Winter Mini Tour 2004
We took the El as close to our hotel as possible, and got off it to see nothing less than the Chicago Theatre off the platform--where we were to see John Mayer (and Howie Day and Five For Fighting...) that evening. A lot of bad directions eventually got us to our hotel, the Hyatt-Regency, which is a very nice hotel.
We wandered around State Street (where the Theatre is located), ate what was going to be our dinner (before realizing it was only one in the afternoon), and Ali and I ended up getting new outfits to wear to the concert. And black tights, so we wouldn't freeze walking half a mile (?) to the theatre and back at night. And because we're super-cool, we wore tights and socks with our boots and fun wintry skirts. That aren't really like librarians, at all.
We got ready at the hotel and were positively smashing and despite some problems, Chelsea, Ali and I walked to the theatre and got there with plenty of time.
I like the music of Howie Day, at least what I knew of it, but live he was a disappointment. Even if he recorded all the background stuff live, and everything, it is still not very interesting to hear the guitar and the voice going while he is just standing there, or adjusting the pedals or whatever. He played six songs.
JOHN MAYER came out next, and it was so obvious that he was the main attraction that night, but he only played five songs (including a new song?/new intro to Clarity that was well worth the money to hear). Before the last song, Neon, he said he had only one more, unless they let him play more...and they didn't. Bastards. No St. Patrick's Day, which is unbelievable, given the season. I'm sure I've confused most of the world now. The not-JM-obsessed world.
Five For Fighting are all right...but they got THIRTEEN SONGS, which was totally unfair. Haha, 'totally'. Large numbers of people left when John Mayer didn't return for an encore (and they taunted us for a while, not turning the lights back on). And the screams for 5FF were no where near as loud. It was obvious who everyone had come for.
Afterwards, we got ice cream at the Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts across Lake St. from the Theatre. It was only 10:45 when we were almost done walking back from the hotel. Really early for a concert. They could have given them more time.
Fri, Dec 17 -- Ali and I walked back to State St. to get doughnuts for breakfast, and then we all ventured out into Chicago. First we crossed the River to the Magnificent Mile (where John Mayer had been the day before...) and it was very Christmas-y. All Ali and I bought were books at the second Borders, and the only college we looked at was Loyola, which we didn't really look at 'cause it was just two buildings, which wasn't much to look at. We didn't have time to take the El to Northwestern, or go down to the University of Chicago, which was the only one we really wanted to see.
Ali and I split from her mother and sisters, and we kind of went into Old Town, and definitely walked down Rush St. (and saw no prostitutes!) and looked around at all the beautiful houses. And had some horrible Chinese food and then we met up again, bought chocolate (damn that woman was evil) and got ready to go ice skating. Walked to Millennium Park by ourselves, just the four girls. Ali fell five times, and I couldn't skate as well as I used to. At all. I think I must have trusted myself more when I was younger. Then we bought sparkling grape juice and carried the bottles back to the hotel, went out dinner (really late) and went to bed.
Sat, Dec 18 -- More donuts, this time from near the hotel, although we ended up outside with no coats because we came up from underground in a rentals building, instead of the shopping area...a similar thing happened the night before, looking for dinner. We took the El back to Midway and flew home, and the flight was incredibly short.
Everything was worth it. I love Chicago, we all loved Chicago. Even though John Mayer's set was short, we got to see him again, and his concert brought us to Chicago.
[They're kind of like Perkins in WI?]
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