Showing posts with label miracle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miracle. Show all posts

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Ode to the Troubadour

The Cure's Myspace Secret Show at the Troubadour on Saturday, Dec. 13th, 2008 is a day that will live forever for those of us lucky enough to be there! I personally consider it to be one of my Cure miracles, of which there were many in 2008, but this show shares the top miracle slot only with my experience of meeting the Cure in person for the first time.

Looking back, it's hard to believe that a year has passed since this fateful weekend. As so many of our lives have entwined with this show, I have created this blog post as a way to collect everything that I could find or think of to post about it, so that we can keep all of this info in one place. If I'm missing anything, please let me know and I'll be happy to add it here.

I also want to say again that I am eternally grateful to the wonderful Cure fans that I met there in Los Angeles and for those of you from the CoF boards that I had the opportunity to meet before that weekend. You all are the reason that this will be my number one show ever, from the support that we offered each other to the memories we shared, I will cherish all of you as my Cure family. The only thing that could make experiencing a gig like this even better is the knowledge that you have good friends to talk about it with for the rest of your lives.

Without further ado, here is my little digital shrine to the Troubadour show.


Myspace Secret Show @ the Troubadour

Audio Downloads

BC recording in 24 bit or 16 bit

My blog posts about the show



Other blogs / posts about the show

Comingsoon.net (forum post, pics) / Coachella (forum post, lots of pics)

CoF Live Show Commentary

Articles about the show


Articles about the Live Album Release


Video



Youtube accounts with Troubadour Videos



Photos

My pics - Troubadour / Curemas Weekend (all)
MySpace Secret Shows / Day 19 / Getty Images / COF
KelBel / Myspace Secret Shows on Flickr / Shesaidboom
marcusdarling (crowd photos only) /phot0matt (wristbands)
glyphic / Traci

The Troubadour

It goes without saying that this legendary club would be the perfect setting for this secret show. It seems that are pretty proud of this event as well, and have updated their History page on their website to include The Cure's set.

For those who are reading this who are unaware of the history of the Troubadour, this small unassuming club in West Hollywood, California has been around since 1957 and has helped to launch some of modern music's biggest, most influential and best-known acts. Read that history page linked above for the whole scoop.

CoF Peeps who went to the Troubadour show
(I'm sorry if I forgot anyone, I don't know every CoF peep,
so please let me know if I missed your name and I'll be glad to add you in here!)

Rev. / Sean / Sugargirl / CrowbiWan / AutumnJade / Andythecurefan
Clockwise Cat / curejunkie / Sara B / Brandon / Steph / Debi / JeffLove
Laura / ThatCrazyCureGirl / Xyla / Maggie

Celebrities at the show

Kirsten Dunst / Gerard Way / Trey Parker "Disintegration is the best album ever!"
Leonardo DiCaprio / Ryan Gosling / Davey Havok (spotted, no photos found)

Paparazzi / Photographers

Day 19 / Frank Micelotta


The Concert Poster


Series of 450 (I have #278) - 3 color on 100# Natural paper
Created by Vahalla Studios - http://www.vahallastudios.com/

Looks like you can buy one at their site too! The poster artist has told me that the posters that they have for sale on their are the artist proofs that they received from Myspace. They are part of the same series as the ones given away at the show, but they are labeled with "AP" instead of being numbered as part of the 450. They were printed during the same run as the ones given out.

12:08 Dream Teeshirts


















Available at the Troubadour event as well as at the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas show the next day, 12/14. You can see more detailed photos of the shirts in my Flickr set here.

Event Staff Teeshirts

(Photo courtesy of and thanks to Kelly R. Photography)

Teeshirts with the poster lightbulb on the front and "12:13 Dream, an evening with The Cure" printed on the back were given to the staff at the event as well as to a very FEW LUCKY fans! It has been reported through the grapevine that only about 50 of these teeshirts were printed. If anyone has one of these they would like to sell, please contact me as I am an avid teeshirt collector! :D

The Swag Bag


















Given away after the concert, these bags mostly contained promotional items for the Toyota Matrix, one of the show's sponsors, a magazine and CD from Filter and a new copy of The Cure's 4:13 Dream CD which had a small hole drilled in one corner to disable retail selling of the CD. You can see more detailed photos of the swag bag contents in my Flickr set here.


The Wristband


A beautiful sparkly metallic glitter red with The Cure and Myspace logos printed on it in white. Word of mouth reports estimated between 130-150 wristbands given out, the exact number is not confirmed. Once we received the wristband, we were told to scatter and not come back until 7 pm or our wristband would be cut off (said menacingly by a large man bearing scissors).



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Friday, June 19, 2009

Anuus Mirabilis - My year of miracles

The 12 months spanning May 2008 - May 2009 were undeniably the most pleasurably memorable stretch of 12 months in my entire life up to now. And although I will undoubtedly see the Cure many more times, the past year has been such an amazing collection of incredible experiences that it will be hard to top. It was, as the title of the post implies, an Anuus Mirabilis, a year of wonders, a year of miracles, a year where anything was possible.

I was just thinking about how this weekend will be a year since I saw the Cure on the Summer Solstice at Madison Square Garden, and how even at that moment I had NO idea what was to come in the months ahead. I realized that I haven't really written about it all, although there are bits and pieces here and there and so the idea for this blog post was born. After that show, I thought that was the end of my seeing the Cure for the year! But let's back up just a little and start over, and I apologize in advance that this will be a little long!

I've been a Cure fan since about 1984. It took me nearly 5 years to get to see them for the first time at Dodger Stadium on the Prayer Tour in 1989. For the 18 years between 1989 and 2007, I saw them a total of 9 times and considered that I was a lucky person to see them twice in both 2004 and 2007! Prior to 2008, I knew only a couple of the more "hardcore" fans very well and had traveled with them in 2003 and 2004 but had not really met that many other "diehards".

Then along came 2008.

I will start by saying that I've been a fan of the Chain of Flowers website since the late 90's, discovering it some time in 97 or 98, and checked it on an irregular basis. In the fall of 2001, after the first birthday of our daughter and after watching a terrible year's worth of bad news (I used to be a news junkie and actually had television in my house! Strange to think of, I know!) I basically thought to myself that the only news I cared to keep up with was news about the Cure.

So I switched my homepage on my browser from CNN to CoF, and there it stayed. A daily ritual of checking in with my favorite band and their comings and goings made for a peaceful and happy start to my day, as it still does. I was finally brave enough to send in a "Curespotting" in 2003 and started volunteering server space mirrors for the various audio and video files, but any involvement with the site was minimal. I watched though, always ready to hear about news of the Cure. I was REALLY happy when Craig decided to switch the format of the news to Blogger, but I don't think anyone really knew what that would mean for those of us that were fans of the site.

It began so slowly and grew so organically that would almost be hard to pinpoint when the comments on the blog began to take on a much greater meaning. The European shows were very time-offset compared to the US, so the catalyst was really when the Cure entered the US in May for the start of the US part of the tour. Each show setlist thread started to grow with commentary, and by the time that the 4-Tour reached Chicago, people from all around the world had started to tune in to the blog for the chance to chat with each other during the "live show" and comment on the set list as it arrived, and as the 4-Tour progressed, individual personalities began to emerge from the woodwork and interact with each other. Many of the people that would become important to my life later on in the year were those that I first met in the comments on the Chain of Flowers blog during the "show chats".

For our part, we started out with our original planned 2 dates to see them at Red Rocks and in Salt Lake City. We met the Cure just before their Salt Lake City show and I got my permanent autograph. We went to see them for the third time in 2008 in Sunrise, FL, and for the first time met some of the people that we had interacted with on the CoF blog.

Following the FL show, interacting with other people on CoF convinced and conspired to bring me to Madison Square Garden, where I recorded much of the soundcheck from an undisclosed location, then met a metric ton of Cure and CoF peeps and then got to the third row for an incredible show... and then thought that my Cure days for 2008 were done! The 4 Tour was officially over, and many of us that had met and interacted at shows and during the show chats were feeling a little, well, lost. So, the birth of the Meebo chat room was a direct result of the ending of the 4 Tour and the live show chats.

The rest of the summer and fall passed, mostly uneventfully, with the release of the rest of the singles and then the album release. I had passed the time by writing several Cure-related articles, and by designing another new teeshirt.

Then, on one otherwise uneventful evening in in November, it was less than two days before my 40th birthday when I got the news, the Cure were going to be taping shows in LA in December! I got the show tickets for the Carson Daly taping on Friday the 12th, and then when it was confirmed, we bought plane tix. However, we wouldn't be able to take enough time away to do the earlier show (Leno on Thursday the 11th) or the later taping (Jimmy Kimmel, on Monday the 15th) so I took a little bit of heat from my significant other over the idea that we were heading down to California for just one three-song concert. However, I asserted that since I was using the occasion as my 40th birthday present, it was my choice to go. Of course, this later turned out to be the best decision, like, ever, given that we just HAPPENED to be in LA for the now-legendary Secret Show at the Troubadour. And of course I got to give the Cure a batch of my Nightmare shirts and got a signed one back, (thank you so much forever, Keith!) but you can read about ALL of these adventures here, here and finally the actual 12:13 Dream show HERE.

The dust had barely begun to settle from the LA shows when the NME Awards were announced in London, and at first, I didn't even consider going. The economy was tanking, the holidays were just past, and everything was up in the air. The Coachella date wouldn't be announced until the end of January, and so it looked like the NME shows were the only game in town. Then more and more people were going, and the cost to go got smaller and smaller. Shared accommodation, shared transportation, meals at home, a week's pass for the Tube, reduced airfare due to the tanking economy and inexpensive show tickets sealed the deal, and before I knew it, I was spending a week in London. I got to see Tim Burton give Robert and the Cure the Godlike Geniuses award, and then stood at the front of the O2 Arena with 20,000 other people and a whole crowd of Cure peeps from all over the globe. Getting to see Stonehenge, Glastonbury, Bath, Avebury, Hyde Park, the Royal Albert Hall, Big Ben and scores of other sights with some of my favorite people on the planet just put the icing on the cake. These two shows marked the first time that I had ever traveled overseas for the Cure, and it was only due to the intense level of cooperation and coordination between a worldwide network of other fans that it even happened.

Speaking of Coachella, the Pearl show in Las Vegas just prior to the Coachella show had been announced while we were all in London for the O2 show, and you should have seen the panic when the US peeps realized that the announced ticket sale time was in the middle of the night in the UK! But of course we all took care of one another as we always do and eventually everyone had a ticket to what was hotly anticipated as the nearest thing to the Troubadour show that those who had missed it could imagine.

Somewhere in between the Troubadour show and deciding to actually go to London, I came up with the idea for the BOOK. Although the original plan was to give it to them at the NME awards, I think that the decision to wait and give it to them in April was the right one, as it really did allow a much greater level of participation and the end result was much more meaningful than it would have been, and I met so many amazing and wonderful fans through the project that it really took on a life of it's own.

So plans were made again and the fans converged on Las Vegas on one very warm weekend in April, and this time the reunion of the peeps was even more massive and heartwarming than the one before in London. Many CoF fans that had kept in touch via the Meebo chat were able to come together and for many, meet for the first time. We even managed to coordinate a group photo next to the Las Vegas sign! Although it was a disappointing ending that we now know was a bizarre fluke, the Pearl show rocked! And most of you know that story, as well as the incredible story of Coachella and some may have even read about the Belgian radio interview on Robert's 50th Birthday. The Other Voices book was successfully given to the Cure, and the hardcopy versions were created. Finally, on May 8th, 2009, the 30th anniversary of the release date of Three Imaginary Boys arrived.

And now sitting here in June of 2009, and looking back at those last 12 months, my heart is blown wide open with the amazingness of it all and how much everything has changed. I met the people that I've admired and loved for over a quarter of a century, in person, and have a permanent reminder of that day.

In the past 12 months I met more "diehard" Cure fans than I ever expected to meet. I've made some amazing friendships that I hope will be lifelong. Some of those are only now just beginning and others are deepening and becoming even more important, and there are even more people to meet and get to know better in the future.

I saw 10 shows in 12 months, and many of those have been with some of the most amazing people that I am now honored to call my friends. I've shared so many beautiful experiences with my wonderful husband, and had his solid support for those things that we could not share together.

And although these are not necessarily Cure-related, these events definitely added to the miraculous feel to the year. In August of 2008, I changed jobs to be in a much more supportive and appreciative environment. President Obama was elected in November of 2008, and later that month, I turned 40 years old. Over the week of Thanksgiving, we took our children on a family vacation and spent a week in the Florida Keys, where we were married in February of 2000 - it was the first time we had taken our children there. In April of 2009, I bought a VW Beetle, which has been my dream car for many years, and we took it on our big road trip to Vegas and Coachella.

Moving forward from now, I definitely consider the 12 months from May 2008 to May 2009 to be my Anuus Mirabilis, my most miraculous year to date. Thank you to the Cure for bringing us all together, and to everyone I've met and interacted with in the past year, thank you ALL for being the best Cure peeps on the planet!

Here are the blog posts that I've finished, there are several more to come, but it's going to be a little while until they are done, so I wanted to get this out sooner rather than later.

The Year of Miracles - 12 months - 10 shows

1. 4Tour - Red Rocks, Morrison, CO - Blog | Photos | Video

2. 4Tour - Salt Lake City, UT - Blog | Photos | Video

3. 4Tour - Sunrise, FL - Blog | Photos | Video

4. 4Tour - Madison Square Garden, NYC, NY Blog | Photos | Video

5. LA Shows - Carson Daly Show Taping, Burbank, CA - Blog | Photos | Video

6. LA Shows - Secret Show @ the Troubadour, W. Hollywood, CA - Blog 1, Blog 2 | Photos | Video

7. NME Awards - O2 Academy, Brixton, UK - Blog | Photos

8. NME Big Gig - O2 Arena, Greenwich, UK - Blog | Photos | Video

9. The Pearl Theater - Las Vegas, NV - Blog | Photos | Video

10. Coachella Festival- Indio, CA - Blog | Photos | Video

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Monday, December 22, 2008

12:13 Dream - An Evening with The Cure

Part 1-2 | Part 3

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.


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Sunday, December 21, 2008

A Curemas Miracle (Part 3)

Part 1-2 | Part 4


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 The Cure Myspace Secret Show @ The Troubadourover 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.

Before we even knew it, an hour had passed and the line began to move! Read all about Part 4 - 12:13 Dream, An Evening with The Cure on the next post.

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