Gaelic Storm at the Cleveland House of Blues - March 11th, 2010


The day started out quite happily – I went to breakfast to find that the cafeteria was serving French toast, cream of wheat, and scrambled eggs that were neither dry nor soggy. Plus Richard was there to take up my tray for me so that Creeper didn’t try to flirt with me. Also, it was nearly 60 degrees outside and the sun was happy and sociable. Things were looking up for me.
Also important to mention, while we're talking about how my day went, is my riding class. My body was extra sore from Tuesday’s ride, but the weather was beautiful and warm and I was optimistic after my experience with Spot the class before. I have discovered the sometimes scary but usually rewarding tactic of trusting my body to know what it’s doing before my brain has a chance to tell me that I can’t do something. This is mostly true with my new foray into experiencing the canter. Bud says canter, you don’t think about it. You just do it. The first time it was quite freaky – I had never cantered Spot before, and he felt different from Oskar, and right before I slowed down I almost lost my balance around a turn. Second time, once I got my bearings, and the third (to fix the second where I messed up the dressage test we were working on) were largely non-scary, and I think I “WHOOOOOOO”d at least once. Walking on the moon with Spot (that's a reference to "Walk on the Moon" by Great Big Sea. Look it up on YouTube if you don't know of it yet).
But all that is pre-concert woo-ness. Onward to Gaelic Storm!!!

It took me roughly 10 minutes to travel the half a mile or so down E 9th Street between the Rt 2 exit and Prospect Ave, due to the customary aggravation of people who park their cars in traffic lanes. Extremely aggravating. Talked with Dad and Kevin each in turn – and each tried to call me while I was on the phone with the other. I’m just popular like that. Also, I received a text from Dad exclaiming that he had seen Steve Twigger in the street. He was thrilled, but said that there was no conversation, as Steve had appeared to be in a hurry.
In the restaurant, Kevin was astonishingly patient with my bouncy, adrenaline-fueled pushiness as time slowly ticked by in the restaurant. I can think of half a dozen people that would have tried to strangle me, but he instead took the opportunity to laugh at me and tease me relentlessly. Dad was mostly quiet, as usual, and Kevin told me that he had procured some gently used, “indoor-friendly” pipes for a good price. He suggested that I bring my bodhrán to the next family get-together so that we can jam. That is super-exciting for me. Finally, a traditional instrument that Diane will permit indoors and can accompany me! Or rather, I can accompany it.
Kevin got a jambalaya dish that was delicious but very spicy, and a Blue Moon and a Newcastle to wash away the spice. Dad got a burger that he ended up eating with a fork because it was too big for his mouth. I ordered teriyaki salmon, which sounded delicious. And it was, only I was unprepared for the questions imposed by our waitress. I have ordered fish in restaurants dozens of times, but never before had the server ask me how I wanted it cooked. I expressed confusion, to which she explained that people order salmon the way they order steak – rare to well-done. I required further explanation, and she asked me if I liked it pink in the middle. I naively pointed out that salmon is always pink in the middle. It’s SALMON. (Kevin feigned a bop on my head at that point, but I was genuinely perplexed.) Apparently, most people order theirs medium well. I told her to just have them cook it to the middle of the spectrum.
As I said, the flavor was absolutely delicious; it could be a real contender with Famous Dave’s grilled salmon (except that grilled salmon is the same price for a heck of a lot more food). The middle was softer than I would have preferred, and it made me a little nervous to eat it, but I figured that they wouldn’t serve it to me if it had the potential to kill me. I suffered no stomach pain, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting or gas, so I assume I didn’t get food poisoning.
What did bother me was the “vegetables”. When I see “vegetables” on a menu with no other indicator of vegetable species, I, like most people, assumed the natural cast would be present – carrots, broccoli, peas, etc. What came to my table were these ugly little mutated cabbage halves – brussel sprouts – that were barely cooked. I don’t really like beans, and I hate asparagus, so you can imagine my dismay. Nobody had warned me that there would be brussel sprouts.
I probably should have said something, and gotten some decent herbage to eat, but I instead foisted as many as I could off on Dad and Kevin, which wasn’t much.
Also, I think Dad was eyeing me warily as I perused the alcoholic beverage menu. I wanted to try the “Electric Lemonade”, but ultimately decided that alcohol is expensive and I didn’t really need it.
When we got into the House, after a brief wait in line wherein I introduced Dad to “Raised on Black and Tans”, the new GS download from their forthcoming album, he and Kevin scoped out a couple of barstools halfway back from the stage. Watching them wander about, trying out various angles, I was reminded of Sheldon Cooper determinedly scouring Penny’s apartment for an acceptable place to sit where the sunlight, ambient temperature, airflow, feng shui, and proximity to the television, other guests, windows, kitchen and exits were sufficient, and where the texture, cushion density, size and pattern of the furniture was adequate. Not that they were that finicky or anything. It just crossed my mind.
So since I was standing by myself, sort of second-row, I amused myself by texting Kevin. It did not take long for me to get sore from all the standing. Jeez, I’m getting old. The soreness did not hit my knees this time, but it did make itself heard in my back, shoulders, feet and, interestingly, my calves, which begged me to stretch them although I had no room to do it.
The guy waiting in the crowd behind me, whom I will refer to as “Polite Warning Guy”, apologized ahead of time for the possibility that the girls behind him would shove him into me once the band took the stage. I looked behind him and saw a mass of potential ugliness (several barely-post-pubescent girls jostling one another) and figured that it couldn’t be worse than last year – being shoved at by drunken girls that were dropping f-bombs like cookie crumbs and threatening to spill their beer on me.
I noticed about halfway through my wait that the people in front of me were the same trio that Dad and I waited with in line last year. I recognized the dad and his daughter first – the other guy (GBS-Mash-Man? Remember him?) looked like he’d lost weight and had a haircut that definitely suits him better than the one he had.
There was a girl sort of behind me and sort of next to me that was talking to Polite Warning Guy about the band. He asked where they were from, and she told him that they were all from Ireland except for Peter (???). I sort of wonder where the heck she gets her information from, since Patrick is the only band member, past and present, who is from Ireland. I almost turned around to correct her, and though he probably would have been grateful for the info, I felt like I would have been intruding in the conversation. But for the record, for those who are interested, The geographical diversity represented by Gaelic Storm is as follows:

Patrick: County Cork, Ireland
Steve T: Coventry, England
Pete: Ottawa, Canada
Ryan: Somewhere, New Jersey
Jesse: Suffolk, England
Previous band members:
Steve W: Olean, New York
Shep: London, England
Kathleen: Chicago, Illinois
Ellery: Cincinnati, Ohio
Samantha: Zambia, Africa
Tom: Ottawa, Canada

So… yeah. Definitely only one guy from Ireland in there.
Also, I heard Polite Warning Guy tell Confused Fangirl that he was only in town from Pittsburgh on business, on a week that just happened to coincide with the week that Gaelic Storm would be in town (he’d only seen them once before, 6 years back). An extremely lucky break for him.
There was also a significant amount of Peter-obsessing going on on either side of me, which was at times both amusing and irritating. The loud ones were obnoxious, although I could appreciate them rooting for him during an especially rollicking pipe solo.
As so often happens with opening acts at the House of Blues, I feel that the night’s openers got the short end of somebody’s stick. Fans at the House of Blues do not want to see opening acts. Fans at the House of Blues are sick of standing around. Their feet hurt from standing around so much. Their knees and backs hurt. They are sick of hearing the barely-post-pubescent drunkards around them shove one another around while they talk loudly and at length about what Joey did to Sophia on Jackie’s birthday after Dennis was found in Andrew’s bed. The air inside the venue is extremely dry, which causes them to become thirsty, and they do not wish to spend an absurd amount of money on water when the restaurant 100 feet away serves it for free, and in any case the only water that they give you in the venue is Dasani water, which tastes like it came from the ear canal of a large African ungulate. In most cases, they would rather chew on a live ferret than stand around longer than necessary while waiting for the band they paid to see to come out.
This wasn’t supposed to be a long rambling rant about the aggravation caused by the way things are done at the House of Blues, or about opening acts, and certainly not about this specific opening act. Perhaps I simply wanted to get that off my chest.
Onward.
I would definitely classify Oakhurst as bluegrass, although the band’s guitarist insisted that they were not bluegrass, really. After all, they had a drummer.
I need to say, call me crazy, that their guitarist/lead singer, “A.P.”, reminded me heavily of Captain Jonathon Archer of Star Trek fame. I cannot find pictures online to support this fanciful notion of mine, but perhaps I have some in my pictures from the show…
They did 8 or 9 songs. Unfortunately, their microphones were inadequately amplified and could barely be heard. They were okay, and I imagine Dad probably enjoyed them quite a bit, although I didn’t think to ask him afterward. I think I’m more entertained by artists that switch up their instruments during a show. Great Big Sea has spoiled me in that way.
Gaelic Storm set list!:

Beggarman
Johnny Jump Up
Bare in the Basin
Piña Colada in a Pint Glass
Death Ride to Durango
Me & the Moon
The Night I Punched Russell Crowe
Samurai Set
LOVER’S WRECK!!!!!
Raised on Black and Tans
Instrumental That I Didn’t Recognize
Johnny Tarr
Darcy’s Donkey (in the key of “spoon”)
Here Comes Chucky Tim
Floating the Flambeau
Slim Jim and the Seven Eleven Girl
Courtin’ in the Kitchen
What’s the Rumpus?
Kiss Me, I’m Irish

It seemed that there wasn’t quite as much onstage banter as there was last year.
In addition to being performed in the always delightful key of spoon (contains, according to Patrick, the only known spoon solo intro in music history), we were instructed to do the “Donkey Dance” during the instrumental section of “Darcy’s Donkey”. Patrick threatened that if he saw someone not doing it, he would point that person out to everyone, and he or she would subsequently be laughed at. I won’t describe the dance here, but suffice it to say that when the song was over Pat made sure to let all of us know how stupid we looked doing it, but that he was impressed because we were the first city to do it voluntarily. Also, apparently Pittsburgh could not get the hang of it. This may or may not be true, but we went with it anyway. I turned around to give Polite Warning Guy a Significant Look, and saw him laughing.
Patrick announced about four songs in that they would not be singing “Johnny Tarr” that evening, stating that after you’ve played every single day for the past 200 years like he has, you start to get sick of it. Steve replied, “Why would we do THAT song, anyway?” Cheeky devil. This was of course met with profound unhappiness, and Pat took a moment to muse about the traditionally fleeting nature of fandom. They did play it, of course, as you can see from my set list, but they did not do any other artist’s version of the song (Kenny Chesney, Nora Jones, Michael Jackson, Lynrd Skynrd, Snoop Dog, etc). Sadness.
I was thrilled to hear the opening chords of “Lover’s Wreck” (as you may have guessed by its exclaimed and capitalized status in my set list), but I was ultimately disappointed with the performance. It was good, but it was not better than good. The album version is very rough-sounding and powerful, and I didn’t feel like the percussion was given enough rein in the live performance. Also, two of the things I love about the song were sacrificed – the way the beat and counter-beat seem to flip back and forth within the chorus, which is one of the things that makes it so fun to play on the bodhrán, and the powerful madness of the third verse.
One of the most interesting parts of the show was the percussion solo stuck in the middle of the “Floating the Flambeau” set. I got a video of the song from about halfway through the percussion section, which featured Patrick and Steve on bodhráns and Ryan on the cajon. I can’t promise that it will be uploaded, as I’ve made that promise on a few occasions in the past only to find that things come up to stop me, or the upload fails for whatever reason. I shall attempt it. That is all I can say.
The dueling instruments character of the Samurai Set was made extra entertaining by the addition of a burly stage hand, who was fetched by Jessie, and later by Peter, to aid them each in disposing of the other so that the spotlight they felt their respective instruments deserved could be basked in.
I was right in the middle of the audience for “Me & the Moon”, but I appeared to be slightly Stage Patrick, so I took his side in the shout-off for the first time in the 4 times that I’ve seen them live. We won the match, but only by Patrick’s vote. I didn’t notice any great disparity in the volumes of the two sides.
I tried calling Mom when the song started, as I’d warned her I would, but she didn’t pick up. I ended up recording a snippet of the song on my phone and sending it to her, but I got no response. I did get a rather nice shot of the audience in the video, though.
“Here Comes Chucky Tim”, which will be on the new album, is a tribute to a man the band met at the Dublin Irish Festival last year. I cannot tell you the details because I can’t recall them, nor can I find any substantial reference to him in a Google-aided search.
I took a video of “Slim Jim and the Seven Eleven Girl”, for whatever reason (it came right after the stellar “Flambeau” set), and at one point attempted to get a shot of the audience. Steve decided that that moment would be a perfect one to wander to the edge of the stage and smile brilliantly in a camera-stealing kind of way, hoping to thrill me by personally acknowledging my video and actively participating in it. I was thrilled, indeed, but unfortunately after I swung my camera back around to him, he didn’t stay put long enough for the camera to refocus on his face. Simultaneous Yay and Grrrr.
I usually notice the sad state the floor is in after a show at the House of Blues, because it is necessary to scour the floor for potentially dropped items and to watch where one is going. The floor was absolutely saturated with spilled beer, and as I was making my way back to Dad (Kevin had had to skip out instantaneously after the curtain closed), I saw a girl who was complaining that someone had spilled beer in her hair. I guess I’d gotten lucky.
It took me forever to pick a shirt at the swag table, but I ultimately chose a brown shirt that had a slightly vintage look to it. http://gaelicstorm.s3.amazonaws.com/large2_1234.jpg
Dad got another brown one with a donkey in a pint glass and the phrase “EVERYBODY RAISE A GLASS TO DARCY’S ASS”. http://gaelicstorm.s3.amazonaws.com/large_1237.jpg

Kevin called me as we were making our way to the parking garage to let me know that he’d seen a license plate on Rt 71 that read “GR8BIGC”. This tickled me, but also saddened me, because it was an Ohio car. I wanted that vanity plate!!
As Gaelic Storm had officially declared Flannery’s to be the “Pub of the Month” on their website, I perhaps should have at least tried to get in to see the band there for the after party, but I knew that they place would be impossible to navigate. In retrospect I’m a little sorry that I didn’t try, but I probably would have gotten social phobic and nervous and unable to move around very well. Oh, well. Perhaps I will have more of a spine, and more desire and gumption, next year.

“In my sleeping mind she sings a sad and lonely lullaby
And when I wake, there’s just the ache that’ll haunt me till I die
When those winds of vanity no longer blow her west
I pray they’ll guide her home and put my heart to rest
A press-gang filled this Man-o-War, to make the black-mouthed cannon roar
Now all my trade is ball and blade and blood forever more
The sting of salt and spray, the oceans howl and squall
A stumbling wreck, I roam the deck at the Devil’s beck and call”
~ “Lover’s Wreck”

HANSON W/ HELLOGOODBYE, STEEL TRAIN & SHERWOOD @ THE CLEVELAND HOUSE OF BLUES

I know, it’s been two and a half weeks and I’m just now getting around to posting this. I’ve been working on it and the related pictures steadily since the show, and they’re finally ready to see the light of day. The blog has been ready for quite a while, but I’ve been so busy that I’m just getting around to uploading the pictures.
As some of you know, I went to my (6th? 7th? I can’t remember anymore) Hanson concert on Tuesday, October 6 2009. The understanding I have with my readers is that I will post a concert recap blog. So, here she is!
Jennie and I got to the venue around 2:30 in anticipation of The Walk starting at 3 (that’s 3 o’clock Hanson Time, 3:20ish Standard Time). Jennie was fascinated by Cleveland’s pigeon population. “Those are the fattest birds I’ve ever seen!” she kept saying. “Take a picture! Take a picture!”

So we got in line and there were only a few people in line ahead of us. A guy from the HOB kept reminding us about Pass the Line, insisting that the Pass the Line people would be getting in before the Walk people. I’m not so sure he was correct about that, after my experience last year, and I don’t suppose we will ever really know who went in first. We did lose several people from our line, however, who found the lure of a place closer to the stage too enticing to pass up.
Some odd, smoking hippie chicks who were wearing foundation a full centimeter thick sat behind us and showed us pictures that they’d taken earlier in the day. This confused me, because I had thought that, like every Cleveland show before, The Walk was supposed to start at 3pm at the House of Blues. Evidently, unbeknownst to me, my boys had decided to host this year’s Walk at 1pm the Rock Hall instead. Long story short, we missed The Walk and I was extremely aggravated. Several other people were, too.
And yet we still love our boys.
I know this is a silly thing to say, but I have decided that I REALLY need to stop loving this band so much. I can’t remember the last time I was so exhausted, even after pulling a 13-hour day working horse shows last spring. Jennie and I were on our feet for about 10 hours straight, and my feet, knees and lower back were throwing out some major pain vibes by the time Steel Train took the stage. Also, the time I spent waiting for the real show to start really really really really would have been better served in my dorm room finishing up the midterm project that was due in my Equine Facilities class the next day.
And yet we still love our boys. We are blindly devoted. That’s all there is to it.
As for me, I feel like Jerry Fletcher in Conspiracy Theory. Remember the scene where he’s talking to Alice about Catcher in the Rye? And he says that whenever he walks into a book store he has to buy that book? And if he doesn’t find it he has to look for it so he can buy it? So that he can feel normal? And he doesn’t feel right if he doesn’t do it? That’s largely how I feel about Hanson shows. I can’t not go them. If there is a Hanson show going on in Cleveland and I know about it, I have to go to it or when that evening comes around and I’m not there, I’ll be bouncing off the walls and pacing and wondering and thinking and getting all uppity and it just doesn’t feel RIGHT to not go.
I could have made that sound crazier, but I don’t think I want to.
Anyway…
After Two Smelly Hippie Chicks With Too Much Foundation left, we were standing with a girl that I only know as Purple Hoodie because she didn’t tell us her name and for some reason we felt foolish asking. She was personable, but she was positively obsessed with trying to be as close to the stage as possible, and she left us after a while to try her hand at Pass the Line through the HOB restaurant. Jennie saw her in the crowd later, and evidently she was closer to the stage than we were. Perhaps the HOB guy knew what he was talking about after all.
After Purple Hoodie left, we met Drumstick (the girl who swiped Zac’s drumsticks and waved them dutifully in front of my camera last year) and her friend Mexico (who was crazy and did not wear long sleeves to wait in line outside in Cleveland in October). We talked to them quite a bit. Jennie kept squirming whenever people asked her what her favorite Hanson song, album, band member, etc was. I called her a “fresh convert” to help her out, and that sent the people asking the questions all aflutter with approval.
I felt a hunger headache coming on and was determined not to let it ruin my evening, so I walked a few hundred feet down the sidewalk to a place called Jimmy John’s to see what they had. It was a sub place, and the closest quick restaurant the HOB had to offer. I overpaid for a sub with turkey – that’s it, just turkey, though the menu made it look like it would at least come with cheese, for Chan’s sake! – and a cookie and rejoined Jennie, Drumstick and Mexico.

The doors opened at 6pm. At that time we had already been waiting 2 ½ hours.

We were like, right in the middle of the crowd, more or less centered but slightly Stage Taylor. Kind of where I was expecting to be last year. There was a really tall guy in front of us that every girl around us was complaining about. Naturally, most of the girls around me were my height or shorter. He ended up in front of Jennie. She complained a little, but is far too polite to have said anything to him directly.
So if you’re out there, Tall Guy in the Blue and White Striped Shirt Who Was at the Cleveland Hanson Show With His Wife, on behalf of everyone in the back half of the audience, I would like to say this: we do not like you.
Also, to Guy in the White Baseball Cap That Looked Mostly Unhappy To Be There – Jennie was watching you. You are attractive. Keep your cap on, she says.
I’ll say first that I was ultimately disappointed with HelloGoodbye (sorry sorry sorry!), but that Sherwood and Steel Train were at least good enough that I resolved to YouTube search them very soon. Evidently I had a thing for keyboard players that night, because Sherwood’s keyboard player tickled me (he looked like a young Andy Dick), and Steel Train and HelloGoodbye both had cute keyboardists. Steel Train’s lead singer also reminded me of Derek (a guy that you don’t know who goes to school with me).
Unfortunately for you, and for them, I do not feel like recapping the opening acts very much. I will mention, however, that I sat down (on the floor at the House of Blues) in between them because my back and feet were so sore. ACK!!!
I will say that Steel Train closed their performance with a mostly a capella song. I thought it was cool.

You could see the brothers watching the opening bands from behind the scenes, in a balcony area above the wings of the stage. I tried to get a pic, but was mostly unsuccessful. I did get one of Taylor, but it’s really REALLY bad.
After one of their more rollicking songs, HelloGoodbye professed to having a “Back to the Future moment”, and proceeded to play an erratic guitar lick a la Marty McFly. This tickled me, but the rest of the audience didn’t seem to care for their between-songs banter. This is something that, as a Great Big Sea fan, I see a lot, and tend to enjoy. Of course, there are other people – and here I refer generally to people but also specifically to Loud Rude Heckler Girl Who Was Standing Behind Me – who do not appreciate it. On the plus side, this pop culture moment caused someone in the back to shout a request. The song? “Earth Angel”. This tickled me even more. He attempted the first few chords, but then admitted to not really know the song.
I wanted Hanson to get out on stage and play already, too, but I really REALLY felt that there was no call to be rude to the bands that were opening. As such, Loud Rude Heckler Girl Who Was Standing Behind Me was extremely aggravating.
Later, a guy in the balcony shouted “FREEBIRD!!!” at some point during HelloGoodbye’s set. They told him that if he wanted to get on the stage and play Freebird for the audience, they would stop their set right then and let Hanson play. Needless to say, the audience squealed with delight. Also needless to say, he didn’t do it. He did get right up to the edge of the stage, though, and the stagehands were all waiting, ready to haul him up.
Also, one of their guitarists, who also played the ukulele and the electric mandolin, looked quite preppy in his Abercrombie sweater, compared to the blatant geekiness exuded by his bandmates. Song or two into the set, however, he removed the sweater and I found that he was laden with tattoos. As such, I took pictures of him for Cindy.
I swear Taylor was wearing the same grey pants he wore last year. And they are no more flattering on him now than they were last year.
Isaac’s hair has gotten fluffier. More sophisticated, I guess you could argue. I will get used to it, as I always have. And while we’re discussing hair, Zac has let his grow out a bit. I for one am loving it. Jennie is not. Fie on her, I say.

Set list!...

World’s On Fire (New EP song) (I’m really beginning to love this song. It’s extremely catchy. Also, as I was preparing to come home for Fall Break, I picked up my bodhrán and played along once I realized that the song is a jig. Much fun. I took a video of it.)
Thinking of You (First song off the first album. 12 ½ years ago. Damn.)
Where’s the Love (I think it was during this song that Jennie commented, “OMG The floor is bouncing!” Veteran Hanson fans know that this phenomenon is not uncommon for Hanson shows. Watch “Underneath Acoustic Live” for details.)
Great Divide
Got a Hold on Me
Been There Before
Penny & Me
A Minute Without You (ISAAAAAAAAC!!!!)
Blue Sky
Carry You There (New EP song)
Madeline (This song won the online vote in Cleveland for “song you’d like to hear”. I voted for River, but when I voted on Sunday, “Never Let Go” was in the lead. So this was a surprise to me.)
This Time Around
Use Me Up (New EP song) (Jennie liked this one a lot, but that one really long note in the chorus was just the right pitch to cause my ears to ring.)
These Walls (New EP song)
Can’t Stop
Crazy Beautiful
MMMBop (Jennie took a video of this to show Nikki, but the sound on her camera was really bad and most of what you hear is the crowd.)
Man From Milwaukee (I got a video of the “Mother Bird” part of the song. I will put it on my computer next week, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it on MySpace or YouTube.)
Watch Over Me (They did this song near the end of the show last year, too. They started it with Zac’s drums, and I mistook it for Every Word I Say.)
Lost Without Each Other

When Zac took the piano to sing “Use Me Up” and announced that he would be doing a new song, someone from the rear left of the crowd shouted “GEORGIA!” Zac turned around and said, “But… I don’t sing that song!” I should mention here that several days earlier Zac had posted this plaintive tweet on twitter.com: “Someone help they are trying to make me do a solo. –Z”
Poor little dude (as Mom would say).

For the acoustic set (Carry You There – These Walls), Zac was using one of those boxy drummy things that Ryan Lacey tore up the stage with at the Gaelic Storm concert. Zac, for once, was much more reserved than Ryan.
After the show, Jennie and I made our way to the swag tables (that’s what my uncle Kevin calls them – I have since discovered that that is not a well-known term for them, as everyone that I’ve used that word on has met it with a puzzled expression). Jennie really liked Steel Train, and wanted a t-shirt from their table, but embarrassed herself when she approached the Sherwood table and asked about the yellow shirt from the wrong band. She covered herself by insisting that her friend had her money (which was sort of true – she had given me a 20 to get her a Stand Up Stand Up t-shirt from the Hanson table) and scurried back to me, red-faced. After we finished at the Hanson table, me with the Stand Up Stand Up EP and a zippered hoodie (I FINALLY GOT A HANSON HOODIE YAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!), we slinked back to the Steel Train table. After some painful deliberation, Jennie chose the black galaxy shirt, which you can see here -----> Steel Train t-shirt
I also decided, when asking for the shirt, to let the guy behind the table know that Jennie wanted a picture with him, since she kept pointing out that he was the cutest one in the band. She was slightly embarrassed, but since he agreed, she let me take the picture anyway. I’m just evil like that. We went to The Corner Alley after we left the venue. We reviewed our pictures and videos, discussed the bands and the people we put up with in the audience. The bartender was pretty awesome, and we downed at least 2 glasses of ice water apiece. (As it was after the GBS concert, all I kept thinking was, “WATAH!! I NEED WATAH!!!!”) In case anyone is wondering, the bathrooms at The Corner Alley are in the basement at the back of the establishment. Also, they are dark.