I don't mean near
the front of the crowd. I don't mean close to center
stage. I mean "arm-on-the-rail", absolute dead center
of the stage. Why have I even made you wait 4
sentences, enjoy:
YOU MUST HIT THE "HQ"
BUTTON WHEN IT STARTS!!!! (the low quality
is nearly unwatchable)
I'm pretty happy
with some of the things I've pulled off in my life.
This will go into my Top 5 for sure. Other 4 would be
sitting
in the locker room with Michael
Jordan the
year they won 70 (and watching the game ON the court),
getting stared
down by Tony
Soprano for
secretly taping during an episode I was IN, doing my
own short
film on The Price is
Right, and
being close enough at the Inauguration to see
Obama
get sworn in with my own
eyes. Front
and center for McCartney would be so many thousands of
dollars it simply isn't possible... and even then
you'd probably have to know him personally. So when I
heard he was playing Coachella and the only thing
between me and the perfect seat was the ability to get
there when the gates open at 11am and not move?
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeit. I will win this battle. I have
"Inauguration Training". LOL. Then again, had I known
I would've had to stand through Morrissey, I'm not so
sure I would've been able to pull it
off...
Wow. I felt like I
was having a beer when suddenly I realize it's a gay
bar. You know? Morrissey comes on and instantly all
the guys around me with funny haircuts, crying, make a
lot more sense. I had no idea Morrissey was a gay
icon. I knew he was that Smiths' guy that sings the
depressing songs (which I THOUGHT I would
probably relate to, I was wrong) - but what I saw was
an overweight 50 year old man who was so
"diva" he had to leave the stage because of the
smell of "burning animals". Hamburgers. Hamburgers
almost stopped the show (he came back). Seriously - he
says: "I smell burning flesh. I hope it's human."
The guy next to me says "yeah!" and thinking "what the
FUCK are these people into??!?!" I totally didn't
get what was happening. Then he explains the "meat"
thing, I presume he's a vegetarian... a
dramatic vegetarian and then, dear jesus he
ripped off his shirt and threw it at me. Seriously.
The girl next to me happily grabbed it. It was like
Tom Jones meets Milk. HAHAHA. And I'm actually one of
those straight men who digs quite a bit of gay
culture. But this was just... you know what it was? It
was probably something pretty awesome in the early
90s. But now? It's very difficult to feel the original
vibe. A newcomer to this "scene" is bound to have a
similar reaction. An utter and complete what, the,
fuck. And the Morrissey fans LEFT. LEFT after he
finished! !??!?!
They left, after
he finished. I'm not sure if I was able to write that
with enough astonishment in my voice. They left, after
he finished. Sir fucking Paul. They were up front with
me. Hello? The gates opened at 11am people. McCartney
didn't go on until nearly
TWELVE HOURS LATER. They were 30 minutes
away from seeing a Beatle rock the FREAKING house and
they left. That's so gay.
Hahaha. Bryan and
Alan, I hope you're laughing at that. I wrote that for
you two specifically. What an awesome way to get
Journey Player status. :) Goddamn Adam, get to
McCartney already...
I can thank my
Inauguration experience singlehandedly for getting me
front and center. That was when I learned about not
drinking or eating anything so you don't lose your
place due to bathroom breaks.
However,
since it was 100 degrees and not 19...
there's another cool physical trick you can
do. You can drink one full bottle of
water, and it never leaves your body. :-)
Yes, that's how freaking dehydrating it is at
Coachella. So I had one bottle while waiting
thanks to a girl behind me being nice enough
to give me one. But yeah, I was a goddamn
science experiment. Amazingly, I went over 24
hours without food by the time it was all
said and done. I was too scared I would fall
asleep driving home if I stopped for
food.
The
first (and only other) time I saw
McCartney in 2002 my eyes welled up when
he appeared onstage. It's just a "holy
shit" moment when you realize it's
actually him. This time however, I was so
concerned with videotaping it that I was
in a different mode. So how the hell did
I pull that off... well Coachella
gives you the "in" because although they
prohibit any video or audio recordings
they do allow still cameras - as long as
they don't have detatchable lenses. So no
professional stuff, just point and clicks.
A lot of those do have video functions but
are all pretty assy. I wanted
something that looked like a
point-and-click but had a great
picture...
...enter
Andrew, again. This man is looking for
Journey GOD status isn't he? He links me
to the minoHD camcorder for $200. It's
smaller than my phone and takes HD quality
video. It also fits in my shoe. :-) Just
to be safe I put electric tape over the
"Flip Video" part and I actually put it in
my pocket... and damnit, they checked
it...
<Gulp>
...and
gave it right back to me 'cause it looked
like a point and click. Wheeeeeeew. I'm
not sure I've ever been happier (give it a
few hours Adam, you will be). But I was
there at 11AM when the gates opened, I got
my HD cam in... and I was ready to...
WAIT.
(btw - I believe
that's the 1st public footage of The Beatles Rockband
on the screen)
The downside of
the videocamera is that I could've gotten FAR better
pictures had I just brought a point-and-click. I mean,
I'm front and center and these pictures look like I'm
in the middle of the crowd zooming in.
Thank GOD
in the video I thought to do the ground shot
up to the stage - it's amazing how that
actually makes you FEEL like you're front
row! I've actually never seen a video that
does that. I think it's cause there are very
few "fans" that get to experience this.
These are VIP seats. I mean, everyone's a
"fan" of McCartney (except for gay
people apparently - KIDDING) but someone like
me thinks of shooting the ground leading up
to the stage because in a million years I
would never think I would be there. VIPs
expect it, I don't. Speaking of
unexpected...
In the middle of
his new song "Sing the Changes" - Barack comes up on
the screen... barely. Other than this one still - I
guarantee people missed it. It was all these swirling
black circles and you could only recognize his face
for a split second. Really pissed off the punks behind
me. They enjoyed yelling about their favorite drugs
and saying "FUCK OBAMA!". It actually made me
smile. It made me realize that being
"anti-establishment" will always mean going against
the grain... even when we all fought for 8 years to
change the grain. You have to respect all
"anti-establishment" views 'cause it keeps us movin'.
However, I'm giving these dolts far too much credit.
They were legitimately slow boys.
Another surprise
was of course Paul's announcement that it was the 11
year Anniversary of Linda's passing. She died in
Arizona, literally a few hours from Indio California
where Coachella is held. I just can't imagine how that
must've felt. The landscape is identical... whew. The
entire night was actually really emotional. When
I saw him before the tributes to George and John
were touching, but last night everything felt really,
really heavy.
...and how cool
was Give Peace a Chance!?!?! Oh wait, I didn't
include that in the video. You can't fathom how hard
it was to make this show under 10 minutes for
YouTube's guidelines. There may have to be a part 2.
They did "Day in the Life" (which I had NO IDEA
Paul was doing now - a recent thing for him) into Give
Peace a Chance (which allowed me to get my fingers in
the shot proving I was there. I did turn the camera
around once and it didn't turn out so I erased
the clip in favor of more McCartney. I also taped
some of Franz Ferdinand before Morrissey (who were fun
as hell) but it was that clip or Paul doing Yesterday.
Sorry guys.
As it did in 2002,
"Live & Let Die" comes out of nowhere and just
blows everyone out of the water. There are no
pyrotechnics for the entire show, and suddenly there's
fireworks and fire...
...and guess
what's REALLY freaking hot when you're up front. HAHA.
I actually stroked my eyebrows (swear to you) after
this 'cause it felt like they were singed from my
skull. Rock & Roll.
Another
incredibly cool thing about last night - my
Uncle Tim (grew up like brothers as he's 3
years older than me) and his wife Eileen
became parents for the 2nd time (you may
remember Lila's first birthday song last
year) with the birth of baby Elsa. And of
course Paul sang "You say it's your
birthday!" which I was able to grab 30
seconds of. How, freaking, cool, is that
gonna be years from now. McCartney singing
that the day you were born. Hope she thinks
it's as cool as I do. :-)
Then again, you're
kind of safe with The Beatles. Nearly everyone "gets"
them and is a fan.
EXCEPT FOR THE LITTLE BITCH NEXT TO ME TEXTING DURING HEY JUDE OH MY FREAKING CHRIST....
REALLY?!?!?!?!
Sorry. I...
just... sorry. I turned to her and gave her a look
which could only be described as fatherly. I hope the
texting thing fades or is replaced by something less
annoying in the next decade or so. Hey Jude. Paul
McCartney is a few feet from you playing Hey Fucking
Jude. I'm sure your boyfriend asking you "hey sup wit
U?" can FREAKING wait. Good. God. Damn.
Anyway, the night
was perfect. To say I will cherish this hour of
footage the rest of my life is truly saying the least.
I will most likely never see McCartney again because
this will never come close to being topped unless I
can actually pull off meeting him. No, this is one of
those moments in time like the ones I linked to before
that will be in your heart forever. Which also
highlights the absolute wonder and joy that this
project, The Journey, has brought me. I was able to
link to an entry and video of all of those events I
mentioned and can relive and share them so vividly
that I'm swept back in time.
And hopefully
watching this entry's video made you feel like you
were in the front row. 'Cause sure, there are concert
DVDs, but those are almost too professional.
You know? Something gets lost in the production. The
gazillion camera angles and jib-arms and close-ups
makes it "fantasy" at some point. This feels different
to me. I hope it does for you too.
:-)
Adam
PS - believe it or
not, there's even better news coming next week.
Momentum is a magical feeling.