OK, I knew this was gonna become a weekend job, but did I know how long weeks can feel? Oh well, I hope I did not lose any reader(s) ;-)
Anyway, what I plan to do in this flashback diary with the gigs, is to first give outside impressions and keep most of the music out for now and keep the gig reviews for a later time, when I can rely on the official live recordings that hopefully will all see a proper release soon, or any audience recordings that may pop up once the tapers have had enough time to sort them out, prepared them for spreading and upped them at one of the torrent sites. I cannot thank the tapers often enough for this great musical service. Thanks a ton!!!
Now let's get my lazy ass memory back on that subway to Times Square - on weekdays, a nice and quick ride whenever I jumped into an express line (B or C) it took me only about 5 minutes from 96th Street to 42nd Street Times Square (if I could make an mp3 of the train announcer, it would be attached here, I can still recall it in my gray matter (so there must be something up there after all - I knew it *gg*). This was a Sunday and it took about 20 minutes.
It needed a little walk to the Best Buy Theater, the size of that little depended on the exit I used of course, the first one I took was not the best, so that little was huge, but I got better with each time and I could not find that first exit any more afterwards...
I think it was about 5pm by then, I wanted a good spot at the concert and chat with fellow amoricans, so I had no problem with the extra wait, really. I was not looked at oddly (remember, Mr. John W. Lennon was my disguise - what the W. in my disguise stood for? Not Winston, but I won't spoil, read on, hehehe...).
One of the Streets was jammed, so a typical NYC police man in full uniform controlled the traffic, he actually held up his hand (which means stop) when I had just stepped onto the tarmac, so I walked on and held up my fingers to a peace sign (index and middle fingers for those who may not know) at him and said "Nice costume!" His reply was that he ripped out his whistle, blew into it, producing a pretty loud sound (some cars stopped to that!) and said something like "Yeah, it is!" with a huge smile - now THAT is what Halloween is about - it all makes perfect sense now ;-)
There was already a short queue at the Theater, I recognized a few faces, introduced myself and got into a chat pretty quickly. Met fellow Germans Markus and Bernie, Markus was a first time meeting and Bernie even recognized me in disguise, ok, my laugh must have given it away, so what.
But I am pretty happy that I managed to fool Tomer for a bit, that nice Israelian I first met in London 2006 and then again either there and/or in Amsterdam in 2008 and 2009 looked at me a couple of times but no recognition could be spotted in his eyes - goodie! After a few of these looks, I stepped closer and spoke to him - that look of stunned recognition was worth about 37.93% of the travel cost alone *LOL*
The 2.5 hour queueing time went by quickly, so many great people I met again or for the first time, all the chats and the good time we had (also due to the very nice and friendly security work by Best Buy man Tony "There's no need to rush down the stairs - take your time!" - another memory mp3 should be put here).
Inside the theater, I could see easily that the online round-view could not fully capture how great this place looks, I only took a quick look only and went straight towards the front and stood about 3rd row in the center. It was good to see quite a few people in costumes, it is a pity that the no-camera rule results in no pictures published so far, only a few of Chris mostly... There is one that shows the Red Indian standing next to me so a notch to the left and I would have been on a picture, oh well...
Standing right at the front was Jen, dressed up in a nice Grateful Dead Skulls & Roses costume - only that I took all night to recognize what that was and I also had my daily faux pas right there, when I said to her "Horrible costume" and I hope that ice-cold smile I got for that was the make-up - yep, put that in the misfired compliment drawer...
It took another 90 minutes until the show started and we were still in hopes that they might do a costume support thing again after having skipped that the last years - not really bad that they did not, it was fantastic anyway and the roadies did a little KISS thing in the set break that was fun too.
As announced, I am gonna skip the gig itself almost completely here and wait for the audible memory help, I do not want to mix things up by just looking at the setlist. Let me only say that the start of the electric set with Evil Eye > Lucifer Sam > Evil Eye followed up with Tied Up and Swallowed was suiting Halloween so well and was plain out awesome!
The 3 hours of music were over pretty quickly, but my feet and legs were pretty sore from standing and walking, so I sat down on the stairs afterwards for a little rest. I had taken off the wig and the glasses during the gig, the wig had become too hot an the glasses started to become foggy. So there I sat with 2/3 of the costume gone and one of the Theater people, asking people to leave the venue said to me "Come on Wolverine - time to go!" (there you go: John Wolverine Lennon - haha!)
Outside we bought some T-shirts, I had my first chat with Adam, who always came out after the shows -the first one was a bit silly on my side, but I got better with time, he seems to be a real good guy and I bet he understood well, what I was trying to say...
The only remaining memory after that is when I got into the subway and saw a reflection of myself in one of the windows and understood the Wolverine comment now, I thought "Hugh Jackman - watch out!" and giggled quite hard, as it was Halloween, I did not get too any strange looks for that...
Stay tuned...
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