Domo Arigato

I’m sleepy today. I’m kinda thinking that I would like to climb back in bed and have a nap. Working from home, with my ‘office’ in my bedroom, doesn’t help matters any. Being stuck on my project and sitting here waiting for a coworker to get back to me with some info doesn’t help so much, either. So, while I wait, I’ll fill my time by telling you about the concert that Ted and I went to last night. You’ll get his side on his blog, which will be full of interesting information about the band and all kinds of cool tidbits, I’m sure, so I’m going to be really lazy in my write up, OK? That way (hopefully) it won’t feel like you’re reading the same post twice, if you check out both posts.

Ted and his coworker, C-Lo, got free tickets to go see Styx at Wente Vinyards last night. Not only did they get free tickets, they also got backstage passes. How cool were we, running around with our little back stage passes? Very cool, THAT’s how cool.

I’ve been to Wente once before, for a wine auction, which was very pretentious and boring, and they served us fois gras and veal steaks, which was pretty damned gross. Last night’s concert came with dinner, and I was a little bit frightened that there may be some grossness served up. Happily, this was not the case. There was a big, beautiful buffet, with yummies for all, carnivore and herbivore alike. That was good sign number 1. Good sign number 2 was that you could get pretty decent wine (Wente, of course) to go along with your meal. Excellent. And can I say, for the over 35 set, Wente is definitely the place to go see a concert. Everyone is sitting at their tables, full of yummy food and wine, comfy and relaxed in a very pretty setting. Not the place to see U2 or anything, but it really was a very nice venue.

The bad news is that a backstage pass means you get to go back stage…you know, physically behind the stage. It does NOT mean that you get to go hang out with the band. Why anyone would want to go hang out and look at the band’s instruments is pretty much beyond me, so I’m not sure what use a backstage pass is supposed to be. We did get to meet one of the members of the band before the concert, and it was pretty cute, because he was telling his dad to enjoy the show. Hey, rock stars have families, too! Who knew? So we thought we would get to meet the rest of the band at a little ‘meet and greet’ before the show, but apparently, “Styx doesn’t DO meet and greets.” Whatever. So we went back to our seats and had some more wine.

I have to tell you, though, that contrary to popular belief, I have never been to a concert with a buzz before. This was my first time, and since we had 3 bottles of wine between the four of us, I was a little buzzed. It was great. If you’re going to go see a band with a bit of a buzz going, Styx is the perfect choice. They are just so….campy. They had a revolving platform holding the keyboard and the keyboard player, who also did the campiest of the Dennis DeYoung songs. At one point, after C-Lo and her partner-in-crime, J-Lo, had bowed out for the evening, they performed “Come Sail Away” (which is actually a different song than “Sailing” by Christopher Cross, in case you didn’t know that…), the campy keyboard player with the pants so tight you could see his butt crack from WAY back jumped up onto the top of the keyboard, then over on top of the drums. Boy, he had a lot of energy. I have to admit, it was great.

Here’s what I noticed, besides the fact that C-Lo was TOTALLY in love with that keyboard guy….when I knew a song, I was singing along, happy as could be. C-Lo would play keyboards on my leg to the song-intros, and I belted out “Too much time on my hands” with the best of them. But if it was a song I didn’t know, or didn’t care about, I was thinking, “Hmmmm…what should I pack in Maya’s lunch tomorrow?” Ever have one of those moments?

Anyway, it was a great evening, and I’m totally not doing it justice. I hope Ted is feeling a bit more chipper this morning (I got up at 6 to do the school thing, and he got to be the one to sleep in, for a change, since he usually gets up at 4:00), so his post will have more details, like maybe the actual names of the band members, some of the songs played, that kind of thing. Me? That bed is looking pretty darned good right about now.

Oh, and those passes (plus the fact that Ted & C-Lo had interviewed JY a few months ago) finally paid off, and we got to meet JY after the show and snap a picture with him.

While we were talking to JY (I’m not sure why he goes by that instead of James Young, but I’ll play along…) Ted teasingly told him that I was very disappointed that they didn’t play “The Best of Times”, and JY didn’t even seem annoyed. I mean, he could have said, “I got you people tickets AND dinner, and played my heart out for you, and you just complain to me?” He could have, but he didn’t. Whew. He just gave a stock answer about how they only have so much time, and they have SO many songs. He even apologized to me. But I’ll tell you, it almost ruined my night to not hear them play that song for me. FOR ME. Luckily, Ted is good that way, and he called the radio station and requested that they play the song for me on the way home. So I got to sing along after all…

The best of times are when I’m alone with you
Some rain, some shine, we’ll make this a world for two
Our memories of yesterday will last a lifetime
We’ll take the best, forget the rest and someday we’ll find
These are the best of times
These are the best of times

Don’t even TRY to tell me you’re not jealous.

Oh…a big shout out to Eric and Cherry, who came and stayed with Maya for the evening, so we could go out and have fun…THANKS! You guys ROCK!