I went to the Gwen Stefani concert last night. Yes, I am 28 years old and yes, I can still enjoy and good concert. We left my house at 4:30 as we wanted to take the Skytrain and go to Moxies next to GM Place first. Well, we went walking the wrong way - long story - and finally ended up at Moxies at 6:15. The concert started at 8, so it wasn't a big deal... except that last night was also first day of training camp or something of that nature for the Lions and it was SO crowded down there. A sea of orange and black and SKIN. It was easy to tell who was going to Gwen and who was going to football. Well, the wait at Moxies was a 1/2 hour so we sat at the bar and were practically glaring at people to leave their tables. Hehe. I think it was almost 7 by the time we were seated. We then made the mistake of ordering some started dishes - the wings were cold! But we were in a hurry and you do not complain when you are in a hurry. The rest of the meal was great, but we didn't really notice as well, we kinda just gulped it down. We wanted to make sure to get to our seats on time. Didn't happen. We arrived just as this loud obnoxious music was pumping. Lady Sovereign ring a bell to anyone? Don't really care for her angry Kelly Osbourne-ish type music. Sorry.
But then, AKON came to the stage. He's really good. I don't really care if people think I'm a loser for liking him because I do. Can't help it really. He had this shirt on which said "I still believe in Africa". That made me like him more for some reason even though I've never been to Africa. I knew some of his songs, but for the past few months Philip has been singing "Nobody wanna see us together, but it don't matter, no - cause I got you" to Jericho. Don't ask me why, but he calls it "their song". So when Akon started to sing it, I got a little pang and started to miss the baby - but that was soon swept away.
Then, as we were waiting for the Gwen set, there were a few black dudes standing near the back of the sound area where it was just open. Now, we had floor seats, but were quite a ways back, 35 rows. But we had quite a good view of these guys. Then all of a sudden a whole bunch of people just SWARMED one of the guys. Lisa and I realized it must be Akon. We then noticed the aforementioned Africa shirt. So we left our seats and took a few close ups of him. Like I said, I may be a loser, but that moment felt pretty cool.
But as Gwen started singing, Lisa and I looked over into the sound area and DIRECTLY in line with us was Akon..sitting there with his peeps bouncing and grooving to Gwen's music. We then spotted the dude we had, along with about a thousand other people, taken pictures of. Apparently we must have gotten some sweet shots of one of the band members. Oh well.. we must not be THAT great of fans to not even be able to tell if it was him.
But Gwen was fantastic. The show started with these Asians girls in stripes running from one end of the building to the other... with spot lights and "Cops" chasing them. Then Gwen popped up from beneath the stage in a 'prison cell' singing "Sweet Escape". It was pretty cool. I don't own a Gwen CD, nor do I listen to her music often... but I do know "Wind it Up" and "Hollaback" and that Extraordinary Girl one and some others I can't remember right now. But she sang a song last night that was so beautiful that if I was still pregnant it might have made me cry. It's called "Early Winter" and if you have not heard it you should check it out. Towards the end of the concert, Gwen had just stopped singing and she stepped down towards the front row, then RAN around all of us in the floor section and went up on the sound area. She was about 3 rows back, about 6 feet high. Pretty cool. She's soooo small!! So she talked there for a bit, then started to run towards the stands and went up about 20 rows and started to sing with people ALL AROUND her. I would have been seriously claustraphobic had I been her... Then she ran down and back up into another section and sang with those people - but she had even gone down one of the rows abit so she was REALLY in there. I couldn't believe it. At the end of the song, the funniest part was how she was wearing this mid-drift shirt and all you could see was the HUGE black arm just enveloping her and pushing her through all the people.
All in all, pretty amazing. I had fun with Lisa - as we always do... looking at her pictures, laughing about how I thought I could read lips - but apparently cannot, trying not to get pulled over by that cop....etc... fun times. And why is that McDonalds ran out of ice cream at 12:30 am? Does anyone else see anything seriously wrong with taht? Argh.
The only real downside to the concert were the guys in our row smoking weed and the guy behind us who was falling down drunk. Apparently security thought it was enough just to give them a strong talking to. Yep, I'm sure they learned their lesson.
Anyways...thanks Lisa!