I just got back from the town hall meeting with Obama in Erie, Pennsylvania, held at the Penn-State Behrend Campus sports arena. Tickets were sold out early yesterday (they were free of course, but limited to the arena capacity).

I arrived around 9am and stood in line for about an hour before finally going through security and heading inside. It probably helped that it is a beautiful, warm and sunny day today, and about 75 degrees. People were in a great mood, the place was packed and the atmosphere was buzzing with energy.

Obama's campaign has put together a great selection of music that was played on the soundsystem outside the arena and inside as well: Ray Charles, U2, Bruce Springstein, The Staple Singers, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty, REM, and some other R & B, soul and even country artists.

By 10:30, all of the seating was full and it was standing room only at the back. I'm guessing that there were around 3,000 people in attendance, but will have to wait until tonight to get the official figures.

Around 10:45 Senator Bob Casey came out to a standing ovation and spoke for a few minutes before introducing Obama. Obama came on stage to thunderous applause and people standing on their seats to get a good look. Once Obama started speaking, the crowd settled down and those that had them took to their seats.

I won't go into specifics of his speech, as he covered most of the topics from his usual stump speech. I will say that he was very well spoken and smooth in his delivery, and that there were numerous occasions of applause and standing ovations from the crowd.

After his speech, Obama switched to the Q & A town hall meeting format. There were a lot of interesting questions, ranging from national intelligence issues, health care, jobs and the economy, veterans issues, and disability benefits. Obama fielded all of these extremely well. No one asked about any of the media generated controversies at all, people really wanted to focus on real issues that had a direct effect on their lives.

You could tell by Obama's statements and answers that he has done a lot of listening as he has travelled through Pennsylvania, and he cited specific examples of businesses closing, such as the Corning plant in State College that shut down and shipped  it's equipment to China, or Steris in Erie, which recently shut down and shipped 350 jobs off to Mexico.

One man stood up and said, "We have lost a lot of jobs here in Erie, and it's quite all right with us if you tell people that we are bitter." That brought the whole crowd to their feet in applause once again, and Obama said, "That's the biggest response we've had all day!"

Eventually, Obama said it was time to wrap up the Q & A and took one more question. Things ended with a man who stood up with a cane when the microphone was brought to him. He started to say "I'm a disabled veteran and I served in ...," but the whole crowd stood up and applauded him so loudly that the rest of his sentence was drowned out by the noise. The applause went on for some time and then he waved for us to let him speak. It was a very poignant moment and you could see that he was very moved by the show of appreciation for his service, and had started to get choked up.  At that point Obama went up to him and shook his hand, and the man said "I just want to thank you for running for President. Thank you."

Following that Obama made a few closing remarks and the crowd was on its  feet again. All in all, it was a great experience, and a beautiful day. Erie, PA, really turned out for Obama today.