Kirsten's Tacoma, WA Recap

Here is my recap from the Tacoma concert. You all know who sang what, so I'll stick to impressions. My teachers have always told me I'm too verbose, so this will likely be long and I'll break it into chunks. Tired, I am this morning, so I will probably have a ton of typos. Read on at your own risk.

The Drive

- Border Southbound - 2 hour wait at 10 am in the morning. Blah. I only moved 100 metres during the entire length of Telegraph Road. I did get a chance to read the liner notes for lots of my CDs. The border guard was WAY too serious and didn't even flinch when I mentioned I was going to a Pop Tart concert. I only got one double-take from him the entire interview.

- Border Northbound - I expected a wait in the morning, but I was very grumbly to find one at 1:30 in the freakin' am. There goes another 1/2 hour

- Roads - boy, do you Americans have NICE roads. And fast. I only got tangled up around the convention centre in Seattle. For the rest, I coasted in 5th gear the entire way.

- Weather - perfect. Sunny and clear the entire way. A very scenic drive...mountains, rain forest, ocean, space needle. Put me in a very good mood.

Venue and Crowd

- Tacoma Dome - it's a Dome. What more can you say? Not much to do inside.

- Crowd outside - very well behaved. I was heading over towards the Best Western to meet up with Plantwalker and there was this small crowd standing near the buses. It wasn't until I walked past him and heard the crowd buzzing about him, that I noticed Bucky was standing in the driveway posing for pictures with the crowd. No fences at all. The crowd was patiently taking their turns, there was no mauling and everyone was very polite. Bucky was very gracious. The crowd told me that Paris, Ace and Taylor had also previously been out. One girl had a poster that said "Chris=Female Viagra". She said that when Taylor came out, he asked to see the poster because Ace had told him about it. Taylor thought it was great and insisted on having his picture taken with it. While I was listening to the stories, Taylor came out to the buses and Elliott, Kellie and Chris went into the venue. The buses had arrived quite early and Kat, Lisa and Mandissa were the first off. The buses left shortly after I arrived. Boy's bus has had an accident because it has a dent in its side. I think somebody smacked a pole.

-Crowd inside - very enthusiastic. They loved everybody. Some of the rafter seats were not sold out. Most people were dressed normally (very few wearing home-made Idol shirts). My area probably had about 30% men.

-Security - very chatty with the crowd both inside and outside. Security seemed pretty lax and lots of people scooped up better seats.

-Pop-tarts - the Chocolate Pop Tart was much more enthusiastic than the Sprinkled Pop Tart. He was also much more likely to maul people. My area was infested with the two Pop Tarts for almost 15 minutes. They were very popular.

-Text Messages - by my count, 4 people proposed marriage. Only one was to an Idol. "V"s must be hard to text because there was a lot of "LOUE" going around.

-My Seat - I had a row eight seat on the floor in the middle. Unfortunately, I was sandwiched in between two bitter Chris fans. The one on my left declared "Chris was ROBBED" and refused to clap for anybody. The one on my right said "Chris should have won" and proceeded to abuse Taylor every chance she got. Fortunately, she moved to a better seat half-way through Bucky's performance and I snagged her aisle seat.

The Concert

Mandissa - first standing-O of the night. The crowd was loving Mandissa. Her voice was in fine form and she belted them out. I thought she looked great in a red top and black pants. She was very sparkly. Her best performance was "I'm Every Woman".

Ace - lots of love for Ace from the crowd. I'm not sure how to react to Ace. He tries to be all sexy, but you can tell from the expression on his face, he's in on the joke. Is one meant to laugh with him or to fall for the sexiness? He does have very nice arms and those jumps off the ramp are great. I was amused by who caught his beanie. It went to a very tall, very large, very bald dude. He was as thrilled with his catch as if he'd caught a home run winning baseball. The little girl in front of him looked a little disappointed.

Lisa - probably got the least reaction of all the Idols. I thought her vocals were better when she wasn't playing the piano. Her best performance was "Signed, Sealed and Delivered". She was so cute trying to do the choreography with Paris, because she missed most of it.

Paris - Her best number was "Midnight Train to Georgia". The "Crazy in Love" number wasn't so great. Paris was very energetic and focused during her performance.

Bucky - compared to what I've heard about Bucky's set, I thought he did a great job. I didn't notice anybody leave during his set. He got terrific response when he asked people to light up the stadium and to sing along with him. I think "Superstition" was his best number and he and Kellie seemed to have a lot of fun doing "You're The One That I Want"

Kellie - She looked hot in her leather jacket, black pants and boots. I noticed that the Male Bitter Chris Fan beside me took more pictures of her than anybody else that night. I think her best, most energetic bit was when she was singing "Let's Give them Something to Think About".

Chris - clear winner of the clap-o-meter contest. The crowd was loud for him. I think his was my second favourite performance of the night. I didn't care for him on the show and I think he's a much better performer when he has a guitar in his hands. Of his songs, I liked his "Dead or Alive" best. He was wearing an industrial strength wallet chain last night.

Elliott - the first thing I noticed is that he was wearing a Jersey that fit him. I think it was a SeaHawks Jersey. The second thing I noticed was that he was chewing gum. The Tacoma Dome is an echo dome. When he was talking, the snapping of his gum ricocheted around the stadium. Very distracting. I then started wondering how he manages to sing and chew gum at the same time. I thought his voice was a bit off during MMFL (I think it even cracked at one point). I liked him best in his duet with Chris. He did ask about his ladies.

Kat - I thought her voice was quite strong last night. She wore her usual black dress. The one wardrobe item I noticed about her is that she didn't wear shoes all night. Although she probably ended up with dirty feet, I thought it freed her because she was skipping all over the stage. She was definitely having fun last night. She didn't mention her medical woes to us, but told us that she had a lot of family in Seattle. I think they were sitting in front of me. They were a HUGE group of middle-aged couples and one of them looked like an older version of Kat (they also talked about her a lot). They were a very enthusiastic bunch, so I appreciated them because Male Bitter Chris Fan beside me was a HUGE downer. Her best performance was Think. Her hair needs an intervention...STAT! It was looking manky and limp. It was very DRY. I think that she was the surprise of the night for me (much better than I expected).

Taylor - he was also having a lot of fun last night. He was the only one to get the entire crowd on its feet. He did his usual numbers and definitely played the guitar during Hollywood Nights ("this tour goes on and on"). He was great. My favourite of the night, but that is to be expected because I'm a fan. I loved his entire set, but if I had to pick just one favourite, I would say "Living for the City". He was on fire last night during it. He had a lot of fun with the other Idols during the "Living in America" number. When Kat appeared at the top of the ramp, she was fanning him with a towel. When he started singing, she began mopping up the sweat on his face with it and then tossed the towel on him. Later, the other Idols kept pushing him. Finally, the roadie that operated the door was asleep at the job (probably because the door saw a lot of use last night) and didn't open the door in time for Taylor to exit. He caught himself in time and stood there posed like a swimmer waiting for a race to start and dove through when it finally opened.

Final thoughts

- If you don't have tickets yet, keep trying. Female Bitter Chris Fan got her row 8 tickets on Thursday and Male Bitter Chris Fan got his tickets at the box office right before the concert (he was also their with his daughters).
- Lots of Idols went into the crowd last night. The only ones that didn't were Mandissa, Lisa and Elliott.
- Lots of Idols were on their knees last night. Ace, Kellie, Lisa and Kat.
- "Awesome" seemed to be the word of the day. It was like being at a live showing of the Electric Company where the Idols used the WOTD as frequently as possible.
- Kat was the only female not to wear rhinestones as part of her make-up. I'm not into rhinestones.
- Both Ace and Bucky shook their long hair at the guitar player.
- The guy with all the keyboards got a lot of love from the women. They kept leaning down and singing to him.
- Lots of smoke on the stage last night. At one point it was pumping out behind the drummer at an alarming rate. It looked like they were trying to exterminate the poor guy.
- I'm sorry to report, but the stage is not in fact covered with tin-foil. It's some kind of fabric that they rolled up (they had the set apart within seconds of the Idols leaving the stage). I think that was the most disappointing thing of the night.