most amazing night thus far...
the internet wasn't working here late last night, so i was mad that i'd forget even one of the little details of my amazing day/night...
we were thinking that yesterday would have been our lazy, stay in day... but it definitely didn't turn out that way. we hung out for a little while in the room. sarah had to go to the bank on grand river, and i needed money from the atm anyway, so we planned on spending the day over there checking out the stores that jeff told us about. we were going to take the bus to brody and find him over there.
sarah, danielle, and i waited for the bus and danced around a little while. we took the bus over to brody and they actually had great music playing and activities going on and food. we actually saw jeff right there walking around so we didn't have to explore for his room. we walked down to grand river and checked out all of these amazing stores down there. this one store, cool waves, has the best clothes for clubbing and parties... they were handing our mardi gras beads outside so we all had our beads on the rest of the day. after that we walked around urban outfitters and i made up my wish lists. our friend dane from the boy's side of our floor had talked to danielle about meeting us at starbucks so we went over there to meet him, and headed back to barnes and nobles because i had a gift card from my grad party to use up. i found the new allure, bought spark notes for frankenstein, an 80's cd that was on sale for six bucks, and a bunch of fun cards. dane ended up leaving to go back to his room before we left nobles, so it was back to the four of us.
we were starving so we walked up and down grand river looking for a pizza place... because frankly we were in college for a couple of days and hadn't had the essential pizza yet. we found a cottage inn so we ordered a large pizza for the four of us and ate it across the street in a little park area. afterwards we headed back towards our dorm, stopping at 7-11 for slurpees, and made the trek to holmes. i saw aaron conner on his bike and said "hi conner" and he said "what's up" but i doubt he knew who i was.
by the time we got back into the room we were about to die, we were so exhausted from the walking and being up late from the night before. sarah and i just crashed on our beds while dane and danielle sat between our beds and jeff sat in my chair by my desk, but he ended up getting into my bed to watch tv. danielle left to get dressed for the concert, dane went back to his room, and sarah and i got ready while jeff was still here. we walked with a group of people over to the party@at the aud, where they had a big club fair. there wasn't anything i really wanted to look at, so jeff and i just walked around and got some of the free stuff.
we didn't stay there too long because i had been obsessing about getting over to the concert really early so i could meet matt nathanson and ari hest. we got to the international center around 7:20 and there were actually some people already there standing around the stage outside. as we got closer to the table next to the stage that had their cds and t-shirts, i saw fucking matt nathanson standing right behind the table getting it set up! ari was on the other end of the table, but matt was practically two feet away from me! no one was flipping out over them, or talking to them which made me think that they didn't realize who they were. but there was this group of girls just standing by the table not doing anything, so i gave danielle my camera and told her to be ready to take a picture, and i walk right up to matt nathanson.
"hi matt"
"hey there" :::walking back and forth by the stage carrying stuff:::
"can i get a picture with you?"
"sure, just hold on one second" :::carries stuff to the stage. comes back::: "okay here we go"
"can ari get in the picture too?"
"yeah sure! ari get over here"
"hehe can i stand in the middle?"
"sure... here we go. yeah ari and i love to hold each other"
:::danielle takes picture. i thank them and walk back in cloud nine jumping around::::
some girls got really mad because ari and matt started walking away to get something to eat and these girls were like "hey can't we get a picture too?!" and matt said they'd be back later but when they came back the show was about to start.... needless to say, they were pissed. and i think that i was the only one the entire night who got a picture with the both of them together. i bought two of matt's cds and got one of the free postcards, and then sat down on the grass with everyone else. i was on cloud nine, soooo starstruck. while we waited for them to get back i realized that i should have gotten matt's autograph on the postcard, so when they got back there were a lot more people standing around for the concert but they didn't realize that matt and ari were standing right there. so sarah and jeff and danielle dare me to just walk back up there and get his autograph, which i gladly do.
::running up to the table:::
"hey matt, sorry i'm just a little obsessed. i'm stef, can i get your autograph?"
"yeah no problem stef!"
"yeah, it's actually funny. i found your music because i was looking at howie day stuff on amazon.com and under the "other artists to check out" your name was there so i downloaded your stuff and i love it"
"no way! that's the shit, that really works? haha that's great"
"yeah, i love it! thank you!"
:::walking back starstruck:::
sarah says "look what you started!" and i look back and see this mob around matt. obviously they didn't even realize it was him until i walked up and talked with him. i felt special.
ari played first. i knew a couple of songs by him, but other than that i didn't know much. he was fucking amazing. we had the best view of him on the stage... about five people back from the stage, right in the center... for the mostpart he played with this bass guitar player, but for a little part he played just by himself. that's when he sang "come home" which i know forwards and backwards. the most amazingly beautiful part of ari's performance was when he sang the song "hallelujah" from "shrek". it was the most beautiful thing i've ever heard live. it was so intimate. so yeah, ari is amazing. and during his performance i went over to the table and got two of his cds.
matt nathanson is the most hysterical guy i've ever seen/heard. he's so vulgar and his humor is so simple that everyone gets it and everyone laughs. and the most amazing part about it was that he'd go through this who storytellers kind of thing where he'd explain what the song was about (example: "okay so this song is about this girl who i was dating but she made out with all of these other guys.... and she was perfect and whatever but there was a hole inside of her... and that hole was that she wasn't able to have matt nathanson sexually..") but after that he would start his songs and they were these sweet, wonderful songs. he was so versatile. in the middle of his performance he would break out into random covers, like the prince song "starfish and coffee", and made sure everyone knew the chorus so we could have a sing-along. at the end he did the best version of "livin' on a prayer". everyone was singing along, it was such an amazing experience. i remember last summer on our lake powell boat trip, anne was telling me about how that song is the song that they always play at parties and at the bars in east lansing... it's like our theme. so the fact that he ended with that made it so special.
it was the most wonderfully intimate concert i've ever been to. just being able to talk with the guys before the concert and getting pictures. it made the whole thing feel as if we were watching these guys that we knew already... and we were just so proud to see them do this kick-ass job. after the show people flocked over to the table to meet them and get their cds, so i'm glad that we got all of that out of our system. between the four of us i think we got all of the cds we could have gotten, so when we got back later i put them all on my computer...
so after the concert danielle talked to her friend jeremy who's in his third year but he's considered a senior credit-wise. he picked us up off of the street by one of the dorm buildings and went to his friends house. i had my first college drinking experience there. didn't get too drunk or anything, just a little buzz.
jeff sarah and i ended up walking back to holmes, but we stopped in at burger king around midnight to get something to eat...
i'm off with sarah and her parents to get some ice cream and getting my pictures developed. oh, matt and ari, how i love thee!
we were thinking that yesterday would have been our lazy, stay in day... but it definitely didn't turn out that way. we hung out for a little while in the room. sarah had to go to the bank on grand river, and i needed money from the atm anyway, so we planned on spending the day over there checking out the stores that jeff told us about. we were going to take the bus to brody and find him over there.
sarah, danielle, and i waited for the bus and danced around a little while. we took the bus over to brody and they actually had great music playing and activities going on and food. we actually saw jeff right there walking around so we didn't have to explore for his room. we walked down to grand river and checked out all of these amazing stores down there. this one store, cool waves, has the best clothes for clubbing and parties... they were handing our mardi gras beads outside so we all had our beads on the rest of the day. after that we walked around urban outfitters and i made up my wish lists. our friend dane from the boy's side of our floor had talked to danielle about meeting us at starbucks so we went over there to meet him, and headed back to barnes and nobles because i had a gift card from my grad party to use up. i found the new allure, bought spark notes for frankenstein, an 80's cd that was on sale for six bucks, and a bunch of fun cards. dane ended up leaving to go back to his room before we left nobles, so it was back to the four of us.
we were starving so we walked up and down grand river looking for a pizza place... because frankly we were in college for a couple of days and hadn't had the essential pizza yet. we found a cottage inn so we ordered a large pizza for the four of us and ate it across the street in a little park area. afterwards we headed back towards our dorm, stopping at 7-11 for slurpees, and made the trek to holmes. i saw aaron conner on his bike and said "hi conner" and he said "what's up" but i doubt he knew who i was.
by the time we got back into the room we were about to die, we were so exhausted from the walking and being up late from the night before. sarah and i just crashed on our beds while dane and danielle sat between our beds and jeff sat in my chair by my desk, but he ended up getting into my bed to watch tv. danielle left to get dressed for the concert, dane went back to his room, and sarah and i got ready while jeff was still here. we walked with a group of people over to the party@at the aud, where they had a big club fair. there wasn't anything i really wanted to look at, so jeff and i just walked around and got some of the free stuff.
we didn't stay there too long because i had been obsessing about getting over to the concert really early so i could meet matt nathanson and ari hest. we got to the international center around 7:20 and there were actually some people already there standing around the stage outside. as we got closer to the table next to the stage that had their cds and t-shirts, i saw fucking matt nathanson standing right behind the table getting it set up! ari was on the other end of the table, but matt was practically two feet away from me! no one was flipping out over them, or talking to them which made me think that they didn't realize who they were. but there was this group of girls just standing by the table not doing anything, so i gave danielle my camera and told her to be ready to take a picture, and i walk right up to matt nathanson.
"hi matt"
"hey there" :::walking back and forth by the stage carrying stuff:::
"can i get a picture with you?"
"sure, just hold on one second" :::carries stuff to the stage. comes back::: "okay here we go"
"can ari get in the picture too?"
"yeah sure! ari get over here"
"hehe can i stand in the middle?"
"sure... here we go. yeah ari and i love to hold each other"
:::danielle takes picture. i thank them and walk back in cloud nine jumping around::::
some girls got really mad because ari and matt started walking away to get something to eat and these girls were like "hey can't we get a picture too?!" and matt said they'd be back later but when they came back the show was about to start.... needless to say, they were pissed. and i think that i was the only one the entire night who got a picture with the both of them together. i bought two of matt's cds and got one of the free postcards, and then sat down on the grass with everyone else. i was on cloud nine, soooo starstruck. while we waited for them to get back i realized that i should have gotten matt's autograph on the postcard, so when they got back there were a lot more people standing around for the concert but they didn't realize that matt and ari were standing right there. so sarah and jeff and danielle dare me to just walk back up there and get his autograph, which i gladly do.
::running up to the table:::
"hey matt, sorry i'm just a little obsessed. i'm stef, can i get your autograph?"
"yeah no problem stef!"
"yeah, it's actually funny. i found your music because i was looking at howie day stuff on amazon.com and under the "other artists to check out" your name was there so i downloaded your stuff and i love it"
"no way! that's the shit, that really works? haha that's great"
"yeah, i love it! thank you!"
:::walking back starstruck:::
sarah says "look what you started!" and i look back and see this mob around matt. obviously they didn't even realize it was him until i walked up and talked with him. i felt special.
ari played first. i knew a couple of songs by him, but other than that i didn't know much. he was fucking amazing. we had the best view of him on the stage... about five people back from the stage, right in the center... for the mostpart he played with this bass guitar player, but for a little part he played just by himself. that's when he sang "come home" which i know forwards and backwards. the most amazingly beautiful part of ari's performance was when he sang the song "hallelujah" from "shrek". it was the most beautiful thing i've ever heard live. it was so intimate. so yeah, ari is amazing. and during his performance i went over to the table and got two of his cds.
matt nathanson is the most hysterical guy i've ever seen/heard. he's so vulgar and his humor is so simple that everyone gets it and everyone laughs. and the most amazing part about it was that he'd go through this who storytellers kind of thing where he'd explain what the song was about (example: "okay so this song is about this girl who i was dating but she made out with all of these other guys.... and she was perfect and whatever but there was a hole inside of her... and that hole was that she wasn't able to have matt nathanson sexually..") but after that he would start his songs and they were these sweet, wonderful songs. he was so versatile. in the middle of his performance he would break out into random covers, like the prince song "starfish and coffee", and made sure everyone knew the chorus so we could have a sing-along. at the end he did the best version of "livin' on a prayer". everyone was singing along, it was such an amazing experience. i remember last summer on our lake powell boat trip, anne was telling me about how that song is the song that they always play at parties and at the bars in east lansing... it's like our theme. so the fact that he ended with that made it so special.
it was the most wonderfully intimate concert i've ever been to. just being able to talk with the guys before the concert and getting pictures. it made the whole thing feel as if we were watching these guys that we knew already... and we were just so proud to see them do this kick-ass job. after the show people flocked over to the table to meet them and get their cds, so i'm glad that we got all of that out of our system. between the four of us i think we got all of the cds we could have gotten, so when we got back later i put them all on my computer...
so after the concert danielle talked to her friend jeremy who's in his third year but he's considered a senior credit-wise. he picked us up off of the street by one of the dorm buildings and went to his friends house. i had my first college drinking experience there. didn't get too drunk or anything, just a little buzz.
jeff sarah and i ended up walking back to holmes, but we stopped in at burger king around midnight to get something to eat...
i'm off with sarah and her parents to get some ice cream and getting my pictures developed. oh, matt and ari, how i love thee!