Worcester, MA
Much of this review is already covered in Winnie's review, so I won't even bother to mention it (I'm so lazy). I will say it was an absolutely awesome concert, but that was just an expected thing.
My mother is crazy. She spent all day scouting out the Centrum while we were slaving away at school and she listened to 'my kind' of radio stations all day. The horrible result of this is that now she is a fan of the Backstreet Boys. But that will be changed in time, believe you me. Anyway, after Winnie (aka Katie), our two friends, and I all got there, she drove around the Centrum waiting for any sign of a bus of any sort. I went with her on one jaunt while the rest stayed in the back of the Centrum just in case they showed up there.
While we were waiting, the four of us met some other fans, one of which I discovered I actually knew from online (Kellyanne)! So that was very cool. I love meeting people like that. We all hung out for awhile, waiting patiently for any movement of the door we had stationed ourselves at.
So while I was with mom for that one trip, we saw a bus pull into the front side of the Centrum. I had mom drop me off and she went to get the others. I saw two other girls there, one of whom was smoking some sort of illegal substance, and both looking like groupies, and decided I might as well go up and talk to them. They seemed sorta surprised to see me, and they were a little too 'mellow' to make an actual conversation with me. Ok, whatever. That's cool, cuz look! There comes my mom…with about fifteen people in the car (that's obviously an exaggeration, but it was filled to the brim). Everyone spills out, and I see my mom decided to take everyone from the other side of the Centrum and bring them to where I was. Well that was cool of her! I start laughing and then everyone joins me. At this point the two mellow girls left. Damn. I was having such a great talk with them.
So the whole gaggle of us get out and stare at the bus that has arrived, and people get out. I don't know who they are, and I realized later that if it was Lifehouse or any other member of Everclear besides the lead singer, I wouldn't recognize them. We hesitantly approached closer to the bus and no one stopped us. We thought we should run into the big garage the bus was pulling in to, figuring all those people couldn't stop ALL of us. But we didn't. We just stared some more. And then, a whole fleet of buses goes by. OH LORDY! TIME TO GET BACK INTO THE CAR! So now all of us get in, and there may or may not have been more people (of course, the mellow girls decided to go off somewhere). My mom drives a station wagon, and someone got into the way back and we didn't have time to shut the close the way back door. So we drove off following the buses with the windows open so people could stick body parts out, and the way back door open just…cuz. We had to wait at a traffic light, and people kept staring at all of us. I can't imagine why. I remember poking a leg to find out whose it was (it was Winnie's, if you're at all interested). We get around the corner, and the buses are…gone. Swear to God, those were phantom buses. They just disappeared!
So now, we are back in the back (ha) of the Centrum. We decide to split up again, with Winnie and I staying in the back and everyone else going to the front. So we are standing near the magical back door that people with passes keep going in and out of, not really expecting anything. The door opens, we turn without any expectation of who it is..and it's PAUL. He stares at us, we stare at him. He stares at us. We…stare at him. Then one of us said something like "Oh my God!" And the hilarity ensued from there. Paul came out to walk his dog, I'm assuming, since he brought his dog out and said he was out for the specific purpose of walking this dog. Ah. So we have officially interrupted him. Dammit. This is when I start feeling REALLY guilty. Winnie, however, is over the edge with happiness because she just loves Paul. He is nice enough to not run away and hide, and actually approaches us (since he couldn't really get by without doing so). Katie is holding her CD case and starts talking about..you know, I don't even know what. She wasn't really making sense and I could tell Paul was trying to follow along, but I couldn't stand it. I poked her and said something like "Stop." All this time Paul's dog is jumping and he has to struggle to control it and it's walking around him in circles and be careful, don't fall over Paul! He signs Katie's case while she is trying to get him to stay while she calls the others on her phone. He says he just came out to walk his dog, and Katie reaches in and grabs the baby doll head she made for Adam.
It's a hell of a baby doll head. She spent so much time on it. We went out and bought a doll body, and she cut its hair and painted its lips red and drew a little peacock tattoo on it. She also glued sunglasses on. It was really snazzy.
So she gives it to Paul, and in the midst of talking about cars and nine people and waiting, she says, "Oh, and could you give this to Adam?" He takes it, looks at it, and kinda snorts and says "Sure." About this time I say "screw it" and ask him to sign my program, which he kindly does (and honestly, I could have easily forged his signature, it being a series of tight vertical squiggles). While he signs it, he says something conversational like "Wow, I looked so different then." And then, I almost said…lmao…this is so horrible…I almost said "Yeah, my mom says you looked like a Boy George wannabe." LMFAO! I was just trying to keep this dying conversation going! I caught myself before anything more than the "Yeah.." came out. ::wipes forehead:: Phew! Then he goes off to walk his dog, about forty feet from us. I ask Katie if I should take pictures, and she says yes. So I do. LOL. By this time, her hands have finally stopped shaking enough so that she gets through to one of my other friends and tells them to get over to where we were NOW.
In three seconds they are running around the corner, zip past us, and go to Paul, who has since finished walking his dog. They all get autographs and such, and pictures, so yay! He was really sweet to all of us, even though he was slightly flustered.
Soon after that he went away. Aw. We still wait, cuz…that's what we do. No one else of extreme importance came out, so. Yeah. After awhile we went up front to wait for people whom we were giving tickets to (and in the process met more people from online :)). Blah blah blah….
We bought a lot of stuff, that was cool…..dum de dummmm
The concert was awesome, as is evidenced in Katie's review. After Rob sang with the piano, the baby doll head showed up on Adam's amp, and Katie and I got very excited. We also met some very nice drunk people, and laughed at some others, and coughed at the marijuana smoke. Oh, Word Perfect just automatically corrected my spelling of marijuana. That is so sweet. ANYWAY, Lifehouse was good, I do not like Everclear so I chose to walk around for their set (and I'm glad I did, hearing some of the things they did), and matchbox twenty was phenomenal. For a lot of the songs, everyone was singing along to every word. I loved that the most.
You know what else I think is funny? The fact that the anal security guards caught us taking pictures once and told us to stop, but they never said anything to all the people smoking legal and illegal substances, since both aren't allowed in the Centrum. ::rolls eyes:: That would have been my case in court though, dammit. AND I WOULD HAVE WON!
Ok, back from that craziness. The concert finishes, and we all flow out and go to the back to wait for the buses. We meet up with Kellyanne and her crew again, plus some others from online. And random people I did not know. A security guard came out and said the band wasn't going to come out. But most everyone stayed anyway. Until…the buses left from an exit about 200 feet down the street. Katie and I run into the street and just..wave. They couldn't have seen us, but..whatever. Sigh. I was hoping to meet Brian, but it just wasn't meant to be. We depart, saying goodbye to our online buddies, and (eventually) go home.
I can't wait for the next concert! :)