New Year's Eve and it's hard to believe
another zodiac has gone around.

While you drank yourself high on hoping
and watched the ceiling spin from the ground.

Counting down from ten it's time
to make your annual prayer.

Secret santa in the sky
when will I get my share?

Then you tell yourself
what you want to hear.

Cause you have to believe.

This will be my year.

This will be my year...Semisonic


Go Ahead Punk: E-Mail Little Squaw @ squawpunch@hotmail.com

AIM: gimletgurl7 (Remember when she used to be here?)

Monday, July 19, 2004

Okay, here's the overview of my Friday Fountains of Wayne show.  Perhaps my last show of the summer. Who knows maybe my last show of the year or my last show ever.  Once can never tell.  Regardless it was certainly eventful.

I wrote this early yesterday morning but because Blogger was being stupid I was unable to get it all up until today.

 
FYI...The story is peppered with lots of random photographs.   
  
The original "shirt"...



 
Gert and I went to the show together!  It was a make good show for the "ugly gin and tonic incident" a year or so ago...I dare not comment on that right now.
 
We got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the turnpike. My EZ Pass didn't scan when we got on, which means I'll be getting a mug shot of my car in a week or two.
 
Otherwise the trip was uneventful.  I always forget how easy it is to get to Philly.  And when I remember it just reminds me how much the East Coast rocks!  I love driving here.
 
We parked and checked out the scenario.  The gates weren't opening for another hour or so we decided to go get something to eat.  That was after I changed my shirt in the car and Gert kept trying to convince me that the tour bus to our right was FOW's.  I kept telling her that she was crazy and they weren't really using a tour bus (which I had been told by the Guilty Party)...but in retrospect they may have gotten one specifically for all the E.Coast shows they've been doing lately.  Anyway, it may have been their bus based on later observations.
 
Insert ugly incident with horrible wait staff and us getting to the gates 15 minutes after they had opened.  The venue was a a kind of amphitheater facing a stage (which had it's back to the river).  It basically translated into sitting on concrete stairs.  Or in my case sitting on concrete stairs in a denim mini skirt which in my defense I wore with the intent of standing the whole time. 
 
I believe that I have mentioned that a friend/co-worker of mine was playing guitar for Rachel Yamagata, the girl who opened for Fountains of Wayne?  She's a pretty girl, sort of Demi Moore, circa One Wild and Crazy Summer/St. Elmo's Fire.  The sound was a bit off so I couldn't really hear her lyrics very well. Cameron (the friend) and I had been playing phone tag the whole day but Gert and I were sitting stage right in the front. Low and behold he plays stage right.  When he came on I was shouted "Cameron" but it wasn't until they started into the first song that he saw me.  He waved and it was just so rock star cute because all the people around me were like, "Ohhhh she knows him!"  Gert said he looked like a cross between a wolf man and Where's Waldo without the hat, but he really looks a bit like Ryan Adams.  He stuck his tongue out at me when he played keyboards.
 
I love playful boys.
 
I should tell you that the audience was very crunchy/metro/lesbian/Brooks Brotherish...and to quote Gert "Not what she'd expected."  But it was a radio show and I believe the station is a bit like a public television station so the crowd made perfect sense to me.  Most of the attendees were "members".  Apparently Fountains were doing a meet and greet for members prior to their set (not very exclusive because you could join on site).
 
After Cameron finished up I went to say hello.  He had FOUR guitars.  Four!  That seemed a bit excessive to me but what do I know?  I was very excited to see him because it's always exciting to see someone you know onstage doing something that they love.  Having them be great at it is always a bonus.  Plus it was really apparent how highly Rachel regarded him.  It was funny b/c all the kids kept asking him if he was a studio artist and he had to explain to them that he was just touring with her.  That's when you could tell how he was kind of bummed out that he wasn't on the stage doing his own thing.
 
He started to ask me about Fountains and "that guy with the long hair who plays guitar..." He didn't know their names!!!  Why is it that boys who get to hang around with my favorite band don't know their names???   He thinks Jody is just a fabu guitarist which is true but in my book, personality goes a long way and Jody hasn't been really showing how funny he can be as of late.
 
Well Gert and I had been plotting to sidle up to the front of the stage (at that point everyone was still sitting)...so I left Cameron with the promise that he would come and see us.  Never trust a boy in a band. That's what I have to believe.  He ended up standing next to Josh the redheaded guitar tech the whole show.  Except in this picture where Josh is on the stage and C is the boy in the glasses you can kind of see peeking from the back of the stage.    
    

 
     

By the time I got back the stage option was bleak but in we could totally see better where we were because we were elevated and not that far from the stage. 

Chris was wearing the same shirt he did on July 2nd...

The photo above is from the July 2nd show.  Again you might call it blurry, but I call it art.
 
And as the boys came out...I became "the one lady dancing".  I swear NOBODY on those stairs stood up.  Not one of them.  But I can't sit during a show.  I've tried and I can't do it.  So when Gert went off in search of diet Cokes and chocolate ice cream I stood up.
 
Bad sound.  No green guitar to be seen (Chris was back to the red)...but I have to tell you every guitar Chris has been using lately looks brand new to me.  

They had to see me.  I was sticking out like a green thumb in my newly minted shirt.    
    

 

The crowd wasn't very familar with them.  And for the first time in a long time, they didn't appear to be very drunk.  My theory is that the meet and greet put the cabosh on that (they must have figured out that getting drunk and speaking to children makes for bad PR)...plus perhaps Chris' family was there since he's from the area.
 
Fun show.  They were all having a great time.  Chris made some comments about how when he grew up he never thought he'd play to a crowd that large in Philly.  Adam told the audience that though it was a "singer/song writer" festival they could stand up. 

It's blurry but you can see how much fun they are having...

 

There was a drunk/old hippie dude getting very into it that Chris thought was fabulous.
 
And at one point Chris either knocked a camera lens off the stage or kicked a beer bottle off the stage onto the camera guy's lens.  He was so cute about it!  It was obvious that he felt bad but didn't know what to do.  He apologized and then gave the guy a fresh beer.
 
Gert fell into crush with Chris.  Ohhh, how the tide has turned.  She's been scoffing me for liking them for years but then she sees him on the stage and says, "He's cute in a train spotting thin way!"

Which was almost as funny as the 40ish women behind us saying, "He's so droll!" 
 
My theory is that women love self depreciating/funny/smart guys and appearing frail yet cute is a plus because it brings out the mothering instinct in a woman.  Hence my past comment, "I feel like feeding him a sandwich and giving him a hug."  Gert was smitten.  It doesn't hurt that she married a thin  blonde man herself.  

I like men who look like my husband from behind, which means thin and wirey, slightly bowed legs and cute ankles are a plus.
 
"I can still croon, like Marilyn Manson" made it in which I haven't heard for a awhile, though he's been using Billy Corrigan lately.
 
I could spew out all their on stage banter with no effort on my part at this point.
 
Yet, I adore them so it doesn't matter. 

 

We snuck through the crowd to the side of the stage right before the encore.  My intention was to a. say goodbye to Cameron and b. make sure that Chris saw me there.  Not talk to him.  Not take pictures but just to make absolutely positive that my presence was known.  

I am a loyal fan/supporter not a stalker or a groupie.

Again, Gilly calls me a "bandie" because I am more that an fan but I am not a groupie, thus I am a "bandie".  I dunno but it was cute when he said it. 

Hung around talking to Cameron and Gert.   Cameron mentioned that this was the second time he had ever seen them and he likes them more and more each time.  Well having seen them probably almost 30 times at this point, that might explain my crazy fandom.  Think about what I must be feeling if my fandom doubles with each show.
 
He also mentioned that he hadn't realized how old they were.  He thought they were younger.  For the record, that's the second time I'd heard that all week.  My former intern had said the same thing.
 
At one point I saw Chris at the top of the stairs.  I don't know WHAT I was thinking but I crooked my finger at him in a come here gesture and he waved in a "I'll see you later" way.  In retrospect it was probably a "I'll pretend that I am going to come and speak to you but right now I am going to actually speak to someone that I really want to talk to."
 
I was feeling a bit unnerved by Cameron's lack of backstage maneuvering until he offered to slip me in by handing me his pass because and I quote, "You know them.  Go on over and talk."
 
I had to explain that they know of me but we aren't exactly buddies.  Still I was now behind the barricade.  I just kept telling him that I didn't want to be a jerk really.  I didn't want to bother them. 
 
I ended up strolling over and said something along the lines of, "Hello, thanks for the song the other night." to Adam.  He kind of just looked at me and I said, "I'm the girl that always has the shirts." Mind you I interviewed the man less than a year ago and to be honest I don't think that I am a common looking person, but the guy refuses to even pretend that even he knows who I am. However this time he said something about remembering me, not remembering our interview but remembering my shirts.
 
Whatever.  If I were him I would have said, "Yeah! Thanks for coming to the show!"  But then again I'd have been wearing my wedding band too (which I was) but he did neither.
 
I admit that the wedding band comment is rough but I know my article was pretty good.  There's no need to play coy at this point.  And maybe my comment is based on my empathizing with a woman that I've never met yet suspect never gets to see her husband.  I know from short term experience that that sucks. 

But since I don't think I've ever posted any pictures of Adam up here...here's a picture from July 2nd that I really like.

But getting closer to Chris and do I need to say how adorable he really is one more time?  Adorable in the way that a frail, sensitive, talented, cute, shy man can only be...well he was speaking to the three photographers and handling their cameras and looking like he was very interested in their conversation and I couldn't even entertain the thought of interrupting.  Jody was sitting right in front of me, to be more exact his head was level with my chest.  I wasn't exactly fawning over him and he said,
 
"Oh...'Valley of the Malls' (referring to my shirt)..."
 
And I said something like, "Good call!"
 
He said, "So...they call me Joe..."
 
And I said, "Sure I know your name Jody!" with a large smile of course.
 
And he said, "So what do you think of this thing we do?"
 
"Well this is my second show this week." - Me
 
"What other show did you go see?" - Jody
 
"It's my second Fountains of Wayne show this week." - Me
 
Then he gave me this look not like I was crazy but like the thought had never occurred to him that someone might go and see them two times in a week. 
 
I mentioned that he had met my friend in Chicago (aka the Guilty Party) and he was like, "Really?" and I told him it was the guy who was celebrating his 30th birthday.  And he said, "Yeahhhh, Greg!"
 
For the record the Guilty Party's name is NOT Greg.  Then I gave him the right name of course.
 
And he said, "Yeah, I am not so good with the names."
 
Okay, I think it's appropriate to giggle when reading about that exchange, yes?
 
So at that point I was just ready to get the hell out of dodge.  As always not wanting to become, "that girl."
 
I leaned into where Chris was sitting and thanked him for the song the other night and made some comment about being the girl with the shirts.
 
And he said something polite back and I was ready to split.
 
I later came to realize that I have way too high of expectations regarding interaction than perhaps a normal fan might.  Part of me thinks that a normal fan might be thrilled with a kind hello, a smile and a photo op. OOOOHHH but not me.  I seem to think that scintillating conversation is in order.  Mind you I also realize that alcohol plays a huge factor in that kind of conversation when people don't know each other.  There's no way that the Guilty Party would have been able to engage these guys in conversation without the great equalizer of booze.  The last time I had a decent conversation with Chris I know he'd had a drink or two.  I mean I don't even want to talk to strangers most of the time.  Imagine being surrounded by strangers everyday who want to talk to you?  Strangers that think that they have every reason to expect you to be engaging?
 
But for the record, I think if I'd have whispered in Jody's ear and put my hand on his thigh he'd have escorted me to the bus.
 
I went back to the barricade and the majority of the band strolled over to sign autographs and I told Gert, "I really didn't speak to him and now I feel like a jerk."
 
And she just kept saying, "Forget these guys.  Send the blonde cutie over!" 
  
Chris started signing autographs on the other end of the fence. Security started booting people out and Gert wanted her picture with him. We maneuvered over and I asked him to allow me to take a photo of her and him.
 
I asked him to allow ME to take a photo of THEM i.e. Gert and Chris TOGETHER.  
 

He did and according to Gert their cheeks touched and then I said goodbye and "Be safe when you go to Japan."
 
I am such a massive dork with a martyr complex. 
 
I think this about sums me up.
 
To quote Everclear,

You put yourself in stupid places
Yes I think you know it's true
Situations where it's easy to look down on you
I think you like to be the victim
I think you like to be in pain
I think you make yourself a victim almost every single day
You do what you do
You say what you say
You try to be everything to everyone
You know all the right people
You play all the right games
You always try to be everything to everyone
Yeah you do it again
You always do it again

posted by JustKeepMum on 9:40 AM