Providence, RI 11/16/2011

Wednesday started off like any other day, except I had thoughts of Straight No Chaser on my mind. Oh wait…that happens every day. This day was different though because I had Straight No Chaser to look forward to that evening. It’s not very often that I get to look forward to an SNC concert right after work, so inevitably I was super excited (or wicked stoked, if you will). A little background on my job situation (in case you don’t know), I’m a fifth and sixth grade part time Title I teacher in a middle school where I support students who do not have disabilities but are struggling in the general education classroom, occasionally I will substitute for teachers in the afternoon, I work in an afterschool program in the evening, and do some tutoring on the side (*phew* gotta pay for my SNC addiction somehow). Well today I wouldn’t be subbing, working in the afterschool program, or tutoring.  This left me at home by 11:30 AM trying to distract myself until Amanda arrived. I spent this time watching videos of Buddy Holly repeatedly and pacing around my house “ooo wee ooo-ing”. Thankfully no one else was home, or they probably would have thought I had gone mentally insane.

Finally, Amanda arrived and we left for Providence (after my dogs nicely kissed and slobbered all over her of course). We made a pit stop for coffee, but decided we weren’t hungry so we didn’t stop for food (that was probably a bad decision). Providence is about 20-30 minutes from my house, so naturally we arrived wicked early. There’s a good chance we would have been there even sooner, but at some point I found myself sitting behind a limo on a Providence street. After sitting there for about 5 minutes I exclaimed, “What are we doing here? Am I parked?!” Yes, indeed. I had thought the limo had gone into the turning lane…wrong! We were parked on the side of the road instead. I pulled back onto the street and successfully made it into the parking garage by The Dunk at 5:30 PM. The show wasn’t going to start until 7:30. We had some time to kill.

We sat in my car and listened to my iPod. By 6 PM I could no longer sit in my car and our coffee was hitting us hard. We went in search of a restroom. We ended up in the Convention Center that is attached to The Dunk. We wandered around aimlessly until we found the restroom (that had actually been right in front of us when we walked in). As we exited the restroom we asked the security guard if there was a way to get from the Convention Center to the arena without going outside (we wanted to spend as little time in the rain as possible). He simply stated, “Yes there is”. Thanks, dude, you’re super helpful. Thankfully his security friend came over and told us that if we went up one level we would find the walkway that led to the Dunkin Donuts Center. That’s what we were looking for.

our view of the stage

When we got over there, we still had awhile to wait before they would allow us to take our seats. We had the desire to slip under the rope barriers and run around the concourse. There would have been no way that the security guards would have been able to catch us. We were hyped! Finally we were let into the arena. We walked around the concourse a bit and checked out the merch table. We were too excited to focus on anything so naturally we just decided to make our way to our seats. Once there (they were front row on the right, when facing the stage) we decided it was time to put all of our “props” on. This is quite the process. It took us a good 10 minutes to untangle all of our lights. It was quite a sight to see.

While the untangling continued, a woman came over to us and asked us if we were Amanda and Megan. We gave each other a confused look and skeptically answered “yes?” It was Donna! We had talked to her through the website and knew that she lived not too far from Amanda. We met her daughter, chatted for a bit, and gave them glow stick bracelets. We also knew Terry and Tracy were somewhere in the venue. While we were trying to spot them, the woman behind us told us she really liked our lights. Apparently they aren’t so glowy from behind (good to know). We shared some glow stick bracelets with her as well. She loved them and told us she was really excited for the show because she doesn’t get to go out too often. We shared our excitement with her…we were starting to get rowdy because it was only minutes before the show started (we could tell from the playlist of preshow songs…which is really good by the way. I wonder who came up with it…). Richard and some crew members came out around this time to check a giant speaker that was looming over our heads. We joked with the nice Scottish man sitting next to us, telling him we hoped it didn’t fall. He assured us that it would get him first and we would be fine.

Then it was finally show time! The lights went down, our lights lit up, and the guys came out on stage singing Get Ready. The guys spotted us and we got a few waves and smiles. I seriously love these guys. The show was unsurprisingly amazing. At one point, Ryan was introducing a song and he informed the crowd that he grew up in Middleton, RI. He then told the crowd his BEAH story (which we had heard personally twice before then). It still made us laugh hysterically! Go BEAHS!

Signs with lights turned off

Then it was time for the guys to perform Buddy Holly! Naturally Amanda and I FREAKED out! We not only had our Buddy Holly glasses for this performance, but we also had made signs! (Ryan had asked for props…we brought props!) These weren’t just normal signs. Oh no…they were signs that lit up! Amanda’s sign said “We LOVE Buddy Holly” and had Buddy Holly glasses drawn on it. Mine also had glasses and said “OOO WEE OOO”. The lights went down for the song to begin, and the area where we were sitting started to glow brighter. We were ready! When the guys turned around, they spotted us adorned in our Buddy Holly glasses and holding our glowing signs. Ryan, DR, and Walt all pointed to the signs at points during the song. Seggie made a point to look at the signs while doing choreo with his glasses. We also noticed when Tyler saw the signs. They seemed to distract him and he missed a small piece of his choreo. He recovered nicely, however. “Normal” people probably didn’t even notice.

Jerome soon had us laughing once again when he clapped the lights on for the audience pictures. He stated that he’s the only one who can do that because “it’s the brother clap.” Without hesitation DR exclaimed, “You should get that checked out!”The entire audience and all of the guys were in hysterics. Great one, DR… despite how inappropriate the comment. Not long after the lights went down for Fix You. This was an ideal time for Amanda and I to go into fits of laughter. I honestly don’t know why, but nearly every time Fix You begins, I begin to laugh hysterically. By the time we were able to compose ourselves the song had nearly finished. Sorry guys. We honestly aren’t trying to be rude. It just happens. When the concert ended we got some smiles and waves from the guys. I notably remember Charlie waving to us when exiting the stage. It was now time to exit the venue ourselves and find the meet and greet table.

We spent the long meet and greet line talking with Terry and Tracy, along with the other chasers in our vicinity. When we made it to the guys it was apparent that they were exhausted. They leave their hearts and souls out on the stage every night. We decided to get the Buddy Holly signs we made signed by the guys. We prepared the signs as we approached the table. The security guard said, “It may be too late to ask this, but will those explode?” The back of the signs are quite a funny sight with all of the wires sticking out for the lights. I ensured him that I would never do anything to hurt these guys, he laughed and said that was probably true. (It’s very true! I would never lie about something like that!)

Signs lit up!

The general reaction from all of the guys when seeing our signs up close was pure amazement. Randy said, “Wow! These are awesome!” He then asked where he should sign. We told him he could sign where ever he wanted…logically he chose to sign inside the glasses. Charlie hadn’t been able to see the signs from his side the stage, so this was the first time he was seeing them. He was impressed and asked us who made them. We told him that we each made one, and he seemed surprised because they looked so similar. We let out our secret of tracing the Buddy Holly glasses we wore, and he stated that our mystique was now gone. Sorry, Charlie. Charlie then turned to Seggie and said “Did you see these?!” Seggie replied with “I made them.” You wish, Seggie. When Seggie took our signs to sign them they wouldn’t lie flat on the table (because of all of the wires on the back). The other guys had just held them while signing them. Seggie refused to sign it because it wouldn’t lay flat. He begrudgingly did so, however, before passing them down to Jerome who told us that they were awesome and thanked us for coming.

Mike and Ryan were both amazed like the other guys. They both asked us if we wanted them to sign both of the signs or just one (of course we wanted both of them signed). Mike asked us if we made the signs because we loved Walt or if we just because we like the song. We told him it was because we love the song (although we both do love Walt).  Ryan then asked me if the Rhode Island shows last fall were our first SNC concerts. When I told him it was actually their Northampton show (in April of 2010) he seemed surprised. He turned to Mike and asked him if he remembered Northampton. Mike seemed confused. He hadn’t been a part of the conversation and wasn’t quite sure why Ryan was asking him this.

Around the time we were at Ryan a woman just ahead of us realized she hadn’t had her ticket signed (or maybe one of the guys missed it) and Walt sent it back up the meet and greet line. The guys in our vicinity shouted, “Salmon ticket!” as they passed it down the line. I appreciate the dig, guys.

DR made sure to tell us that we don’t make it hard to see us (again) and how he thought the posters were cool. Tyler asked us if we were coming to the show Friday. This was the show in Boston, so of course we would be there. I also made sure to warn Tyler that my parents would also be attending that show. He asked if that was a bad thing. I told him no, but admitted that I was nervous about letting these two worlds collide (this would be my parents first SNC concert, and up until this point there had been some judging when it came to my chaser lifestyle). We then moved over to Don and Walt who were at the end of the table. Don asked, “Are we going to see you tomorrow or Friday?” Before we could answer Walt interjected by saying, “Or will we never see you again.” Amanda took her opening and stated, “That’s right, we’re never coming to another show.” Walt replied, “We’ll it was nice meeting you ladies.” (I’m sure we’ll be seeing you guys sometime…we had literally decided hours before that we would be attending the Manchester show the next night. We thought it would be fun to show up without the guys knowing we would be there…you’ll find out how that went down soon.)

We exited the meet and greet line and realized, with the posters being such a huge distraction, most of our questions went unanswered. We jokingly tried to get back in line but the security guards told us no. We did ask Richard if the guys would stick around for a group picture (which he said yes to, of course) and if they would be coming back to New England in the future. He unfortunately didn’t have an answer to this question for us.

Shortly after it was time for group pictures. Due to the small amount of people waiting for picture (actually only me, Amanda, Terry, and Tracy) we were the first picture to be taken with the guys. The only way to describe how I was feeling at that moment is frazzled…I was not prepared to go first. After composing myself, we approached the guys who kindly serenaded us with “OOO WEE OOO’s”. They were happy to see that the signs would be joining us for the picture. As usual there were a lot of comments made in a Boston accent during the picture. Someone behind me (I think it was Seggie…) even began singing Joy to the World in a Boston accent (I'd throw away the cahs and the bahs and the wahs). Ryan said he was “going down to West Warwick” (in an accent of course) and this made Amanda and I laugh…not really sure why that was so funny, but it was. As we were leaving the group to gather our things and so that Terry and Tracy could take their pictures, Ryan told us that we always one up ourselves every time we see them (referring to the signs) and that he was excited to see what we do next (no pressure or anything, Ryan). Seggie said, “Next time they’re going to bring Weezer with them.” Amanda and I entertained them by pretending to call up Weezer on our pretend phones. Glad we could make you guys laugh.

As the guys finished with pictures and left the venue we heard a chorus of “ooo wee ooo’s”. It was so funny to hear, and I can honestly say I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I wasn’t the only one who did that. We left the venue happy and excited for more adventures the very next day!