i went to a concert and came out three pounds heavier.

no doubt about it, andi's my most faithful concert date.

it doesn't take much arm twisting to convince either of us to drop everything and see a show. 

and on top of that, there's not many places i'd rather be than in boise with andi and her family for a long weekend. 

even that awful {awful, awful, ugly, long, and boring} drive can't keep me from weekends with andi.

so when a mindy gledhill concert came through town, andi bought tickets and i skipped out on a day of real life to go. 

i guess the tickets announced it was a benefit concert... we should have known... but we neither of us paid any attention to the details until we walked in the door and were greeted by the best {BEST!} spread of cookies and sugary treats and appetizers and jars full of candy for the taking and all-you-can-drink-diet-coke served at the bar by 12 year old boys. 

 

we were equal parts "we don't belong here" and "score!" before we gave each other a glittering eye and heading straight for the sugar cookies.

we made ourselves comfortable at a table {was it reserved? was it sponsored? we we supposed to sit in the back with the commoners? we'll never know} and made friends with mindy's life coach and his four children. 4 year old isabel wasted no time joining in on conversation... asking us how we know each other and responding with things like, "oh, college? yes.... i know about college."

a little bit charming, a little bit Dad, Get Your Kid Under Control And Out Of My Business.

 this is my confused face and that's isabel in the corner. this must have been after i made two separate trips to the candy buffet table, hand in hand with my two little friends.

i swear she asked me to unwrap her candy stick one thousand times.

and one thousand times i told her she needed to ask her dad for help.

 and the show was great and i'm almost certain mindy was wearing the enviable melissa frye boot.

 and no trip to boise is complete without a visit to anthropologie and the luxury 2,000 sf dressing room suite.

this time we cashed in on the extra 30% off sale and we may have gone back twice more in the span of three days.

 

a heavenly being?

i took this picture at the katy perry show when she sang on the raised pedestal at the front of the stage.

i'm telling you, it was a spiritual experience.

I MEAN, LOOK AT HER!

baby you're a firework.

ooooh baby, katy perry puts on a show!

like, A SHOW.

the most fun i've ever had at a concert...

sensory overload of cotton candy, sweet, bright, happy, colorful, sparkley, sugar plum and fairy dust.  the arena was infused with the smell of cotton candy and the girl really, truly sang her songs. she made a hundred little girls' dreams come true by bringing them on stage to sing and dance to whitney houston's "i wanna dance with somebody"

it was sweet.

and so much fun.

not to mention, katy perry is enviable in every way, starting with those doll eyes.

so instead of showing you my crappy pictures, eventhoughitook263ofthem, because they look like this:

i snagged some from all over the internet to show you what a sweet treat it was {i almost mean that literally}.

the costuuuuuuumes!

have i told you how FUN it was?

giant beach balls bouncing across the floor of the arena.  giant ones.

thousands of us singing all the words to all the songs at the top of our lungs with smiles on our faces and twinkley, star-struck eyes that said "this is magical"

fireworks {naturally}, and more confetti than oriental trading company would even know what to do with.

but my favorite part:

the magicial style costume changing trick during hot n' cold

just watch this vid i found on youtube...

i want to go again.

tonight!

katy perry's in town with the california dreams tour.

and in the fierce defense of our taste in trashy pop music, you'll find me + bestie jen there.

pin.

one photo at a time.

i'm collecting photos from the weekend one at a time. some from lara's phone, lara's camera, andi's camera, andi's phone, yada.

so it goes.

monday was andi's birthday. with a little bit of begging on my part, and a lot of coordination on their parts, lara + andi made a quick trip to slc for a day of play and the indigo girls concert.

we laughed hard, talked loud, ate well, played every second, laughed some more, and thought very consciously about what to wear to the i.g. show.

we call our look{s}: easy, breezy, summer time, dusk, outdoor lawn seat friendly but not too friendly to be attractive to women, but friendly enough to say "i like boys!"

... or "i'm married to the man of my dreams" in andi's case.

i really wanted to wear a large t-shirt and my camel cargo shorts from the men's dept. at the gap outlet........ but that would have been asking for it.

psych.

i did a funny.... a brave.... a funny, brave thing.

i did a funny thing.

i could write two post about it. both are true. but which one wins the hearts of the readers?

{1} the one where i tell you how brave and liberating and empowering it was and skew your thoughts into thinking i'm awesome and daring and my life is a good time.

or

{2} the one that showcases all my insecurities and talks frankly about the reality of my circumstances.

take it how you will: empowering or pathetic.

i went to the david gray concert all by myself last night.

a me-date, you could call it. me and kingsbury hall.

and in light of my bucket list 5w weds, i started with dinner. 

little victory no. 1: the lone diner experience.

i thought about this ahead of time.  if i was going to shock the system with two solo experiences, i needed a little bit of easing into it.  so i went to sugar house.  that place is full of free-thinking independents who are a lot stranger than i am, deflecting attention in a lot of directions other than mine.  plus, there was a patio with a stream and ducks and the weather was pleasant. 

i read on the patio for an hour or so. watched an amateur photographer try his hand at a senior portrait session in the patch of nature right in the middle of the shopping mall. i also overheard a know-it-all teenage, who i'm guessing is a visiting step-sister from oregon, tell her 10 and 12 year old step-dining partners tall tales about things they weren't old enough to know weren't possibly true.  i'm not exaggerating, it went like this: 

"i hate math. but i'm really good at science. so when i took the advanced placement math test no one told me i had to bring a calculator and i forgot how to do double digit multiplication, like 19 x 13, so i hand wrote 19 thirteen times and added it up 19 + 19, 19 + 19... THIRTEEN TIMES. sevens are my favorite jeans of all times. they're like $150.  sometimes $200. that girl over there, she's wearing $250 jeans, easy.  i can tell by looking at the pockets. my best friend and i had a falling out because i dated the guy she liked.  she was so mad she moved to boston.  no other reason.  she just moved across the country.  he wasn't even worth it.  he turned out to be gay. but her dad had a stroke while driving on the freeway.  it was a severe stroke.  do you know what a stroke is?  it's when your brain bleeds and goes crazy.  his stroke was so bad it left him paralyzed all over his body except for in one eye.  when he was in the hospital he invented this language with the nurse where he'd blink once for "a" and twice for "b" and he wrote a book about it.  i mean, it wasn't a novel...."

and right about the time i imagined a guy blinking 23 times for W, i got up and left.

seriously, that girl.

i found myself in a parking lot like 3254 miles away from the venue.  i also found myself putting lipstick on in the car before i got out.  and then i laughed at myself for putting lipstick on to sit by myself in a dark room where i would be willing to sacrifice my life before talking to a stranger.  but my innate female character auto-applied liner, stick, and gloss for the event.  so, so, silly me.

and in the way i only imagined it to be in my nightmares - worst case scenario - the sweet old lady ushered me to my seat {3rd row, left of center - a perk of buying a single ticket, i s'pose} and shone her utterly distracting and attention grabbing flashlight allllll the way down the corridor to the front of the room and directed me four seats into a bare bone empty row.

nightmare. someone tell me HOW the room can be packed with thousands fans and my row is empty?

three empty seats to my right and four empty seats to my left. howwww?

nothing short of an interruption of the opening act and a swoop of the spotlight to shine directly at me could scream LONE CONCERT ATTENDEE quite like an empty row with one girl sitting smack in the middle.

i'm not much of a clapper.  not much of an interactive, hooper or hollarer.  and i've seen this concert in this venue a handful of times before.  this was a concert i thought i could attend by myself without too many dire moments of awkwardness.  my only reservation, though, was the space of time between the opener and the main act.  it proved to be just long enough to:

catch up on tweets

facebook status updates

check three email accounts

+

get current on the google reader feed

i didn't even have to resort to bubble breaker or ant smasher.

my row mates filed in just as dave {first name basis by now} started to play. i wasn't alone the entire night.  all but the seat to the right of me filled before long.  it looked completely natural, i guess.  natural in the sense that there once was a pair of us, but something tragic happened just prior to the show and my date abandoned me. but me + all my independent strength pressed on with the night, regardless of the mess at home. hell or high water, i was going to enjoy that show!

... that's the story i would have made up in my mind if i saw me + an empty chair, anyway.

most of the time, i was lost in the music.  lost on the sight of david gray + his nine stage friends dressed in suits and unbuttoned top buttons with loosened skinny ties, all in muted shades i found myself dissecting and naming different shades of grey like slate and graphite and shore and the most attractive shade of warm blue. i was either drooling at the stage or open-jawed, trying to take a bite out of it to have a piece of it all to myself.  i was sure i had been transfigured and sent straight to heaven when we got the 15 minute rendition of nemesis. 

my entire surroundings, though, reminded me of my current situation {my situation of being alone, that is}

to the left: a middle-aged couple.  rigid and stiff.  season ticket holder alumni who came to enjoy a night of culture at the theatre.  let's just say i was brave enough to sneak a photo like everyone else was... the woman next to me would have reached out and grabbed my phone and sent me straight to my room without dessert for interrupting her concert-going experience. or she could have smothered me with her calypso island/fresh from the cruise ship perfume and taken care of me in 5.3 seconds.

in front of me: the most affectionate couple on the planet. besides the fact that her body was glued to his from shoulder to ankle, the constant whispers and leaning, cuddling heads proved to be the perfect visual blocker of my eyes to the suits on the stage.

to the right:  two college girls who thought i was imperative to wear a lot of make up. surely they called each other the night before and coordinated their outfits for this.  and call it paranoia, but i swear that girl looked at me 364 times during the show and thought "did she really come by herself or did her date ditch her? how sad." i know she did. and she knew that i knew that she was looking at me.

when i was wise enough to forget all that and get lost again, i found myself looking for a wedding ring.

you guys, someone is married to david gray {the internets say her name is olivia} and most assuredly, she sleeps soundly at night to the tune of sweet david gray lullabies. sounds like heaven to me.

i waited and waited and waited for the entire show through.  waited patiently, for him to play this year's love. i counted the songs as i waited.  after t-w-e-n-t-y t-h-r-e-e songs, he said thank you and bowed the entire tour to a close.  no this year's love this time.  it's not like it's the all time favorite.  or the newest hit. and of all the times i've seen his show before, this year's love has been sandwiched somewhere inside his old favs collection, half way into the show.

i was sad. twenty three great songs, but none of them the greatest.

until davey pulled through for the lone fan in row c, seat 108 who came to hear this year's love... sung as an encore.
yes.

and when it was over, i clapped three times and weeded through the crowd for the long haul back to my car.

mission: accomplished, i suppose. worth a high five. but if you want to hide your head in shame on my behalf, go ahead.  let's be honest, i went to a concert by myself. that's kind of lame.

but victorious at the same time? i can't tell.

it's a good thing bestie jen is out of town...

because she would disown me for saying this:

the indigo girls are coming to concert and i want to go.

so very reminiscent of my sweet college days with guitar playing friends.....

there are only a few people {girls. friends. girls that are friends.} that i'd be willing to venture out to an indigo girls concert with.... and none of them live in my state.

show yourself, closet ig fans. i know you're there.  anyone who would be willing to go and promise not to hit on me at the show?

is there a man in this world who would go to an ig show? is there such a thing?

heaven help me, i can't go alone!

my hands are shaking from carrying this torch for you.

i have a thing for a well prepared stage.  makes my heart race.

shiny guitars, everything set out just so.

maybe it's that a set stage is the meaning of excited anticipation... just larger than life and right before my eyes.

like, anticipation personified.  if it were a person.

you know?

so, sondre lerche came to town.  and at the end of the night, ryan and i were still scratching our head trying to figure out how to say his name.  wikipedia says it's sondrə lærkə but that doesn't mean anything to me.

doors opened at 9.  two openers and sondre as headliner.  

plus, i think the bus broke down on their way from denver the day before, because we waited through a full sound check from all three acts.

so...... it was 1130 before we ever caught a glimpse of mr. lerche.

we yawned.  we rubbed our eyes.  we took seats at the cocktail tables rather than at the front of the stage.

we both owned our reality:  we are the old crowd.

great show.  that man lived for his guitar solos.  lyrics were a necessary evil, it seemed.  but he's got talent and the sentence structure of a foreigner.... making his conversation all the more off-the-wall than that of your typical hipster musician.

p.s.  if you think don't think you know who sondre lerche is, you do.  he sang the entire dan in real life soundtrack.  so you know him and you love him.  because that is the best movie on the planet.

are you watching the voice?

i'm the nerd with my laptop open every week, itunes running, downloading this guy's songs while he sings them to me through the tv.

and then i rewind and watch them again.

and maybe again.

javier can sing.

even the coldplay song.  but especially time after time.

foundling.

how did i miss the david gray album?  released last august?  where have i been?

i'm almost a year behind, but don't worry.  i downloaded it tonight in an i-can't-wait-any-longer moment of impatience.  someone at work got it in their father's day stocking, but i can't wait for it to make its way into the office for free.  must have it tonight.

oh, and don't worry even still.  i'm three weeks shy of missing his slc show.  that's july 14 at kingsbury hall.  only the most refined concert venue in the entire state.

too bad the only one i know who appreciates david gray as much as i do is a married man.  i'm told that's inappropriate.

robin.  meet me at kingsbury?  or andi?  thanks!

55 days and counting...

until bestie jen and i road trip to the hot hot heat of las vegas to see miss brit in concert.

again.

it's the femme fatale tour.

in las vegas.

where's it's warm hot.

give us a few more years... britney shows are soon becoming our favorite past time.

someone's gotta put sean preston + jayden james through college.

HOLY SMOKES.

if i could have three wishes, it would be for carrie underwood's voice, her legs, and her lip gloss.

now, i'm no lover of country music.... NO LOVER... but you've gotta give respect to the entire industry for  being all-accepting of the performance of a holy hymn when they get together on NATIONAL TELEVISION!

eminem, what?  rhianna who?

buy this. right now.

andi wrote this post a little bit ago about falling behind in the music scene. in college, she really was the hippest, most cutting edge musician-seekers of the bunch.

but i'm here to save her day.

it's not underground, it's not a wildly unknown artist, but for real:

buy adele's new album: 21

minimize this screen, switch to your itunes, hop onto the store and BUY IT RIGHT NOW.

and p.s. can i look like her?

favorite tracks:

2: rumor has it

4: don't you remember

{this is a repeat track..... as in, i listened to it on repeat on my way into work this morning}

7: take it all

9: one and only

confession time.

ever since amos lee's album came out last month i have not stopped listening to it.

in the car, at the office, in the kitchen, while getting ready...

i cannot tire of it.... or any of amos lee's music, for that matter.

i said it before..... i can listen to him on repeat forever.  or until someone tells me i have to stop.

i think he's what heaven sounds like.

i got a jump start on my "mission bells" excitement when i heard this story on npr.

honestly, he is so great.

... if only i knew when he was rescheduling his slc show.....



an amos lee concert sans amos lee.

is this concert in the cards for me AT ALL?

years of begging, pleading, emailing, offering help to find venues, and begging some more.... amos lee finally came to salt lake city. 

but then - after set up, after the drum kit and slide guitar made their way on the stage, after the monster heart/vein abstract art sheet was draped across the back of the stage - amos got sick. 

and we wouldn't want to jeopardize those silky vocal chords now, would we?

so no amos.  but! half glass full...

we got his opener: vusi mahlasela and his sweet south african hip shakin' dance moves.

we got a rousing bout of audience participation: amos lee karaoke.

seriously entertaining.  you got the ones who thought their shower voices would translate to the stage, the ones who know they're no good but couldn't pass up the chance to sing amos lee songs with amos lee's band, and the straight up star search hopefuls. 

we got some sweet cover songs: neil young, sisters with voices, king of the road, and even a gospel variation of amos lee's own black river. 

and best of all, we got: amos lee's band. 

who were entertaining all by themselves and loaded with talent.

that zach right there - smooth as butta vocals just like amos.

melty.



and someday.... we'll get: a rescheduled amos lee show.

someday.

take two and call me in the morning, amos.

and who do you think you are?

my nw favorite moody girl song:

christina perri | jar of hearts

i've already lost all musical credibility with my best friend this week by admitting to a vertical horizon + traci chapman mixed tape from 2001 so i might as well keep on going.  i mean, she loves me anyway because i just bought four tickets to her play, so......

jar of hearts:

ex-love wants the girl back.... but she's smart enough not to go... a measure of self preservation, mostly...  and then in her really mysterious voice with the court jester tune in the background, she tells him he's regrettable and to just.go.away.

"you're gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul."

worst music video ever by the way.  almost creepy.  but a prize to the first one who spies my fav sytycd dancer......

music from the y2k.

when i was living in san diego - between my sophomore and junior year of college - robin road tripped {alone... amazing} to live the lavish life for a few days. 

we shopped, ate mexican food outside on a patio along the coast {alfonso's.  where there's no such thing as free refills. whaa?} and then we rested our precious selves on the grassy patch near la jolla cove.  we must have fallen asleep.  the conditions were prime for napping - a breeze, the gulping sound of ocean waves, and just enough sun to feel warm but not enough to bake.  i woke up to the sound of robin...

"pssst.  aubry.  wake up.  we're in the middle of a wedding."

sure enough.  i opened my eyes and spied an asian bride and a white groom.  we found ourselves in the crossfire of the aisle.  like, when they say "walking the bride down the aisle".... that's where we were. well, maybe at the back of the aisle.  but we were there. AND THEY DIDN'T BOTHER TO WAKE US UP.  they just sent the chairs up all around us and figured we'd wake up before too long.  we laid there, head cocked to the side.... i don't remember all the specifics.... we we obviously devised an exit strategy and got ourselves out of there.  slyly, i hope. 

point of all this?

we affectionately named the wedding couple "tom + yuki" and when it came time for robin to roadtrip herself back home, we made her a cd to enjoy in the car.  it was 2001 or 2002, so it was still too close to the cassette tape era to fondly refer to it as a "mix tape" like we do now.  it was just "make me a cd!" back then.

the other point of all this?

corporate i.t. blocked me from downloading itunes on my machine, so i've resorted to my cd collection.  and today i'm listening to the "tom and yuki" cd we made that day.

oh, this cd! 

real live woman - trisha yearwood

can't take my eyes off of you - lauryn hill

the promise - tracy chapman

beautiful mess - diamond rio

{I LISTENED TO DIAMOND RIO!?}

unbreakable heart - jessica andrews

island in the sun - weezer

i wanna be with you - mandy moore

crazy - patsy cline

angel standing by - jewel

the one - gary allan

we could still belong together - lisa loeb

the promise - when in rome

i miss you - incubus

tupelo honey - van morrison

light in your eyes - blessid union of souls

i've got the world on a string - frank sinatra

best i ever had - vertical horizon

{jen, i am DYING HERE.... VERTICAL HORIZON....}

wake me up - wham

movies - alient ant farm

{and OF COURSE.... it was 2002, so we HAD TO end with}

somewhere over the rainbow - israel kwadafoi'ghkvn'asdaiio

i'll have you know that cd was loved by all.  robin brought that cd back to school before i arrived.... and strangers already knew of me because of that cd.
i was so awesome when i was 20.

just as awesome as i am today at 29, reliving my younger years.

hands down.

robin and i are having a text fest right now about the opportunities we're missing because she lives 1 day, 17 hours away. namely... the dashboard confessional show going down just a few minutes down the road.... but turns out..... a 29 year old teen emo punk lover only comes once every 2,500 miles.

i need her.

we need to watch hoarders and real housewives together.

we need to shop at j.crew and anthropologie together.

and we need to fix ourselves a plate of pork and bell peppers for dinner together.

hoo-rah.

for the record: my teen emo punk love doesn't extend any further than dashboard confessional.

i feel like that needs to be made clear.

an anecdote.

i'm making progress, checking things off the if-i-had-time-i'd-blog-about... list.

tonight: a story about jason mraz and tristan prettyman.

thanks to scotty shipley, the shanty girls were fans of jason mraz long before the world fell in love.

{or, if you're my best friend... long before you hated him.}

we celebrated the summer-o-jason, strummed the guitar to "you and i both" 1,000 times, then closed out the season with a road trip to see jason perform a small show for big bucks... $12. those were the days.

then i graduated college... and saw him at least five more times.

round one: november 16, 2005... i flew to boise for my birthday where cindy and i jammed at that one really great venue downtown.

we were promised james blunt and tristan prettyman as openers.

do you guys remember james blunt?! remember that one week when he had that one song and then the next week when it was overplayed and grating on my ears?

the concert fell right then... right after that one week... so he bailed on the tour. meh.

i mean, where did james blunt even go? does anyone care?

it was also right about then that jason performed on jay leno with a tshirt that proclaimed,

"tristan prettyman is my girlfriend."

and the crowd went wild.

this would be a good time to remind you that they call san diego home. and i'm a proud san diegan.

fast forward a couple years when i saw tristan prettyman in park city. we waited for doors to open next to the craziest, most die hard TP fan. she must have heard i was from san diego and assumed that, like, because i've driven the same stretch of interstate 5... we were best friends. she lamented about the recent jm/tp break-up and was determined to reason it out with her before the night was through. i didn't keep up with that kind of stuff.... but she begggged me to hold her had while she talked to tp {who turned us away because she was "resting her voice", thankfully.}

the crazy got toooo drunk to hold a reasonable conversation by the time the show was over. i, on the other hand, had a perfectly pleasant conversation with her. she was very normal. like a twentysomething beach loving homegirl. we talked about san diego, the crazy drunk, the boise show, and james blunt.

her words:

"hahahahahahaha, james blunt. that guy thought he was so awesome.

he brought a different girl home on the bus every night and we'd just laugh at him.

poor girl would wake up and wonder what city she was in and what happened to her underwear."

that was almost six years ago.

web journals, blogs, tweets, merch tables, and concerts {i and ii}, oh my.

and then the other day i read this post and celebrated in my chair a little.

i felt slightly invested in this love saga for having followed it most of my adult life.

best news all year.

AMOS LEE IS COMING TO SALT LAKE CITY.

how many times have i begged and begged and written and pleaded and prayed that he come west?

{at least once before on this blog}

there are days {or weeks} that are nothing but amos lee days

where i listen to his library of music on repeat

and i don't stop

until someone else tells me i have to.

he's got the ultimate melt-like-butter voice

immediately soothing

but strangely upbeat at the same time.

february 1, 2011 at the depot.

see you there.