05:40 pm
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Michael Buble (another backdated entry)
A couple of months ago, I did the unbelievable. I won tickets to a concert on the radio. And it wasn't just any concert; it was Michael Buble. ::fans face:: I had seen him once before, when Halmark hadn't yet picked up him and he wasn't that well known in the US. I'd gone to see him with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) brukwurm and shadmere in Charlotte, and I sat close enough to violate a restraining order. But I wasn't brave enough to mob him or even to stand up and dance in the aisle when he suggested it. I wasn't yet a groupie.
I may have become a groupie between concerts. I was determined to win tickets. The radio contest required that I listen at 6:30 to hear a classic movie line (since Michael "brought back the classics") and call in and identify it. I called in every morning until I won. I was the first caller twice. The first time I called, I got through, but I didn't know the line. The second time I called, I knew the line, but I didn't get through. The next time, again I didn't know the line, but I was Googling it as I called. (Does that qualify as cheating?) Luckily for me, the first site that came up was "Famous Humphrey Bogart Lines," and I won tickets!
I asked my sister to go with me, but at the last minute (the day before), it turned out that she couldn't come. So there I was with an unclaimed ticket. I began calling friends to see who would come with me. Believe it or not, I couldn't find anyone to go. Understand, now, this was a sold-out concert, and I had quite decent seats (left mezzanine). The nose-bleed seats had gone for $60, so my tickets had to be worth at least $90 each. Still, no takers. supermer had to "paint." Well, no one has perfect priorities all the time. Another friend had tickets to Cirque du Soleil, perhaps an acceptable excuse. One friend agreed to go with me, then immediately called back to say she couldn't go, because her mother needed her that night. I even called a friend I hadn't seen in months, who lives over an hour away, to see if she could come. But she was headed out of town. So I went to sleep that night before the concert without anyone to go with me.
The next day I went to work and had a late job, one that ended around 4:30. I still had no one to accompany me, and the concert was to start at 8:00. In my car on the way home, I called another friend. (I hadn't called her before, because she's married, and I had only one other ticket. I didn't want her husband to feel left out.) When I told her that I had an extra ticket to the concert that was to start in less than four hours, she said, "You're lying." I assured her that I wasn't, that I was holding the tickets in my hand as I spoke. Once I convinced her that it wasn't a trick, she agreed enthusiastically to accompany me to see Michael.
The concert was incredible, as I knew it would be. I'm always afraid at concerts that I'll be disappointed, that the singer won't be as good live, without digital voice enhancement etc., as he sounds on his CDs. Both Josh Groban and Michael Buble have managed not to disappoint me live. Michael first appeared at the top of some lighted stairs, silhouetted behind a screen, as he sang the intro to "Feeling Good." My friend and I joined the other unabashedly screaming female voices. The screen lifted, Michael came down the stairs, and he entertained us exceptionally for the rest of the evening. Even Josh Groban, at his concert, took off his jacket for the second half, but Michael stayed impeccably dressed the whole concert, down to the pink insert in the breast pocket of his well-cut gray suit. That boy has persona. He absolutely flirts with the audience, and we love it.
My friend and I agreed that it's all about Michael's persona. When he's on stage, I will scream and giggle as any of his teeny-bopper fans. But if he, Michael Buble the human being, by some machination of fate, were to approach me on the sidewalk and ask me out, I would most certainly say no. It may be unfair of me, but I have a totally unsubstantiated impression of him as a spoiled, arrogant womanizer. I would never want to date him. That doesn't mean, however, that I won't sigh as I listen to his CDs or giggle without dignity when he catches my eye from the stage.
I knew it would come, and I asked my friend to help me be brave enough to get up when Michael would step into the audience. She and I tried our best. Michael was heading back along one aisle, and we were rushing back along the other to meet him at the back. I got within ten feet of him as he posed for a picture with a girl, his security people creating a perimeter around him. If he had continued on his path, he would have run into me. But fate was cruel, and Michael turned around and headed back the way he came. I was not yet groupie enough to charge his security team, but there's always next time.
When Michael suggested that the audience get up and dance, my friend and I got up and ran down front. We stood for the rest of the concert near the stage, getting to see Michael up close in all his sweaty glory. Again, his talent for performance was incredible. He would flirt outrageously with all of us, suddenly rushing the edge of the stage with a heart-stopping mischeivous look, then catching someone's eye and smiling. It isn't that he's particularly cute (in fact, he's rather nondescript and almost short); it's the persona.
At the end of his encore, Michael ascended the lighted stairs, flashed another silhouette on the screen, and disappeared into the shimmering mist whence he came. My friend and I went home very happy and well entertained.
Current Location: Cary, NC
Current Mood:  giggly
Tags: concert, michael buble, review
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