Monday, September 2nd, 2002
Now, my much anticipated 4th concert!! Yay for MandyMay!! Ok, while we didn't meet the guys this time and our seats weren't as close as the previous two, it was still a kick ass show!!! Now, where to start, I suppose the beginning would be nice, huh? This was mine and my sister's 4th concert, Stephanie's 2nd, and her friend Sara's 1st concert. Goo is a good choice for your first concert am I right?
This part isn't Goo related, but I just thought I would share this with you. On the way up there, we stopped at a rest area and we are pulling out to leave when Stephanie is like, "Look!" There is the Budget moving truck and on the side it said, "Moving Tip #48: Packing Tape should not be used for painful practical jokes. " We laughed about that for about 20 miles. Here is a pic of it:
So, we get to the hotel on Broadway, the only reason I chose this specific hotel, and it kicks some ass. We pull up and we were like, "Um, is this the right place?" So we ask the valet guy and he's like, "You're at the right place," and we're like, "Kick ass." Our room was great, the hotel was beautiful, and it had a really cool waterfall thingy, can't forget the waterfall. Plus, the hotel had free Tennessean newspapers, which had a Goo article in it, let's just say when we got done, there were no more free papers. :) Here are a few pics of our room on Broadway. . . :)
These two pics are of the lobby and the next are if us in our extremely posh room. *grin*
Me
Stephanie
Sara and Tiff
We all get ready, Tiff and Sara with their cat ears on and all of us had these button's that said: "Hey! I'm wearing a Goo button," and "Jason for President," meaning Jason the security guy. Here's a scan of my buttons.
On the way to the concert, we didn't make the exit the first time because it had this weird curve and a very fast approaching, very dangerous rock wall. And we're like, "Oh shit!" You know how they say when you're faced with a moment such as that, your life flashes before your eyes? Well, my last 3 Goo concerts flashed before my eyes, now tell me, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Finally, we make it there, park and walk the two miles to the theatre, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but it seemed like two miles when walking in the heat. We get all the way up there and realize that we left all of our canned food in the car! Talk about being pissed! But no one wanted to go back to the car and get it and I wasn't about to walk back to the car and lug 6 bags of canned food up there by myself either.
Next, we get in and get our picture taken with the Saturn Ion thing, I can't wait to see how those come out, and we buy our Goo stuff. Here is where I get myself into trouble because I always spend way more than I intend to. I bought 2 t-shirts, two tour books, a necklace, and an autographed Gutterflower CD. I had my blue Goo purse with me and this girl behind me complimented me on it. She had on a Dizzy Up the Girl t-shirt on so it was even better coming from a long time fan. :) Now this is a cool part, as we are walking around the t-shirt place, Stephanie was like, "Look at this!" She runs over to the corner of the building and there lying on the ground was a Saturn Ion Goo poster. Left there all alone in the heat. Well, we couldn't have that so Stephanie snatches it up and hands it to me. Then we walk around the side and there are all these other posters hanging on the wall. . .so we jacked them. Wait, uh, I mean. . .we carefully removed them from their tape and cement prison to take them to a home where they could be loved and cared for properly. *grin*
We go to our seats, in Section 5, which were alot better than I thought they would be. Vanessa Carlton came out, she was OK. Her band kicked some ass though. Her drummer was awesome!! He was twirling his drum sticks and beating on them so hard his little podium thing was shaking. He kicked some ass, and when she introduced the band, we screamed really loud for him and was like, "Go drummer man!" Mike must be giving him some lessons in his spare time. *wink, wink*
Third Eye Blind came out and rocked the place. Stephen Jenkins had this top hat on and he would take the little thing off his mic and twirl it around. He reminded me a bit of Fred Astair (sp?), I think that's the guy, with the top hat and cane. All he needed was a coat and tails. I really like the Stairway to Heaven intro and ending to Semi-Charmed life. Very cool.
Now, it's time for some Goo. Oh yeah. So they come out all cool and stuff, jammed some Big Machine, kicked a little ass. Two songs into the concert though, Rzeznik went out and put on, what I claim to be the "Goo-Rag," aka red bandana on. Makes me sad cuz I love the hair. I was telling the girls sitting next to us that he would put the "Goo-Rag" on and she was like, "No! I love his hair!" Any~way, they rocked. The guy in front of us was getting down and funky, he was singing at the top of his lungs to all the songs and jamming some air guitar man. The girls behind us were pretty annoying though. They were about 12 or 13 and every time you turn around, "Johnny we love you! Robby we love you! Mike we love you!" It's like, save your breath and say, "We love Goo!" and get it all out in one sentence. They even jacked our glow sticks that we had brought with us. Not cool man to swipe someone's glow sticks. We were like having an "unauthorized" screaming contest because we weren't about to be out screamed. In the end we won, of course. It was about 7 to 2, with all the people we met there. It was a silent victory, but one to be remembered. :) The only good thing was that the songs they did know the words to, they sang really loud. So there were about 5 of them, 4 of us and plus the guy in front of us and we had our own little mini Goo choir going on in Section 5. :)
What else? Rzeznik told the story about Name being on the "Remember the 90's," thing and he said that he hadn't had a cigarette for two days. I'm very proud. :) He said he told the audience the night before and they started throwing packs of cigarettes at him. So someone throws a pack at him and he's like, "I better save this for later." Then, "Those smoking little bastards are taunting me!"
Much to Stephanie's dismay, Robby didn't sing Burnin' Up. The only Robby song she knew all the words to, but they did sing All Eyes on Me for the encore. Which I thought I would never get to hear live and I wasn't disappointed. Vanessa Carlton didn't sing American Girl, I was happy. Now, that is the end of the show.
I'm telling ya, outdoor concerts wear a person out. I stood for the whole thing and sang, but I don't know how Goo does it. The run, they sing, they play their instruments. . .I don't think I could do it. Half way through, we were sticky, sweaty and irritable. The last 3 concerts I had been to have been inside, this outdoor thing was a first for me. It was kind of cool to be jamming to Goo right in front of you and see a plane fly over head. :)
After the show, we needed to find Jason to give him the card that Tiff had made. We all signed the back of it and put the date on it. I put, "Matchbox 20 can't have you back," and Stephanie put, "Bald guys rock!" Here are some pics I took of it since I didn't get a chance to scan it before we left.
The front says: I said. . .Against the Wall!"
Over on the right Jason is yelling, "Stop talking to them!" Mike has his eyebrow raised and says, "Signings are weird." Then on the right, "Thanks for keeping us in line, literally. To Jason with love 9/02/02."
We ask this one guy in the yellow shirt if he knew where me might find him and he sent us to another guy in a yellow shirt. We couldn't get to him so we asked yet another guy in a yellow shirt and he said check at the backstage entrance and low and behold, there he was.
We were like, "Jason!!" And he is looking around like, "What the hell?" We go up there and Tiff gives him the card and he looks at it and smiles. I think at first he thought we wanted him to give it to Goo because he was like, "Who is this for?" and we all said at the same time, "For you!" He was like, "Oh, ok!" and laughed a bit. We told him that we had "met" him in Memphis and he told us all to get against the wall Mug Shot style and I told him that I had a page for him on my website and he said, "Is that a good thing?" I said it was good then, "You guys must be some of the very few who like me" and we said yes and he's like, "See some of the very few." Then Tiff goes into how people send the thank you's to the page and pictures. He seemed quite shocked. Then I was telling him how he had his own thread on the Message board that it was about 4 pages long and that there was a "fight" going on about how Matchbox 20 couldn't have him back.
He laughed at this and asked, "Where was this at?" And I told him on the World of Goo message board. Then we got a picture and he told us to have a nice night and a safe trip home and we said, "Bye!" He was really cool, really nice. Then as we were leaving there was this chick there showing him her sign she had made with this puppy dog face wanting to get backstage and he was like, "I seen that. I was looking at it all night." So I'm thinking to myself, "Ahh yes, back to the Jason!Protector of Goo mode." You can find my Jason pic on The Jason Page.
When we got in the car I remembered that we didn't show him our, "Jason for President" buttons. Oh well, maybe another time.
Here are a few of the Goo pics that came out, the rest were crap. The ones I took of the screen. . .crap.
And the curtain comes down. . .maybe. . .
They start playing Big Machine and get through all of the intro, you can see their shadows behind the curtain and I'm like, "Pull the damn thing down already!" I didn't think they were ever going to come out.
Before the Goo-Rag.
After the Goo-Rag.
Sorry these pics didn't scan very well, they are much clearer in person. In actuality, we were much closer than what these pictures lead you to believe.
So that is the end of my last Goo concert until they start up at the colleges, but here is our after Goo story.
Well, on the way home from the hotel, our CD player wasn't working and we were wanting to hear Big Machine to relive just a bit of the concert. Sara, Tiff's tag along/best good friend. . .or maybe she's the tag along. . . .hmm. . . .anyway, she said that we could use hers, so we hook it up and I put Gutterflower in. It starts skipping, which I know can't be right because I take extra special care of my Goo CD's so this exact problem never occurs. I hit the stop button, open it up and the CD is spinning out of control! It's going crazy and making all these weird noises so I snatch it off real quick and the CD player spits all this little parts out at me! I could have lost an eye!! The bad thing, I flip the Gutterflower CD over and there are huge scratch marks in a circular pattern all the way around the it. Not cool man, not cool. Tiff, trying to make me feel better says, "Hey, at least it was scratched on Broadway. Maybe it blessed it somehow. . .wait. . .I don't think this is the Broadway Goo had in mind though." She tried. . .and it skips.
Then, at another rest area, we sit at a picnic table in the shade for a bit and notice that everyone and their mama had written all over it. So we added our own touches. Like, "Goo Goo Dolls kick ass. Worship them," by me. Stephanie put all of our names, Nashville, and the date of the concert. Tiff put, "It's not ok to be sheer," and "Pork!" both of which are a long story and Sara left a self-help message, "Be yourself. Imitation is suicide." Now, that is a nice way to end this adventure of Goo. The End.