Fifty other people had the same idea.
The people around me in line were very friendly. We all agreed to hold each others spots while we took turns going to Will Call when it opened at 6pm.
Lindsay and Sarah got there around 6:15p and had to wait in the line outside. Eventually that line wrapped all the way around the block... and it's a large block.
I made it up to the stage and got our spot. I talked to the people to my right and they agreed to help me "hold" space until Lindsay and Sarah got inside (Chandra had to come later; she had to leave work, go home and feed her sweet baby, Addison and then come back downtown). A couple of girls came up behind me, so I warned them that I was waiting for my friends.
I figure it's the best thing to do. You can either be mean about it and let your friend force their way to the front, or warn the people around you, so when your friends force their way to the front, it's not a surprise. It's not any less rude, since it's general admission, but it is what it is. They had school and practice. They couldn't be there at 5:15p like me, the dork.
Despite the rude girls, it worked. Lindsay and Sarah found me.
At 8:00p Ben Rector came on stage and played, even though he had the flu. He had gone to the Urgent Care earlier in the day. The doctor told him not to play, but he did anyway! He sounded good, even though he wasn't feeling good. Sarah loves him, so she was super excited.
Right before he came on stage, Chandra had called me. Addison was being fussy (she has another ear infection, poor muffin) so Chandra wasn't sure she was going to get her calmed down. Then, during the last song, Chandra texted me that she was there! (I left her ticket at Will Call with her name on it. She told me later that when she walked up to the window to pick it up, as she was saying, "My friend left my ticket here for me..." the girl was reaching for it. She was the last person into the show! That will mean something a little later.)
Then, her next text said, "Stuck".
Where? I asked.
What happened to her was this: She walked into to a crowd of 1500+, the concert was sold out (the Intersection can hold something like 1537 people, it's a random number -it's not 1500 even) and it was packed. She saw a group of people headed through the crowd, so she attached herself to them and got about a 1/4 of the way forward. Then she said she would just point and say, "my friends are just right there!" and get through another couple of feet. Then she would say that again. If she saw people moving forward, she joined them. And a couple of times they would realize there was one more person coming through and sort of pull her up with them. She sent me another text when she got stuck about 20 feet behind us. She thought that was it, she wasn't going to get any closer. I asked her if she wanted one of us to come join her. A few minutes later, I still hadn't received a text back, someone grabbed my arm.
It was Chandra! She had managed to get to the girls behind us and was grabbing me to pull herself forward. I think we all sort of grabbed her and pulled her through.
She made it!!
It was a few more minutes before Needtobreathe came onto stage. Their set design was superb, I enjoyed the attention to detail. Here are photos (don't worry, I didn't take that many)
The backdrop looked like a typewriter, here it is lit
and here it is not lit...
I started taking pictures of the set lists (or begging for one after the show) but there wasn't one at our end of the stage! There was a photographer taking pictures and he was kind enough to try to take a picture and then let me take a picture, which didn't work. After the show I asked if he could get one for me, but by the time he got to it, the roadie had already given it to somebody.Knowing that I might not get a set list, I started recording the songs. Here's the thing about that. When I heard them on tour for their album, "The Heat", I recorded "More Time". It's one of my favorite songs. But when you're recording, you're missing out on being present. So halfway through the song I stopped recording. But because it was live, they performed it differently then the recorded version. I loved that version and because I stopped recording it, it only remains in my mind (which ultimately is the best place, it's not like I would be able to sell copies of it or anything like that).
So I didn't want to record the entire song, I just wanted enough that when I go back and listen I'll know which song so I can recreate the set list (dorkiness warning: I create playlists in iTunes of each concert, hence the Need for a set list).
I enjoyed the show without spending the entire time recording it or trying to take pictures.
When it was over we screamed and screamed some more.
They came back for an encore and played three more songs. Bear (the lead singer) kept telling us how honored they feel about their fans. That when they had the chance to play at Ford Field [when they opened for Taylor Swift] last summer, it still doesn't compare to coming to venues like the Intersection where the line wraps around the block two hours before the doors open, and that it sells out. He also mentioned the first time they played at the Intersection (I was there, I blogged about it here) and how far they've come. It was clear the emotion that he was feeling was real. I like the "small"ish venue and hope they don't get too big for their breeches.
If you're still reading, thanks. That was a lot.
Actually it's not over yet. They stopped playing and the light came up. Lindsay looked at her watch and said, "It's 10:50!" Oops. They had a pre-calc test this morning. They left immediately. Chandra and I sort of hung around, I tried and failed to get the set list, and then the pangs of standing for seven hours hit me. Whoa, were my legs sore!
Chandra and I headed toward the exit. We both agreed we wouldn't hang around to try to talk with them. The doors were pretty clogged. Finally a security guy yelled that "there's another exit over here" which was right by where we were stuck, so we went for it. We walked out across the street from my car. But Chandra's car was two parking lots away.
Here's after concert logic: we walked to her car, because it was in a lot, and then she drove me back over to my car. Hey, why should I pay to "park" when I would just be dropping her off? It helped stretch out our legs too.
As we were walking she was telling me about her parking saga, which was just as eventful as pushing through the crowd of 1500 people! The first lot she pulled into only accepted one dollar bills. All she had was a ten or a twenty. She had to back out of the entrance and go to the other lot. At which point a pheasant (not peasant, as I kept saying when I was retelling this story to Bill) crossed the road.
A pheasant crossed the road in the middle of a city at 8pm.
Would you like to guess why?
Because we have no idea.
At any rate, Chandra finally made it into the second lot which accepted credit cards.
The last thing I have to say, because it didn't fit anywhere else in this post, is: this was the first concert I saw them that was smoke-free! How nice it was to walk out and not smell like an ash-tray! Or have a cough this morning.
That's almost as good as seeing the band. Almost.
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