New Year's Eve

by Kowloon8

My trip to Chicago involved a series of happy coincidences. I won’t bore you with the details, but in a nutshell: the Donnie and Marie show came on in the hostel just as I was about to go out exploring; there was a cyber cafe a couple of blocks from my hostel, convenient; I found some great 45s at a little record store; I got into a conversation with a girl, only to find out she worked at the House of Blues, and she gave me the rundown; I got an incredible hot roast beef sandwich; I went to the Field Museum, and had just enough time to see a special exhibit "The Art of the Motorcycle" (I love vintage cycles), and glance at a display on Tibet (I’m studying Eastern religions); and I met a man in my hostel who was born the same day as me, had a guitar signed by Chris Isaak, and was interested in film, so we had a fun conversation.

The HOB was a nice venue, but they need a couple more seats (in my opinion). It had a big sunken area for standing, and then three tiers surrounding, with some cushy private boxes. New Radicals and Better Than Ezra were entertaining, but I was really just biding my time till the main event.

Chris and Silvertone came on a bit before midnight. I’m not sure if they played Auld Lang Syne before or after the countdown, in fact alot of this concert is an excited blur. But they came on and launched into a song. I was standing on the Hershel side with two people between me and the stage. Chris came over to my side and (I think) kicked a cup on the stage. All of a sudden, a tidal wave of beer hit me in the face. I hate alcohol, and ordinarily would have been ticked off, but I just wiped as much as I could off with my shirt, and started to rock. All of a sudden Chris starts the countdown from ten, and at the new year, a dump-truck-full of confetti and balloons fell from the ceiling, layering everyone in the pit. Confetti was all in my mouth and sticking to me, and all down my shirt. People were batting the balloons on stage and the boys were stomping on them, and Chris was doing a great job of popping them with the head of the neck of his guitar. It was unreal.

I don’t know anything about the set list, I was too busy singing and dancing like I was possessed. I discovered I knew the lyrics to so many songs, and I even sang along to songs I’d never heard before. But here are the things I do remember, more or less:

Stories (paraphrased), and stuff-
"This is New Years, I don’t want you to just have fun, I want you to do something you’ll regret. You’ll go back to your hotel rooms and you’ll have a woman lying on your bed... tied up, going (In a fake girly voice, with his arms behind his head and doing pelvic rotations) ‘Oh baby, that band made me hot....Oh baby, that base player made me so hot’. Well, I want you to do something you’ll regret tomorrow. If you wake up tomorrow morning, and go (in a really uptight voice) ‘Well, I had some fun last night, I really must say.’, thats all wrong. I want you to wake up tomorrow and go ‘I did WHAT?...With WHO?...I did it multiple times?...I let them videotape it?...And play it in the hotel lobby, on all those little screens?...Oh boy...am I proud of myself." He said that Hershel was kind of bad. That last year he had three or four women in his room at New Years, and so his resolution this year was to have six or seven.

He told Roly to come forward "Come here young lover....This woman has been undressing you with her eyes all night." He talked about how there had been a study done on CNN, with a huge chart comparing Roly to zoo animals. "This scientist came out wearing a white coat and petting a small white mouse, or maybe it just looked small compared to the giant chart. (At this point Chris is pretending to pet a tiny mouse) And this scientist said that this study had been done, all scientific and uptight-like, comparing Roly to elephants, and rhinoceroses, and all kinds of animals. And the conclusion was that Roly is... (Chris holds his hands up, like four feet apart) a diddley...diddley...daddy".

The guys did alot of messing around on stage. When the roadie tried to offer Chris his harmonica during Diddley Daddy, Chris wandered around a bit and then pretended like he just wasn’t going to take it, while the roadie just stood there holding it out. Chris played the small drum kit and Kenney sang a bit of a song. Chris had a really sarcastic look on his face during "I Want Your Love", while singing "All I want is your love"...etc.

Two women got on stage uninvited. The first one wandered, nervously, up to Chris. He was in the middle of singing, and was just wearily eyeing her. She went, as if to grab his posterior, but didn’t really do it, as if she couldn’t really take that last step, and security came and got her off stage. The second woman got on stage while Chris was playing the guitar, so he ran and hid behind Hershel, the woman was bobbing from side to side, trying to get around, but every time she made a sideways move, Hershel headed her off. Security came and took her away. When Chris got back to the microphone, he was giving Roly these really funny, kind of embarassed looks.When they started pulling women on stage at the end, one woman went and stood right between Chris (who was singing at the microphone), and the audience, and started kind of gyrating and running her hands over her body like she was his "private dancer"(?!?). The audience was grumbling things like "Aw, what is THAT!", "Put it away, hon.", and "Hello...you’re blocking paying customers, here." It was painfully embarrassing for all.

The concert was over too soon for my liking, the time just flew by. My voice hurt from all the singing I was doing (I guess I was shouting, but I couldn’t hear myself). I was tired from dancing, and my face hurt from the smile that was glued to it all night. I got my coat, from the horny guys at the coatcheck, and went to the autograph line, which was right next to it. It was a small line, and there was only enough room for four people at a time to put up their stuff. [Girlish sidebar - I’ve read alot about the effect of Chris’ blue eyes on people in the line. As I read, I would wonder, "What? do lasers shoot out of them? Are they a translucent color not found in nature? What?" My conclusion: they are your classic baby blues (light blue on the inside, streaking out to a darker blue on the outside), and yes, they are showstoppers.] So I got my autograph and I went and caught a bus full of merry (read: incredibly drunk) revelers back to the hostel.

I was buzzed in the door, and as I headed to the elevator, the concierge yelled "Happy New Years!" to me. "Happy New Years!", I called back. And you know what? It really, really was.

-Kowloon

Followup

I forgot to mention that seeing the mirror suit from so close was a fabulous experience. There was a little haze in the air, so the light rays kind of hung there, like when you shine a flashlight into a really dusty room. It was incredible. He can wear that suit till the cows come home, as far as I'm concerned, it'll never get old.

Also, to the person who asked about the dancers:
There were, I think, four. One was walking her fingers along his back and neck, two were dancing right up against either side of him, and then of course, there was "private dancer". And, yes, he said, "I'd like to thank the gold-digger dancers" (A little snickering from audience) "They worked soooo hard on their choreography". "Thank you, goodnight. Hey-ohhhh!!!" And with that he was gone.

Also, on the long train ride home I had a nine year old girl sitting next to me, who started in on all kinds of questions: "Are you Catholic? Are you married? Are your mother and father dead? Do you snore? Do you smoke? Do you have any food? What kind of candy? Can I see it? Would you like to meet my Beanie Baby?" and eventually she asked if the music I was listening to had any cussing in it. I told her no, and would she like to listen. She swears she hears Chris say the F-word in "Two Hearts". "I really don't think so", I say, and have her listen again. "Is this rock and roll? Do you have any Hawaiian music?", she asks. "As a matter of fact, I have Baja Sessions, that has some Hawaiian slide guitar". I let her listen to it. "It is Hawaiian. He's singing about a yellow bird".

So the rest of the trip, from time to time, she would ask to listen to my music, and I would ask her "Hawaiian or rock and roll", and select a song for her. her little legs would start to kick in time, her little shoulders would start to shimmy, and she would occasionally start to snap. She actually listened to the entire SOTD, except for "Like the Way She Moves", which I surreptitiously skipped over (too racy), and she fell asleep all snuggled up like a church mouse during "Super Magic 2000". It turned out to be a really fun trip. At the end, her mother thanked me for sitting next to her, and I said, "oh...okay...you're welcome". And the girl said to her mother, "I know you're not going to let me hug her." And I go, "You can hug me if you want", and she did that thing kids do, where she just smashed into my midsection and hung on like the world was falling apart. I almost got teary, I had to make a hasty exit.

The entire Chicago trip was amazing, I'm so glad I went. I seem to have the best luck and experiences with CI & S. Mind you, I only have Boston and Chicago to base that on.

-Kowloon

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