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Las Vegas • It's Saturday night. Mort and I are sitting in the upper reaches of the Mandalay Bay Events Center. A growing storm of 12,000 geezers surrounds us. Everyone is waiting on Bob.

There aren't many musicians left for whom I'll tolerate a cramped plane flight and a horrible seat in a mob to watch. Bob is one of them. When Mort suggested we fly down to Vegas just to catch Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band's Ride Out tour, I jumped at the chance.

Note: We bought our Vegas tickets two days before it was announced that Bob would be coming to Salt Lake City in March.

On Saturday the opening act featured the Silver Bullet Band fronted by backup singer Shaun Murphy. She's good, even real good. But it was while listening to her that I had a definite Bob "Turn the Page" moment.

I was a Seger fan after his first big hit ("Ramblin' Gamblin' Man") in 1969, and through the "Night Moves" '70s when he had dark hair that hung below his shoulders. I remained a fan when he cut it short in the "Like a Rock" 1980s.

Still, I was ill-prepared for the hard-rocking grandfatherly Bob, or more specifically, his noticeably aged fan base. On Saturday, the vast majority of the audience had hair ranging from gray to white to none.

Looking out over a sea of Q-tips, it was as if the concert had been booked at the world's largest assisted living center. A "bad trip," as we used to say. And I wasn't the only one feeling the years.

Seated next to me were Robert and Abigail from Tetonia, Idaho, by way of Louisiana. In front were Tom and Sheila, who drove all the way from West Jordan. Then there was Mort, who came to Seger late in life, but at 50-plus is still just a kid. I was the oldest.

Prior to the music, Abigail and I reminisced about Silver Bullet concerts when we were younger and agile and could leap over rows of seats to get closer to the stage and within range of the flying sweat.

Not anymore. As the arena filled, die-hard Seger fans gimped to our assigned seats, plopped ourselves down, and didn't move for the entire concert. This was bad because the average concertgoer that night had become too fat to slide past.

There was a lot of wounded grunting and creaking arthritic noises as we squirmed and groped around each other, trying to get comfortable enough to rock out.

Me: "I don't know if I can take this seat for an entire set."

Abigail: "Here, I'll lean against you and you lean against me. Maybe that will work."

It did. When Bob took the stage, the entire arena lit up just like the old days. We helped each other to our feet and went nuts.

The old cuts like "Beautiful Loser" and "Against the Wind" were interspersed with newer Seger songs from his latest album "Ride Out," my favorite of which is "The Devil's Right Hand."

For an hour, Bob made us young again by turning back the clock to a time when "Roll Me Away" had nothing to do with a wheelchair. It was beautiful.

When the concert ended (after two encores), we all settled back down again and filed quietly out of the arena without insistence or assistance from the police. Maybe somewhere over the years we had grown up.

Hmm. More likely, without the music it was just way past our bedtimes.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby/