A few very fragmented impressions of Saturday night in Vancouver:Due to lack of money, I have only seen Adam Lambert ONCE in my life when he came to Vancouver maybe four years ago (or was it five years ago? IDK...) for his two tiny casino concerts. I never even saw GNT because western Canada was totally scorned for that tour.
On Saturday night I went with a very dear Vancouver friend of mine who HAS NO LIFE. She's a corporate lawyer who works 16 hrs/day almost 7 days/week at a soul-killing high-pressure job, and also takes care of a disabled brother and a very demanding mother who's in a nursing home. I'll call her Nan. I was determined that Nan should get away from all the daily stress stuff and have a night out and experience the epicness of QAL. I bought two tickets on the floor, row 40, close to the sound box. I
did not want this location, but when I was in the initial first-day ticket-buying panic/frenzy, those were the closest-to-the-stage tickets I could get my hands on and I couldn't afford more expensive tickets. I graciously gave Nan the aisle seat. Sigh.
I purposely did NOT take a camera. I wanted to "take it all in" without feeling any pressure to take pictures. I also wasn't sure what the arena's policy was re. cameras. Turns out security didn't give a rat's ass about cameras, anyhow. They just wanted to make sure we weren't bringing in food and beverages.
Out in front of the arena before show time... quite a few guys were wandering around in the crowds shouting "ANYBODY SELLING TICKETS??? ANY TICKETS FOR SALE??" nyah nyah nyah... Sorry for your life....
I thought: Good Lord there are like FOUR GENERATIONS of people attending this show from little kids to teenagers to the oldest of white-haired geezers in Queen T-shirts from the '80s... OMG
Got inside. Found our seats. I was feeling vaguely pissed at how far away the stage looked. I told Nan we'd be standing for the next two hours. She's like, "Really?" I'm like, "Yeah, really."
Curtain went up. The entire floor was INSTANTLY on their feet. Adam appeared on the giant screens.
First impression: This is like being in front of the
world's largest youtube video. There's Adam on the giant screens. Except this can't be a youtube vid because of the MASSIVE SOUND hitting me like a tsunami!!!
Second (shocking) impression: OH. MY. GOD. Adam Lambert is actually on the stage. I mean, the ACTUAL PERSON is on the stage. In real life!!!!! OMG OMG OMG IS THIS POSSIBLE?? THE REAL PERSON IS REALLY THERE AND THIS IS NOT A FUCKING YOUTUBE VIDEO!!!! THAT TEENY LITTLE PERSON FAR AWAY ON THAT STAGE IS REALLY HIM!!!! (I'm thinking this is a typical reaction for peeps like me who
NEVER get to actually see Adam in concert)
Third (shocking) impression: MASSIVE CRAZY GLORIOUS ADAM LAMBERT VOICE SOUND SMASHING INTO MY BRAIN!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH
But, but..... I can't SEE HIM!!! I want so desperately to see him and see the stage and I fucking can't see the stage.
Here's the thing: I am tall. With my sandals on, I'm around 5'10". And I couldn't see the stage. Oh, wait... If I carefully position my head two inches to the left, I can sort of see the stage between the 39 rows of heads in front of me. Yes... two, maybe three inches... Oh!! I think I can see the stage... OMG... And then this happens:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PUT DOWN YOUR FUCKING CELLPHONES PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I REALLY REALLY HATE THESE ROW 40 FLOOR SEATS WITH A WHITE-HOT PASSION!!!! FUCKITY FUCKITY FUCK FUCK.
(An aside: because I am occasionally a nice person, I have given Nan the aisle seat... so she can actually take a small step into the aisle and SEE THINGS. Fuck it all. Note to self: if, in the future, I ever get the chance to see Adam Lambert again... fuck niceness.
Fuck niceness very hard. That is all.)
I don't want to spend the entire concert watching the jumbotrons, damn it!!!! I WANT TO SEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
Nevermind. I can't see, but OMG I CAN HEAR. There is nothing... NOTHING in this world that comes close to hearing THAT VOICE LIVE IN AN ARENA. The arena is TOO SMALL for that voice. That voice would blow the roof off the biggest stadium on the planet.
AND THEN THE MOST EVIL OF ALL FUCKERIES STARTED TO HAPPEN.Somebody to the left of me had to get by me... bathroom break? I don't know.
WTF WTF... YOU CAN'T GO TO THE BATHROOM 10 MINUTES INTO THE CONCERT!!!!
And of course 10 minutes later this person comes back and INTERRUPTS me AGAIN.
Let me stop here and say this: During the concert, I was interrupted by people trying to get past me no less than FOUR TIMES. And by that I mean: FOUR TIMES leaving, and FOUR TIMES coming back = which equals
EIGHT FUCKING INTERRUPTIONS. How is this even possible?? This has never happened to me during any concert EVER, let alone an epic QAL concert that will probably never happen again in the history of this world and my life on this planet. In that very cramped situation of floor seats, every time somebody had to get by, I had to bend down and make sure my bag was not in the way, and make sure my drink was safely under my chair so it wouldn't get knocked over... I had to sort of raise my seat and squish myself back to give people room to get by me... AND for a few seconds THOSE PEOPLE OBSCURED WHATEVER TINY SIGHTLINE I HAD TO BEGIN WITH.
But, wait... this is not the worst. HERE IS THE WORST:People to my left decided they needed another fucking bathroom break or whatever the fuck kind of break RIGHT AT THE MOST EPIC PART OF WWTLF when the disco ball was turning the arena into a magic fairyland of light and Adam's fingertips were fucking reaching for a light beam and I thought
there can't be any heaven more glorious than this heaven RIGHT NOW RIGHT HERE IN THIS PLACE RIGHT NOW AT THIS MOMENT IT IS MAJOR MAJOR SPIRITUAL ORGASM TIME... and then I WAS INTERRUPTED BY PEOPLE WITH NO FUCKING BLADDERS OR SOMETHING FOR THE FOURTH OR FIFTH TIME I DON'T EVEN KNOW DURING THE EXACT MOST ETHEREAL SECONDS OF THE ENTIRE CONCERT HOW IS THIS EVEN REMOTELY POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I actually for realz burst into tears of rage and frustration at this point.
MY LIFE IS OFFICIALLY OVER.
But... here's what made it a teeny tiny bit better: In this arena situation, the noise is so loud, so MASSIVE, so deafening,
it's completely impossible to hear what anybody says. You can yell as loud as you can into your partner's ears and they can't hear one single thing you're saying. Nothing. Zilch.
So, after the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth interruption of people coming and going and trying to squeeze past me.... I started yelling at them. Yes, I did. I yelled evil mean horrible things. I cursed them.
They couldn't hear me, of course. But it gave me a teeny bit of satisfaction that, when they die, they will most certainly not be going to any heaven. They (and their bladders) will be consigned to the depths of hell. That is all.
I actually CURSED my dear friend Nan during Brian's solo. At this point in the concert she sat down. And when I glanced at her, she was sitting there reading a work-related email from one of her lawyer friends. WTF????
OMG. Well, you can take the lawyer out of the office, but it seems you can never entirely take the office out of the lawyer. It was a brief fail on her part. (I am trying to be nice here) Nan had the BEST TIME EVER, and is a firm Adam fan now!!
Final thoughts?
I fucking hate cellphones at concerts. On Saturday night cellphones contributed to my view being blocked.
Correction: For the past five years I have been torn about cellphones at concerts. I am absolutely mind-boggled that people are perfectly happy to watch an epic live concert RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM through a cellphone or a little camera lens. How on earth do the artists cope with this? How can they be performing their hearts out on stage and half the audience (or more) is standing still looking through their phones/cameras and not leaping up and down, dancing, and screaming their heads off. I don't know.
On the other hand, I am like everyone else: After every single concert I wait impatiently for pics and videos.
I don't know what the answer is to this dilemma. I am a greedy bitch when it comes to pics/vids, yet I feel sorry for the artists. I want INSTANT VIDS after a concert, yet I cringe when I'm actually at a concert and faced with a sea of fucking cellphones that are hampering my view.
I do not know what to do about my dilemma.
I think there is no solution in this wired, high-tech, instant gratification age that we live in.
Oh... and the QAL light how was the
BEST THING EVER. I have always been entranced by lights. I am mesmerized by light shows. Because I couldn't see the stage anyway, I spent a lot of time looking at the AWESOME lasers and looking behind me at the effects of the lights on the entire audience. OMG It was MAGICAL!!!
This would be me, watching the light show:
So, to summarize:
I will never ever buy those kinds of floor tickets again. But, at the same time, I will never have the money for VIP tickets to get closer to the stage. So... this is also a dilemma. I think I will have to sit up in the stands and use HIGH-POWERED binoculars (like kryptoman) so I can actually SEE what's going on and not have to rely on the jumbotrons.
It was, of course, the BEST CONCERT EVER, for no other reason than
THE VOICE. As every single person says, there is nothing... NOTHING in this world that can compare to hearing Adam's voice LIVE in a stadium. It is orgasmic and faint-worthy and makes your hair stand on end and your brain cells all confused. But we all know this.
