A Taste of Stardom

So, I’m kind of a fanatic. Yup, that’s right, true bonified authentic fanatic. What about? Well, the band Travis of course. In fact, I’ve even named blog after them, you see their second cd was titled “The Man Who.” And, in my computer class in high school, I did a power point slideshow on Travis. Well, on November 18th I actually saw Travis, live, in the flesh, up close and personal. I had my first real contact with Travis. Those kinds of things just don’t happen to people like me.

We got to the concert quite early and stood around with the other Travis fanatics for an hour, and then we saw some rubbish band perform (Unfortunately, Gretchen has since become a fan of this rubbish band). The redeeming quality of the first band was the aesthetically pleasing drummer, who I enjoyed looking at.

Suddenly, after more waiting, the theme jingle from Universal pictures played and lights flashed around. The venue was dark and fans began screaming. I thought to myself “Wow!” and my heart began to race. The band ran up from a side corridor in wrestlers robes. Fans put their hands out hoping to touch the band, I stuck my hand out, but I didn’t touch anyone. Gretchen touched Dougies hand, I’m still jealous. She told me it felt rough.

Amazingly enough, me and Grethen were really close the action, about 3 feet away from the stage right in the center. I think I made eye contact with Dougie (Bassist) several times (uh, I think it was me he was looking at..). He enjoyed playing cat and mouse with the fans (that’s me by the way) he’d give a look and then look away and grin real big in his trendy rocker clothes. Then, he would do it again but this time more deviously. Gretchen got the honor of making eye contact with Franny (Lead Singer), man she gets everything!

All their major songs were played, sing, turn, side, battleships, why does it always rain on me, all I wanna do it rock, good feeling, writing to reach you, driftwood, closer and much more. Then when they sang “Flowers in the Window” they all put their arms around each other and sang together with just a guitar and a tambourine. Neil the drummer is a great tambourinist, well I suppose he has good rhythm since he’s a drummer.

At one point Andy (Guitarist) ran out into the crowd and played a solo in the with a guitar cord trailing behind him back up to the stage. Franny had us all point and shout rhythmically “Klaus, Klaus” at their keyboard guy. Then Franny insisted we make use of the springboard dance floor by jumping up and down during the chorus of “Why doe it always rain on me.” They got the audience involved and validated everyone’s feelings. Later in the show Franny said “Hi Linda” to an older lady with long grey hair, glasses and a denim coat. She looked absolutely shocked that they remembered her and her mouth hung open in disbelief.

I feel like I’ve arrived. I’ve never had contact with anyone remotely famous (unless you count a local newscaster). We did everything with Travis, we sang with them, looked at them, were looked at by them, touched them, screamed at them, jumped with them, and they talked to us. After all that contact, I feel like I can nonchalantly say, “Yeah, I know them.”