Stargirl did a great job of describing the performance, so I’ll just add a bit of concert minutia in case anybody’s interested in that sort of thing:
The first ten rows (I think that’s about TWO HUNDRED seats) were reserved for the tribe. I was lucky enough to grab a front row seat when a few tickets were eventually released to the public. But I felt sick to my stomach when I saw that at least two dozen of the prime seats were still EMPTY by the time the show started. There were so many diehard fans who would have loved to have had the chance to sit up front, I just can’t understand why someone would buy tickets that they don’t care about and keep them out of the hands of others who would have appreciated them. Grrr!
At first, the show was pretty tame. Most people stayed seated, and because the venue was flat, not tiered, making it harder for people to see the (low) stage, I stayed seated for about half of the show too. Eventually, more and more people started moving down to the front of the stage so I joined the crowd. Security had everyone sit down a couple of times, but as the concert frenzy built and more people stood and the shouting and applauding grew, the police guy finally just let us remain up at the metal barrier.
John forgot the words a few times, even during one of his classics (that made Robby laugh), but nobody paid much attention to it and the show just rolled on. (Or should I say “rocked on”?)
As Stargirl mentioned, at one point, John asked a waitress who kept roaming the crowd, taking drink orders, for a Gin Fizz (or a Slow Gin Fizz…I can’t remember which it was). The waitress didn’t look like she believed he meant it, so he assured her that he had money. Later, she actually did bring a drink to the stage for him and he pulled some crumpled up, small bills (a five and some ones) out of his pocket. That made me laugh because I would have expected twenties or something like that. The nice woman standing next to me actually paid for his drink, but there was some confusion and the waitress walked away so John resumed singing (“Can’t Let It Go”). He didn’t notice that the waitress had actually walked up the steps to the stage with his drink. I kept motioning for her to bring it over to him but she wouldn’t, so I tried to shout at John to get him to look over at her, but he didn’t hear me. He never did get the drink while he was onstage…maybe they gave it to him backstage.
I don’t think Robby talked at all, which seemed unusual. (Maybe I’m just being forgetful again.) But he WAS as “jumpy” as ever!
At the end of the show, John convinced security to allow some guy that he knew to come up onstage (the guy had been down in the audience) and they exited across the stage together. A very casual finale!
After the show, I sat on a bench near the escalators, talking with another fan…when my friend suddenly realized that Mike was sitting at a table a few feet away from us. He was with a bunch of friends so we didn’t bother him. It was the third time I’ve seen him do something like this either before or after a show, so if you’re a Mike fan, keep your eyes open and maybe you’ll see him too.
My most embarrassing moment of the night: The other two women in my row had both gotten picks from John. He just reached across the gap and handed them over. So when I finally went up to the barrier, I held out my hand too. When he finally held out his hand to me, I thought he was going to give me a pick so I kind of locked fingers with him and was trying to get the pick away from him…but apparently he hadn’t planned on giving it to me (he had a STRONG grip on that pick, believe me) so I just wound up clawing at his fingers and making an idiot of myself. Uhh, sorry Johnny!
That’s all for now!
