Thursday, January 28, 2016

Day 1519 - Seeing Christina Perri in concert is awesome (and painful)

This story is completely true.  It took place about a year and a half ago.  A few people know most of the details, but I don't know if they knew them all.  I hope you find it entertaining.

I remember the first time I saw Christina Perri.  It was on a Sunday morning on VH1 (maybe MTV2) at my cousin Mary and Kevin's house.  The video was "Jar of Hearts" and Mary told the story of how her song was played on one of those singing competition shows and how it got picked up from there.

I don't know why I remember that, but it was enough that whenever the video showed up, I would watch it.  Then I followed her on Facebook, mostly so I would know when her new album was coming out.  And I bought it the first week it was released.  I did the same thing with her second album.

I liked her music more than enough to see her in concert.  So when it was announced that she's be singing at The House of Blues, I knew there was no way I wasn't going to see her.

But I wanted to make this concert special.  I almost always try to get an autograph from a performer when I see them live, and this would be no different.  However, this time I decided to call in a favor from my cousin Jim.  See, Jim was a VJ for VH1 at the time and had interviewed her a number of times already.  I simply decided to use his celebrity to my greatest advantage by seeing if he could get me backstage.  So I called him pretty early in the process, explained what I wanted, and he said that he would see what he could do.

Time went on and I didn't hear anything.  But at the same time, the volleyball team I was on was doing very well.  We played on Thursday nights.  The concert was on a Thursday night.  In fact, the concert happened to fall on the night of the volleyball championship.  The two events were slated for a head-on collision.

The day got closer and closer.  After calling Jim again (who was also in a holding pattern), he finally got the good word.  There was going to be a meet and greet before the show.  He could get me into that as long as I had my ticket (which I did).  I just had to mention some guy's name, say I was there for the meet and greet, and everything would be fine. 

And, of course, our volleyball team crushed the competition and we were scheduled to play in the championship.  I wasn't going to be there (I wasn't missing that concert), and another one of our players, Luke, wasn't going to be out of the country.  Our coach tried everything in his power to get the other team to switch days, but it wasn't happening.

The day of the concert arrived.  I was also recruited from my job at the comic book store  to type in the comic order that night.  It was due at midnight.  So after the concert, I was to make my way back to the comic book store and do that.  Nothing like a lot of multitasking.

I got to the House of Blues at the right time.  I went in, told the girl who I was looking for, and that I was there for the meet and greet.  She didn't even confirm anything that I said, she just put me in the back of the line behind all the "official" people who had paid for the privilege.  I was with the House of Blues employees (off duty) and some journalists.

We slowly made our way to her, and I finally got my chance to meet Christina Perri in person.  I had her sign my CD's, and I got a picture with her.  While we were standing there, I brought up Jim's name because he had interviewed her so many times.  I said how great he was, and her reply was, "... I love him."  I responded to that with, "I love you."

Wait.  What?

What the heck was that?!?  I don't do that.  I have met a number of cool and awesome celebrities over the years, and I've never said that to them.  I honestly don't know what I was thinking.  I also don't know if she heard me.  (I'm sure she did.)  If she did, she didn't react to it.  (Thank goodness!)  And I moved on.

At this point the guy in charge told us that if we wanted to meet the opening act, we could, or if we wanted to wait, when Christina Perri was done, we could just take our places on the concert floor.  I opted to get a good spot by the stage.  It turns out that was the right move.  I'm of the mind that the closer I am to the singer, the better the experience.  Well, unless I was onstage, I wasn't getting any closer. 

The concert was fantastic.  I had a blast.

Once the concert was over, I could boogie on out of there.  I hustled to where I parked my car.  As I made my way there,I was about 30 feet away when I saw it too late.  There was a pothole in the sidewalk and my right foot dropped right on in and my ankle just gave way.  I dropped like a rock.  My ankle was sprained, I had torn my jeans, and I had a nice scrape on my left knee.  I got up, felt my ankle and knew it was sprained. No doubt.  I hobbled to my car, and what was there waiting for me?  A ticket.  I had parked too early in this particular spot. *sigh*

So now I've got a sprained ankle, and I still have to make my way to the comic book store and type in the order.  I get there, I type it in, and I send it.  All by around 12:30.  I send a message to my boss, John, saying it's all done, and I head home.

The first thing I do is take off my shoe and sock.  Oh, yeah.  It's pretty nasty.  I had no ice in my house, so I used the next best thing.  I filled a bucket up with the coldest water I could and put my foot into it.  When I went to bed that night, I kept my foot elevated and hoped that was the end of it. 

It wasn't.

The next day I worked for a few hours at Drug Mart before heading to the comic book store.  But before I did that, I looked at my messages.  I had one.  It was from John and it simply said, "Diamond didn't get our order.  We're screwed."  So, apparently the order that I sent the night before wasn't received?  C'mon!  Three long and treacherous and painful hours at Drug Mart later, I was able to leave and go to the comic shop and find  out what happened.  The first message I got was, "Called Diamond (our distributor).  They figured it out.  We're good."

Phew.

Now I could finally relax (finally) relax.

With a sprained ankle.

And the volleyball championship?  Nope.  We lost that, too.

I'm sure there's a lesson in that mess, somewhere. 

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