for the countdown. It was really cool when the band shot those canons of streamers and confetti out into the crowd. Overall I had a great night that I will never forget -- and I got to spend it with my favorite band!!! If I think of anything else I will add it later. I also took pictures and I hope they turn out.