One year ago today, it was Curechella. The Cure were at Coachella and the Cure fans that hadn't already gone home after the Pearl Theater show were making their way to Indio, CA.
Something I didn't mention in my last blog post, which some may not know, was that one of the reasons for the high anticipation regarding these shows was that they were immediately before Robert Smith's 50th birthday on April 21st, 2009 and just weeks before the 30th Anniversary of the official release of The Cure's first album, Three Imaginary Boys on May 8, 1979. There was a semi-coordinated effort to sing "Happy Birthday" to Robert at the Pearl, but with the sudden end of the show, the celebratory mood had been severely dampened. So when the sun rose on the day of the Coachella show, we literally didn't know what would happen!
Some of the most die-hard among us had already staked their claim front and center and were sweltering through the hot April day in extreme Southern California in order to be close to The Cure during their set. We had a leisurely breakfast in Las Vegas and then drove through the very scenic and deserted Mojave National Preserve and the Joshua Tree National Park on our way down to Indio.
We arrived at Coachella and found parking, bought teeshirts, found a few of our Cure friends and got ready for the show! We did not have much trouble getting up close to the stage as people were leaving throughout the set and we ended up about 4 rows back from the front on Porl's side of the stage as we had been at the Pearl.
Hearing the waves break and roll into "Underneath the Stars" while actually out under the stars again was a huge treat, and for the most part the set was a repeat of the show at the Pearl. Did anyone else notice the inclusion of Wrong Number where the songs had been messed up at the Pearl? We thought it was a nice little insider joke from the band.
Of course, no mention of The Cure's set at Coachella would be complete without telling the story of the end. While we were all enjoying the show, the topic of the encores was pretty fraught with anticipation, since they had been interrupted mid-encore two nights before at the Pearl. Some sharp-eyed fans noted how swollen Robert Smith's right hand was, but nobody knew what had happened at the Pearl, or what was going to happen at Coachella. All bets were off. So as the main set finished and the guys launched into the same set of encores as at the Pearl, we were all holding our breath. Would we finally get to see the show finished with "Faith"?
The anticipation levels were sky-high. The band seemed to be in a very good mood, so we thought it seemed like a good omen. However, we were all aware that the curfew for Sunday night was midnight, and it was rapidly approaching. So when the first encore started, we were happy and relieved, it was happening! We swayed and sighed and closed our eyes to listen to "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep" and watched in awe as Robert made his guitar scream through "The Kiss", despite a visible injury.
Then, a pause, holding our breaths again. It was now several minutes past curfew. A collective sigh of relief came when "At Night" began, and The Cure worked their way through the "Seventeen Seconds" encore. We cheered and laughed and bounced our way through "M" and "Play For Today" and clapped at all the right moments during "A Forest".
Once more came the tension, even greater now. The clock was ticking, and every minute past midnight would cost the organizers money. Would they come back? Uncertainty reigned and we stood there craning our necks toward the stage as some discussions took place between small knots of people to the right of the stage. This was the moment that we missed at the Pearl. No third encore, no Faith. Suddenly, the band launched into "Three Imaginary Boys" and the crowd exploded in cheers. Without pausing, they ripped through "Fire in Cairo" and we cheered louder and longer. Then the familiar melody of "Boys Don't Cry" came, and we danced harder. Suddenly the large video monitors and speakers on the sides of the stage went black. The crowed booed loudly, but the Cure still played on! Thousands of people sang along to the end of the song and they jumped right into "Jumping Someone Else's Train". Unfortunately, fewer people knew the words to this, so they listened to what they could hear coming from the stage monitors. The song ended, and there was hesitation on stage, but Robert was not to be stopped! He got Jason started on the drums and walked to the front of the stage, encouraging the crowd to sing along. Finally, he gave up and dropped his guitar into the lap of someone sitting at the front of the pit.
Personally, I've never heard of any show where the Cure was cut off like that as a headliner, ever. Even during the infamous "F*(& Robert Palmer" video they did not get the plug pulled like this. Does anyone out there know if this was the first time? I'd love to hear about it if they were.
The fact that they tried so hard to give us the encores was incredible, and for weeks afterward I could only describe it with one word. EPIC. When I got back to Utah early on Tuesday morning the 21st of April 2009, it was Robert Smith's 50th birthday that day, and a Belgian radio station was doing a special show about it. Having a connection to a Cure fan that had submitted a page for the 30th Anniversary book, I was interviewed for the radio show on that day just as I had awoken from a very short sleep after a very long weekend, and all I could say about it was EPIC. And it was. I'm glad I got to see it, and I know a lot of people who wish they had.
Here's my video of the end, and there are a lot more videos of this moment out there that you can see in the related videos. Watch for yourself and see just how EPIC it was!
Here's a set of about nine hundred pics of that night from various peeps on Flickr:
Finally happy birthday to Ms. Plainsong who got this show for her birthday present last year!!
So there we were, finally allowed in to the Troubadour at the Myspace Secret Show, and with a mad dash we took our places on the rail and just behind, to settle in for the long wait before the show. I confess that I was very dazed with how surreal it was, that I was actually in a tiny, legendary club in Hollywood, California, and that I was about to be just a few feet away from The Cure as they played a show. For a lifelong, diehard fan, this was a complete dream come true, and for me it was something that only ever happened to other people, and never to me! So I apologize to my friends who were there if I seemed extremely ditzy or hyper, as I was!
The bar grew ever more crowded, the excitement level went up and up and up, and by the time that the Cure took the stage, I was in a complete tizzy. We were directly in front of Robert, and many of my CoF peeps were on the rail either to the left or right of us, and in my area there was Yvonne the fan VIP and her daughter Zyla, Kel, sugar*girl, Midnight and Steph. We all held space for each other so we didn't get too crushed by the crowd, and Midnight and Kel took turns with us so that we all got a spot on the rail for a little bit of the show. Thank you so much ladies and Kel I am so sorry about your arm!! =)
Having attended the 4Tour shows where they played Underneath the Stars, the show prelude of the waves crashing was a huge part of my experience of the song, much like other intros such as "Adagio for Strings" or "Intro", so it was a little jarring to have the Cure come out and launch into Underneath the Stars without hearing the crashing waves first. However, I was very charmed when Robert came out and told us "It's taking me back before we even start", presumably referring to the intimacy of the venue reminding him of the early days of The Cure. When they launched into the first strains of the music, though, we were swept up in the magical atmosphere of this song, and swayed along with the crowd as the waves of sound washed over us. The band sounded very relaxed and yet so together. It seems to me that sometimes it takes them a song or two to really get into their groove, but this night there was an immediate connection with each other and the audience that felt so warm and welcoming, and having this song be the opener was the perfect way to capture the ambience of the night.
Once the warm strains of Underneath the Stars had faded away, the chimes of Pictures of You brought a rousing response from the crowd, and I was taken right back to Dodger Stadium in 1989, the very first time that I heard it played live. I was struck by the disparity between hearing the song in this club vs. a stadium with 50,000 others, and also realized how nearly twenty years had passed between these two shows, and how timeless the song really is.
An animated version of Lullaby was a real crowd-pleaser as usual. Robert seems to very much enjoy enticing whoops and screams from the crowd with his performances during Lullaby, and of course we all loved seeing him dance and have fun as well.
A short pause and then "Another new one" introduced a lovely version of the new single "The Perfect Boy". Robert sounded great, very smooth and the band was very tight and together on this song. Following this song, Robert spoke to his sound people about the levels briefly before they launched into alt.end, the most notable thing about this song was when Robert told us at the end of it something about not thinking that he would be "singing it 4 years later, and yet, here I am".
The Reasons Why was really great to hear live, and sounded pretty similar to the album version. It did not get a great response from most of the crowd, but for those of us who are already familiar with the new album, it was a nice treat. It was very amusing afterward when Robert did a fairly long commentary on being able to remember the new songs. He says (as well as I can transcribe) "It's a f'is (to) remember that one. Particularly if you've been drinking. It's difficult anyway to remember. It's hard, like the new songs cause we've only done em a couple of times, it's like, normally you get into a groove, and so coming out of nowhere and doing these ones is a bit weird though . It's good though. I mean I'm singing the right words in my head, they're just not coming out my mouth. It was much better when none of you knew them." Then he launched into The Walk by saying "You'll know this one", which of course, we did, and sang joyfully along until he segued without any comment into "The End of the World".
After TEOTW, the familiar strains of Lovesong came along, and for once, I was completely enthralled with this song. Not so much so with the song itself, as it is not my extreme favorite in Cure love songs, but I was completely taken with the change in Robert's body language when he sang it. Understanding a little of the history behind this song, it was extremely interesting to me that his posture and face changed so much while he was singing Lovesong. For most of the other songs, he was very interactive with the crowd while singing, glancing around, dancing or tapping his toe on stage, smiling and generally enjoying the audience. However, when Lovesong started, it was as if we all suddenly vanished for him. He closed his eyes almost for the entire song, and seemed very lost in his own private world. It almost seemed like he was in a sort of a trance, from which he awakened as the song was ending, and after looking around for a moment, couldn't quite work out why we were all there.
From the blissful trance of Lovesong to the gutter of The Real Snow White was quite the transition, but I can tell you that from the album, this song does not have the justice done to it that a live version can do. It's a much more powerful song in person, and has a great rollicking feel that moves the story along without dwelling too much on the narration. The buildup of tension in the song is very skillfully done, and as on the album, they went straight into the alternate universe of "The Hungry Ghost" which had a really strange tempo and subdued presentation as compared to the album. Interestingly, they did a very similar version of the song when they played it at the Jimmy Kimmel taping, so perhaps it's a slightly reworked version from the album. One thing that I noticed is that Robert sounded much more intense and angry on this song live as compared to the studio version.
When The Hungry Ghost was over there was a bit of a lengthy pause, but when the first bars of "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" came out, I just about died and went to heaven. I'm sure you understand. This is one of my all time favorite live songs, and one of my top 5 all time fave Cure songs, so it was really wonderful to hear it played at this intimate show. The crowd was very into the song, throwing their hands in the air at all the right places and generally having a blast.
A very sensual version of The Only One (and I LOVE, I LOVE, I LOVE, I LOVE the live ending to this song!) was followed by a rousing Wrong Number which must be one of Robert and Porl's favorite songs to play live. The following series of songs was a very bouncy set which encompassed old and new songs alike, proving that the pop sensibility of The Cure's music is firmly entrenched. Starting off with the new/old song, Sleep When I'm Dead, slamming into Push, jumpstarting the slackers with Friday I'm in Love, picking up the pace with Inbetween Days, roping in anyone left over with Just like Heaven and finally topping out with the legendary pop classic Primary, anyone in the Troubador who was not dancing after that series must have been either near death or terminally boring.
After this very dance-y interlude, the mood in the house shifted dramatically with the introduction of The Scream, one of the most intense songs from 4:13 Dream. This became the first song of a 1-2-3 punch that included 100 years and It's Over, with the Cure striding offstage afterward, leaving the main set hanging on a strident, angry , headbanging note that diluted the sugary pop aftertaste of the prior series like a rough whisky shooter after a pina colada.
The first encore brought The Cure back onstage with Robert saying "The last Myspace thing we did was a soundcheck in Sydney, and it was like, 5 songs, that's it. That's what were just out there reminiscing. (something) Right, we'll do some pop. It's Saturday night, Simon wants pop music" and then launching into their 4-Tour "Pop Encore" starting with Freakshow, and then continuing up the dance beat with Let's Go To Bed followed by Close to Me and finishing it up with Why Can't I be You. The guitar effects that Porl has created for YCIBU are really wonderful and I always look forward to hearing them.
A second encore brought out the best in Simon as he attacked his bass during the end of A Forest, with Robert making a quip about running the last two encores together so they didn't have to go up and down the stairs! Finally, I nearly rubbed poor Kel's arm raw as I bounced along to the third and final "Old Skool" encore. The classic sounds of Boys Don't Cry started us off and then we jumped on the train! I was SO ready for the 1-2-3-4 transition into Grinding Halt! It was so punk, angry, and raw! The spare desolation of 10:15 never fails to bring the crowd along as it drips , drips drips, and then finally, Killing An Arab (Another) brought the night to an end. It's still unbelievable to me that a song written so long ago can still completely and totally rock out without a bit of over-the-hill datedness. And yet, it does. Robert finished the night saying "Thank you very much, that's it. Thank you, this f-ing rocked!"
With the show over, there was little left to do but stumble in a haze and a daze out to the streets of LA. Some of our CoF peeps were upstairs in the VIP lounge, some were around back watching the van driver polish his windows incessantly, and some were wandering hither and yon, looking for warm clothes and a drink. After a bit of time out front, we joined the crowd waiting for the band out in back of the club. The Cure were in no mood for socializing after two hours spent being mobbed in the VIP room at the club, so they went straight from the club to the van without stopping. One fan shoved a poster in the van and the boys signed it and gave it back, but that was the only contact with the fans out back. Speaking of the schwag, there were some gift bags given out just after the show along with the great lithograph posters, but I was in such a daze immediately afterward that I completely missed the posters. However, my Cure angel that was with me all weekend was sitting on my shoulder once again as I stood on the street after the Cure had departed, talking with with Midnight and Steph a good two hours after the concert ended. Just as the words left my mouth "I didn't get a poster, I completely missed getting one." a man happened by just at that precise second, overheard me, turned around and said "You didn't get a poster? Here." and handed me one. A-MAZ-ING. Just like the rest of the weekend. Thank you, whoever you are, for my treasured memento of the evening. Thank you to The Cure for an unforgettable night. Thank you to Myspace for the Secret Show. Thank you to all my Cure friends who were there with me and helped make it something we'll talk about for the rest of our lives.
Very early in the morning on Saturday, Dec. 13th, we had finally checked into our hotel and were unwinding from the excitement of the previous day. I had descended to the lobby of the hotel to retrieve something from my car, and I was checking the Chain of Flowers front page on my phone in the elevator. At the same time, in our hotel room, Sean was checking his Myspace account. Various other people were getting the news as well, and my phone rang practically nonstop for about 15 minutes until it was apparent that all who were in our group had been informed. It was something that I never thought would ever happen to me. The Cure had announced that they were going to be playing a Myspace Secret show at the Troubadour club in Hollywood! As excited as we were, we were also in desperate need of a few hours of good sleep, so instead of heading out to sleep on the streets of LA, as some others did, we got about 5 hours of shuteye before awakening at 7 am to head out to the line at the club. Upon arriving at the line "near" the Troubadour, I was so excited that I literally flew out of the car without turning it off and went to get my "unofficial" line number of 23. This brilliant idea, courtesy of Midnight, allowed people to be able to move in and out of line without fear that they would have to fight for their place in line and also made sure that when the time came, there was absolutely no question as to who was there first.
After I settled down a bit and re-parked my car (remembering to turn it off this time) we got out our red chairs from the day before and whiled away the time by chatting to the other fans in line. There were a lot of folks that were in the Carson Daly line from the day before, and some who were also at the Leno taping from Thursday. I finally remembered to send some pics to Craig as well! Soon after we arrived, there was a bit of unexpected excitement when a small accident occured in the nearby intersection. An older lady in a car had run the red light and struck a man on a moped. Fortunately, he did not seem to be too injured as he promptly got up from the pavement and began chewing out the lady in the car! The fans in line were the first to call 911 and run over to check out the accident, since we even had a nurse in the crowd.
Once the hubbub over the accident had subsided a bit, Sean and I went to the cafe around the corner from the Troubadour to get some breakfast. About halfway through our meal, I pulled out my phone and checked in at the CoF blog, where I found the report about needing a printout of your Myspace account in order to get into the show. We were pretty concerned about this and hurried through the rest of our meal, all the while strategizing about where I could go to print out a page from my laptop. As it turned out, on our way out of the cafe, we ran into Keith Uddin and Ricky who were getting coffee there also! The crew had just arrived to do setup for the show and of course the cafe was the nearest place to go. We stopped and chatted with Keith for a moment and asked him about what we had just read, but he reassured us that it was not true and that no printout was needed. He also told us that someone would come out around noon and distribute wristbands, and that these would be the ticket to get into the club. We were very relieved and went back to the line to distribute the information to the others who were waiting, and discovered that some had already left to try to print out their pages.
People trickled into the area bit by bit all morning, and just before noon there were well over 180 people in line, with most of those arriving after 11-11:30 am because they read on the announcement that no line-ups would be allowed before noon. Well, we were unofficially lining up LONG before that, so my bit of advice to anyone who wants to get into a show like this is to get there as early as you possibly can, and your patience will be rewarded. Waiting in line for a few hours for an opportunity like this is something you will never regret!
The anticipation grew as the morning wore on, and there were a lot of people milling around and waiting and asking questions. Finally, about 10 minutes after noon, some people came out of the club with a few handfuls of wristbands, and the security guard shouted for everyone to line up according to their number! This was a great vindication of Midnight's idea and it was awesome because there was no pushing, no fights, and you really could not claim you had been there before someone else if your number was higher. Unfortunately for those arriving later, there were only about 130 wristbands given out initially so there were quite a few disappointed people. I have heard that a few more wristbands surfaced some time later in the day, but I haven't been able to confirm that. We were instructed to hold out our right wrists for the bands and when we got them we were told NOT to touch them or take them off, not to cut off the loose end or ANYTHING! They were very stern about this and when they saw my camera hanging off my shoulder I got a big lecture about getting kicked out if they even saw a ghost of a camera in my possession. So of course in balancing out the idea of smuggling my camera in to record the historic occasion vs. getting kicked out completely and not getting to witness said occasion at all, you can tell which option I chose in the end.
We were then instructed in no uncertain terms to scatter and not show ourselves again prior to 7 pm, lest we risk the loss of our wristband or be pushed to the back of the line to get in. So most people chose to scatter. Having brought my "club" clothes with us when we left the hotel in the morning, there was no reason to go back, so we ended up driving a few places with Crowbi-wan and even went out to the Santa Monica Pier which was pretty and crowded but also extremely cold and windy so we did not stay long. Arriving back in the vicinity of the club, I camped out at a coffeehouse a few blocks away and took the opportunity to charge my phone a tiny bit and also upload some photos to my flickr account. Later in the evening, we had dinner at a small Indian restaurant near the Troubadour and ended up meeting Autumn there which was wonderful, being an admirer of picturesofyou.us for several years. She was warm, funny and kindly even helped me in the ladies room to zip up my corset :D, so thank you again to Autumn!
It was getting close to the magic hour of 7 pm, so heading back over to the area of the club, I found a strange sight. It seems that the club people preferred that the 100-plus fans who actually had wristbands should wander in and out through traffic and nervously wait in the median as opposed to waiting in an orderly fashion on the actual sidewalk by the club. Since we were strictly NOT allowed to line up, it ended up that all the fans collected themselves on the median of the street in order to be as close as possible to the line, since we were not allowed to step foot on the sidewalk which the club touched. In my opinion, they should have simply honored the numbering system already in place and let people wait just as we had that morning. As it was, exactly at 6:59 pm, there was a mad dash across the street, literally through the cars waiting at the light, for the "survival of the fittest" fight for the front of the line. Once in line, we still had another hour to wait before we would be allowed in the club at 8 pm, and security came down the line several times, checking that all in line had wristbands and tossing out the few people who were in line without them.
When I first heard about tickets for Last Call with Carson Daly, way back in November, my first thought was that it had the potential to be another Soundstage fiasco. For those of you who missed that one, the Cure were supposed to play an intimate taped show for Chicago's Soundstage program in June 2008. Much to my chagrin, the show not only did NOT happen, but it was denounced by Robert on the Cure's website as proof that the only source for legitimate Cure news was on their site.
So, there I sat, in the middle of November, just a few months after that experience, with yet another event that not only had NOT been confirmed by Robert on the official site, but had the potential to be even less of an experience than Soundstage. And yet, I jumped, again, on the opportunity, figuring that if it really did fall through then at least we would have a nice weekend in LA with some friends, but this time, I was richly rewarded for my Cure fan optimism. I was asked several times if I was really going for "just three songs" at the Carson Daly taping, and each time I would reply "No, I'm also going down there to hang out with some wonderful Cure friends." This is the thing that came true the most for the whole weekend!
Being an optimist, again, I booked our airline tickets to come in very early on Friday morning and then to leave later on Sunday, leaving the Saturday night open for, well, whatever was going to happen! Suddenly, it WAS confirmed, and we began hearing rumours about the KROQ show, other tapings and appearances and very shortly, the weekend began to solidify into a veritable festival of Curemas!
Part 2 - Carson Daly Taping
The weeks flew by, and then suddenly it was time to go to LA! We dispatched our children to their grandparents' house, our dog to my sister's pet resort, and then I stayed up all night anxiously awaiting our very early morning flight to California while Sean got just a few hours sleep. I woke him at 5 am to go to the airport, and after a quick nap on the plane we arrived at the Long Beach airport just after dawn on Friday the 12th.
Once we arrived in Burbank, a fast but excellent breakfast at Theresa's Restaurant prepared us for the long day's wait in line. Cure friends old and new greeted us as we settled in, and we passed the time in line by chatting, taking photos and video and generally milling about. The Cure fans in line that I had met in person before the Carson Daly taping included my special Cure pirate sister, Sugar*Girl, the inimitable Cat, the lovely Chris and the quietly brilliant Crowbi Wan, and these were soon joined by people I had long chatted with, like SaraB, AndytheCurefan, Amber and Cure Heart and those I had long heard about but never met, such as KittenCult, Midnight, Yvonne, Kat, and the sweet and talented guys from the Curse.
In preparation for this day, I had made some special long-sleeved tee shirts in my Nightmare before Curemas design in order to give them to the band and those around them. I frankly had no idea how I was going to convey them to the band, but as with many things, I figured that the Universe would provide a way if it was meant to be. About halfway through our day of waiting, I had brought out some of my shirts in order to give them to those who were asking about them, when almost on cue, a gentleman appeared in the parking lot and I was informed that this man was Keith Uddin, the producer for the Cure. I approached him and asked if I could give him one of my shirts, and when I told him that I had made them for the guys, he offered to bring them in to them. He asked me at the time if I wanted him to get one of them signed and bring it back out, but I did not want to bother him if he was busy, so I said he didn't need to.
As the day wore on in the line, more and more people joined, and it began to grow ever colder and darker. Two men came out with a small camera and interviewed several fans in line, particularly those who had camped out the night before. I'm still not certain why they were videoing, but maybe someday we will find out. The line grew longer and the night grew ever chillier, until at long last, an assistant from the show came along to check our tickets against a list of names.
We passed through a metal detector screening and then were allowed to line up along a series of benches next to the studio wall. We could hear the soundcheck as we waited with ever greater anticipation for what was ahead of us. Finally, we were allowed into the studio and were directed to our seats by the various assistants. We were informed that we were to be the studio audience for two night's tapings. There was a comedian who was the entertainment for the studio audience and who tried his best to keep us laughing when he knew we were all there for the Cure!
We sat through an interview of an actress which was the first night's show, and then the stage was prepared for the eggnog chug challenge. Sean got called out of the audience right at this time and he was worried that he would have to do the eggnog chug. However it turned out that his role was just to make a fool of himself for everyone's entertainment :D and yes, he really did win a Subway card with $5 on it when he "won" the dance-off.
After the Eggnog challenge, Carson interviewed Will-I-Am and I thought this was really interesting, as I very much like him, being introduced to his work through the songs he produced for the Obama campaign.
FINALLY, the rest of the taping was over, and the lucky people on the floor were allowed to go and stand in front of the stage. The stage hands started clearing the floor for the audience, and some people were allowed in who had been waiting outside. Then just a few rows of the studio audience were allowed down onto the floor. We ended up very close to the stage on Porl's side! Then the Cure came on and of course the magic was in the air. The band sounded brilliant, very edgy and tight! Robert's voice was very smooth and he seemed to be in a great mood, making lots of eye contact with the crowd and watching the bleachers just beyond the floor audience. One bad moment came about halfway through the taping when an extremely rude person pushed his way right into the front of a bunch of us who had been there since the beginning! That was some seriously bad karma there, so I hope whoever you are dude, you got what was coming to you!
Since we were in front of Porl, we got a great appreciation for his guitar work, especially during Sleep When I'm Dead. He was really shredding it up, and I have no idea how he doesn't fall over during performances with his high heels on! Since we were so close to the front I got to see how Robert taps his foot on his toe while he plays and other details that you can't tell from a concert setting. He has some ginormously large boots and I noticed during the weekend's events that he was wearing cargo-style trousers with a very dark camo print on them, and of course his big black shirts with the stars around the left chest pocket. It's such a surreal experience to be so close to the band that you could literally reach out and touch them, you begin to notice so much that you miss, even on television. I could see a lot of Porl's tattoo details, and noticed that his hands are very decorated, it reminded me of the henna patterns that people get on their hands in India. A photographer at the KROQ concert on Sunday noticed this same thing too, it seems.
It seemed like Robert was just getting into the groove when all of a sudden it was over! We screamed and stomped, and Robert leaned forward and shook a few hands, and I was worried that a couple of the more zealous fans were going to pull him down into the crowd because they grabbed his hand so hard. He managed to shake free, and they walked off stage, and then the audience was herded back out to the parking lot. As we filed out, I saw a few people off to the side of the backstage area talking to Keith Uddin, and when he spotted me he motioned for me to follow him. When I did, he showed me that he had actually gotten one of the shirts that I had made signed by the band! I was very much blown away by this, and by the time that I reached the parking lot, I was in complete tears, so Keith if you ever read this, thank you for not listening to this silly fan girl :D Thanks a million!
The rest of the night was taken up in the mundane tasks of obtaining food and checking into the hotel, and we will go on to Parts 3-4 for Saturday's events!
One year ago today, it was Curechella. The Cure were at Coachella and the Cure fans that hadn't already gone home after the Pearl Theater show were making their way to Indio, CA.
