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Ok, so this is my Erasure concert post. As I mentioned at the time, I wasn't planning on posting this before Karen had a chance to, because this was her night and I didn't want to steal her thunder. However, she is unable to post, and has requested that I go ahead with mine. I wish that she was able to complete her post as this really is her story to tell, and also because she is a much better writer than I am. All I can manage this morning is stream of consciousness.
I don't say this very often, but if you're planning on skimming past this, please don't. Take the time to read it. This night was something that was very important to me, and I would like to share it.
So, without further ado...
This story, for anyone know doesn't know it, requires a bit of background. Here is the readers' digest version.
The Background
I have two friends, blakeh and kamigirl25 (Blake and Karen) who live in Rockford, IL. I originally met them because of similarities in music taste, most notably Erasure. Blake added me years back and I didn't want to add him back for the longest time, because I'm quite leery of strange out-of-state guys adding me to their friends lists. I decided after six weeks that he had a girlfriend and he liked Erasure, so maybe he wasn't that creepy after all. And thus, a friendship was born.
Somewhere along the line, our relationship morphed from "livejournal friendship" to "real friendship." I have only had the opportunity to spend time with them every six months or so in the last few years, but I consider them good friends, and I hope they feel the same about me.
Karen was diagnosed about 4 years ago with Stage IV terminal breast cancer. The survival rate for a diagnosis like this one is almost nonexistant. She currently has mets in her liver, and is in liver failure at the hospital with a life expectancy of weeks at most.
In April of this year, Blake and Karen were married.
Through a series of happy events which I will probably post about at another time due to time constraints, I was fortunate enough to make the email acquaintance of Tracey, who is Vince Clarke's wife, Vince Clarke being half of Erasure. Through her, I also began an email friendship with Tonya, who is Tracey's sister and who is also very connected to the band.
They were aware of Karen's condition, and though I felt kind of guilty asking, I screwed up my courage and asked if Karen could possibly go backstage after their upcoming Chicago acoustic show and meet the band. Erasure is by far Karen's favorite band, as it is mine, and I knew it would mean a lot to her. Meeting Erasure has always been one of those pie-in-the-sky things that she wanted to do before she died, but never expected it to happen by any means.
Tonya, Tracey, and Michael (Tonya's husband) had it arranged before I managed to blink twice. And not just that...Blake and I would be able to accompany Karen. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out, and being able to break the happy news to Karen was one of the best moments of my life. I chose to do it in a livejournal post that only she and Blake could see, and I just sat and waited with a big grin on my face for her to read it.
In the weeks leading up to the concert, I began getting very anxious. Would Karen feel well enough to enjoy herself? Would she even survive until then? Would my car break down on the drive from St. Paul to Chicago? I handled the last concern by taking the bus down a day early....just in case the bus broke down, too. All I could do with my other fears was wait and see.
We had another concern about seating for Karen. A week or so prior to the concert, it became apparent that Karen would be wheelchair-bound for the event. This posed a problem because the venue was quite small, and was general admission. Blake called the theater, and received a rather gruff answer of "show up and talk to the bouncer." When I heard this I was admittedly put out a little bit.
My own big concern leading up to the concert was a bit more personal. Being the anxious type of person that I am, I began to have second doubts as to my role in falicitating this event. I won't go into the details, but it had mostly to do with the standard altruism debate; was I doing this for her, or for me just so after she died I could prove to myself that I was a good friend? I know this sounds silly, but this kept me up at nights.
I had also been very stressed at home, between work and packing for a move. I had been burning the candle at both ends with 60-hour weeks on top of packing for quite some time, and as I boarded the bus I was looking forward not only to the concert, but to spending some time unplugged from the rest of my life. I knew as soon as I returned I'd have to plug right back in again, and this would be a much-needed break.
The Day Itself
I got a call from Blake on Thursday morning, letting me know that him and Karen would be in town that afternoon. They had had some trouble obtaining a handicapped-accessible room, but finally located one. I met them at their hotel around 4:30, and we gabbed for a while. We tried to figure out what we were going to say to them in advance, and universally decided that we had no idea, and that we should just go with the flow.
I had brought two thank you cards with me, one for Andy and one for Vince, and we spent some time trying to pen up messages that were meaningful but yet not overly corny. Blake had the smartass idea of writing them entirely using song lyrics, so we joked about that for a while. ("Dear Andy: I just wanted to give you "a little respect" for the opportunity to meet you tonight. I've "always" wanted to meet you, and this is "precious" to me, and I know it "doesn't have to be like that." I feel like I'm going to be all "fingers & thumbs" tonight!
No, we didn't do that, but it was fun being idiots and burning off some nervous tension.
Speaking of nerves, my anxiety kicked into overdrive immediately before the concert, and practically what-iffed myself to death. The worst was when Karen's wheelchair wouldn't fit in the cab...what if it flew out the back? What if we get hit by a car standing on a curb? What if they didn't let us sit together? Blake immediately hopped on this and began giving me a hard time. "Laurie...what if you go to the bathroom and a snake comes out of the toilet? What if you step off this curb and break an ankle? What if that little yappy dog across the street viciously attacks you as you enter the building?"
Fortunately, we were interrupted by this guy, who approached us and tentatively said, "...Is your name Blake? You're that synthpop guy!" It turns out that he was a fan of thefirstcut.net, which Blake runs. In certain music fan circles, Blake is known as THE Blake, the synthpop walking encyclopedia. He has thousands of cds, and greatly enjoys discussing synthpop with like-minded people across the country. He has influenced hundreds if not thousands of people in their music taste through thefirstcut. I know he has certainly introduced me to a lot of wonderful groups I never would have otherwise known about.
Shortly after he left and we finished boggling that Blake had his own fan, the bouncer pulled us out of line and placed at the front along with everyone else who was on crutches or on wheels. Here is a picture of us in the lobby, waiting for the show to start. Shortly after that, we were able to get our backstage passes.
It turns out that all of our worrying about seating was for naught. Michael had arranged a private booth for us, in the acoustic sweet spot of the theater. It wasn't close to the stage, but that was perfectly ok with us; we were 7th row with the Nightbird tour, and this way we would have Karen relax a bit, and all of us could enjoy the sound. I felt vaguely guilty about being miffed at the Park West about the seating arrangement earlier in the week; the usher, bouncer, and box office person could not have been nicer or more accomodating when we were there.
While we were settling in, we heard a voice saying, "You must be Karen, Blake, and Laurie!" It was Michael, who had been so instrumental in arranging everything for Karen. We greeted him and expressed our thanks as best as possible. He was extremely pleasant, and we chatted for a bit, and then he told us exactly how the evening would progress after the show. After the theater cleared out, depending on Karen's energy level, she could either climb the stairs to meet Vince and Andy, or they were more than willing to come down to meet her. She opted to climb the stairs because she didn't want to bother them.
I won't post too much about the show itself, but I do want to get some general description in there as well as hit some highlights. First of all, it was a very different setup than the last show I went to, which was the Nightbird tour.
This show was all acoustic, much more intimate, and much less on the special effects and costume changes. I enjoyed it just as much, but it was a different type of enjoyment. Last year, it was the fangirl bounce up and down omg omg I'm at an Erasure concert, and this year, I was able to sit back, close my eyes, and let the sound throb through my body.
There was one point when Andy had the mike and he said, There is a very special girl in the audience. Her name is Karen. This song is for her. And he broke into the opening bars of "Breathe."
Breathe. Just breathe. It's bitter without you. I can't live without you. I'm in love with you...just breathe.
Karen and I looked at each other in disbelief, and we immediately began crying. Blake somehow held it together. Part of it for me was because of the lyrics, but most of it was because I was so incredibly touched that Erasure was playing a song just for her. I knew I wasn't supposed to take video and I will probably get in trouble for posting this publically here, but I whipped out my camera and managed to record the last half of the song. I didn't want to distribute it on the internet; I just wanted to capture the moment.
We were farther away so I wasn't able to get wonderful pictures, but I managed ok considering the circumstances, and that I'm the most amateur photographer you could ever hope to meet. My little Canon held up wonderful; it was worth every penny.
Blake and I are going to go to the hospital now, so this will unfortunately be a two-parter post. More later. Also, yes, I know that my div tags are messed up. I can't spend any more time fixing it this morning, though. I will later.