Well I taped my first bands tonight at the almost acoustic Christmas(not 1 song was performed acoustic?). It was quite nerve racking. When entering the arena the metal detector went off and they told me to lift my shirt, I did and exposed my metal belt(thanks to this board for that advice) and they let me in. As soon as I got in I went to the bathroom to get my equipment out of my croutch and set it up. I left the mics inside my backwords baseball hat for now. When I get to my seat i was seated 3 feet away from security for the whole show. It was a short row of 4 seats right next to the soundboard(so close my left arm could have turned the knobs and dials, man it was huge) I sudddenly realized it would be very tough to take my mics out of my hat and leave them resting on my ear. So i taped 2 songs from the 1st band (forgot there name) and went back to the bathroom to listen to the recording. To my amazement it was an awesome quality recording. Almost as good as a live studio produced cd!!!!This venue(Universal Ampitheatre) is so loud its increadible. My ears are still ringing. I think by leaving my mics in my hat this helped. Anyways I got an awesome quality sets of Distllers, Pennywise(they did a cover of Hey ya by Outkast), Offspring(the usc college marching band started the show with around 40 band members and they played the intro to the 1st song) When it was over the lead singer said fuck Nebraska, USC is #1. And lastly Linkin Park. They rocked!!!!They did there encore with the lead singer of POD. The only christmas song played was we wish you a fucking merrry christmas by pennywise. My only problems during the show was halfway through offspring after 2 people in my row left 2 drunk hot chicks sat down and said in my ear are these seats taken? I waved my head yes and they sat down anyways. This is picked up on the offspring set but not too loudly. This drunk hottie then started to shake her ass in my croutch(did not impede recording) so that was cool. Then between songs she said"what is all that" pointing to the sounboards and I told her I was recording the show and trying not to talk. They left shortly after that. Thanks to everyone on this board for all the help. Especially Schwillis. He gave me loads of valuable info. I can't wait to see Maiden in a month!!!!!