Seeing the 97's at The Bottleneck was a little nostalgic for me, because just over 10 years ago this was the first place we ever saw them, after our friend Jason sent us a few bootleg CDs of their concerts and then invited us to the show. The rest is history, a history which I don't really need to repeat since I already chronicled the whole thing here. In fact, as I was looking for that particular post I realized how many times I've actually blogged about them. It's kind of insane and I'm really slightly embarrassed. I can just see them Googling themselves and finding this blog and then recognizing me as the crazy-eyed person who rambled incoherently to Murry in Kansas City last summer. They're probably slightly frightened at my obsessiveness, which wouldn't be that weird since my husband is slightly frightened by it too.
So ANYWAY, clearly we had a fantastic time at the show, and I'd be repeating myself if I told you how great they were live. They played 9 of the 12 songs from their new album, which meant that we missed a lot of the old classics (Niteclub, guys...everyone in the audience was cheering for Niteclub!), but almost all of the new ones they played we really liked. Even those that we liked just a little on the new CD, we liked tons more live. While there were tons of old songs I missed, I at least got to hear my most favorite song ever--Four Leaf Clover--which they hadn't played in several of the last shows I'd been to.
What made the show even more fun was my location, since I left Chad and our other friends to push my way to the front immediately after the opening band was finished. I made it to the second row, which was fine since clearly the people in the first row were also hard core fans who'd waited there during the entire opening act as well. Since I was alone, I quickly made friends with a woman by herself who looked about my age (I realized she was just a little older when she talked about her daughter's recent wedding!) who is from New York but now lives in Olathe. She was at her sixth 97's show and was wearing a t-shirt signed by the whole band. She was just about as serious as I was about being there--it was great to meet a fellow superfan!
Besides the great performance, we also had a terrific time hanging out with our friend Jason and his mom, dad, sister, brother and future sister-in-law until the wee hours of the morning. Spending time with his family is always a plus! While we were sitting around at the Bottleneck out after the show, Murry came out into the bar and I went over to take his picture again--this time not for myself but for Jason's sister Brittany. I specifically kept my mouth shut and just ran the camera, knowing full well that I'd sound like a complete moron if I said anything to him. At least I learned from my mistake last time!
A little later as Murry was heading out to their tour bus parked out front, he walked right up to Jason's parents and started chatting with them. He was just so nice! We all thought he probably recognized them since they are at so many 97's shows in the area and they are almost always the oldest people there. We got a picture of Murry with them as well, and then in probably the most hilarious moment of the evening, Jason's future sister-in-law Morgan offered Murry and the band a place to stay for the night. Murry very graciously declined, but somehow the conversation still turned into a discussion of their accommodations and the fact that they had an extra shower and the band was welcome to use it. Uh--awkward but hilarious! It was so nice to see someone else babble incoherently in Murry's presence!
As usual, the pictures with my point-and-shoot camera were pretty terrible, so I picked just a few from the night that I doctored up with Photoshop to make them a tiny bit interesting. There are a few others from after the show too--although I didn't capture the exact moment that Morgan invited Murry into her shower. Classic!
1 comment:
Great pics, super groupie!
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