by Camille on Sun Jun 29, 2008 12:10 pm
6/28/08 Albany, New York.
There aren’t many toll roads in California, especially in Los Angeles. It was an experience driving from Washington, D.C. to Netcong, NJ to Albany, NY and having to stop and pay at lots of toll booths. I didn’t mind the smaller fees. But when I arrived at a toll stop and the sign read $5, I pulled up to the toll booth, stuck my head out the window, looked at the attendant and said “No thank you.” Apparently the tolls are not, in fact, optional, so I handed over the five bucks. Shucks.
Bitey, Deb, Jules, Krista, Mare and I travelled to Albany for the Melissa concert. Mare and I went to the venue early to hang out. Around 5 PM, Philip came outside and went to the tour bus. We shouted to him, and he came over and said hello and chatted to us for a bit. He was happy that the venue had laundry facilities and told us about the benefits of clean boxers. He was excited to get his laundry done and he grabbed his laundry bag and headed back inside the venue. Around 5:20, Marky came out, and sat by Mare and me on the stairs and we talked to him for about a half hour. Mark was as entertaining as ever. One thing I love about Mark (there are many things I love about Mark) is that even though I have known him for a few years, he tells me stories about his life that completely surprise me. He also weaves in a few tall tales just for laughs. Fritzy came out at around 5:40 and I talked to him for a bit. He asked me how my trip was going so far and how many miles I’d gone (by the way, I was off- it’s well over 4,000 already) and how many miles per gallon my hybrid gets. A little before 6 PM Marky had to go get ready for the gig and Mare and I wanted to get something to eat, so we went back to the hotel for a quick bite to eat before returning to the venue.
We went inside the venue before 8 PM and headed to our seats. One of the things I love most in life is front row at a Melissa Etheridge concert, and I’d seen a front row ticket for sale on Ticketmaster or StubHub, and had decided to treat myself. I walked into the concert floor, and forward and forward and forward I went, my smile getting bigger and bigger with each step. I sat down in my very front row seat, which was on the right side in front of Fritz.
Deb, Jules, Bitey and Krista arrived and went to their seats, which were in the fourth and fifth rows. Deb came up front to talk to me for a few minutes. “I love front row seats! Yes! Yes! Yes! Front row seats rule! I’m so happy here! Yay yay yay front row!!!” I went on and on like that, and Deb finally had to ask if I was talking to her or to the teddy bear I’d purchased at the merchandise booth. I answered “both”. I love the little MLE teddy bear I purchased that night. He’s smiling and has a shirt that reads “I am loved”. (Teddy was also happy to be in the front row, by the way.)
It was getting close to show time, and everyone took their seats. The lights went down and the music started and the band walked out on stage a toucha after 8 PM. “All there is, is atoms and space. Everything else is an illusion” came Melissa’s voice from the speakers. I’d already been on my feet since the lights first dimmed, and the rest of the crowd rose to their feet when Melissa came out on stage.
The stage was rather large, and the front of the band’s equipment was about fifteen feet back from the front of the stage. There was also a semi circle in the front of the stage area. Melissa walked out to the front part to greet the crowd, and would continue to come out to the front area throughout the show. The band launched into All American Girl. Melissa’s over-shirt was very pretty. It was white, and there were very colorful flowers all over it. Mid-way through the song when Melissa had come out to the front of the stage, she looked back at Fritz and mouthed “THREE!” Melissa, Philip and Mark each strummed their instruments for three beats. Fritz beat the drums loudly four times. Melissa laughed and looked back at Fritz and held up three fingers and said again “THREE!” Fritz laughed and nodded his head, and when Melissa signaled the band, they played loudly for three counts. Melissa would turn and mouth to the band “FOUR!” then they would play four beats, and then “FIVE!” and then “SIX!” When Melissa said “SIX!”, she and Philip and Mark each strummed their instruments for six beats, and Fritz beat the drums loudly seven times. Melissa turned and laughed at Fritz again. When it came time for seven beats, Melissa looked at Fritz and mouthed “NOW SEVEN!” They got up to eight and the crowd got louder and louder. At the end of the song, Melissa commented, “We were never good at math.”
Next up was Mama I’m Strange. I love that song. I was having a great time singing and bobbing my head. MLE saw me and raised her eyebrows and smiled. I could not help but smile back. Of course I was already smiling, so really my smile just got a lot bigger. I looked back at my friends, and noticed pretty quick I was one of five people in the entire audience standing. Deb and Jules were standing and looked at me and smiled, and Bitey and Krista were also standing and looked at me and smiled. Brilliant. My friends rule!! I also had to laugh, because this was Krista’s first full length Melissa concert, and Jules, Deb and Bitey had given her strict orders that if she sat down, she would have to walk back to Jersey. She was dutifully standing next to Bitey, and also smiling and having a good time.
California was next. The security guard on my left had gotten up and walked down the aisle and said something to Bitey. I could see the two of them talking. For some reason, the guard had an issue with Bitey calling someone to let them hear a song, and made her end the phone call. Bitey and I looked at each other incredulously.
Brave and Crazy was next. Melissa came to the front, and was doing a little side to side step dance with her toes. After that was An Unexpected Rain. It’s a slower song, so once again there were five people in the venue standing (guess which five). I never sat down the entire show, nor did my friends. A stage hand brought out a cup with some lemon slices to Melissa, and Melissa bit into one. I wasn’t sure why she needed lemon slices, because her voice was sounding as strong and powerful as ever.
Melissa started with Bring Me Some Water and once again the crowd rose to its feet. Philip looked at me and smiled and made a funny face. Melissa did a new chant along to BMSW which was pretty cool- it went like this: “Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh.” I think something cool happened after that but I’m not sure. My notes read “more page ant winning flowers” and I have no idea what I really meant to write.
The band released a powerful slew of songs- I Want To Come Over, An Unusual Kiss (which I’ve never heard live before- it was really cool!), Threesome, and I’m The Only One. Melissa had been interacting with the crowd, coming up front and sharing tons of energy with the crowd, and more and more people remained up on their feet and were singing along and clapping and cheering. Philip played bluesy music at the end of I’m The Only One.
If I Wanted To was after that. Because of the angle of the stage and where Fritz was sitting, a cymbal was blocking most of his head from my view. Fritz made me laugh when he lowered his head and moved it around so he could see me under the cymbal. Melissa was leading the crowd with “Oh-oh-oh-oh-ohs”, and pointed to all of the folks in the upper balcony, and the place got louder when the folks up top cheered and joined in with the “Oh-oh-oh-oh-ohs”. Again, I think something cool happened after that but I don’t know why I wrote “rides de bounce”. Hmmm.
The two people that had been seated on my left told me they were going to move up to the balcony. I immediately signaled to Deb to move up, so she and Jules moved up next to me. What I love even more than being front row at a Melissa concert is being front row at a Melissa concert with my friends right next to me. I was having a super awesome time, singing and bobbing my head to my heart’s content. After that the band played Skin Deep/Secret Agent/Skin Deep/Secret Agent. I love the song Secret Agent, and my friends and I were having fun raising our arms simultaneously and pointing left when Melissa sang “she’s working for the other side!” At the end of the song the lights went down and I could see that Melissa had gone up on Fritz’s stage and was talking to him about something. The lights came back up and Melissa was still talking to Fritz. She walked back towards the front and said something to the rest of the band members. Melissa said to the audience, “I have a new song for you ‘cause I like you!” She’d made a change to the set list, and the band played I Have Loved You Before. Better than being front row and better than being front row with my friends standing next to me is being front row with my friends standing next to me with Melissa getting absolutely lost in the music, strumming her guitar and belting out soulful wails again and again with her head way back. It’s absolutely one of my most favoritist MLE experiences. It gives me chills at the concerts, and chills whenever I think about it after. I often wonder where she goes during those times, what she is thinking, is she aware we are there, what dimension she has gone to. I may never know the answers to those questions, but I do not mind. I could experience her do that for infinity infinities and never tire of it.
I love the start of I Run For Life- the charging of the music notes, the strong pulse of the musical bursts that pave the way to the lyrics. I was moving along to the groovy tunes and Fritz was peeking out at me again from underneath the cymbal and smiling.
Next was 2001, then I Need To Wake Up. I was really excited because I knew my favorite song from The Awakening was coming up soon. And there it was. “I’m sending out a message to myself, so that when I hear it on the radio, I will know that I am fine. I will know that I am loved!” Melisser sang, and the band smashed into playing the playful song. If I had had more space, I would have been twirling around. Something about that song makes my spirit soar, and I have to hold back the urge to go skipping up and down the aisles and all around the venue swinging my arms in the air. I managed to resist, and instead belted out the song near the top of my lungs and sang and swung my red-beanied head around. The song segued into Come To My Window, and virtually everyone in the crowd was singing along.
The first few drumbeats of All We Can Really Do began, and the security guards twitched ever so slightly, and that was all the crowd needed. Tons of people rushed the stage. Bitey, Krista, Deb, Jules and I were all up front. It felt great to be touching the stage, and I love the funky All We Can Really Do song. The barrage of songs after were Kingdom of Heaven, Open Your Mind, The Universe Listened, Imagine That, and What Happens Tomorrow. My friends and I were all singing and dancing along. The band came to the center to take their group bow. Fritz was taking a bit longer than he usually does, and Mark was being silly because he was pretending to have his arm around his friend. Fritz finally jogged up and under Mark’s arm, and the band took their bow and left the stage.
The band came back out and started playing Not Tonight. Melissa held up her left arm, and was playing with her bracelet which she’d been eyeing and playing with a few times during the concert. It had a frayed end that hung out. Melissa pretended to pet it and said “Meow!” Towards the end of Not Tonight when it comes to the “One more song . . “ part, Melissa held up her finger and asked the crowd “One? One more? One more?” and we all cheered very loudly for one more. The audience roar got very loud when she strummed the first chord for Like The Way I Do. “Call the babysitter!” Melissa said, letting us know we’d be rockin’ to one more long song. And rock we did. Melissa and the band delivered Like The Way I Do with their usual ferocity, and the crowd as eating it all up and releasing just as much energy back into the universe.
Melissa came over to the right side of the stage at the front, and people were pawing at her feet and legs. I saw one person reach out with their index finger and touch Melissa’s knee. I started laughing. I’ve seen plenty of people reach out and touch Melissa’s leg, but I’ve never seen anyone reach out and gently poke her in the knee. Melissa saw me laughing, and also raising my right hand with my index finger out as if I wanted to poke her in the knee too. And what did she do? My rock star buddy took a few steps over to right in front of me with her left leg forward a bit to let me touch her knee, so I slowly extended my finger and gently touched her knee. Jules and Deb were laughing so hard at what was transpiring. I gave MLE a quizzical look as if to ask why the other person had poked her in the knee. Melissa looked right at me, bent over a bit, and paused and said to me very clearly and distinctly, “ . . . . . . . . . .”. I nodded my head back at her as if I’d heard and understood what she’d said, and she moved along to the center of the stage continuing to rock the crowd. I looked at Jules and asked if she’d heard what Melissa had said to me. She hadn’t. I said to Jules, “I think she said ‘I wear PANTYHOSE!’” Jules nearly busted a gut laughing. I was like “No seriously! I think that’s what she said! I think she said ‘I wear pantyhose!’”
I could tell from Jules continuing laughter that perhaps that’s not what Melissa had said to me. My head was trying to think of every work that began with the letter P, because that was the only part I’d thought I’d heard. I couldn’t come up with anything. I took out my iPhone to take a picture of the band playing on stage, and stopped to look at the snapshots I’d captured a few moments prior. I busted out laughing. I’d captured the moment of an index finger touching Melissa’s knee. I showed the snapshot to Deb and Jules and they were laughing too. I hit the ‘back’ button, and then I think I knew what Melissa had told me: “She PINCHED me.” I had a shot of what looks like someone pinching Melissa in the knee. I told Deb and Jules what I’d figured out, and we looked at each other as if none of us would ever be able to figure out why someone would want to pinch Melissa’s knee, and do you know what, I don’t think we ever will figure that out.
Melissa was at center stage strumming her guitar so hard she broke a string. She reached to unwind it the way she usually does when she breaks a string, only it got stuck. She wound and wound and wound, but it wouldn’t come off. She started playing her guitar again, but realized she would have to remove the string to continue jamming. She wound and wound again, and finally it came off, and she handed it to someone at the front of the stage. She finished strumming, and the crowd roared with applause. The band gently started playing Not Tonight again as Melissa handed off her guitar and went to the front of the stage to do Hands.
I knew exactly what I wanted to do during Hands. “Hey Jules,” I said to get Jules’ attention. Jules was laughing hard when she saw me standing with my arms up at my sides with my index fingers pointing straight out in front of me. “I’m not going to do Hands, “ I said, “I’m going to do ‘Poke Knee’.” Jules kept laughing and I was laughing too when she raised her pointer fingers as well. Sure enough, when Melissa came in front of us to do Hands, Jules and I gently did Poke Knee. My rock star buddy totally rocks. Even though I was messing around doing Poke Knee, she reached down and took my right hand in hers for proper Hands and went YEAH! and then made her way down the rest of the stage doing Hands. Like I said, my rock star buddy totally rocks.
Melissa waved to the crowd, lifted both arms from low to high to return the energy back to everyone, made her way off the stage, and the band finished up as the crowd clapped their approval.
I’d had an absolutely brilliant time. I love the band and I love my rock star buddy, and I don’t even care whether or not she wears pantyhose.
-Camille