it took me a week, but i'm finally here with media and thoughts on my epic david cook experience in san diego.



so my friend S. and i drove down to san diego last thursday, getting there in excellent time. we checked into our hotel, which was amazing - the San Diego Downtown Marriott Courtyard - if you're ever in the Gaslamp Quarter, i highly recommend staying there. gorgeous historical building (it's a converted bank, but they left a lot of the bank details) and incredibly friendly staff.

once checked in, we walked over to Nothing Sacred, which is the tattoo shop owned by Todd Smithson (Carly's husband). i had been planning a tattoo for a while, and i wanted him to do it. so i met with him, and we spent about an hour hashing out ideas. i wanted to use the line "she gets her happiness from her AM radio" from axium's song "wavelength" and put it on/around a picture of a radio that resembled the first one i ever had as a kid. he had to give it some thought, so i left it for him to work out overnight. he's a cool guy, by the way - smart, funny and talented. it was hard for me to reconcile him with the guy on tv who used to duck the cameras. there was one funny moment when he asked me what the line was from and i said, "an old david cook song". he said, "how could there be an 'old' david cook song?" LOL.

after that, it was time to get some dinner, then back to the hotel to change, and over to the show. we had seats dead center in the front row, so i was way stoked about that. when we got there, however, it turned out that the front row was like 8-10 feet from the front of the actual stage. the spreckels is a really old theatre (built in 1912), and it's not designed for rock concerts. so there's this little sort of platform that extends from the front of the stage (for a small orchestra, maybe?) that's about four inches high. that would be a total hazard to people trying to get near the stage, so they have it curtained off and you're not allowed to go past the curtain. i think there was some misunderstanding in the crowd before the show started - the security guys we talked to said that people were allowed to stand up at their seats. we just weren't allowed to move any closer to the stage. somehow the crowd got the idea that they were going to make us stay seated. but no matter, as soon as the lights went down, everyone stood up and security made no attempt to stop it. i didn't see anyone try to rush the front, but then again, i probably wouldn't have noticed. i was a little mesmerized. XD

i had brought my new dSLR camera so that i could try it out on its first concert run. i had even bought a new wider-angle lens because i thought i was going to be up against the stage. turned out that lens stayed in my bag! i also could have brought my mega-zoom with me, because they didn't check bags at all on the way in. but oh well. probably better that i didn't, because it's so heavy that i wouldn't have been able to rock out as much. i also brought the old camera, the one that takes magical videos, and S. readily agreed to handle the videographer duties for the night. i told her not to worry about videoing every single song, because that gets old and there's a ton of video from this tour already. but she did a handful, so here are the links:

Lie

Straight Ahead

We're Only Honest When We're Sleeping

Little Lies

Life On The Moon

Kiss On The Neck (only the end, but features some hotttt skib guitar action)

Man In The Box (cuts off before the end of the song, sadly)

she did a great job, especially considering she'd never used that camera before and is pretty new at videoing concerts. one thing she didn't know to film was the banter, though - and there was lots and lots of banter on that evening. the guys came out and started off with "mr. sensitive", "heroes" and "life on the moon", and somewhere in there dave told us that, because they had no opening act, they would be able to play longer than usual. and they had no curfew. needless to say, the audience cheered madly. and the boys lived up to his promise. by the end, dave told us it was the longest show they'd ever done as a band. score!

i can't possibly remember the details of all of his banter, but he was super chatty. early on, someone yelled from the crowd, and of course dave stops and says, "what was that?" it turned out that the girl was yelling that she was from mexico and she loved him. he responded by testing out his spanish and asking her where the library was. LMAO. classic moment. and then he muttered something about how he needed to be able to ask for the bathroom. so i think he had his "b" words mixed up en espanol. there was a LOT of audience yelling after that, to the point where people were screaming stuff at him between every song. he answered "i love you too" back for a while, but he kept doing it in different voices and finally he said, "i'm running out of voices to use here". LOL. the "interaction" from the crowd got so constant that he finally said it was "anarchy" and stopped for a second and said, "ok, everybody just yell at once. just get it out." so we did. LOL.

the guy two seats to my left kept yelling "i love you david!" in a purposely deep voice, but dave never heard him. until all of a sudden he did hear him, and replied (in a likewise deep voice) "i love you too, man!" which would have been funny enough, but then dave spit and then commented, "see, i needed to spit to maintain my manliness there" (i'm sure i'm paraphrasing...) and THEN muttered something about needing to do a crotch grab to act like a man... followed by him executing a world-class baseball-player-style crotch grab. i was nearly bent double laughing. it was hilarious. i heard that john socal got a lot of the banter on camera, but i haven't had a chance to look at his videos yet. i hope to god he got that part.

another notable banter moment, and one i don't think i've seen mentioned anywhere, was him singing about two seconds of "little sparrow". i missed whatever triggered it (think i was messing with my camera), but my head sure popped up when he started singing. then he laughed and made a comment along the lines of, "who the hell talked me into singing that song on the show?" LOL. then, "just kidding, it's a great song." and something about it being really high.

later on, he went into a whole long discussion of how he'd met a lot of famous people in the past year, and, to be honest, some of them are jerks. but he's been lucky enough to go on Ellen's show a couple of times, and she is truly one of the nicest people he's ever met in his life. he's happy for her that she's going to be an Idol judge, and he wants us to all give her a chance and be nice to her. again, i'm paraphrasing, but it was quite the speech. i was touched, as always, by his loyalty to his friends. ♥

speaking of his friends, the band was on fire that night. just incredible, all of them. both david's and andy's voices sounded terrific (and it was their third show in a row!), and the guitars were wailing. kyle was fantastic on the drums. and all this in spite of repeated issues with the sound. most of them weren't noticeable to me (until the end when kyle's vocals were way too loud), but they were always fussing in the direction of the sound guy.

one highlight of the night was the little drummer boy bringing out his son, the even littler drummer boy. i had seen hayden sitting on the side of the stage before the show, but i was surprised when dave said something about bringing him onstage. apparently kyle had promised him that he could play the drums for a minute that night, since they had the extra time. but when kyle went to get him, hayden was asleep. LOL. dave started laughing and said, "he's asleep? what's that say about us?" LMAO. kyle did go get the bb, but he wanted nothing to do with drumming or even saying hello to the audience. it's so funny how little kids are like that - when they're zonked, they're zonked, 1400 cheering people be damned. so kyle just held him for a minute and then took him back to his mama. but the whole thing was really cute.

yet another thing that was funny was that dave seemed to feel like he needed to talk before nearly every song. i guess he was filling time, idk. but he would either tell us the story behind the upcoming song, or else he would say, "there's not really a story for this song." i swear he said that like five times. LOL. about "bar-ba-sol", he said that after they recorded the song, the Injected guy called him up and was like, "dude, 'bar-ba-sol' was a working title. the song's called 'spun again'." LOL. but dave and neal decided they needed at least one song on the record where the title had nothing to do with the song, so they kept it. he also told us that he originally hated "only honest", but neal liked it and "worked his magic" on it, and now he loves it. he teased us at one point by mentioning MWK and saying, "maybe we'll bust out one of those songs tonight," but they didn't. (boo.) and before "light on" he said something about the fact that he gets to share a platinum plaque forever with chris cornell and how cool that is. and i think that's all the banter i can remember. *whew*

there was actual music at this show, i swear. :P notable things... "straight ahead" was AWESOME. i was going to love it no matter what, just because it was my first time seeing him do an AH song in person. but they rocked the shit out of it, too. gah. "kiss on the neck" was hot and andy did a wicked guitar thing in the middle. and then "bar-ba-sol"........ omfg. i was seriously a puddle of goo. it was super hot in that theatre, anyway, and i was all sweaty, and the band was all sweaty, and then they just blew up the joint with that song. dave came to the front of the stage and leaned over and was so close to me and being just a sex god and .... GUHHHHH. then he leaned back against the speaker stack for the guitar solo, and jfc. it was the new definition of "casual sex". umf.

we had barely recovered from that when they blasted through "man in the box" and then "only honest". at the end of "only honest", they all gathered in front of kyle, and the five of them just cut loose. kyle was just killing it on the drums, and the other four were wailing away on their guitars, and it was just fucking EPIC. when they stopped, the whole audience just exploded. incredible. the audience, btw, was interesting. initially i had my doubts about the participation, but dave had everyone rocking in short order and lots of peeps on the floor level never sat down, i don't think. the balcony only stood when he told them to (i read somewhere that it was kind of steep and scary up there), but they were loud and enthusiastic. great, great fun, and dave acknowledged several times that we were a great crowd.

after "only honest", the lights went down and dave started "lie" by himself. now, i had seen mention of "the a capella part" of "lie", but i don't watch a lot of concert videos on youtube, so i didn't actually know what he was going to do. when he stepped back from the mic and sang the chorus without any amplification, i thought my knees were literally going to give out. oh. my. god. that song is so gorgeous, anyway, and it's my favorite on DCTR. and to hear him just take a deep breath and belt out those lines, projecting his voice like the theatre vet he is..... wow. just, wow. i just stood there with my mouth hanging open. i'm so glad S. got that one on video, because i haven't stopped watching it.

they did "light on", "little lies" and "come back to me" (special kudos to skibby for The Note in CBTM!), and then took a short breather. dave and andy came back out by themselves, and i was like, hmmm. and then they started in on "the world i know", and i melted again. so, so gorgeous, omg. i need to go watch that video again on youtube, because i was in a trance, i swear. it just transported me back to the last performance show last year, and how he was so emotional, and how we thought archie was going to win and just how much has happened since that moment. my god.

then they rocked the fuck out of "died in your arms tonight", and dude, seriously - is there any song he can't make better? because that's a great song to begin with, but it's a completely different song in his hands. and it's BETTER! *shakes head* and then they closed with "i did it for you", which was an odd choice, i thought. the printed setlist had "daily anthem" on it, so i don't know what happened there. but they made it epic, natch, by all coming to the front of the stage at the end and doing their best guitar hero stances.

in the end, it was like an hour and forty-five minutes of music, and it was mindblowing. truly. the only thing i was a little sad about is that, even with all those covers, they didn't bust out "hunger strike". because andy just sounded fantastic that night, and they would have killed that song. but that is an extremely minor quibble. overall, it was everything i could have hoped for and more. oh! i almost forgot - during the little pre-encore break, i said to S. that we were really overdue for catching a pick. because i'd never managed to snag one in all my shows, and he was throwing them like crazy that night. so what happened? during "died in your arms", he threw us a pick. LOL! it would have been awesome, regardless, but the fact that i had sort of called it just made it hilarious.

lorrrrd, this got long. it's all david's fault for being so chatty! so now, pictures. the full gallery is here. i obviously have a lot of learning to do with that camera. i had some setting!fail that i couldn't fix because it was so dark at my seat, and i took some awesome pictures of neal and dave that i ended up having to erase because i had forgotten to empty my memory card. :P but there are still some good shots, so here's a sample of my faves.

(virtually all of these can be seen much, much bigger at the gallery, if you're so inclined)



one of my absolute favorites. faaaaaaace.


a study of "unnfff in purple".


bar-ba-fucking-sol.


face, melted.


casual sex.


i love this one and all its cousins. i would know that silhouette anywhere.


killing it at the end of "only honest"


dave saying "what does that say about us?" after finding out that hayden was asleep.




i know these are blurry, but they're irresistible anyway.




i forgot to mention this above, but when dave was doing band intros, he called neal "thunderlips". neal was amused.


these lights in "lie" rock my world.




andy skib, ladies and gentlemen.


it's blurry because i just COULDN'T TAKE THIS PICTURE FAST ENOUGH.


got lots of good shots of the dr. during this solo.


i can't even deal with him.




LOVE this one.


um. ok. so. some of you may know that i kind of have a thing for guys' throats. so this picture really kind of undoes me. not only is he sweaty and gorgeous and ~throaty~, but he's looking right at my camera. jfc, andy.


i don't know a lot about drumming (i wish i knew more), but he's really kind of a prodigy, huh?


*raises cup back at him* bye david! we love you, too!


*WHEW*

so, just to wrap up the tattoo story, i went back to see todd the next day, and he had drawn up an amazing design for me. this was my first tattoo, and i wanted it to have meaning for me, and this one really does. music is such a huge part of my life, and the radio represents that in the best way, because i don't actually play or sing. add to that a david cook lyric, and having it inked by someone who is connected to my insane odyssey last summer, and, well, it was all sort of perfect. i got it on my thigh, and it's pretty big, which i don't know that you can tell from the picture. but it had to be large to allow for all the detail. so it's about six or seven inches high. this picture was taken right after it was done, so the colors have brightened considerably since then. i can't take a new picture yet because it's peeling like whoa at the moment. :P

(pls to be ignoring my pasty chicken skin.)


and there you have it. *falls over*



there will be no rest for the weary (me), as i'm headed to phoenix tomorrow to see Pink. \o/