Post by LipGlossArsonist on Aug 17, 2003 6:55:10 GMT -5
So, this is rather lengthy.. because, well.. the events of the day were. I posted it in my livejournal and since I'm lazy, I'm kind of just gonna post the same here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think I may very well have had the most surreal night of my life. Past, or future, even, I'm sure. For those of you that were indeed keeping track of the day that I had mentioned being at a Tori concert, that was tonight. Well, sort of, since it's 4.41am now. So, I'll kind of play-by-play this for you.. maybe you'll understand my utter disbelief in what I've just lived through.
It's Saturday morning. I woke up, still without the idea of the concert being today having 'sunk in' and me feeling a little less than excited. So I wandered out of my room, said good morning to my mum, and managed to get myself into the shower. At which point in time, it hit me... and there I was sitting in the shower singing probably every Tori song I know... or at least.. lines from all of them getting all mixed up in a hideous ToriMedley. Got out of the shower and was then in a wonderful mood. 'Cause hey... I was goin' to see Tori, yes? Oh, yes. Helped my dad get maps together, print out directions, etc. Jill showed up, and then I dried my hair, made myself pretty/presentable, and we hauled things out to the car.
Pretty uneventful for a while then. I helped Jill with her homework in the car, we stopped for food, the usual stuff on long car trips. By about that time we were either very close to reaching Columbus, or just past it. Which means, we'd been on the road for about two hours. Of all the questions on whether we had brought the things we needed before we left.... the one that was put off until this point -- 'Where are the tickets?'. I fucking kid you not, good sirs. We had all forgotten to fucking make sure... that we had the tickets in the goddamn car. Anyway, it was my mother who had asked that, and so I replied 'I thought you had them, didn't you?' -- 'Noo, you took them.' -- 'Actually, I looked at them, and then put them back into the FedEx envelope they came in, because I didn't want to lose them.' And then my dad interjects something to the effect of 'You're fucking kidding me'. Pulls off the interstate, pulls into a parking lot. We were two hours from home, putting us at two o'clock, Ohio time. With three hours more ahead of us. No fucking chance of going home to get them. I told my father, being as upset as I was, that 'we might as well just go home, it's not like we're going to be able to get in.' Since my parents are well aware of the fact that I'm quiet irrational when severely upset and disappointed, my father talked me into just continuing on, and 'see[ing] how it goes'. So, we got back onto the interstate, and worked on calling Ticketmaster. Did I honestly expect them to do anything? No, not really. Mainly because, well, Ticketmaster's the fucking devil, etc. and, well, they blow goats for quarters. So my mother was on hold with them for probably somewhere around a half hour to an hour. Only for them to, in the end, tell her they can do nothing because they're anal retentive bastards. Yes. Father did at this point tell me he'd attempt to bribe them at the amphitheater's box office. I did find that thoroughly amusing. But since Ticketmaster was a whore, as was expected, we were left with the rest of the drive... to wait and pray, or whatever.
So we made it to Cleveland, and we made it to the Tower City Amphitheater. And we told our story to a security guard, and he showed us the way to the box office. At the box office, we were again told that because they were ebay-ed and we bought them from neither the box office nor ticketmaster directly, we were fucked.
And this, my dears, is why my father is a magnificent bastard [pronounced: genius]: He says to the lady at the box office, and is really fuckin' working her to persuade her that, yes we were ridiculously stupid, however we drove 5.5 hours and didn't want to drive them back right then sans ToriShow, "I know exactly where the tickets are in our house, and everything. I could call someone and have them fax you a copy of them."
--I have NO fucking clue as to why this woman agreed to this. I honestly don't think she was supposed to.--
For whatever reason, she agreed. Wrote down the fax number, and told us to come back when they'd been faxed. And this is why I owe my dearest wheel-chair bound aunt Kim THE WORLD. Yeah, she was the one that went to the house, picked up the tickets off the desk, drove to Kinko's, and then copied them both, front-and-back, and had them faxed to the box office .
Went back up to the box office (thanked Kim on the phone like crazy) and the lady there told us 'Okay, here's what we're gonna do...' as she hands us the fax paper and tells us that we have to wait in line, and when we get to the ticket-scanners, to ask for 'Sue' and tell them to manually enter in the ticket numbers.
Our... lovely quasi-tickets. Row E, seats 15-16 in the front-left section (1).
We fucking made it into the concert. !!!!!!!!!
And once inside I was the most thrilled little thing in the world. We had to have everybody in the amphitheater meet us, though, so they knew our piece of paper was a legit set of tickets. Which turned out to be kind of fun, because one of the security guys would point out the paper and say he bets it's all a scam whenever we passed him. But really, they were all like... incredibly nice. I bought two shirts (for $35 each.... because I'm bloody obsessive and couldn't help myself):
Shirt one: Grey w/ Black. (because the lighting blows and the color, therefore sucks) Lottapianos, Tori cartoon thing dragging around pianos as seen on her tour page. Back w/ piano and tour info.
Shirt two: White w/ blue. Tori cartoon pic. Taxi Ride lyrics: I'm glad you're on my side. Back w/ another Tori cartoon pic, tour info, and Taxi Ride lyrics: This is where you know the Honey from the Killer Bee.
Now, it was abfab. We had fifth row seats (though... they were about as far to the left of the stage as could be, making it.. slightly hard to see) and it was a Tori show. And we'd been sitting there in our seats and here's where my Tori obsession comes through. I spotted Joel. And I pointed him out to Jill and told her how he walks around the show and gives people with terrible tickets better ones. Like.. Tori's tickets. Meaning front-row. And Jill was marveling at how cool that was, etc.
My order, might be a little fuzzy, but I believe then we watched the opening act. Or... kind of opening. He got an hour of time, so it's not really like he was an opening act. He, being Ben Folds (and yes, of the Ben Folds Five fame... only.. it's just Ben Folds -One- now). I wasn't sure how that'd go. I love Tori, and all, but she has this uncanny ability to pick out terrible singers that stand on stage and appear to seizure while playing guitar. It's horrendous, really. But, at least I knew Ben Folds would be playing a piano, not a guitar (thus, the 'Lottapianos' tour). Quite frankly, he was far better than I expected. He was adorable, and made me laugh. And furthermore, he was the first opening act that I was kind of sorry to see leave the stage (oh, and that wasn't seizuring onstage). So it went well. If the CDs they sold at the show weren't $20, I probably would've bought his... but since all I had left was $20 after the shirts... no CD.
And then Jill got hungry and we ran off to get her food. She had a $4 hamburger. Apparently, it was crap. Go figure. We made it back to our seats... and AGAIN, I spotted Joel. I leaned over to Jill and I said 'I should go say "hi" to him'. But, he was talking to someone and I kinda chickened out. Some guy, though, while Joel was talking to that person, came up and just shook his hand and left. So I gather courage and gave my stuff to Jill and told her I was just gonna go shake his hand real quick and I'd be right back.
So I walk up to him while he was talking to this girl and he kinda looked over at me and said 'Hi'.
Continued...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think I may very well have had the most surreal night of my life. Past, or future, even, I'm sure. For those of you that were indeed keeping track of the day that I had mentioned being at a Tori concert, that was tonight. Well, sort of, since it's 4.41am now. So, I'll kind of play-by-play this for you.. maybe you'll understand my utter disbelief in what I've just lived through.
It's Saturday morning. I woke up, still without the idea of the concert being today having 'sunk in' and me feeling a little less than excited. So I wandered out of my room, said good morning to my mum, and managed to get myself into the shower. At which point in time, it hit me... and there I was sitting in the shower singing probably every Tori song I know... or at least.. lines from all of them getting all mixed up in a hideous ToriMedley. Got out of the shower and was then in a wonderful mood. 'Cause hey... I was goin' to see Tori, yes? Oh, yes. Helped my dad get maps together, print out directions, etc. Jill showed up, and then I dried my hair, made myself pretty/presentable, and we hauled things out to the car.
Pretty uneventful for a while then. I helped Jill with her homework in the car, we stopped for food, the usual stuff on long car trips. By about that time we were either very close to reaching Columbus, or just past it. Which means, we'd been on the road for about two hours. Of all the questions on whether we had brought the things we needed before we left.... the one that was put off until this point -- 'Where are the tickets?'. I fucking kid you not, good sirs. We had all forgotten to fucking make sure... that we had the tickets in the goddamn car. Anyway, it was my mother who had asked that, and so I replied 'I thought you had them, didn't you?' -- 'Noo, you took them.' -- 'Actually, I looked at them, and then put them back into the FedEx envelope they came in, because I didn't want to lose them.' And then my dad interjects something to the effect of 'You're fucking kidding me'. Pulls off the interstate, pulls into a parking lot. We were two hours from home, putting us at two o'clock, Ohio time. With three hours more ahead of us. No fucking chance of going home to get them. I told my father, being as upset as I was, that 'we might as well just go home, it's not like we're going to be able to get in.' Since my parents are well aware of the fact that I'm quiet irrational when severely upset and disappointed, my father talked me into just continuing on, and 'see[ing] how it goes'. So, we got back onto the interstate, and worked on calling Ticketmaster. Did I honestly expect them to do anything? No, not really. Mainly because, well, Ticketmaster's the fucking devil, etc. and, well, they blow goats for quarters. So my mother was on hold with them for probably somewhere around a half hour to an hour. Only for them to, in the end, tell her they can do nothing because they're anal retentive bastards. Yes. Father did at this point tell me he'd attempt to bribe them at the amphitheater's box office. I did find that thoroughly amusing. But since Ticketmaster was a whore, as was expected, we were left with the rest of the drive... to wait and pray, or whatever.
So we made it to Cleveland, and we made it to the Tower City Amphitheater. And we told our story to a security guard, and he showed us the way to the box office. At the box office, we were again told that because they were ebay-ed and we bought them from neither the box office nor ticketmaster directly, we were fucked.
And this, my dears, is why my father is a magnificent bastard [pronounced: genius]: He says to the lady at the box office, and is really fuckin' working her to persuade her that, yes we were ridiculously stupid, however we drove 5.5 hours and didn't want to drive them back right then sans ToriShow, "I know exactly where the tickets are in our house, and everything. I could call someone and have them fax you a copy of them."
--I have NO fucking clue as to why this woman agreed to this. I honestly don't think she was supposed to.--
For whatever reason, she agreed. Wrote down the fax number, and told us to come back when they'd been faxed. And this is why I owe my dearest wheel-chair bound aunt Kim THE WORLD. Yeah, she was the one that went to the house, picked up the tickets off the desk, drove to Kinko's, and then copied them both, front-and-back, and had them faxed to the box office .
Went back up to the box office (thanked Kim on the phone like crazy) and the lady there told us 'Okay, here's what we're gonna do...' as she hands us the fax paper and tells us that we have to wait in line, and when we get to the ticket-scanners, to ask for 'Sue' and tell them to manually enter in the ticket numbers.
Our... lovely quasi-tickets. Row E, seats 15-16 in the front-left section (1).
We fucking made it into the concert. !!!!!!!!!
And once inside I was the most thrilled little thing in the world. We had to have everybody in the amphitheater meet us, though, so they knew our piece of paper was a legit set of tickets. Which turned out to be kind of fun, because one of the security guys would point out the paper and say he bets it's all a scam whenever we passed him. But really, they were all like... incredibly nice. I bought two shirts (for $35 each.... because I'm bloody obsessive and couldn't help myself):
Shirt one: Grey w/ Black. (because the lighting blows and the color, therefore sucks) Lottapianos, Tori cartoon thing dragging around pianos as seen on her tour page. Back w/ piano and tour info.
Shirt two: White w/ blue. Tori cartoon pic. Taxi Ride lyrics: I'm glad you're on my side. Back w/ another Tori cartoon pic, tour info, and Taxi Ride lyrics: This is where you know the Honey from the Killer Bee.
Now, it was abfab. We had fifth row seats (though... they were about as far to the left of the stage as could be, making it.. slightly hard to see) and it was a Tori show. And we'd been sitting there in our seats and here's where my Tori obsession comes through. I spotted Joel. And I pointed him out to Jill and told her how he walks around the show and gives people with terrible tickets better ones. Like.. Tori's tickets. Meaning front-row. And Jill was marveling at how cool that was, etc.
My order, might be a little fuzzy, but I believe then we watched the opening act. Or... kind of opening. He got an hour of time, so it's not really like he was an opening act. He, being Ben Folds (and yes, of the Ben Folds Five fame... only.. it's just Ben Folds -One- now). I wasn't sure how that'd go. I love Tori, and all, but she has this uncanny ability to pick out terrible singers that stand on stage and appear to seizure while playing guitar. It's horrendous, really. But, at least I knew Ben Folds would be playing a piano, not a guitar (thus, the 'Lottapianos' tour). Quite frankly, he was far better than I expected. He was adorable, and made me laugh. And furthermore, he was the first opening act that I was kind of sorry to see leave the stage (oh, and that wasn't seizuring onstage). So it went well. If the CDs they sold at the show weren't $20, I probably would've bought his... but since all I had left was $20 after the shirts... no CD.
And then Jill got hungry and we ran off to get her food. She had a $4 hamburger. Apparently, it was crap. Go figure. We made it back to our seats... and AGAIN, I spotted Joel. I leaned over to Jill and I said 'I should go say "hi" to him'. But, he was talking to someone and I kinda chickened out. Some guy, though, while Joel was talking to that person, came up and just shook his hand and left. So I gather courage and gave my stuff to Jill and told her I was just gonna go shake his hand real quick and I'd be right back.
So I walk up to him while he was talking to this girl and he kinda looked over at me and said 'Hi'.
Continued...
;D 
