today is thanksgiving day. i'm off work... but not because it's a holiday... because i booked it off. the only day i get off work is christmas day... the 25th... and i don't even celebrate on the 25th. what the fuck? i hate second cup.
anyway... what do i have to be thankful for? i'm thankful for john, jason, m5 and my other music men. i'm thankful for jenny being my best friend. i'm thankful for kitkat being super enough to take us to rockchester with her.
i can't beleive it's monday and i still haven't written about ro-cha-cha up in herre. so, i'll start at the beginning. on thursday kitkat told us that we weren't leaving until 2 pm the next day. i was happy because that meant i could sleep in. yeah baby... sleep is good. so i slept. surprise, surprise! i couldn't sleep on friday morning... from 6:00 am to 8:00 i kept waking up about every 15 minutes. so at 8 i just got up and stayed up. i had so much to do in the morning, i wrote check list the night before. yes... i know i'm a dork. and you'll see me as an even bigger dork once you see the list, here. i was still on my john high... so shoot me. anyway, i headed to the train station at 11 to catch the train to burlington at 11:47. i met jenny and the station, we caught the train and off we went. we made our "retail whores meet here" sign on the train to burlington. it was good times. we landed in burlington at about 1:40, 20 minutes ahead of schedule. we searched and searched for kitkat, and finally found her in the other parking lot. she spotted us quickly, hopped out of the car and greeted us. jenny and i weren't sure what kind of person to expect, but she ended up being amazing. amazing x 78. we rocked it all the way to ro-cha-cha, never running out of things to say or laugh at. and we finally made it to the harro east ballroom at around 5.
tina and her husband dave were already there... kj, elyse and em were already there too. we hooked up with tina and her hubby because we didn't want to be surrounded by some teenie fans for the few hours before the show. we brought the "retail whores" sign, but by that time we figured that most of the group was there except for emy, sarah, amity, papa jon, andrea, amy and shari. so i just put the sign away in kat's car, because i didn't want people jumping me and a few rkoper's weren't gonna show until late. kj, who does some stuff for elektra, had many steadman buttons and stickers to give away, so because half of the rkop clan was missing i went along with kj to hand out the candy i had bought. mraz fans aren't nearly as candy hungry as they should be. i also needed some american money to possibly buy merch or to survive there. so jenny, kat and i went in search of an atm machine. all we could find was a drive-thru machine, so i used that. i wish i had my camera to document that. on our walk back to the venue, we decided to make a pit stop to go pee. we found a bar to use for the releasing of the urine and we grabbed flyers on the way out. it turned out to be a gay bar, and those rkoper's who could drink made full use of it. emy and sara showed up, with gifts in hand. they were pins that lit up... too cool for school. the rkoper's went crazy. when it was nearing 7:00 pm, door time, there was the camera fiasco of 2003. at first we were going to sneak camera's in because we apparently not allowed to have cameras. and then we were informed that if we were caught with a camera it would be taken away and we'd never, ever see it again. at this point, everyone and their mother ran to their cars to throw there cameras in and ran back to the line. once we got to the line again, we were informed that we could bring camera's in. so once again everyone and their mother ran back to their cars to take the cameras back out and ran back to line. and then finally, we were allowed in.
once we got in we met up with some of the missing rkoper's, papa jon, shari and amity. and kitkat, jenny and i decided to move it on up to the balcony instead of staying so close to the stage on the floor. one, we didn't want to be surrounded by screaming chickadees all night long. and two, we wanted to get our grooves on and there was no way to do that on the floor. so the balcony it was. papa jon, shari and amity joined us up there for a while, but shari was the only one who stayed for the whole night. us four girls had fun rocking it out on the balcony, and i'm sure everyone was extremely jealous of these extremely hot chicks.
steadman rocked the house pretty well. they came onstage about an hour after the doors opened, around 8:00. i couldn't really get into them, but i saw them win quite a few mrazies over with their performance. and it wasn't very long until mraz come out. maybe 15 minutes later. jason was onstage at 9:00.
he opened with the tonight, not again and i taped my favourite part. aggaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiin. if i could figure out a way to share that with you, i would. here's the setlist.
tonight, not again --> i
love this song as the opener. it captures every part of my concert excitement...
and i love the aggaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiin part.
curbside prophet --> shari,
kat, jenny and i knew all the actions (look at us now, now, now, now and
a singer who's goin' around the universe) and the third verse.
you and i both --> i love
how groovy this song is live.
better --> i'm still in
awe that i heard this song live.
1,000 things --> the first
time i heard it live, i didn't enjoy it. but this time i loved every part
of it.
unfold --> shair, kat, jenny
and i were the only people who put our hands up, besides a few rkoper's
during "my hands are high".
older lover undercover -->
i'm not a big fan of this song, but it was great none the less.
did i fool ya? --> i never
understood this song until friday. i love it now.
water --> i'm not into this
song either, but it was requested by em for her birthday and mraz sang
it. such a sweetheart.
unravel --> i bjork cover.
almost had me bawling.
right kind of phrase -->
shari, kat, jenny and i knew all of the "repeat after me" scatting. kinda
scary i'm sure. he also added in extra scatting and it was amazing.
so unusual --> i'm just
glad i got to hear my song live.
common pleasure --> shari,
kat, jenny and i went absolutely nuts for this song. we did all the scatting
and sang every word... we rocked it out completely. but we still didn't
do that song justice. that song should have a state dedicated to it.
no stopping us --> mraz
went for a pee break during this song. and then came back only to tell
us about it, and his various way of peeing. shari, kat, jenny and i all
broke into the soul-clap before it was requested. we all did mraz's james
brown impression with him. we all sang the "can i get an amen?" with mraz.
and we sang the love part of "can i get some love?" long before mraz belted
it out. i'm sure we were nicknamed the obsessed crazies by balconeyers.
the remedy --> this was
the best song shared between us girls. we rocked it like no other.
toca's joke --> he told
andrea's joke... and didn't remember the punch line.
improv --> billy played
some bluegrassy tune and mraz told toca's fish joke to that tune. and later
told toca that he has to tell his next joke to that tune.
i'll do anything --> he
told us to get our mack on and get to know our neighbours.
encore:
too much food --> no 'roids
were taken and mraz didn't break out the robot. in honour of the robot,
shari, jenny and i did it... not so well.
and that was the show. the rkoper's and some other fans waited around to see jason and the band, but mraz never came out. i saw jason walk out of the doors that the roadies were using, but he turned his head to see the abundance of fans and walked back inside. he was having a pretty bad night. during the show he told fans to strike up a conversation before asking for a picture or autograph and it took him until the scatting in rkop to really get into the show. until the buses left, we had fun killing time. we took many weirdo pictures and i made emy and shari do sexy dances for me so i could get rid of my american dollar bills. shari even faked an orgasm for $2. it was good times. you can see some craziziness here. there aren't any pictures from the show because they didn't turn out very well. and there are no pictures with the band because i just didn't care and because they were always with other people... i didn't want to take away any time.
after the buses left, we said our goodbyes and we were on our way back home at around 1:00 am. we stopped at a burger king, that only served us breakfast. bastards. and we made a non-stop trip back home. the fog was almost unbearable... but i wouldn't know because i fell asleep on the way home.
this trip was quite the experience... and i hope to do it again with shari, jon or kitkat soon.
next stop on the concert train, sunday moaning on 11/2.
xo – cyndi
it was a kind of treasure
one i surely glad to find
