Almost Famous
This is the story of a girl who met her soulmate. This is also the story of a girl who needs to get a life. Honestly, who falls in love with someone they’ve never met, based solely on the fact that he’s a great guitar player and really funny? The only reason I even know that little about him is because I have stalkeresque tendencies and watch the DVD he made with his band about 8 million times (however, I’ve only watched it once within the last year). So I guess I’m a recovering stalker (that’s awkward). Anyway, so Phantom Planet was coming. Not to Tallahassee (that would have been the best). No, to Gainesville, which needs to be renamed “lostville” or something. I wasn’t orignally going to go because I had already bought my ticket to see them in Orlando with Panic at the Disco. But I figured, because it was a show in Gainesville, and the opening bands were people I’d never heard of, I thought I should give it a go. Nevermind that I had two tests the next day, and my parents were “in town”, I simply had to go. So I contacted everyone I knew, and low and behold Yellowcard was playing the same night in Tallahassee. However, my roommate, Marah, and I are soulmates, so she was down for an adventure. We left the T-Town Wednesday headed for the land of the gay-tors. The club was surprisingly easy to find. We arrived and were not immediately banded as “of age”. I was offended. The Market Street Pub was interestingly enough pretty empty for a PHANTOM PLANET show. I just attributed it to the fact that Gainesville is inordinately more lame than Tallahassee. We loitered about for a bit, making fun of the occasional girl, calling “dibs” on the rare grandfather, the usual. The first band played. They were pretty good (probably because they were from Ohio). The lead singer was REALLY cute, but very awkward on stage. The next band had some problems with soundcheck. It looked to me like their lead singer was a bit of a diva, but who knows. The first song seemed normal enough, and then they started singing about “their kingdom” and “coming home to you (lord)”. Marah and I looked at each other. “Is this Jesus rock?” Marah asked me. OF course! It all made sense. All of the little kids, the couple on a date, the middle-aged women out for a drink after work, the fathers rocking out, Matt’s future wife (a grandma), it finally added up. We decided this band must be a group of the local church's youth group leaders, who decided to get together and form a band. Why they were opening for Phantom Planet was beyond us. However, we couldn’t take the Jesus Rock for much longer so we went outside for some “fresh air” (I.e. me pulling an Abby, and Marah asking “Are you Serious?” about 80 times). We made some new friends: two crazy goth kids, one of which thought that Gainesville was the BEST place in the world, but both had NO idea who Phantom Planet was, and were confused as to why someone would travel all the way from Tallahassee to see them. I resisted the urge to smack some sense into them. Upon our re-entry into the bar we were called “bad girls” by the bouncer. I think he might have thought we were sneaking drinks with our bands that read “UNDERAGE”, but who knows. ( We weren’t, unfortunately.) We made our way to the front of the stage. I felt weird because I was basically standing on top of Alex while he was setting up his equipment. (For the Ohioans, imagine Phantom Planet playing at the Orange Street, that’s what it was like, except the bar was bigger, and nicer). Phantom Planet played their set, with occasional input from the audience. Alex more or less played “Meantime” for me. Which was amazing. I watched Sam play the bass line with such intensity I probably scared him, but it was amazing to see him play something that he’d probably written, and I knew because I’d learned it (turns out Darryl was right). The only downfall to the whole affair was the girl with the nappy hair (always) next to me who thought that dancing required you to look like you were having a seizure. It would have been hilarious if it weren’t so annoying. After the show, I bought my pre-order of the new album (April 15th). And waited patiently for the band to finish putting away their things. After talking for a while with the girl who liked my shirt (the Ok Go one that they all signed, except Andy Duncan, who Andy Ross signed in his place of), Darren shashayed over my way. I politely asked for a picture. In the midst of our posing extravaganza, Darren put his arm around me. So I couldn’t help it, I ended up hugging him (you know the drunk hug you give most of your girlfriends in pictures when you pose), which probably freaked him out, but instead he said “Oh so we’re dating now?” and I said “Yeah, don’t you know, we’re going to the prom together” (in the spirit of my underage band). After some idle chit chat, he mentioned wanting something to drink, so I pointed out the water cooler I’d been drinking from the whole night. He returned and in mid-drink, I mentioned something about how I’d been drinking the water all night because I couldn’t drink anything else, and he sort of snorted and made the “one second” gesture. After recovering from his near death experience he mentioned something about how some guys at the bar were buying them shots, and he’d try to sneak us some. All of this was after I had mentioned Maryam and Stephanie’s video they made for me at the Sting concert on 4/20/05 (interesting). I also mentioned the guys staying with us in Tallahassee (this was when I thought they were going to Birmingham the next night, not Orlando, they really should update their myspace.) Unfortunately, the bouncer decided that 1:30 a.m. was closing time (didn’t he get the memo?), and Marah and I didn’t want to look like even bigger hanger-ons, so we left. I was angry, but I have another chance in April in Orlando, and that time, we’ll be staying in Orlando, plus, I’ll be able to drink. It should be a more successful trip.