Adam Musings

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Didn’t know where to put this little story but felt like writing it down. Adam brings back much of the excitement of music I felt as a much younger person so please feel free to scroll. That is why I thought this might fit in the “Musing” section.

Growing up, my Dad was an amateur radio operator and so he would “talk” to people all around the world using Morse code. I can remember the little cards coming in the mail with call numbers and messages about how great it was to “talk” to someone in America and they were from New York, Florida, Iowa, and sometimes international from India, or France, England, and Germany.

He loved music & was a saxophone player just for the fun of it. One of his gifts was to show me how to use his radio to dial into radio stations that were far away. I was able to listen to music from many parts of the country and heard a lot of music that many believed to be controversial and inappropriate such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, James Brown, Jim Morrison, and others. This inspired me to start collecting music early on. My record collection is extensive dating from things my Dad collected in the 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s to my own additions starting in the later 60’s, and onward.

Today I finally opened my Box Set and added Adam to the collection. I have not added vinyl for a very long time. My turntable is older than dirt but I had the foresight to stock up on new needles. I placed Record One, Side One of Trespassing on the turntable and watched the arm lift, the arm come down, the needle touch and the sound emanate from my Bose speakers. Nirvana. Music Again.

As a relatively new member to this forum, I wasn't quite sure where to post some of my thoughts about Adam. Now that Q3 has posted more definitive guidelines about posting, I'm now exploring some new places on this fansite to post.

So here is something I had hestitated to post earlier because I wasn't sure where it would fit.

I never was a follower of American Idol and only caught Adam near the end, but one of my sons lives in LA and one of his friends (KM) worked with Adam in Wicked, and like Adam was an understudy and member of the ensemble. The first thing KM had to say about Adam was that he was a "great guy". I had an opportunity to talk with KM about Adam before all the fame hit and in summarizing he said that Adam was very down to earth, humble, easy to get along with, and funny. He also said that he was a very hard worker and was very creative in other aspects in addition to singing, such as costuming, design, makeup, working on music mixing, etc. "You never knew what he was going to look like when he showed up at the Pantages Theater - one time he showed up with all gray hair - but it didn't matter because we all wore wigs in Wicked." KM also said that for all his good-natured qualities, Adam always stood tall and never apologized for who he was. These are all qualities which we now know, and have never changed with him.

At age 27, Adam knew time was running short in getting his name and talent out there, and so with the encouragement of KM and others he tried out for American Idol - and the rest is history.

My son and I first saw Adam live at Gridlock. We went out of curiousity after talking with KM - and we were both blown away by the experience. Gridlock was a quickly thrown together gig during the aftermath of the AMA's - but Adam was homeboy on his home turf that night - and he blew it out of the water. I have never ever heard or experienced anything like that. The voice! And the sheer raw energy of his performance! I'm not given to screaming, and all I could do was stand there and silently mouth "OMG!, OMG!". At the end he never smiled or took a bow, but he just threw an arm in the air and let out with a loud whoop, and then he was gone - silence! My son said "Do you think he's going to come back out?", and I said "No - I think he's just given us absolutely everything within his being". We both agreed that while we both wanted to see more of his performances, we would never experience anything quite like this again - and for us, we treasure this performance above all others.

I know the feeling when others describe experiencing Adam for the first time - and this was mine.

Great thoughts, annala! I am jealous of those of you who went to Gridlock. My sister and I found videos of it so compelling that we went completely over the edge and became ravening Glamberts. I can't even imagine what it must have been like in person. Adam's drive and imagination and talent were on fire that night.

Well, he just said in one of the recent interviews that he likes to hear people singing along to his songs.