Joe University

Joe Barter was kinda jazzed when he scored a bunch of tickets to the Saturday, Aug. 19 Jack FM concert at the Verizon Amphitheatre in Irvine. The show had been sold out for weeks, and now Joe would get the chance to rock with Violent Femmes, Cheap Trick, Billy Idol, Journey and Def Leppard, along with tens of thousands of other devoted fans.

Being "Average Joes" and not the kind of people who get free stuff and complain, we took it in stride when we saw that our seats were so far away from the stage it seemed as if we were in a different ZIP code. Yeah, we'd brought binoculars, but these seats were on the "lawn" and so high up and far away, we'd need oxygen masks to breathe and a telescope to see the action on stage.

That didn't faze Tom Daley, President and CEO of Joe Barter, or his guests, Dr. Richard Gelm from the University of La Verne, and Paul Hernandez with 360 Global Management. The three of them began to slowly navigate their way to the stage as soon Violent Femmes opened the concert. Meanwhile, Donna Camp, our vice president, sales and marketing, and her guest, Rachel Lesinski from UCI, stayed behind to guard our seats.

It wasn't easy maneuvering past fans who'd paid big bucks for choice seats, so we linked up with some fighting men from the USMC who graciously escorted us to the stage. Semper Fi, guys, and thanks for all that you're doing for your country (and for the Joe Barter Team).

For the rest of the concert, we were so close to the action, we could feel the performers' sweat. It was cool. We felt guilty about Donna and Rachel, though, so Tom text messaged Donna to ask if she could even see anything from our seats. While he waited for her reply, a spotlight picked out two women on stage with backstage"crew" passes.

It was Donna and Rachel!

They'd been picked out of the crowd by a Jack FM staffer and ushered back stage to introduce the band Journey! The crowd went wild! After their brief stint in the spotlight, they were escorted to front row seats, where Tom and the Joe Barter team were now sitting.

Joe's team was together again, and we didn't need a telescope.