The wolfgang thing in my opinion was timing. Which Kris has always been good at. Sometimes you have to end the joke when people are wanting more or it runs the risk of going on too long. And people were going crazy for it. Like CRAZY in every sense of the word. lol Kenny Rogers said it best, you've got to know when to hold 'em, you've got to know when to fold 'em...know when to walk away, know when to run. Words to live by.
I didn't realize people were going CRAZY for Wolfgang. lol. I agree with you, the timing was perfect. I thought this, myself. I was just kidding about missing him. And, yeah, Kris is good at that. Timing.
So -- if you don't mind, some more late impressions of the concert. Very random.
Very long, probably. I seem to be in the mood to type, today. Sorry. Hope you don't mind; you might find it interesting, too.
The fog/smoke. People were speculating on mj's blog that Adam's vocal issues (if indeed any there be) are from the stage fog. I doubt it, because if it bothered him, they'd get rid of it. But when it was hanging in the air, when I first walked in, it bugged
my throat a bit.
When Adam appeared on the videos, the screaming: it was there, but somewhat mild. All of it came from a particular large section of the balcony, and that's it. It's during the Ford videos. There are screams for Kris, too, but they come from all over the arena and do seem more
spontaneous for that reason. Not that I'm saying Adam's aren't spontaneous, I have no idea.
People sitting during Kris's set: A few people sit, then the rest of us have to, because if we don't, we're blocking their view. Actually, when he does Ain't No Sunshine you do want to sit. He says "We're going to slow it down, now," so naturally people sit. (In fact, he says "We goan slowitdownnow.") As a matter of fact, at that point in the concert you kind of want to sit. It's a relief because you're beat.
I lied in my recap. I confess. Here's what I lied about:
I took two breaks, not one. A quick food break during Danny's set, because I suddenly got extremely hungry, and a bathroom break during Adam's set. Or maybe it was the other way around. But anyhow, two very quick breaks.
I missed the second part of Starlight and the very beginning of Mad World. But when I came walking down to the floor section from the higher floor (that's how it's done, there, you have to walk down from the stands to the floor), the set, the fog swirling out from the back of the stage, and Adam sitting there in blue light was this unbelievably amazing sight from above. It really lost a lot of impact from the floor. The staging of a lot of his act is great.
During Danny's set, when I went out, there were a fair number of people milling around the halls. During Adam's set, just me.
After Adam's set was over, but before Kris's, some people on the floor behind me (quite a few people) started chanting
A-dam, A-dam, A-dam...it was
so damn annoying to me, because they knew Kris about to go next. Bastards! It's a mystery to me why Adam's fans often act rude. Like I said, the ones I
met were all nice.
Except the two women dressed in identical Adam costumes. They were kind of hard-looking older women, maybe 60 yrs old,
dames, if you will, with a lot of makeup and sexy-type long hair. They had black spandex leggings, white t- shirts one of them had designed, with a picture of Adam on them, and some kind of black bow or scarf in their hair. One was a blonde, one brunette. I asked to take their picture. They asked if I was an Adam fan. I said no, I was a Kris fan, and the blonde looked at me like I was dirt.
DIRT! lol.
I said: Hey, Adam likes Kris. This was news to her, She looked
stunned. The other people I'd been talking to chimed in, to concur. Yeah, I said, they both like each other, they're friends. Both women looked deeply
offended by this, so I just backed off and we all left them alone.
The silliest costume I saw that night also belonged to an Adam fan, it was another woman I'd guess was about 60, but not the sexy type, a large woman in black, with
huge (like,
enormous) oversize sunglasses, and a big top hat with A-D-A-M in huge lettering on it, and a glittery purple vest. It doesn't sound as silly as it looked.
There were a number of blind people there. Not a lot, probably, but just near me there were four blind people together, and a blind guy with a sighted person. I never got to talk to them, although I almost did. One guy had a red shirt on, and I wanted to ask if he was a Scott fan. (But if he wasn't, it would have been awkward.)
There were also a lot of younger people in wheelchairs, who had to sit in the aisles at the top of the sloping loge sections, Pretty good view. I kind of think these kids should be the first to get to go to the meet and greet, instead of a lot of people with an 'in', but that won't happen.
The gratifying thing to me was how many Kris fans I met (or just saw in Kris t-shirts), since you would think from the internet they hardly exist. Although one of them -- one of that group of three girls I mentioned -- actually said, at one point, to an Adam fan, "Kris was my favorite, but I thought Adam should have won." Sounds like a Kris fan, doesn't it? In fact, it sounds like Kris. I wanted to kill her.
The only male fans I spoke to were a guy and his son who was about 14 or 15, who sat near to me, and I met them when I offered to take their picture with their camera. Adam fans. They had been to the meet and greet, as had various other people around me -- they were still wearing the stickers. Earlier, a security guy at the meet and greet told me if you bought a "special ticket," for about 130 dollars, you could get in. "Just go to the ticket window, he said. "They were selling them earlier. That's how a lot of these people here got to go." It seemed weird. First I'd heard of that.
Oh, yeah -- the people in the seats right next to me came really kind of late -- during Lil's set. It was this, kind of, complaining older woman and her daughter. The first thing this woman did was to sit while everyone else was standing, and then groan a lot. "I can't
see." (groan.) "I don't
believe this." (groan.) There was a couple in front of us who were about 18. Having a great time. And this woman kept tapping them and telling them to sit down. At times, they were the only ones standing when most people were sitting, but I just stood when they did, they didn't bother me. "Do you
believe this?" the woman kept saying to me. She was seriously annoying. And loud.
Then Anoop came on, and it turned out she was an Anoop fan. And she kept yelling "A-nooop!" Well, at least she wasn't bitching, for a few minutes.
During intermission, I came back to my seat, and a woman was in my seat talking to this other woman next to me. Which was fine, only they ignored me standing there. So I had to ask the one in my seat if I could sit. "Sure," she said. "I hope you don't mind if I stand here talking over you." So I let her sit a while. But then she didn't appear to be leaving, so I had to kick her out for real.
But the one thing this woman next to me did that really got to me was: she talked during Kris's set.
Really loudly. During Ain't No Sunshine, and Bright Lights. Yakety yakety. It ruined it for me, almost. I actually told her to be quiet, once, but she didn't hear me or just didn't stop. Finally I just decided to stand up (even though everyone was sitting) because that put enough distance between us so I couldn't hear her. Eventually everyone stood for the guitar solo so I felt less self-conscious.
One thing that was interesting was that, despite what people tweet, nobody at all got up and left during Kris's set. I even looked around to see if this phenomenon took place, but, at least in Boston, it didn't. And if nobody sang along very much to Hey Jude, elsewhere, they sure did in Boston. And I turned around and the whole arena was waving phones and glowsticks, a really nice sight.
Oh, yeah: and the merch table sold out of Kris t-shirts, but the Adam t-shirts didn't sell out. How do you explain that, considering the cheers for Adam? (Well, Kris got pretty huge cheers, too, actually). In my recap I only mentioned the Kris t-shirts selling out, not that the Adam ones didn't. I didn't want to deal with the responses to that!
