Yesterday, at 5.30am, I woke up on my living room floor, with my head on one beanbag and my feet on another. I leapt up and got dressed groggily, with speed, and shook all my poor tired family awake. Michael Buble was going to be singing on the 'Today' show. In my suburb. Within walking distance of my house.
We got there around six am. It was still kinda dark, twilight sky, sultry pre-dawn breeze (things heated up horribly before 7), and we made our way over to the crowd of diehard fans who were standing about an empty stage wearing clothes and makeup that looked almost ridiculous in the early morning light. My daddy got us some of the free muffins (which, to eat, were disturbingly like chunks of baked cardboard with little bits of apple in them) and coffee (to my disappointment they didn't serve tea) and we waited. And waited. And the crowd got bigger and bigger. It consisted mostly of young women who appeared to have come straight from their highschool formal (entirely possible at this time of year) and their mothers, who looked, if possible, more excited than the young ladies.
The Today Show people were in a little pagoda type thing beside the stage, doing their boring bit (we could listen to it, and sort of see half of it from in front of the stage) and there was no sign of Mr Buble for what felt like hours. The crowd grew and we got pushed further and further forward. The big band set up and checked microphones and stood around for ages and ages - one guy kept going up to the microphone centre stage and saying 'Testing, one, two, three,' like you'd expect, and then making weird Skippy kangaroo/rabbit noises into it. There were three (very cute) guitarists: one skinny one at the front with glasses (!) and one at the back with the biggest grin on his face - lovely to see :)
When Michael finally showed up the crowd nearly rioted, but he skipped around backstage and chatted to the hosts for what felt like another half hour before he took the mike. The first thing he said was to ask people not to surge forward because of the 'most adorable three, four, five-year-old' kiddies in the front row who might get squashed - there were a few self-important looking bouncers (big fat bouncy ones) who nodded smugly at this - and then he started to sing. It was only a sound check, as we realised afterwards, so not being able to hear him was a thing that could have been expected. The hosts were interesting to watch - they looked like Barbie and Ken, fresh out of the box. The male host smiled ALL THE TIME, even when he wasn't on camera. He looked like he was proudly advertising a peroxide job on his teeth. The female host looked as if she had been starched and ironed and wasn't pleased about it. She only smiled when the camera was within two minutes of her face.
Anyway, we finally got to hear Michael Buble sing. And he was amazing. He really really was fantastic to watch, although less enjoyable was the manic adoration of fans screaming 'Oy, Michael, take off your shirt! Your shirt!' 'Marry me, Michael!' 'I want to have your babies!' *shudder* I nearly ended up smothered by two large fat women who wanted to scream and dance and push past me all at the same time - and after the first two songs I couldn't even lift my hands to my face because we were packed in so tightly. Me and the family ended up in the second from the front row, and every time the camera swept past I wished fervently that I had gone to the painstaking lengths of the well-dressed women in front of me - particularly when our star got interviewed three feet in front of my face. When he came and stood on a box right in front of the barriers and leaned over the crowd I could have - as one strange lady did - grabbed his face! It was the first time I had ever seen that kind of fandom in real life - all the hands reaching to just touch their star, screaming his name, trampling other people to get closer... I felt a little ashamed coz I hadn't heard any of the songs from the new album: Taiya was singing all the words at the top of her voice and I sorta fudged my way through the choruses. I knew all the lyrics of the two songs he did from his other three albums though. At one point he shoved the microphone over the screaming ladies right into the face of Jayden (who was behind me) and then a few minutes later Halen (who was also behind me). Maybe he felt a bit of solidarity for the only two other males in sight!
I got my CD signed after ten minutes of awkwardly thrusting the album in my hand over the shoulders of the two accomodating ladies in front of me. And soon it was over. We had heard Michael Buble sing live.
I have decided, after my two live music experiences with Taiya, that I shall take her to live music whenever I have the chance. She heightens the experience immensely, singing and laughing and screaming with perfectly good grace. Yes, I like my little sister :)
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