*BUSHED*

OMgosh so tired. We cleaned all three bathrooms today all sparkly and germ-free, to get rid of the hurls we had going through the last week. That part was fine. Then I decided while I was in the mode, it was about time to do the kitchen floor. Mopping the kitchen is always a killer. I should do it right before bed and then just climb in and die, that's what I should do.

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Now playing: Depeche Mode - Clean

I guess I was strong then, too.

Didn't know what to do with ourselves after dinner, so just for giggles I tossed in an exercise DVD and told the kids they could join me if they wanted to. They did some of the dance moves, and everyone asked for weights when it was time to work out arms. Mack quickly grew frustrated that he couldn't follow the weights routine and said, "I'll just do sit ups, since I'm really good at that." He did sit ups for a bit, then pulled up his sleeve to reveal his left bicep. "Jackson! Feel my abs!" I asked him how he got so strong and awesome and he said, "How I got strong, is I turned four!"

White Rabbits

I am so into music. Long, long ago, when I was in junior high school, high school, and college, I was a concert-goer. I amassed CDs in alarming numbers (sometimes at the expense of food budget) and if I liked even one or two songs of any group that came to town, I'd totally go to their concert. I'm sure I hit 100 (I saved all my stubs, back in the day) in the years between the ages of 15 and 23 or so.

And they weren't all $50 concerts, either, oh no. They were $5 and $10 and sometimes if the group was *huge* (by my standards) $15, so pretty affordable. And now I pay $35 for Muse and $50 for U2!

So last night was a blast from the past. My sister Joan, my niece Liz, and I went to see White Rabbits at this tiny little bar called the Urban Lounge in SLC. The maximum capacity of the joint is 299. Tiny. And tickets were only $10, just like when I was in high school.

I love White Rabbits. I'd say they're my #3 favorite group. Knowing (as my faithful readers do) that #1 is Muse and #2 is Radiohead—both bands of critical acclaim, accomplishment, and large fanbase—you can see that I esteem them pretty loftily. I see huge, huge potential from these guys, and in ten years I'm going to their $35 concert and I'll laugh about the tiny bar I saw them in way back when. I listened to them for the entire 100-mile drive up to SLC and the entire 100-mile drive home and didn't get sick of their songs even hearing them multiple times (because I have CD versions, and live versions, and a couple of acoustic versions...). Here's a playlist if you want to hear my six favorite songs in order of favoriteness.

So how was it?

Opening group #1 was Mini Mansions. I had never heard of them or their music, but they were great. It was a really enjoyable set. Well done, guys. Music was great, singing was great, easy to listen to.






Opening group #2 was Here We Go Magic. Musically they started off each song well. They have a lot of musical talent. I didn't like the lead singer's style of singing, sounded very falsely falsetto to me; but I think this band's strong point is probably singing, like everyone in that band could sing and had a mike, which made for lots of harmonies and multi-part vocals. Each song went on a bit too long. By the end of every song it just sounded like an eternal jam session we weren't interested in.


For the main event Liz, Joan, and I were really excited for White Rabbits, and we gave up our little table-with-chairs a few feet from the stage and stood front and center instead. And they didn't disappoint. They sound fantastic live, and played all five of the songs I cared about hearing the most. Percussion is White Rabbits' strong point, but the two vocalists sound superb together and they faithfully recreated their layered music on the tiny stage, even with all the limits in sound technology in that bitty little club.
Setting up and soundchecking


Cute lead singer is cute





I could have reached out and touched them
if I were creepy like that.



(I completely loved this beat-up guitar)

Sometimes two power drummers just aren't enough.
You need three to get the job done.




I did have a couple of very minor disappointments:

• Pretty much no eye contact between the band and the crowd. Dude, I was two feet away from Greg Roberts for the better part of an hour, singing my heart out, and he never once looked me in the eye. I don't think any of them really noticed who sang along or knew their songs.
• I could have stepped up onto the stage at any time. These guys don't have a crew or security, they set up and soundchecked their own gear. But after the set was over they walked off the side of the stage and into some mysterious door, instead of mingling with the crowd. They totally, totally should have mingled.
• But I realize I see things through innocent-colored glasses; maybe if they mingled more, too many women would come on to them. How were they to know I would just talk, and not try to get a hotel key card? *shrug*

There are two drummers, Matt and Jamie, but I'm afraid I can't guess at which is which; one sat at the drum kit, and one stood and added percussion of all kinds. The standing one—dude could move. It was kind of primal the way he hit those drums. But Mr. Sits At Kit was my favorite member of the band. He did look out at the audience, he smiled at us, he smiled at other band members, he looked like he was having a marvelous time. And he walked around the venue while the other bands were playing, kind of mixing it up. I want to pinch his little cheeks, wish I'd have gotten a picture with him when he walked by our table.
Me and Joan
Me, Joan, Liz

This is Mike, one of the guitarists from Here We Go Magic, totally chatting up my adorable niece Liz.

Meeting Muse

We had a lot of errands to run yesterday—two radio stations to visit and pick up won tickets, and a little bit of clothes shopping so my sister Joan and I could find something that looked great for a concert and was worth of meeting Muse in.

We didn’t find out until after lunchtime that the meet and greet was before the concert—we were to be at Will Call at the venue at 5:45, where they would take serve us a bit of dinner and then we’d meet the band and have pictures taken by a Warner Brothers rep. The opening band Silversun Pickups started at 7:00 p.m.

Joan and I were so excited we were about 40 minutes early to Will Call, and just had to stand around waiting and wondering if anyone else wandering through the doors was also a contest winner. None of the other concert winners showed up until about, well, 5:45, so we were alone and excited for a long time.

Other radio stations had also given away meet and greet packages, which surprised me. Lots of different people did different things to meet the band. After the various winners had stood around a bit talking they herded us into groups according to whom we’d won meet and greet passes from, and the X96 group—that’s us—got precedence. Joan and I went to the head of the line and followed the Warner Brothers rep out of the building, down the stairs past the long queue, and down to another entrance. They scanned our tickets there and checked our bags, and then we went through a long hall and through many sets of doors, past Muse’s dressing room, into a room.

The E Center is primarily a venue for the Utah hockey team. Our room appeared to be something like a dressing room for the visiting team. Cement floor and black fabric panels all around concealing benches and a bathroom/shower room and other cinderblocky, cementy construction. In the middle they’d set up a suede sofa, a coffee table and two end tables with two table lamps (which was all the lighting we had in the room at first).

The five winning posters were laid out on a table. They’d framed them for us, and there were unframed ones that were to be signed by the band. They kind of laid out the plan for us—“Explain your designs to the band, and then we’ll take a picture of you and your guest with the band members”—And then we waited. Talked and freaked out and waited. I was so excited and nervous, any time the door opened I sort of held my breath and my heart skipped a beat; I joked with Aaron the WB rep that he needed to stop opening the door and not being Muse because he was in and out and in and out and in and out, every time making my heart stop a little bit. He laughed and told us that he’d been warned about us by the DJs at the radio station. That amused me mightily.

One of the times the door opened, Dom was right outside it. He was on a bike in the hall—ahahaha!—and totally losing control of my mouth and my actions, I yelled out “HI DOM!” and frantically waved. He did look in through the crack of the closing door.

We were in that room waiting and talking to each other for about 30 minutes. It felt like forever. Then someone came in and said, “I think we’re ready!” We were all arranged in a semicircle to meet them. Even after the ready signal, we waited another few minutes, but eventually they did come in.

Dom was first through the line, and I was the first to call him by name when I said “Hi Dom.” Chris was next (“Hi Chris”) and Matt last. Matt asked Joan, “Are you the artist? Which one is the artist?” and she said I was and I said I was at about the same time, and he said something along the lines of cool. They all had lovely, firm handshakes.

Each of the winners got to go up to the table and explain our poster design, surrounded by the band members. They were mostly quiet, didn’t say much, though they were very personable and friendly. Gracious, I would say. I did get a small reaction out of Matt, amused at Dom’s outfit in my poster. I asked Dom if he liked it and he smiled, may have mumbled something I don’t remember. Mostly I think my explanation was, “Blah blah blah nonsense nonsense sixteen-year-old-daughter helped me with this part* I DID IT BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.” I told them the primary element of the design was that I’d erased the guy off the path in The Resistance logo because I wanted everyone to put themselves into that spot, and there was a general grunt or murmur of acknowledgment. My time was over and the next artist stepped up. *(Joan just told me today when we were at lunch with one of our other sisters that when I mentioned my 16YO daughter Dom sort of stepped back and looked me up and down, hee hee. I didn’t see that part.)

After they’d seen them all they went out for about a minute and discussed in private (Joan invited Dom to stay and he said, “I think we’re going to do a bit of secret voting,” and said something along the lines of it’ll just be a couple of seconds but I can’t remember exactly.) While they were out of the room WB reps lined us up along one black-paneled wall for a mass group photo with the band. Muse came back in and announced the grand winner (they chose the poster they thought would amuse their fans the most, heh), then stood in front of our assembled group for the picture. Matt came and stood right in front of me—like my hip and shoulder were touching him. And then they were gone.



(click on photos to see larger or read notes)

Things I did get to do: meet and talk to the band, get autographs on my poster.
Things that didn’t happen as promised: dinner, smaller group pictures.

They went out to the next meet and greet. I believe there were one or two other meet and greet groups besides ours going on, and I have to say, despite the fact that Muse was being guided here and there and had a lot of people to meet and the Silversun Pickups were already playing (we could hear them from our dressing room dungeon beneath the ground), they were really gracious and present in the moment. They never looked bored, they never acted like they were in a hurry or wanted it over with. They didn’t say much and the time we spent with them was very short, but they were great about it.

So we sat there waiting for the other meet and greet to end before they’d take us out to where we could get to our seats. We missed more than half of the Silversun Pickups—small bummer, I also really like them.

The concert itself was amazing. Setlist here. The tickets we’d purchased ourselves were quite close and good, closer than the tickets I’d won from either radio station (but all the seats really had a decent view of the stage). The set is gorgeous, with the risers going up and down and the video projected onto them. My only complaint is that it was a little too loud. The Silversun Pickups were very distorted, they were so loud; and even Muse was too loud for the venue, and there was more distortion than I’d have liked. Sad, because it diminished the effect and they are so great live. They hardly said anything on stage (as per usual), Dom did spout a little paragraph or so about how they love Salt Lake and we rocked and they’ll be back again. Only change in the setlist from the usual is they played Map of the Problematique rather than Guiding Light. Matt did sing “I can’t get it right…since I lost you” rather than “since I met you” as he’s been doing since the breakup with his girlfriend.

Fingers crossed the mad laserz didn't blind anyone, because as you can see from the next photo they were scanning the crowds' eyeballs over and over again. Looked cool when they were moving, but eeps for the eyeballs.


It was snowing when it was all over. It took us a while to gather up again since we were spread in three different locations, but we made our way out into the snow. Blaine had parked, intentionally, on the far corner of the parking lot right next to an exit. The man’s a genius. We brushed the snow off the car and we were out of the lot immediately. My niece texted us when we were almost back to my sister’s house saying, “This is ridiculous, we should go back into the merch table and buy Tshirts or something.” She wasn’t even out of her parking spot yet, and we were nearly home.

Observations:

• Chris has lost his tummy. He is so beautiful.
  
• Even Chris isn’t all that tall, maybe 5’11”. I was frankly surprised at the not tallness of him, because he towers in pictures. Dom was, what, 5'8"ish and Matt 5'7"ish.
  
• Matt’s eyes were not so crystalline blue as they look in photos. Could have been the lighting in the room.
  
• Glitterati (his signature red/glittery Manson guitar) is alive and well, despite the fact that he smashed it on stage last week.
  
• I was the only real fan of the band among the poster winners. (Sad! The grand winner hadn’t even heard any of their songs.)

It was totally so great to meet the band. But the best part about the entire experience? It was getting to know the X96 guys. The band has already forgotten about me, if I ever registered in their brains at all; but the DJs at X96 know me and are pals and Facebook friends and that’s pretty cool, actually. So it’s a win all around.



Because of weather their trucks couldn't make it all the way to Denver for tonight's show, so it was canceled. I feel bad for poor Denver, but I'm so glad it happened after SLC!

Hysteria

I JUST WON MEET AND GREET PASSES TO MONDAY NIGHT'S MUSE CONCERT IN SLC.

I am shaking like a butterfly in a hurricane. This is the culmination of 12 weeks of effort. If I can stop shaking long enough to type well, I'll tell you all the hard work I've been doing since January to get visibility with the radio station and make myself so sympathetic they couldn't turn me down. But until my fingers calm down...

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Now playing: Muse - Hysteria