love is better than a warm trombone

i've written a little about this in the past but it's been on my mind recently so i'm going into more detail.

several weeks before sxsw it was announced that gomez and the decemberists would be playing a free show at pangea on st. patrick's day, the night before sxsw officially began. i could not have been more excited! until i found out that the only way to get tickets to this free show was to wait in line at waterloo records on the morning of march 16th. if you didn't already know, i work in retail and was already taking off wednesday-saturday of that week to attend the festival so there was no way i could take any time off to go get ticket for the show. and, of course, those that waited in line for the tickets could only collect one. i was beside myself. i finally decided i was just going to call in sick on march 16th (which is also my birthday) because i HAD to have a ticket to this show.

the ticket drop was to take place at 10:00 am and we knew that people would be there crazy early so we debated how early was too early to show up. i think we ended up arriving around 6:30 but i can't remember exactly. we were only about 15 people back in the line so we knew we would get tickets, it was just a matter of keeping ourselves entertained for 3+ hours. that wasn't too hard since there were quite a few of us there: me, dana, jeremy, alicia, phoebe, rachel, david and a couple of david's friends. we talked, did crossword puzzles and drank birthday mimosas. yes, david went to whole foods and came back with champagne and orange juice. it was so much fun! eventually they opened the store and we all filed in to get our one ticket.

at that point, it was only about 10:15 am and i probably could have gone into work for the rest of the day but i was exhausted because i woke up super early that morning. i went home, took a nap, and then went to vivo for my birthday dinner.

the next day i worked until 6:00 or so and then headed to meet dana and jeremy to go to the show! on the way downtown we found out that getting into the show was also on a first-come-first-served basis. soooo they possibly gave away more tickets than they had room for? awesome! we ended up cutting in line with rachel and david to ensure our admittance (shhh! i hate cutters but there was no way i was risking not getting in after all the time i had already invested in this show). the doors opened at least 30 minutes later than they were supposed to. i was getting really impatient because at that point, it had been, like, 20 months since i had last seen gomez. i was ready! they finally let us in and the show was great! the open bar was nice too. haha!

now, the real point of this blog is to share these videos with you:

airstream driver which features several shots of audience members looking rather silly. the first time i watched this video i held my breath, hoping that my face would not appear on my computer screen.

love is better than a warm trombone which is surprisingly without crowd close-ups until a little over 3 minutes in. yes, that is yours truly, double-fisting free drinks. and while it may appear that i'm "cheersing" the camera man, i'm actually posing for meghan's camera that none of y'all can see. and wait, that's not all, i'm in it again just a few seconds later. there are no other audience members in that video. none. just moi. why? at first i was humiliated and i was glad that i was the first of my friends to see it because that meant i could decide whether anyone else saw the video. then i realized something, it's kind of funny. and the more i watched it, the funnier it got. and the less embarrassed i was. so i decided to share it! and no one made fun of me, at least not to my face. so now, dear weblog, i'm here to share the video with you. be gentle, it's my first time.