I needed to take the night to let everything sink in. Yesterday was just too perfect. It's always the little things in this life (which in my world are actually quite large) that make me the happiest. My only wish is that my memory could store more details than it ends up storing. Here are the details of my day however,
I woke up incredibly excited. I was still feeling a bit nauseus because i didn't think there was any way that i was going to be able to remember my name when i met marc, let alone not throw up on him and not pass out! I was trying to keep my mind off of it, so i went to buy some flip flops. on the way home heather called me to tell me that marc was acutally pretty sick and his voice wasn't doing so well, so i wouldn't be meeting him. she asked if there was anyone else that i would want to have do the id's and i told her that it didn't really matter to me...i was a bit too bummed to be picky. don't get me wrong, i was still fuckin pumped that i was getting to meet any of them, but marc is my husband, so it was sad. I got over it.
I putzed around my dorm for a bit, played guitar and such until 2 when i decided to leave. I wanted to make sure that i would get there early...because i have this fear of being late, it's wierd...I ended up takin the wrong exit, went south on 294 instead of north...i took the first exit off of the highway because i figured i could just change directions and get back on...but i was wrong. there wasn't even a way to get back on the highway going the same direction. i almost hit someone, had a panic attack, i smoked 100 cigarettes, and i drove until i found a gas station and asked how to get to 294 n....after a series of roads and more wrong turns and highway switching, i finally made it...to another highway...where i got stuck in traffic on 90 for an hour...my heart sunk. i sat in my car watching the minutes pass by so quickly. It got to be 3:00..then 3:15...then 3:30 and i had only gone about 2 miles...i got sadder and sadder...and slowly started crying because i realized that i was going to miss the chance to meet the other guys...i called their tour manager, joel, and told him i was stuck in traffic and didn't think i was going to make it on time and he told me just to get there as soon as i could because they are on a really tight schedule...so i proceded to cry my whole way there...i didn't end up too late, only about 10 minutes or so. i called him right away and he came down to let me in to the venue.
He was a nice guy..pretty jolly. a bunch of peircings...definately nicer than the jerk road manager they had last year. we were winding thru the tunnels in the aragon when i decided i would ask if there was any way that i could watch from backstage. he told me that there was no way beacuse there wasn't any room, and i accepted that, not wanting to press further for anything because i was indeed late and he still let me go in with them. he took me to a room with a blue leather couch and some sound equipment and told me to wait. So i was sitting there putting together the mini-disc recorder when suddenly some guy walked in the room from the room next door...he said hi. i looked up and saw that it wasn't just some guy...it was my love, my husband!!...i didn't expect to see him cuz heather said he was sick, so i didn't even have a chance to get real nervous. i just sat there and stared for a few seconds before i said "how are you feeling"...and he was like "every fuckin day. it seems i'm just always sick." and i said "i'm sorry to hear that, but i hope you feel better" and he said "thank you" and then walked back into the room that he came from. meanwhile, i sat on the couch drinking lots and lots of water because i was parched. I waited a few more minutes and then joel came back to get me and told me that i would be doing the id's in the next room. so i walked in and jerry and chris were just chillin out and eating some food and smoking some cigarettes...it was a really comfotable atmosphere. I was still a bit nervous, only because i have never just gone up to a band and asked for station id's...let alone to my favorite band!...so i sat down on the couch next to chris and told him and jerry what the station was. and jerry wrote it down. then chris started saying that he acutally wasn't doing it, that it was going to be marc...and i was confused because heather told me that marc wasn't going to do it. But he was in the room and he was talking to a guy that at that time i didn't yet know...and when he came over by me i introduced myself to him and after i said my name the guy that he was talkin to stopped and was like "oh anna. heather told me to introduce myself to you. she said you might be interning for our company this summer. my name is dave roberge"...dave is not only marc's brother, but the owner of the label...so that was pretty damn cool. So then marc, jerry, and chris all took turns doing the station id's...and when they were done, everyone stood up, so i grabbed my stuff and marc was standing next to me and in a desperate moment i spit out "i don't want to pull the you're my favorite band card, but honestly, i fuckin love the music...and the message and the vibe and the lyrics. you all just blend together so perfectly. and sometimes when i watch, i just cry...not to sound like a druggie cuz i'm not, but when the lights start flashing to the beat of the song and you are all up there on stage just jamming...then marc you start singing and it just fills the air of the venue with this intense raw emotion..." and before i could finish the sentence i found myself in the middle of a beautiful hug with marc...and him tellin me "that's so sweet. that's just great to hear. normally we get the drunk guys that say 'yeah dude, we listen to poker and drink all the time. and in hey girl every time you say girl we drink' so it's really great to hear this from you." it was a perfect moment. and then jerry hugged me...and so did chris...as i proceded to just tell them that i adored the music. and this is where my memory begins to get a big foggy, because i was so overwhelmed with everything that had happened. i remember saying. "if it's not too much to ask, could i maybe get a picture with you all" and they laughed because i said "is it too much to ask". then marc asked if i was stayin for the show and i told him that i was and that i had asked joel if i could watch from backstage and he told me no and marc was like "oh fuck that, you sure can. i'll go get you a pass right now" so he went in to talk to joel but for some reason that night they weren't letting people in the backstage area, so he gave me a pass for the vip balcony instead. i talked a little bit more to jerry about this guy michael that works at barnes n noble that i somehow managed to meet one day. and talked to chris a bit more about random stuff. then they all gathered around for a picture and chris was like "you should be in the middle" and went to move so he was by me, but all i was really concerned about was being next to marc, you know for our weddig picture. and i ended up makin a face in the picture, but regaurdless, it was still perfect. I said good bye to them all and said "have a good show" for lack of better more inpsiring words. then joel walked me out and i went to wait in line cuz i had nothing else to do.
i was watching the crowd during parts of the show and it was the first time that i have seen OAR and not been on the railing...and i was acutally glad that i wasn't there last night. it was wild. the crowd surfers were going nuts and people kept throwing them off the edges, and the security gaurds were battering people!...kids were literally getting ripped out of the crowd...tons of kids busted for having pot...lots of young high school boys biligerently drunk off thier ass and tryin to be cool...i don't know if i have just never noticed this stuff before, since i'm always in my own little world watching the show, or what it was. it was nuts though...and entertaining!
I must say that i wasn't too impressed with ari-hest. he's got a good voice and some good tunes, but he just wasn't really grabbing people's attention. i felt bad because during a few parts in his set the crowd just kept cheering for OAR..it was a bit sad. however, stephen kellog and the sixers were a DAMN good time! i espeically liked the part of the show where the bass player put down his instrument and took up the better half of the stage doing the napoleon dynomite dance! perfect!
The show was fantastic. i mean really, it was just fantastic. The seat wasn't exactly the best because i couldn't see the whole stage. the gynormous speakers were blocking richard half of the time, and jerry 3/4 the time and chris the entire time. Full view of marc and benj though! I think that i might have cried at this show more than any of the other ones combined. the lights were just amazing last night and so was the music...the combination of the two really do get to me. it just carries me off to my own little world where no one can touch me, no one can hurt me, no one can ruin it, everything is perfect and i am completely truly happy. and i just cry, cuz it's beautiful. i love hearing songs live that i haven't heard/seen live before. for instance, last night anytime now was played and so was about an hour ago. both were bad ass. alot of old school songs were played- like tonight, if only she knew, untitled, ladanday...and of course i lost it during city on down because that's the song that i want played at my funeral...hey girl was great...and closing with sunday bloody sunday- good choice... then of course the crazy game of poker encore...brillant.
the tears really began to pour during city on down...they continued thru sunday bloody sunday and the entire lenght of time it took for them to come back on for the encore...I hate endings. When it hits me that the show is going to be over in a few short minutes and the music i am hearing is the last i will hear until they come back in a few months...it makes my heart hurt. there is something about the energy and the lights and the improvised lyrics and guitar riffs and sax...that when it is all combined, i'm a slave to it. i'm useless to the rest of the world and that music just eats me up. I felt so lucky last night. knowing that i got to atleast voice a bit of what i felt about the music to the amazingly talented fellas that were making it...that meant so much. soo soo much. to be able to look at them when i said it. see their reaction. get hugs...to know that my words acutally mattered to them. and to see that even with the fame that they have aquired in recent years, they are still entirely humble, and real. i sat there in my seat once the overhead lights came on. i watched the clean up crew take down the baracades, the stage crew take down the equipment, the janitors sweep the trash off the once beautiful ballroom floor. i felt like i should leave the balcony and go down on the floor of trash and dance around...like kate hudson in almost famous. but i figured it would have made me cry more, and i just wanted to soak up the last few minutes i had there. eventually the security people came up and yelled at me to get going, so i had to join the masses of people trying desperately to get out of the smokey haze and into the fresh air. personally, i quite enjoy the smokey hazes.
to sum it up...a perfect evening spent with some unexpected company and unbelieveable live music....here are a few highlights, in the short version.
1 hug from MARC, my love, my husband, my happiness
1 hug from Chris...equally beauitful in all ways
1 hug from jerry...nicest guy with the most georgous blue eyes
(all of those without me having to ask)
10 minutes of heaven with 3 wonderful fellas.
meeting the owner of the label...dave, he's a great guy.
finding out that the better than everfine concert is in CHICAGO this year! (fuck yeah!!!) (that explains sooooo much with the whole internship deal!)
so, now i'm off to barnes and noble to write and read and maybe talk to my new friend!
I woke up incredibly excited. I was still feeling a bit nauseus because i didn't think there was any way that i was going to be able to remember my name when i met marc, let alone not throw up on him and not pass out! I was trying to keep my mind off of it, so i went to buy some flip flops. on the way home heather called me to tell me that marc was acutally pretty sick and his voice wasn't doing so well, so i wouldn't be meeting him. she asked if there was anyone else that i would want to have do the id's and i told her that it didn't really matter to me...i was a bit too bummed to be picky. don't get me wrong, i was still fuckin pumped that i was getting to meet any of them, but marc is my husband, so it was sad. I got over it.
I putzed around my dorm for a bit, played guitar and such until 2 when i decided to leave. I wanted to make sure that i would get there early...because i have this fear of being late, it's wierd...I ended up takin the wrong exit, went south on 294 instead of north...i took the first exit off of the highway because i figured i could just change directions and get back on...but i was wrong. there wasn't even a way to get back on the highway going the same direction. i almost hit someone, had a panic attack, i smoked 100 cigarettes, and i drove until i found a gas station and asked how to get to 294 n....after a series of roads and more wrong turns and highway switching, i finally made it...to another highway...where i got stuck in traffic on 90 for an hour...my heart sunk. i sat in my car watching the minutes pass by so quickly. It got to be 3:00..then 3:15...then 3:30 and i had only gone about 2 miles...i got sadder and sadder...and slowly started crying because i realized that i was going to miss the chance to meet the other guys...i called their tour manager, joel, and told him i was stuck in traffic and didn't think i was going to make it on time and he told me just to get there as soon as i could because they are on a really tight schedule...so i proceded to cry my whole way there...i didn't end up too late, only about 10 minutes or so. i called him right away and he came down to let me in to the venue.
He was a nice guy..pretty jolly. a bunch of peircings...definately nicer than the jerk road manager they had last year. we were winding thru the tunnels in the aragon when i decided i would ask if there was any way that i could watch from backstage. he told me that there was no way beacuse there wasn't any room, and i accepted that, not wanting to press further for anything because i was indeed late and he still let me go in with them. he took me to a room with a blue leather couch and some sound equipment and told me to wait. So i was sitting there putting together the mini-disc recorder when suddenly some guy walked in the room from the room next door...he said hi. i looked up and saw that it wasn't just some guy...it was my love, my husband!!...i didn't expect to see him cuz heather said he was sick, so i didn't even have a chance to get real nervous. i just sat there and stared for a few seconds before i said "how are you feeling"...and he was like "every fuckin day. it seems i'm just always sick." and i said "i'm sorry to hear that, but i hope you feel better" and he said "thank you" and then walked back into the room that he came from. meanwhile, i sat on the couch drinking lots and lots of water because i was parched. I waited a few more minutes and then joel came back to get me and told me that i would be doing the id's in the next room. so i walked in and jerry and chris were just chillin out and eating some food and smoking some cigarettes...it was a really comfotable atmosphere. I was still a bit nervous, only because i have never just gone up to a band and asked for station id's...let alone to my favorite band!...so i sat down on the couch next to chris and told him and jerry what the station was. and jerry wrote it down. then chris started saying that he acutally wasn't doing it, that it was going to be marc...and i was confused because heather told me that marc wasn't going to do it. But he was in the room and he was talking to a guy that at that time i didn't yet know...and when he came over by me i introduced myself to him and after i said my name the guy that he was talkin to stopped and was like "oh anna. heather told me to introduce myself to you. she said you might be interning for our company this summer. my name is dave roberge"...dave is not only marc's brother, but the owner of the label...so that was pretty damn cool. So then marc, jerry, and chris all took turns doing the station id's...and when they were done, everyone stood up, so i grabbed my stuff and marc was standing next to me and in a desperate moment i spit out "i don't want to pull the you're my favorite band card, but honestly, i fuckin love the music...and the message and the vibe and the lyrics. you all just blend together so perfectly. and sometimes when i watch, i just cry...not to sound like a druggie cuz i'm not, but when the lights start flashing to the beat of the song and you are all up there on stage just jamming...then marc you start singing and it just fills the air of the venue with this intense raw emotion..." and before i could finish the sentence i found myself in the middle of a beautiful hug with marc...and him tellin me "that's so sweet. that's just great to hear. normally we get the drunk guys that say 'yeah dude, we listen to poker and drink all the time. and in hey girl every time you say girl we drink' so it's really great to hear this from you." it was a perfect moment. and then jerry hugged me...and so did chris...as i proceded to just tell them that i adored the music. and this is where my memory begins to get a big foggy, because i was so overwhelmed with everything that had happened. i remember saying. "if it's not too much to ask, could i maybe get a picture with you all" and they laughed because i said "is it too much to ask". then marc asked if i was stayin for the show and i told him that i was and that i had asked joel if i could watch from backstage and he told me no and marc was like "oh fuck that, you sure can. i'll go get you a pass right now" so he went in to talk to joel but for some reason that night they weren't letting people in the backstage area, so he gave me a pass for the vip balcony instead. i talked a little bit more to jerry about this guy michael that works at barnes n noble that i somehow managed to meet one day. and talked to chris a bit more about random stuff. then they all gathered around for a picture and chris was like "you should be in the middle" and went to move so he was by me, but all i was really concerned about was being next to marc, you know for our weddig picture. and i ended up makin a face in the picture, but regaurdless, it was still perfect. I said good bye to them all and said "have a good show" for lack of better more inpsiring words. then joel walked me out and i went to wait in line cuz i had nothing else to do.
i was watching the crowd during parts of the show and it was the first time that i have seen OAR and not been on the railing...and i was acutally glad that i wasn't there last night. it was wild. the crowd surfers were going nuts and people kept throwing them off the edges, and the security gaurds were battering people!...kids were literally getting ripped out of the crowd...tons of kids busted for having pot...lots of young high school boys biligerently drunk off thier ass and tryin to be cool...i don't know if i have just never noticed this stuff before, since i'm always in my own little world watching the show, or what it was. it was nuts though...and entertaining!
I must say that i wasn't too impressed with ari-hest. he's got a good voice and some good tunes, but he just wasn't really grabbing people's attention. i felt bad because during a few parts in his set the crowd just kept cheering for OAR..it was a bit sad. however, stephen kellog and the sixers were a DAMN good time! i espeically liked the part of the show where the bass player put down his instrument and took up the better half of the stage doing the napoleon dynomite dance! perfect!
The show was fantastic. i mean really, it was just fantastic. The seat wasn't exactly the best because i couldn't see the whole stage. the gynormous speakers were blocking richard half of the time, and jerry 3/4 the time and chris the entire time. Full view of marc and benj though! I think that i might have cried at this show more than any of the other ones combined. the lights were just amazing last night and so was the music...the combination of the two really do get to me. it just carries me off to my own little world where no one can touch me, no one can hurt me, no one can ruin it, everything is perfect and i am completely truly happy. and i just cry, cuz it's beautiful. i love hearing songs live that i haven't heard/seen live before. for instance, last night anytime now was played and so was about an hour ago. both were bad ass. alot of old school songs were played- like tonight, if only she knew, untitled, ladanday...and of course i lost it during city on down because that's the song that i want played at my funeral...hey girl was great...and closing with sunday bloody sunday- good choice... then of course the crazy game of poker encore...brillant.
the tears really began to pour during city on down...they continued thru sunday bloody sunday and the entire lenght of time it took for them to come back on for the encore...I hate endings. When it hits me that the show is going to be over in a few short minutes and the music i am hearing is the last i will hear until they come back in a few months...it makes my heart hurt. there is something about the energy and the lights and the improvised lyrics and guitar riffs and sax...that when it is all combined, i'm a slave to it. i'm useless to the rest of the world and that music just eats me up. I felt so lucky last night. knowing that i got to atleast voice a bit of what i felt about the music to the amazingly talented fellas that were making it...that meant so much. soo soo much. to be able to look at them when i said it. see their reaction. get hugs...to know that my words acutally mattered to them. and to see that even with the fame that they have aquired in recent years, they are still entirely humble, and real. i sat there in my seat once the overhead lights came on. i watched the clean up crew take down the baracades, the stage crew take down the equipment, the janitors sweep the trash off the once beautiful ballroom floor. i felt like i should leave the balcony and go down on the floor of trash and dance around...like kate hudson in almost famous. but i figured it would have made me cry more, and i just wanted to soak up the last few minutes i had there. eventually the security people came up and yelled at me to get going, so i had to join the masses of people trying desperately to get out of the smokey haze and into the fresh air. personally, i quite enjoy the smokey hazes.
to sum it up...a perfect evening spent with some unexpected company and unbelieveable live music....here are a few highlights, in the short version.
1 hug from MARC, my love, my husband, my happiness
1 hug from Chris...equally beauitful in all ways
1 hug from jerry...nicest guy with the most georgous blue eyes
(all of those without me having to ask)
10 minutes of heaven with 3 wonderful fellas.
meeting the owner of the label...dave, he's a great guy.
finding out that the better than everfine concert is in CHICAGO this year! (fuck yeah!!!) (that explains sooooo much with the whole internship deal!)
so, now i'm off to barnes and noble to write and read and maybe talk to my new friend!