Rochester Concert Recap/Review/Pics
Rochester Concert Recap/Review/Pics
Hi all! First, I wanted to apologize, I'm Clare626 on twitter, and I know my tweet about the knee thing confused a lot of people last night. I hope it makes more sense now that there are videos.
Maybe this will make up for it?
I'm including a few pictures, more can be found on my photobucket: http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f31/cchetherington/AI%20Concert%20Rochester%208-15-09/
Picture Disclaimer: We got a new digital camera very recently and so we didn't figure out how to zoom all the way in until the middle of Danny's set, so sorry for no close pictures of the earlier people. Also, our seats were kinda far back on the floor so even zoomed all the way in, the quality is not great. We often had heads/hands/cameras in the way and missed a lot of great shots (like almost all of Hey Jude and DSB).
My husband and I got to the Blue Cross Arena around 5:30ish, and the lobby was already packed with people. It looked like there were quite a few Danny fans there (which seemed to be confirmed by the screams for him during the concert). I was impressed by the age range of the people there. I knew from reading other accounts that there would be little kids and grandparents, but it was still surprising in person.
Once we were seated, the wait began. Our row was not a very chatty bunch. I was sitting next to a group that I'm fairly certain was grandmother, mother and daughter. They seemed to be general AI fans and not there for anyone in particular. On the other side of use were a pair of young-ish girls who appeared to have come with a larger group but couldn't get seats near the rest of the group. These girls were pretty obvious Adam fans given the blood curdling screams they emitted every time his picture came up on the screens during the Ford commercials.
One thing I enjoyed during the Ford commercials: there was one Anoop fan who screamed for him when his pictures came on, and gradually, as the commercials repeated, more and more people joined in with her. It was nice to hear the build up there. It never got to Adam levels, but I was glad someone else was getting appreciation.
And then the show started!
Sarver: I really enjoyed his set. He has so much energy and really tried to get the crowd going. I did notice what someone else mentioned, that people would stand up as he moved toward them on the stage and then sit down again. For the most part though, the floor stayed standing after that for most of the show, as far as I could see. The people in the bowl seating stayed seated for most of the show, but the section closest to the stage did stand when Sarver asked them to.
Megan: I thought Megan sounded surprisingly great on her first song. I was never a fan on the show, but at the end of her first song, I turned to my husband and said “wow, she's so much better live!” On her second song I though she sounded more strained. She really knows how to work the stage though! I didn't get any pictures of Megan's, Scott's or Lil's sets. After seeing how awful the Sarver ones were, I temporarily gave up on picutres.
Scott: I was very impressed by Scott's piano playing. I've never been a fan of his vioce, and this did not change that, but that man sure can play! The crowd did seem to enjoy his jokes, although there was a lot of semi-nervous laughter at the blind jokes. It sounded like “I shouldn't be laughing at this...but he's the one making the jokes...so that makes it okay...right?”
Lil: I liked her new hair! It was long and curly and I though it worked really well on her. People seemed pretty in to Single Ladies.
Anoop: He is such a sexy man. His set got the crowd really going after the lull of the last 3 acts. I was remembering why he was my original favorite from the auditions. (Adam quickly won me over once the top 13 started, but my first votes went to Anoop.)
Matt: Wow. Just wow. Now I get why the judges saved him. He was incredible. The crowd was screaming quite a bit during his set and most people were up on their feet (at least on the floor). I really hope he gets signed soon! I want to go to his concert when he's on tour.
Group number: So much fun! My husband decided to go get food during this and so I have zero pictures (he wanted to beat the crowds before intermission). He got back for the end and took one picture right as they turned off the lights. I tried to take pictures, but when people were standing, I just got pictures of the backs/tops of people's heads. In any case, Anoop and Matt just unbuttoned their jackets last night, they didn't take them off. We were so completely lacking in epic! WTH!
Intermission...my row was once again very boring and so I have no good stories here.
Allison: I loved her! She is so adorable. The crowd seemed to have lost all of the momentum from Matt's set/the group number over intermission, but by Barracuda people were up and cheering again. I think part of what got everyone going again was her banter though. She asked us if we were excited for the last 3 guys and then named them. Danny got quite loud cheers, but the noise swelled for Adam and continued at the same volume for Kris.
Danny: He sure does know how to get the crowd going. People seemed really in to it. Especially the girls sitting next to us, who spent almost his entire set holding their hands up in the air in the heart shape. The little speech wasn't as bad as I though it would be. I can't say I appreciated it...but it wasn't horrible. Also, during Danny's set, my husband pointed to the aisle and the end of our row. This tiny elderly woman was standing there, just waving her cell phone back and forth, totally entranced. It was kind of adorable.
During Danny's set, my husband was sitting down playing with the camera and finding the macro setting! So, for Adam and Kris, we have close shots!
Adam: As soon as Danny's set was over, the noise became deafening. I think that might be literally deafening, because I spent Adam's entire set thinking he sounded like he was on helium, but when I see videos, that's obviously not how he sounded. The girls next to us were apparently trying out for a horror movie, because their screaming was intense! The woman in the row in front of us kept on turning around and giving them dirty looks, and actually told them to tone it down at least twice.
There was a decided lack of mic stand humping/stroking on WLL. My husband said “aww man, I wanted to see him have sex with the mic stand!” He was disappointed he didn't get any great pictures of that.
I can't give a good appraisal of Adam's singing, because, as I said, my hearing was doing very strange things. His dancing though! That man is just sex on legs. I can't think of another way to describe him.
I laughed out loud when I saw his face in this one:
Kris: My hearing was still all fucked up for his set (he also sounded like he was on helium, just not quite as bad as Adam). He was so great though! Some parts of the crowd started sitting down during ANS, but they pretty quickly stood up again. On Hey Jude so many people sang along! It was so great! The girls next to us were once again doing the heart hands thing and the I love you sign (for all I know they were doing that during Adam too, I honestly wasn't paying any attention). There was little/no Kradam at the end of Hey Jude. Just Adam patting Kris' shoulder. After the concert, my husband commented that it almost seemed like they were trying to not interact or stand close together. (He noticed this because I had given him special instructions to get Kradam pictures, but that was really hard to do since they were standing to far apart!)
The guitar duet was soooo good!
DSB: As we've already established, there was a decided lack of epic in DSB, and just a very weird “dance.” We did get one good Kradam pic at least!
Other than that though, like I said, it was like they were trying not to stand too close:
And this one is just too cute to not include in the post:
So then we filed out and went out to the fences. (I tweeted about the dance as my husband pushed me down the aisle...can I use that as my excuse for the incoherence?) We had to go all the way to the far end of the fences because at the beginning it was like 4-5 people deep. We went all the way to the end of the fences and stood behind a group of 3 girls who I think were Danny stans, and a group of kids there with mom and grandma. The kids were adorable. They were discussing who was the best, and most agreed on Adam. One of the kids was a boy around maybe 10ish (I'm terrible at guessing kid's ages), who would say “hey someone's coming! I think it's Megan” every time someone started walking down the fence on the other side. It was kind of hilarious, because it never was, it was always some security guard or staff member. The grandmother was talking to another group of people close by saying “Last year everyone came out except David Cook. He was such a jerk!” So I started thinking uh oh, what if Adam is the only one who doesn't come out this year... I should probably be running defense here. So, when someone from that group said “oh, well, as long as Adam comes out, I'll be happy.” I jumped in and said that he hadn't for the past couple of shows because he'd been sick. The grandmother looked at me like “...and?” but everyone else seemed to accept that as a possible reason he might not come out, and just looked disappointed.
Right next to the Arena, there was a Jamaican festival going on. (I think Aaron Spears tweeted about going to it during the afternoon.) Some people from the festival had parked along the street where the gates were set up for the signings. But the street was now blocked off with gates. This one guy got in his SUV, made some angry hand gestures at the security guards, and then a few minutes later just started driving in to the crowd and up to the gate. It was a little scary. He was going somewhat slow, but still, a big SUV was coming at us, and we were crowded against the gate already and couldn't really go anywhere. Security got everyone out of the way and moved the gates for him so he could drive out. I was a little annoyed they didn't do anything to him for driving in to the crowd like that...
The first person to come out was Matt. He walked all the way to our end of the fences and worked his way backwards. I am far too polite and was not fast enough in getting my program out there for his signature, so I didn't get it. Matt was moving fast! He wasn't really talking to anyone at our end, he was just signing and moving. I was actually impressed with his speed. Due to the speed, I didn't have time to take a picture of him. Every time I'd hold down the button to take a picture, he'd moved by the time the camera went off. (Stupid cheap camera ...)
Next out was Megan. The little boy in front of us was fairly excited. Megan was taking pictures with people as she went. Once again, I was not fast enough, and I did not get a signature from Megan.
Then came Kris! My husband, knowing how much I wanted Kris' signature grabbed the program from me and stuck it out and I got a signature! I also got a semi decent picture of him! He was so cute in person! I like exclamation points!
Next came Lil. She was so sweet, taking pictures with everyone.
And then Allison! She was also moving slower and taking lots of pictures. More people crowded in on the fence at this point, especially kids. By this time lots more kids had come down to our end of the fences, and they were all so excited to see Allison. I couldn't get a clear picture of her because there were so many people crowded in, so I took leap and just held my camera up and took a picture:
Last out was Scott, he made it about half way down, and then suddenly turned around and left. Everyone at my end was just going “...wft?” And then security announced that there would be no more signing and we should leave.
And that was the end of my idol concert experience. Sorry for the TL;DR.
Hi all! First, I wanted to apologize, I'm Clare626 on twitter, and I know my tweet about the knee thing confused a lot of people last night. I hope it makes more sense now that there are videos.
Maybe this will make up for it?
I'm including a few pictures, more can be found on my photobucket: http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f31/cchetherington/AI%20Concert%20Rochester%208-15-09/
Picture Disclaimer: We got a new digital camera very recently and so we didn't figure out how to zoom all the way in until the middle of Danny's set, so sorry for no close pictures of the earlier people. Also, our seats were kinda far back on the floor so even zoomed all the way in, the quality is not great. We often had heads/hands/cameras in the way and missed a lot of great shots (like almost all of Hey Jude and DSB).
My husband and I got to the Blue Cross Arena around 5:30ish, and the lobby was already packed with people. It looked like there were quite a few Danny fans there (which seemed to be confirmed by the screams for him during the concert). I was impressed by the age range of the people there. I knew from reading other accounts that there would be little kids and grandparents, but it was still surprising in person.
Once we were seated, the wait began. Our row was not a very chatty bunch. I was sitting next to a group that I'm fairly certain was grandmother, mother and daughter. They seemed to be general AI fans and not there for anyone in particular. On the other side of use were a pair of young-ish girls who appeared to have come with a larger group but couldn't get seats near the rest of the group. These girls were pretty obvious Adam fans given the blood curdling screams they emitted every time his picture came up on the screens during the Ford commercials.
One thing I enjoyed during the Ford commercials: there was one Anoop fan who screamed for him when his pictures came on, and gradually, as the commercials repeated, more and more people joined in with her. It was nice to hear the build up there. It never got to Adam levels, but I was glad someone else was getting appreciation.
And then the show started!
Sarver: I really enjoyed his set. He has so much energy and really tried to get the crowd going. I did notice what someone else mentioned, that people would stand up as he moved toward them on the stage and then sit down again. For the most part though, the floor stayed standing after that for most of the show, as far as I could see. The people in the bowl seating stayed seated for most of the show, but the section closest to the stage did stand when Sarver asked them to.
Megan: I thought Megan sounded surprisingly great on her first song. I was never a fan on the show, but at the end of her first song, I turned to my husband and said “wow, she's so much better live!” On her second song I though she sounded more strained. She really knows how to work the stage though! I didn't get any pictures of Megan's, Scott's or Lil's sets. After seeing how awful the Sarver ones were, I temporarily gave up on picutres.
Scott: I was very impressed by Scott's piano playing. I've never been a fan of his vioce, and this did not change that, but that man sure can play! The crowd did seem to enjoy his jokes, although there was a lot of semi-nervous laughter at the blind jokes. It sounded like “I shouldn't be laughing at this...but he's the one making the jokes...so that makes it okay...right?”
Lil: I liked her new hair! It was long and curly and I though it worked really well on her. People seemed pretty in to Single Ladies.
Anoop: He is such a sexy man. His set got the crowd really going after the lull of the last 3 acts. I was remembering why he was my original favorite from the auditions. (Adam quickly won me over once the top 13 started, but my first votes went to Anoop.)
Matt: Wow. Just wow. Now I get why the judges saved him. He was incredible. The crowd was screaming quite a bit during his set and most people were up on their feet (at least on the floor). I really hope he gets signed soon! I want to go to his concert when he's on tour.
Group number: So much fun! My husband decided to go get food during this and so I have zero pictures (he wanted to beat the crowds before intermission). He got back for the end and took one picture right as they turned off the lights. I tried to take pictures, but when people were standing, I just got pictures of the backs/tops of people's heads. In any case, Anoop and Matt just unbuttoned their jackets last night, they didn't take them off. We were so completely lacking in epic! WTH!
Intermission...my row was once again very boring and so I have no good stories here.
Allison: I loved her! She is so adorable. The crowd seemed to have lost all of the momentum from Matt's set/the group number over intermission, but by Barracuda people were up and cheering again. I think part of what got everyone going again was her banter though. She asked us if we were excited for the last 3 guys and then named them. Danny got quite loud cheers, but the noise swelled for Adam and continued at the same volume for Kris.
Danny: He sure does know how to get the crowd going. People seemed really in to it. Especially the girls sitting next to us, who spent almost his entire set holding their hands up in the air in the heart shape. The little speech wasn't as bad as I though it would be. I can't say I appreciated it...but it wasn't horrible. Also, during Danny's set, my husband pointed to the aisle and the end of our row. This tiny elderly woman was standing there, just waving her cell phone back and forth, totally entranced. It was kind of adorable.
During Danny's set, my husband was sitting down playing with the camera and finding the macro setting! So, for Adam and Kris, we have close shots!
Adam: As soon as Danny's set was over, the noise became deafening. I think that might be literally deafening, because I spent Adam's entire set thinking he sounded like he was on helium, but when I see videos, that's obviously not how he sounded. The girls next to us were apparently trying out for a horror movie, because their screaming was intense! The woman in the row in front of us kept on turning around and giving them dirty looks, and actually told them to tone it down at least twice.
There was a decided lack of mic stand humping/stroking on WLL. My husband said “aww man, I wanted to see him have sex with the mic stand!” He was disappointed he didn't get any great pictures of that.
I can't give a good appraisal of Adam's singing, because, as I said, my hearing was doing very strange things. His dancing though! That man is just sex on legs. I can't think of another way to describe him.
I laughed out loud when I saw his face in this one:
Kris: My hearing was still all fucked up for his set (he also sounded like he was on helium, just not quite as bad as Adam). He was so great though! Some parts of the crowd started sitting down during ANS, but they pretty quickly stood up again. On Hey Jude so many people sang along! It was so great! The girls next to us were once again doing the heart hands thing and the I love you sign (for all I know they were doing that during Adam too, I honestly wasn't paying any attention). There was little/no Kradam at the end of Hey Jude. Just Adam patting Kris' shoulder. After the concert, my husband commented that it almost seemed like they were trying to not interact or stand close together. (He noticed this because I had given him special instructions to get Kradam pictures, but that was really hard to do since they were standing to far apart!)
The guitar duet was soooo good!
DSB: As we've already established, there was a decided lack of epic in DSB, and just a very weird “dance.” We did get one good Kradam pic at least!
Other than that though, like I said, it was like they were trying not to stand too close:
And this one is just too cute to not include in the post:
So then we filed out and went out to the fences. (I tweeted about the dance as my husband pushed me down the aisle...can I use that as my excuse for the incoherence?) We had to go all the way to the far end of the fences because at the beginning it was like 4-5 people deep. We went all the way to the end of the fences and stood behind a group of 3 girls who I think were Danny stans, and a group of kids there with mom and grandma. The kids were adorable. They were discussing who was the best, and most agreed on Adam. One of the kids was a boy around maybe 10ish (I'm terrible at guessing kid's ages), who would say “hey someone's coming! I think it's Megan” every time someone started walking down the fence on the other side. It was kind of hilarious, because it never was, it was always some security guard or staff member. The grandmother was talking to another group of people close by saying “Last year everyone came out except David Cook. He was such a jerk!” So I started thinking uh oh, what if Adam is the only one who doesn't come out this year... I should probably be running defense here. So, when someone from that group said “oh, well, as long as Adam comes out, I'll be happy.” I jumped in and said that he hadn't for the past couple of shows because he'd been sick. The grandmother looked at me like “...and?” but everyone else seemed to accept that as a possible reason he might not come out, and just looked disappointed.
Right next to the Arena, there was a Jamaican festival going on. (I think Aaron Spears tweeted about going to it during the afternoon.) Some people from the festival had parked along the street where the gates were set up for the signings. But the street was now blocked off with gates. This one guy got in his SUV, made some angry hand gestures at the security guards, and then a few minutes later just started driving in to the crowd and up to the gate. It was a little scary. He was going somewhat slow, but still, a big SUV was coming at us, and we were crowded against the gate already and couldn't really go anywhere. Security got everyone out of the way and moved the gates for him so he could drive out. I was a little annoyed they didn't do anything to him for driving in to the crowd like that...
The first person to come out was Matt. He walked all the way to our end of the fences and worked his way backwards. I am far too polite and was not fast enough in getting my program out there for his signature, so I didn't get it. Matt was moving fast! He wasn't really talking to anyone at our end, he was just signing and moving. I was actually impressed with his speed. Due to the speed, I didn't have time to take a picture of him. Every time I'd hold down the button to take a picture, he'd moved by the time the camera went off. (Stupid cheap camera ...)
Next out was Megan. The little boy in front of us was fairly excited. Megan was taking pictures with people as she went. Once again, I was not fast enough, and I did not get a signature from Megan.
Then came Kris! My husband, knowing how much I wanted Kris' signature grabbed the program from me and stuck it out and I got a signature! I also got a semi decent picture of him! He was so cute in person! I like exclamation points!
Next came Lil. She was so sweet, taking pictures with everyone.
And then Allison! She was also moving slower and taking lots of pictures. More people crowded in on the fence at this point, especially kids. By this time lots more kids had come down to our end of the fences, and they were all so excited to see Allison. I couldn't get a clear picture of her because there were so many people crowded in, so I took leap and just held my camera up and took a picture:
Last out was Scott, he made it about half way down, and then suddenly turned around and left. Everyone at my end was just going “...wft?” And then security announced that there would be no more signing and we should leave.
And that was the end of my idol concert experience. Sorry for the TL;DR.