Jon McLaughlin Concert

Let us just get one thing out of the way, so you can begin feeling surges of jealousy towards me immediately: I was right up against the stage and Jon did the whole concert looking deeply into my eyes. 

Half of that sentence is true. I actually sat on his lap.

So I heard about his tour back when I was still summer-ing in Singapore. I would have gotten tickets immediately, but of course my bank balance was broke and my credit cards were all cancelled. My checking account was still recuperating from the huge hit it took from the Vegas trip to see Celine. The first thing I bought with my credit card, as soon as I got them reinstated back in Madison, was a ticket to Jon's concert. 

It took place at the Majestic Theater, a really cozy, almost cabaret-esq hall with a moshpit before the stage and tables further back. The environment was really laid back, people were just chilling out, having a beer. Completely unlike any concert I've been to, where it's just overwhelmingly productions with totally focused, zealous fans. Being one of the first to arrive (I don't fuck around when it comes to Jon), I planted myself right by the stage. That walk to the stage was almost dreamlike. You know how in your dreams, everything around you sort of goes fuzzy, and you don't seem aware of what you're doing but you're just kinda floating to your destination? It was just like that. It's almost like my mind still isn't able to process the fact that I'm gonna be that close to Jon McLaughlin. 

He was everything I expected him to be, and then some. Watching him play the piano, with devastatingly quick and powerful bashes on the keys, was like being in the presence of a god. Hearing the songs I've been listening to for years brought to life not 3 feet in front of me by this prodigal genius was just wild. Most of the people there, I know, were there to see the next act, Stephen Kellogg, but I didn't care. I was totally in the zone, mouthing every lyric, grooving and jamming to the lyrics of my star. I drank in as much detail as I could, from the way he grimaces at the piano as if afraid of the keys he were pounding on, to the drops of sweat dripping onto his mic. I was in heaven. 

Some girls shouted "'Human! Play 'Human'!", and he thought about it for a while, and actually did it. I wish they had suggested 'So Close' or 'Beautiful Disaster' instead, and I totally would have made a suggestion but I was alone and mortified that he might actually notice me. 

When the Jon's segment was over, his bassist handed me the setlist they were using on stage. He probably saw how I was the most obvious fan in that section and went, 'Hey you want this?" Hell yeah I want it. 

The only thing that could have made that day even more perfect was if Damian was here. Concerts are infinitely more enjoyable when there's someone that you know would love it as much as you would, someone who's been listening and fanboying that music for as long as you have. Another reason why we should all just move to the US - to watch as many concerts as we can. 



And the setlist personally handed to me by the bassist: 

Kelly Clarkson - April 27

It's finally happening. It's as if the Concert-Gods above are answering my prayers, because on the 27th of April, 2010, I would be coming face to face with Kelly Clarkson.

Face to face might be exaggerating a little bit, but 8th row comes pretty close. How awesome it would be if I stood out from the crowd because everyone from rows 1 to 7 are too short to matter. So, Concert-Gods, this is my second prayer to you. Make those bastards pay for buying the seats closer to Kelly, for come April 27th, they shall be known as the ones-who-did-not-matter-for-there-is-someone-freakishly-tall-in-row-8.

I can totally picture it. Kelly would be up on stage, singing 'My Life Would Suck Without You', and see me there, standing in a sea of people who did not matter, and our eyes would meet as she points to me while she sings the word 'you'. The stadium would quieten down around us, and all the 'ones who do not matter' would fade away. Mind you, Kelly, there's no need for any pointing during 'Never Again', 'Walk Away' and 'Since U Been Gone'. That's just being mean.

I just love how interactive she is with the audience. Hopefully, she wouldn't encounter that many singlish-ers on her way to the stadium, or she'll be under the impression that the locals speak an alien language unbeknown to the rest of the world, hence cutting down the 'audience-interaction'. After all, that was what happened to Beyonce.

On a totally random note, an English teacher at JJ once tried to be 'in' and pronounced her name as 'Bee-yons'. She even had the nerve to do the, 'Oh, you guys are 18 and you don't know her?', complete with the 'Damn I'm Cool' hair-flip routine. Her expression when I corrected her was just priceless. Sigh, I miss loser teachers.

There's something intriguingly hypnotic about how the most mundane things, when said by an idol, suddenly becomes the most hilarious and interesting topic in the world. I don't want to hear a starbucks waitress talk about how she finds the smell of coffee really aromatic, but lord help the coffee beans if Kelly said that in her concert, for I'll track every last bean down and sniff the crap outta it. Bad puns and lame jokes can somehow crack a whole stadium up when the right person says it, but when the ostracized, ugly kid says the exact same thing in class, all you wanna do is watch as the vultures tear his dead body apart. Dead because you also watched as the big kids squeezed the life right outta him.

In this day and age, it's actually ironically refreshing to watch a singer do what a singer is supposed to do - sing. Here's a real singer who doesn't have to put on disturbing costumes, breathe fire, shake her junk across the stage or cartwheel onto the stage to sell tickets (yes, Gaga, I'm talking about you). In a world where the extravagant spectacle has become more of a draw than the 'singer' herself, it's nice to see someone who can deliver the goods with what she's born with - her voice.