Matt's Tacoma WA Recap
So first of all, my real name is Matt (which I go by sometimes)and when I woke up on the morning/afternoon of Sept. 2nd I knew that there were amazing things awaiting me!!!
A little bit about myself: My myspace is http://www.myspace.com/matthewpauldavid
So I drank a little bit after I woke up and got ready for the concert. (The meet & greet was at 4 PM). Then I drove down south to Tukwila (between Seattle and Tacoma) to pick up my girl Kellee. Kellee is not such an avid fan of AI but I've kinda made her love it from my weird obsession. So I stopped at Kel's and we drank a bit more and then headed down to the Tacoma Dome where all the magic was scheduled to happen.
We got to the Tacoma Dome and then drank a bit more in the car (whatever - I'm only 21 and alcohol is one of my current obsessions) and then decided to go up to the box office to wait to go meet the idols.
We got to the area where everybody was waiting and then some crazy reporter beyotch was hanging out interviewing people. Whatever, I didn't care. So then she makes some big announcement..."Is there anybody out there who is auditioning for AI this year." Fortunately I was drunk so I quickly threw my hand in the air. GREEEEEEEEEEAAT! She runs up to me and the camera turns on and suddenly i'm in an interview. This is what it went like (from my recollection).
REPORTER: "So are you scared about trying out?"
ME: "Well, you know, you never know what they're really looking for so it's all kind of about the luck of the draw and if you're what they really want."
REPORTER: "Have you been practicing songs for auditioning?"
ME: "Yeah - I've been singing like a maniac in the shower and in the bathroom - the acoustics you can get in the bathroom are seriously like no other. It's amazing."
REPORTER: "If you could ask any of the current idols any tips that they could give you - what would you want to know?"
ME: "Well - I'd want to know what type of songs they sang to get through to the final rounds and what they thought the judges were looking for - since I don't really think it's about what you sing - but how you sing it and your overall personality."
REPORTER: "So will you sing a little bit of something for us?"
ME: "Are you serious?"
REPORTER: "Yeah!!! Do you need some time to compose yourself?"
ME: "Yeah! (then i did this weird like breathing in deep -thinking about what the F I was going to sing thing). [Insert me singing "Jealous Guy" by John Lennon. Everybody around claps and I sit and hope that I sounded all right...Reporter says thanks and leaves.]
WEIRD
So then my friend Kellee and I just kind of hung around for awhile waiting to get into the meet & greet. Some random chicks came up to me and were like "Wow you were really good" and I was like "Thanks..." all the time wondering if they were just being polite or if I actually sounded good. You never know!!
Anyway, after sweating our balls off for about 20 minutes we finally got ushered into the M&G. (I stayed at the end of the line because I wanted as much time with the idols as possible...Unfortunately there was some dude in a wheel chair which I guess automatically pushes you behind the last people...that did not make me happy FYI!). So we head in. I ask the girl next to me who her fav. is. She says "Taylor." I almost puke. Yeah Taylor's all right to me, but yeah...not a huge fan. So we're standing there watching the idols sign everybody's free poster things and waiting for our turn.
Immediately I see that Kat is wearing the most hideous t-shirt I've ever seen in my life. It's an oversized plain white t-shirt. She really looks like she just woke up and came to this M&G. I feel bad for her and I haven't even got to the "M&G rush line" as I will call it. (They seriously push you through the freakin thing...by the time I was talking to Bucky my completely signed poster was sitting at the end of the line with Taylor). But anyway her shirt is seriously like a big "jammy" shirt (short for pajamas). I would've thought she would have dressed up at least a bit more to meet her fans. Oh well - whatever- I don't like Kat anyway so who cares.
So we finally get the the front of the "M&G Rush Line." My first culprit is Paris.
PARIS: First I see a lone standing box of Pop Tarts in front of her. I ask her if it's cool if I just take it. She says that it's okay - then I pretend to shove it in my pocket. (I really didn't cause that would be weird). Then I ask her if she's eaten a million pop tarts since the tour started. She said she's eaten so many that it's ridiculous. She said she likes them toasted too (I told her that people that eat them raw are freakos). Then I said that I heard she was singing "waterfalls" with Lisa. She confirms it. I told her it was my favorite song of all time (and then told her i was kidding) and then asked if they were doing the T-Boz rap. She said they weren't and then I told her she was weird and that was the best part of the song. She agreed. Then I said that she could've done it since she is kind of like Lil' Kim. She looked kind of confused. I reminded her of the time she wore that slutty boost-eee-yay (however you spell it) and she said "Oh yeah from Queen night?" Then I said she was just like Lil' Kim. She laughed. I don't think she liked me. Done with Paris.
LISA...I don't really care about her. I told her she was amazing and just shook her hand.
BUCKY: I told him he had the most beautiful hair i'd ever seen and asked if he used "Vidal Sassoon." That confused him. Then I explained it's a hair product and he said "I just take whatever I can get." OH Bucky - you're such a dumbass.
KELLIE: I didn't know what to say to her either. I told her that I heard she was signed by 19 and she confirmed it (obviously) and then I told her I loved her. Very boring with the crazy one huh?
CHRIS: He wasn't wearing eyeliner and that concerned me. I asked him what was up with that. He told me that it wasn't the show yet so I shouldn't be that concerned. Then I told him that he'd better put it on or else I would be EXTREMELY disappointed...he promised me he would (and he did!!).
ACE: Ace is a creepo. FYI. I wasn't sure what to say to Ace so I looked at his shirt (which was an "Obey" shirt) and so I just said "Obey!" He gave me a weird look and then Chris turned to him and said "he's talking about your shirt." Then Ace goes..."Oh I know, but he doesn't know what's under my shirt" and then I asked him what was under his shirt and he said "well underneath these clothes i'm completely naked." An awkward moment ensued. Ace scares me a little bit now. Is he gay or straight - that was an entirely odd thing to say to another male.
MANDISA: I'm kind of an atheist/agnostic person so I really don't like what Mandisa stands for. (yeah sorry, but it's just me). So I don't even let her talk...I just say "Mandisa...Jesus loves you....Jesus loves me...Jesus loves her [pointing to my friend Kellee]" And then I moved on to Elliott.
ELLIOTT: I asked him first "Do you have an official signed record deal?" He said "No, officially I have not signed and do not have a record deal." Then I asked who is managing him and he said "The Firm." Then I said.."Just the firm? Because I go on all these internet sites and everybody is debating on whether you're with The Firm or Pulse" and he said "Well actually I'm with both The Firm AND Pulse." So then I told him I loved him and yada yada yada...
KAT: If I didn't tell you already her shirt was DISGUSTING!!! She looked pale and sickly. I wanted to give her some pepto bismol or something. She looked like she needed it. Anyway, I was kind of rude to her. As I approached her I said "So...i guess you have your voice back now huh?" and she says "yeah." and then I said "well can you sing now?" and she says "yeeeah." and then i go "well...will it be good?" and she's kind of not sure what to say so i just say "well..it better be." I immediately moved onto Taylor.
TAYLOR: He looked like such a cute average geek. I just wanted to squeeze him because he looked so "average." Totally like somebody from the show "The Average Joe." I'm not a big Taylor fan so I was just like "OMG Taylor!!! It's so nice to see you...AGAIN!!!!" and then he looked confused. He shook my hand and said..."It's really great to see you again too." That was kind of it. He didn't really seem to care about me...but I guess that's fair since I really didn't care about him.
Anyway - that was my Meet & Greet experience.
After the M&G we decided to go to the Best Western bar/restaurant since it was right next to the Tacoma Dome. BAD IDEA. We walked in and everybody started staring at me (I was wearing my M&G sticker that the KISS reps gave me). I felt like everybody at the hotel was there just for the AI concert...it was awkward. So then we went into the bar and ordered food...it took for freakin' ever to get anything and the waiter was wearing this hideous green shirt. I seriously wanted to vomit. Anyway - this is kind of pointless information. Long story short - I met a bunch of BC natives that loved Taylor and I totally shorted our waiter a tip because he needs to work on his customer service skills. I sang for some random folks and they told me I should be on AI.
Start of Concert:
Yay - we finally settle into our seats (after pushing some 40 year old seat-stealers out of our purchased ones). I reprimanded them for being so ghetto - yet they claimed they weren't. After asking multiple times they finally revealed their lame-ass seats near the top of the arena (I was on the floor). We made them scoot over into the seats next to us (before Mandisa finished her act they were escorted by security to their actual seats). Anyway...
Blah blah blah. Mandisa starts. I'm not impressed. She's the same as I thought of her on the show. Diva black gospel. Snooze. I've heard that she usually dedicates "If I was Your Woman" to Ruben Studdard. Apparently she realized Ruben is never gonna call her chubby ass and decided to dedicate this one to all the "good men" in Washington state. Poor Mandisa. Everybody sat through her set...yawning.
Ace appeared eventually and he looked like he had just gotten some trashy perm from Supercuts. It was gross. I don't understand why everybody thinks he's cute or sexy when they see him on the tour. He creeped me out even more on stage than he did at the M&G (which is hard to do). OMG I heard about the weird "chest popping" thing and wasn't sure what it was. Now that I have seen it in the flesh I totally want to kill myself. That was SICKENING. When Ace sang the Maroon 5 song I turned to Kellee and asked her if he sang it better or if I did when I go to karaoke. She didn't even pause and told me that I was a million times better. When he was done warbling he threw his nasty sweaty beanie into the crowd. Some poor bitch picked that thing up. Ace was a bitter disappointment.
After Ace, Lisa strutted onto the stage. Apparently her and Ace both went and got perms from Supercuts before the show started...either that or they took a shower together and decided not to dry their hair. At the M&G Ace and Lisa both had straight decent looking hair... but during the show their hair was all curly sue and nappy as all hell. They need a stylist...seriously. Anyway Lisa karaoked her way through her set. You have to face it. She's not that good. Her style is much more suited to Broadway and I hope she never tries to sing pop or r&b in an arena setting again. I almost fell asleep during her numbers.
"Waterfalls." 1 Word. CHEEZAY! Those "dance moves..." if you can even call them that...were so amateur I could not stomach it. I was so embarrassed for both Lisa and Paris for even attempting to do those awkward hand motions during the song. Everything just seemed unnatural to me. They sounded OK voice-wise but dancing-wise...somebody stick something in my butt!
Paris was all right during her set. Her "Midnight Train to Georgia" was...well...the same as the show - and then when she did "Crazy In Love" I noticed she was trying to do the EXACT same moves Beyonce does in her video (even up to the point where she's laying on the ground and thrusting her body around). Unfortunately Paris is no Beyonce. (Even though Beyonce's new songs really suck so it's nothing to be ashamed of). Paris was just kind of...blech. I wasn't mad when she went off the stage.
Suddenly Bucky comes on. Ohh Bucky....you're not very good are you? Awww. Bucky tries hard but in reality he's just kind of taking a back seat to all the other better voices in the competition. Yes of course I drunkenly sang to "Drift Away." But who wouldn't?!?
Kellie came on stage and I actually liked the harmonizing between the two of them on "You're the one that I want." ...well at least at parts. It was cute and cool. I was satisfied by the end of it.
Kellie was my biggest shock of the night. You don't understand how much I hated her during the show (as she seemed to pose a threat to Elliott). Anyway, I thought was a freakin mess and couldn't wait for her to leave. However, on stage...that little country B shocked the hell out of me. I thought her voice sounded so good live (no comparison to my girl C. Underwood though). I actually will be interested now in seeing what her CD has to offer. Weird, huh?
Intermission!!!! We rushed immediately to find some beer (we had to go the ATM first...LAME). So we bought our beers and were walking back to our seats and saw this big pop tart freezer looking thing with some chick standing next to it. I tried to open it and she reprimanded me and told me that they were frozen pop tarts for after the show. I asked her why the hell anybody would want a frozen pop tart and then i asked how much she was getting paid to have such a lame job. She revealed it was like 15 bucks an hour and then I told her that I guess that would definitely be worth it to basically do nothing.
Then the weirdest thing happened. Some girl approached me and randomly told me Elliott sucked. (I don't even know how she knew i loved him). Mind you, I'm 21 and this girl was about 12 and a bit handicapped (mentally a little bit off). I was furious but didn't know what to do. She was with her mom too so I couldn't be a complete ass. Anyway I told her that she shouldn't say such negative things since Elliott would be singing a duet with Chris. (She didn't believe me). All the while I'm dealing with this girl - Kellee is chatting with the pop tarts $15/hr chick. That girl asks Kellee how I know that Chris & E are singing together...Kellee "reveals" that I'm Elliott's brother and have all this insider info. (funny, huh?).
So back to me. This handicapped girl (she's kinda cute...in that kind of way) asks if I'll arm wrestle her to prove that Elliott sings with Chris (for some reason she HATES Elliott). So i do. We do it twice...i win both times...after making her feel like she's winning I come back strong out of nowhere...lol. Anyway then she tells me she's going to kill me and slice my throat if Elliott doesn't sing with Chris...That's when things get a bit weird and I make her mom take her away. (By saying "OMG Chris will be onstage in a minute...you don't want to miss him.") Anyway things got really weird - it's kind of hard to explain. I hope she's getting the counseling she needs though.
So little girl and mom leave and it's back to me, Kellee, and $15/hr girl who is completely star struck. Kellee whispers to me that she told her I'm Elliott's brother and so now I'm in on it. The girl asks me how I am and if I go to every show. I just look at her and go.."Duh." Then we walk away.
As we're headed back to our seats I see a little booth where they have all the idols' names and big sheets of paper that you can write messages to them on. I find out who is in charge of the booth and ask if the idols will actually read them. Some woman who's supposedly the head of the group (they called her a "manager") tells me she swears the idols will get them. That's good enough for me!!! I write on Elliott's page that I'm going to tell everybody online that he is co-managed by The Firm and Pulse and that if he lied to me I'll kick his butt...and then I write that I arm wrestled a handicapped girl to defend his honor. I should have put my phone number - cause for some reason i think i made enough of an impression that he'd call to thank me...but i didn't.
Back to the show.
We're back at our seats and Chris comes onstage. He's...well..Chris. He's everything I expected him to be. Eyeliner and all. I think he should tone down the hardcore ROCK though and be more like Nickelback and pop rock crap. I think it's much more fun to listen to. Seriously. The girls next to me don't believe that him and Elliott are going to sing "savin me" together. Yeah right - I proved their little 14 year old asses wrong!
Elliott comes out and I go ballistic. I'm suddenly 14 years old along with the chicks next to me. I think I rubbed off on them because they weren't nuts until I was nuts. Ohhh...I love me. Anyway Elliott sang his whole set - surprisingly everybody on the floor was standing. (I heard some lame-os say that everybody sits through Elliott's set...good one!). So we love Elliott and Elliott sounds amazing. I wanted to run up on stage and take off all his clothes! Yeah whatever! He was wearing a SeaHawks jersey (and no it wasn't as freakin big as that ugly Lakers one) and he looked adorable. I love my Elliott!!!
After E's set all the boys came out and sang "Patience." It was great. I was confused since I thought Kat would sing before that, but she didn't. It was just like all the blogs say it is. and PS Elliott was my fav in that song (naturally).
After "Patience" Kat came out. I wasn't looking forward to it. Oddly enough I LOVED her set. She sang BH&ACT and Think and SOTR. I thought her voice sounded awesome in all three. She's much better live than on the show. The pureness of her voice is demonstrated much better when you can actually see her singing. She was my 2nd biggest shock of the night (next to Kellie).
Then Taylor came out. He came out from the side of the auditorium (I was expecting it. And pretty much walked right by us. I hated him up until that point but for some reason when he was running down the stairs and by us on the floor i totally wanted to sleep with him. His first couple songs were OK. (Kellee confirmed that she DID think he was playing the guitar during Hollywood Nights). I really REALLY REALLY got into him though when he sang Do I Make You Proud. I thought I hated that song...well until tonight...now I'm obsessed with it. So Weird what concerts can do to you. Anyway I am really going to buy a Taylor Hicks cd now when it comes out...and I know I'll love it!!! (I hated Carrie last season too and now her CD is one of my absolute favs!!!).
Anyway - they all came back out and did the cheesy group songs. They were all the cheese you could expect. When they started "Living in America" Kat came out first and then started fanning Taylor with a big black fabric thing as he was coming out. It was kind of odd and cute. I think they all really do like each other even though Kat does wear big oversized white t-shirts...but WHATEVS!!!
Anyway - afterwards I ended up at home drinking more beer and writing a re-cap...which I am finishing now. I think this is pretty much it!! Keep in mind I'm still not all here (I drank a lot tonight) but I wanted to get it all out of my head before it ends up disappearing with my buzz! Reporting live from Seattle this is Matt...OUT!!
