Shinedown review; Hey baby, what's your sign?

OK, if you hate my music, skip down to the pickup item. It's worth your time.

If not, a quick Shinedown update...The concert Monday night was so transcendent, I might have to become a stalker. (Wait a minute, I have seen them eight times. That qualifies!)

Stay tuned for BIG news about Uncle Freddy's age. (That's what we call a tease in the radio business). But first, a brief review...

The new music is terrific. "Crow and the Butterfly," "Sound of Madness" (the title track), "Second Chance" and "If you only Knew" are my personal favorites. As always, the lyrics are emotional, tight and they speak to me.

This passage from "If you only knew" makes me think of an old friend, so a brief shoutout:

"It's 4:03 and I can't sleep
Without you next to me
I toss and turn like the sea
If I drown tonight...
bring me back to life
Breathe your breath in me
The only thing that I still believe in...
is you
....if you only knew"

You know who you are.

They did a great show -- .45 , the Uncle Freddy karaoke centerpiece -- was the best I've ever heard them do it...Almost as good as me!

Anyway, check out the new album. I am the Shinedown pimp.

The BIG news, as touted above -- I AM NOT THAT OLD!!!!

I had vowed to never again go to a concert if I was the oldest guy there. Nobody wants to be the pathetic old guy (memo to dude in the UT shirt -- you win!)

I wasn't even in the top 20. (OK, so maybe I counted a couple people twice -- my man Abel loaded us up on Jager. Erg. Was awful shaky Tuesday morning!)

I'll hit this harder on the show Saturday, but going to a concert with Abel is like going to Wrigley Field with Ernie Banks. I work every morning with AR; he is a cool dude who produces Mike and Mike and my morning updates. He also happens to run security at many events around town. He has fast become a valued amigo.

Dude is a monster celebrity. They let us go wherever we wanted, and he knew everybody there. The best part was when he stood at one of the doors with his arms folded and everybody thought he was the door man. He even intimidated a drunk into not slamming the door without saying a word. "Man, that's a big dude," drunk said.

One more jager and I would have started a fight just to have Abel bail me out of it. My goal for next concert is to wear a tux and sunglasses and pretend to be famous and have Abel act like my security guard.

If you go to an Astros game, don't stir anything up or Abel will be the one dragging you out.

I am going to put my official number as 27th oldest dude there out of a crowd of a couple thousand. Not optimal, but not bad. I won't be staring down the barrel of a .45 just yet...

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Much love for one of favorite people in the world, who had a bad week. He was supposed to get married, and they broke it off. I was planning a nice quiet night working and goofing off online when I got a text. "Dude, let's go out to Dave and Busters. They are having a singles thing."

For the record, there are MAYBE three people in the world who could drag me to a "singles thing." Maybe two. Uncle Freddy don't roll that way. But I love this dude like a brother, and I was determined to cheer him up, even if it meant going to a meat market.

(It was also hosted by a radio station that was a competitor. Whoops).

It was the most pathetic thing I have ever done. Especially when I started evolving from wingman to....well, no comment.

Man, it was bizarre. The weirdest thing was a woman who gave us her card who said women PAID her to meet men and could we send her a profile.

Back in the 4-0-9, we would have called her a "pimp."

I actually decided to make it a research trip. I asked several women which of the pickup lines they liked best from the ones we did on the show. Turns out I was wrong -- the polar bear line was by far the most popular. (How much does a polar bear weigh? I don't know, but it's enough to break the ice).

I also tried my new Teddy KGB test (do you know who Teddy KGB is?) I was 0-for-12. (MAJOR props to Virtual Val, who got that one while we were chatting on HR. Boy, Val, you get a lot of run on this blog...)

Lines that don't work: "Are you guys lesbians?" and "What do I like to see in a woman? Me."

(By the way, in Houston, when guessing what people do for a living, if you say "you are in the energy business," you have a 68 percent chance of being right, followed by "medical" at 20 percent, "marketing"at 11 percent and "female pimp," 1 percent).

I actually had a cool conversation with two ladies who were nice enough to thank me for talking to them before they escaped to find better looking men. And I also met a cool lady whose kid used to be in daycare with mine, and we had a very nice chat. So it wasn't a complete loss.

However, any positives were destroyed shortly thereafter. There was a woman who was actually making some progress until she tried to guess my age and dropped a "50" on me. FIFTY? FREAKING FIFTY????

My response? "Hey, what's your sign? Wait, I'll tell you. The exit sign. Hit the road."

Maybe I have a future with these pickup lines after all...

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Just a follow up on the Teddy KGB test; I love to trot stuff out with my facebook HR buddies before I try it on real people. A lot of the blog stuff and radio stuff you read and hear shows up there first.

I just decided I needed a standard test. Before I meet the Next One, she has to pass a test. I figured if she knows who Teddy KGB is, she would have to be cool, right?

Val -- and a young lady named Jennifer, who I don't know that well yet -- got it right. And since Min, Sandy, Hu, Emma and Sharon -- some of my all time favorite folks -- whiffed, I probably need a new test. (Although props to Em for googling. It's not cheating, youngster. It's "research.")

So any suggestions for a new test would be welcome. Best one wins a shoutout on the blog and on the air.