January 8, 2008 - After a pretty good day at work, I went home and cooked dinner, while Ellie went down to Brenda's to take care of her cats for the last time. When Ellie got back home, she ate quick, and then we headed to Ruth Ecker Hall to see Blast. This was my third time seeing them live. My first impression of Ruth Ecker Hall was bad. As I was pulling in, they had a sign, "$6 Parking, Lexus Owners Free". Ok, I can see a dealership wanting to sponsor parking for their brand of car, but they could have presented it differently. Maybe "Lexus owner parking provided by Crown Lexus" or something. Next, we go inside. I've heard that Ruth Ecker was recently redone, so I thought it would look really nice inside. It was a big concrete shell with cheap looking carpet. The hallways were too narrow for the amount of people getting up at intermission to go to the bathroom, and there was no obvious grand entry hall. Instead, sort of like a high school football stadium, the 'concession' area was located behind/underneath the back of the hall, and there were two side 'entrances' that fed into this area. Inside the hall, the rows are seemingly 100 seats across. Since we were near the end of the row, that meant about 50 people stepping over us (because there wasn't much room to walk between rows) to get to their seats. Had we sat in the middle, we would have had to step over 50 people to get there. I was not impressed. The show itself was mostly great. I have in the past sat in the middle for this show, in the first balcony. Ruth Ecker Hall doesn't have a balcony, and at the time I was purchasing tickets, the best seats available were these ones on the end, so I was sitting right in front of the big bank of speakers. There were a few microphone problems, which I would think a touring Broadway show would have worked out by its 4th or 5th touring season. Still, there were some musical arrangement changes and visual changes that I liked. Overall, it was a great experience, but I am going to try to avoid Ruth Ecker Hall in the future.