Thursday, October 3, 2013

Make It Look Easy



Live music performances are awesome.  And when one of your favorite singers is performing in your city...yeah, even more awesome!  Oh and when you get to meet that favorite singer...well, yeah 3x.  

His name is Travis Garland, his music is really good, and he's from Texas (home state solidarity, ya'll).  I discovered the tour in July and spent two months thinking about it and wondering who to go with.  Because I have no sidekick friend or anyone I felt comfortable asking, I decided to make it a solo adventure.  To go to a never-before-heard-of bar with zero parking and fight against my natural awkwardness. But at least I would have VIP status!

The VIP people sent a slew of emails about the Meet and Greet times: first 4:30 (oops, that was for Austin), then 6:45, then 5:30 (more than two hours before doors open?!), then back to 6:45.  I met two lovely ladies in line and we kinda stuck together once inside.  From 6:45 to midnight I was in the company of a gaggle of girls.  Teenage girls, far-traveling girls, funny girls-- feeling breathless at Travis Garland's presence, pretending to faint, and yelling out why he was still wearing clothes, after he took off his jacket (I'm thinking "Aye, this is not supposed to be Usher or Trey Songz. Calm yourself down.")

VIP got me and the gaggle of girls a pre-show acoustic performance of two songs, a personal photograph and an autographed poster in one of those drawstring bags people always give out. Oooh, I was nervous for that personal photograph. He stood there and asked "Who's first?" This one girl ran into his arms ahead of everyone.  We all wanted to be first, but who would be brave enough? This one girl would, so she did. 

I want to know where his smile went
I also want to know what kind of camera angle this is
After the meet and greet I had to rush outside to move my car (to where?!) or pay $5 (to these money collectors whose sign was not there before.  How is that acceptable?).  Our headliner was scheduled to play at 10:45.  In between we heard a Chicagoan named Spaceship or Starship-- just joking, her name is Storm Calysta.  Electronic music is not my favorite (or even least favorite) and I could barely hear her lyrics over the music but her voice was pretty nice especially in this acoustic song she wrote about Beowulf called "Hero".  Next up was Eddie Gomez.  He sung a made up little something during soundcheck and it was amazing so I was expecting no less than more amazingness.  Expectations met.  Then I decided to meet him too (and of course get a photo, which was not without difficulty).

Attempt #25
Attempt #26

Man, this concert/show/whatever was SO MUCH FUN.  I'm glad I went. I was standing right in front of the stage.  If I was fangirl (or just plain crazy) enough, I could have reached over to touch the microphone stand or maybe even his shoe.  Oh my goodness, that reminds me... Travis Garland had this shirt that he used to gratuitously wipe sweat from his forehead and abdomen and all that.  Then he threw it out to the audience, where two girls caught it at each end.  Yikes.  I would never fight for anything like that.  Would you?  If it just landed in my hands, no struggle, I still don't know what I'd do because that's kinda nasty.  

About my personal stylings: I was going to be real extra and wear some heels or a dress (or try to fit the artist's style), but I thought it'd be better to be myself and dress casual cute.  That top required strategic bra strap arrangement, enough to balance out plain Levi's and sandals.  Secretly apologetic to my one friend who deems it unacceptable to expose your toes if unpolished.  Now every time I think to wear open-toed shoes, I think of what she would say to me.  Sometimes I begrudgingly make myself find an alternative shoe and other times, like the night of this concert, I decide to pretend that I couldn't care less. 

Above is a little clip of the show.  I didn't want to record the whole time, because I think it's important to be in the moment, but I wanted a concrete memory.  

There are three things to take away from this: 1) I'm a ♪ balla baby ♫ 2) Don't be afraid to do what you think you'd have fun doing, even if there's no one to do it with and 3) check out Travis Garland right now. Start with "Where to Land", then "Motel Pool", then "Neighbor" (in the clip), and follow with everything else.

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