Your Eyes Do Not Deceive You

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is indeed JOHN MAYER. (Feel free to click on the photo and view a larger version of the hotness.)

In case you missed it, I said John-frickin-Mayer!!!

And why didn't I mention that I was going to the concert? Well...that would be because we didn't know we were going until Saturday. Funny story, actually...

So, I'm heading back from an event I went to with my family early Saturday afternoon (more on that further down), when I get a call from Nikki. At first, I was too tired to answer and explain what I had been up to, so I decided to call her back later. But she called me back right after leaving a message, so I thought I had better answer in case it was an emergency. Thank Thor it wasn't - it was something so much better than that!! :) You know you're getting good news when someone starts off with "Well, I was browsing Ticketmaster, just to see, and..." Turns out they released a few tickets at the last minute to John's Sunday night show at the Hollywood Bowl, and Nikki just happened to be checking at just the right moment! We had originally tried to get tickets when they first went on sale, but couldn't get anything decent and since the Bowl is a seriously crap venue to get to, it would have been terrible with seats where you can hardly see. So Nikki got three tickets in the "garden section" (basically their equivalent of box seats, since its an open-air venue), and one for our friend Erin too.

At any rate, of course we both screamed - much to my family's chagrin - and then made plans for Sunday. We decided to go up early and do some retail therapy at the Citadel outlet center, which was super fun (woohoo Banana Republic and Max Studio outlets!), and then got all gussied up in their surprisingly beautiful restrooms. Gotta love a giant room with a bunch of sofas to rest your weary feet!

Here we are at the show (photo courtesy of the people behind us, so nice!). I have to say where we sat at the Bowl was seriously awesome, considering how far away we could have been. And the one thing I did like about that venue as compared to, say, Josh Groban at the Staples Center, was that out little box seats meant we actually had room where we were sitting. It was nice not being crammed arm-to-arm in tiny seats, or shoulder-to-shoulder in a standing-room-only venue!

But that's really the only plus to the Bowl - otherwise, it's horrendous parking and getting there, horrendous trying to figure out where you need to go, and horrendous getting out. Luckily Nikki took note from the last time she was there and we did the Park-and-Ride option, where you park several miles away and they bus you over. Soooo much less stress, considering the freeway gets backed up from so many people trying to get there! Except that our driver clearly didn't know how to use a clutch, and we totally stalled and had to restart the engine going up a hill on the way there. All I could think was "Dear lord, let these LA drivers behind us pleeeeze be paying attention just this once...."

So we finally got in and were seated to have this kind of view:

The photo is of Ben Folds, one of the openers (who was really entertaining once they got going), but you get the idea. And I don't think I quite appreciated it as much until I turned around and saw the sheer enormity of the number of people sitting behind us. I should have taken a photo...it was insanity!

And then I got kinda starstruck when I noticed Greg Grunberg sitting just a few feet away, because I'm so in love with the show he's on (Heroes). I didn't take a photo, because I'm one of those people that hates to bother celebrities, especially when they're obviously just trying to have a fun night out. But I watched him be very gracious and awesome to the handful of people who did approach him. And then I watched him shake it to John later on...awesome. :)

We were all even more starstruck when we noticed that none other than William Shatner had sat down in the box just behind my left shoulder! After a little bit we decided to be all incognito and take this photo as evidence:
I know, seriously crap photo, but we were trying to get him more than us, and when we used a flash you couldn't see him! :) (B&W "Flex Frame" by Angela Barton over at the Sweet Shoppe.) The best part was I could occasionally hear him talking during the show...ahhhh. Like silk on my eardrums. ;-) We couldn't help but laugh because he was trying to be all low-key and wear a hat and sunglasses, and a hoodie over that, and it wound up being even more conspicuous! Hello? And everyone was being really respectful anyways...come on, LA people get pretty jaded after a while.

So I have some terrible blurry photos of John on stage, but suffice it to say that it was ear candy the entire time. Nikki and I had seen him once before, but it was a brief performance as part of a collab show for Star 98.7, so not nearly as cool as his own tour. When you counted it up, it was only about 10 songs, but each was at least 10 minutes due to improv and stuff, so a nice long ride. Lots of seat dancing was done by all. :) And of course we stood for the last couple songs, especially since he closed the encore with "Waiting on the World to Change". Seriously people, the man is a huge dork but when push comes to shove, he just turns it on (goofy expressions and all). I heard someone in the crowd on the way in saying B.B. King was better (a lot of fans compare the two, since John incorporates a lot of bluesy approaches in his guitar playing) because John was classically trained, and totally had to disagree! Having had some experience in the music world and known a lot of musicians, I have to say that no matter how much training you receive, there ain't no way you can teach someone how to translate their emotions into music like that. I think John and B.B. are simply in the same playing field. And it doesn't hurt that he has a freaking sexy voice.

I think we done there around 11, and then it was a sloooow and totally chaotic process to get back to the car, but we made it eventually! After a Del Taco run on the way home (we had a seriously light and early dinner at like 4:30, so it was starvin-time at that point), I think I eventually got home around 1am after dropping the girls off, and to bed at 2. So exhausting, but worth every lost minute of sleep! Luckily today at work was really quiet and slow, so you couldn't tell too much that I was seriously lacking in sleep. Then I came home, had a snack, and went right to bed for a nap! I'll catch up tomorrow, I swear...

~Trude

Quote of the moment: "The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes." ~ Harold B. Lee (1899-1973)