They Call It Xanadu

After my disco nap on Saturday afternoon I prepared to go to the Olivia Newton-John concert at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center.

A week before my Mom passed away she called me one evening asking me to go online to Ticketmaster to purchase a single ticket to the concert for her. I said "You really want to go see Olivia Newton-John??" and she said "well, yeah... I like her and rarely go anywhere!" So, I went online and bought her the best ticket they had available.

A week or so after Mom passed away I received the ticket in the mail. I had almost forgotten about even purchasing it for her. I thought about selling it on Craigslist but what were the chances of someone buying a single ticket to ONJ? I later found out that my friend Steve bought a ticket to to the show so I decided to go and meet up with him afterward.

My friend Devin was covering the concert for the Post & Courier so the plan was that Devin (who also knows Steve) was going to get Steve in and I was going to take Steve's ticket and Steve was going to invite his current date Josh and Josh was going to take my ticket. When we finally got into the theater we realized that the press tickets that Devin got were worse seats than the tickets that Steve and I had so we each kept our original seats and Josh and Devin sat together. Sounds confusing, huh?

So, there I was sitting in the seat originally intended for my Mother. It was quite a strange crowd ranging from teenagers to the elderly. Of course there was wide representation from the gay peeps because we all know that some queens love their Xanadu!

When ONJ came out I was a bit concerned about her voice. It seemed awfully strained and she had a bit of trouble reaching those high notes she is known for. Thankfully she recovered in the first half of the show. I was kind of disappointed that she only sang "Magic" and "Xanadu" from Xanadu... Xanadu was the first vinyl album I bought with my own money! She could have done the whole soundtrack and left the stage and I would have been a happy camper!

One of the things I liked about the show was that she had this big backdrop behind her that showed photos and film footage from her life and her movies. I think it added to her performance since the stage was really lacking in design.

What I didn't like about the show was the sing-a-long she did to some of the songs from Grease. She had the words to "Summer Nights" and "We Go Together" on the screen and encouraged everyone to sing along... Men vs. Women. Ugh. The guy next to me seemed to be enjoying himself. He sang loudly and not necessarily the correct words. I'm not sure he even realized the words were on the screen. I was really happy when that part of the show was over!

ONJ sang all of her popular tunes and I couldn't help but to sit there and think that my Mom would have been in heaven. It was pretty hard trying to not think about that, because after all, it really should have been Mom sitting there and not me! I did pretty well emotionally until the next to the last number. That bitch ONJ just HAD TO play "Over The Rainbow" I could have run up to the stage and kicked her. When she sang that I pretty much just lost it and tried pretending that there was something in my eye. How would I explain this to the strangers sitting next to me? I mean, they were probably sitting there thinking "Wow! This girl next to me REALLY loves her some Olivia Newton-John!! - she's crying!"

My favorite part of the show was when ONJ walked over to the section of the stage where Steve was sitting. I could see him from my seat during the whole show. I could swear that when she walked over to shake the hands of people in his area he actually knocked down some people to get to her... he never really denied this so I'm sure that's exactly what happened!

After the show I met up with Josh and Steve and we walked to the back of the venue to see how close we could get to the tour buses. When we arrived it was just us and another couple so we started walking toward the bus. We were soon stopped by a couple of guys who told us we had to wait by the street which was pretty far away. By the time we got back to the street there were several other people with hopes of meeting her. I pretty much had the feeling that she would immediately get on the bus and roll right past us.

We did end up waiting around for an hour or so just to see what would happen. There was some asshole in the crowd that started getting belligerent with the security guard. I told him that is the last thing that you want to do... piss off the security guard and you won't get anywhere! The guy actually went on to call the city of North Charleston Police Department to lodge a complaint and find out exactly what his rights were. Obviously this was his first time trying to meet a celebrity. Any seasoned celebrity stalker knows that this would be the last thing you would ever do! What a jerk. He attempted to show his ass a bit more and loudly talk about what his rights were and that they can't stop him from going closer to the bus. Well, it seems that's exactly what they did. Luckily, he left a while later and ONJ did exactly what we predicted... she hopped on the bus and was gone in a flash.

All this time Devin was inside writing his review for the paper and later joined us with what was left of the crowd. All that celebrity stalking made us hungry so we went to Denny's for some late night food. It was really nice hanging out with Devin, Steve and Josh. It's strange how worlds collide like that because I met Steve in 1986 when he worked at the record store in the mall and I met Devin in 2004 at a Blues Traveler concert and Josh is someone I knew from hanging out in the gay bars of Charleston. Three totally separate relationships from three totally separate times of my life and they all know each other! Bizarre.

In other news, on Monday I got a call from McKesson offering me that job (that I haven't mentioned) that I interviewed for last week. I suppose I haven't mentioned it because I'm not really looking forward to it for several reasons. I took a huge pay cut and from what I understand the position is for one of their worst clients. The positive part of it is that it's close to home and I can wear jeans. After completing the background check and drug test (which I am supposed to do tomorrow) I will start on March 23rd. We'll see how that goes!

Since today is supposed to be the last warm day of the week I decided to go to Sullivans Island and spend a couple of hours in an attempt to get a tan. It was around 86 degrees and the sun was very warm but the wind on the beach was pretty chilly. I suppose blazing hot weather is a bit much to ask for when it is still March and probably snowing where I live! I only lasted an hour and a half and unfortunately, I don't think I got any sun at all.

And lastly, still no mail and still no package from the post office :( What the hell??!!