So... okay. I was majorly freaking out earlier. I PMed Sean late last night on his board telling him I thought we shared eye contact a couple of times during the show on Saturday. He's never responded to a PM on his board... lo and behold, I find this message in my PM box today:



Hoooly mother. Seriously, my hands were shaking LOL I was like, who the hell am I gonna call about this?! But I knew who - my friend Peggy from Sean's board who's been in contact with him for a lot longer than I have, and who graciously got me an autographed picture when she saw him in Baltimore! I'll be posting that in a short while ;) I'm going to be copying and pasting this recap onto Sean's board as well, but not this top part because I don't want to seem too fangirly... plus, Sean reads the board.



I'm sorry this took me so long to write up; I procrastinate at everything. So no, I didn't get meet Sean. Just as I predicted LOL Nevertheless, I've only been to a couple of serious concerts (Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera -don't laugh-, Lollapalooza '03, John Mayer, and now Sean), and seriously, this has been my favorite one. My mom and I took off at around 10 in the morning on Saturday - we did a total of 640 miles. We live really close to the Mexican border (in the Rio Grande Valley) so it's like a five hour drive. I've gone up by myself to San Antonio numerous times, which is on the way to Austin, but I've only been to Austin a couple of times. The original plan was that I was going to meet Sharon, my friend who lives there, but she had to bail at the last minute so I wasn't at all certain that I was going to go... but with major coaxing, my mom finally agreed to come with. My friend Peggy warned me that there were some tornado warnings so when the rain appeared, I wasn't surprised. Once we reached SA and Austin, it was all sun. We got there at around 4:30-5:00 - we left the hotel at around 7:45. We probably should have left earlier, since there was a long queue (as supporting act Kamila Thompson put it) once we got to The Parish. A lot of people behind me were antsy that the doors weren't opening at 8:00 - the tickets said 9:00 but on the ticket website the time as pushed back. In the end, the doors didn't open up until 9. These two women behind me kept yakking back and forth, mindlessly stressing out that Sean may have cancelled the show and that it was "bullshit" to wait this long. I really didn't care about the wait... the only thing that I was worried about was my shoes LOL I wore kind of a pump heel for the height advantage (I'm only 5'3, y'all). They were cute Mary Jane shoes though.

Anyway, so at 9 they finally let us in and I made my way to the front. Before that I did buy a shirt... I already have a white/pink Friendly Fire shirt but this one was brown/yellow. I wore it after the show <3. Now I realize I should have bought it after the show because when I got to the front, there was already like four or five rows formed. But I got in there and I managed to take some pretty good pics, IMO! The place was sold out. By the time Sean got on stage, which as around 11ish, it was a packed house. First up was Kamila Thompson - she was alright, and I've read Sean's blogs about her. Thankfully, she kept it short and then Women and Children were up. They were awesome. I took a picture of the lead singer... his voice kinda reminded me of Richard Ashcroft from the early Verve days. At the same time, I was wishing they would hurry up LOL This girl and her mom were standing right next to me and the girl said, 'This is the part I can't stand... waiting for the headline'. Could not agree more.

So at last Sean was up - he looked really cheery. I guess those days off did him good. He started off saying, 'Everytime I come here, I ask myself... why don't I live in Austin?!' We really cheered him for that. I even did, and I don't live there LOL And then he said, 'But we brought you the sun...' - meaning New York? You'll have to forgive me but I don't remember the order of the playlist. I know he covered all the Friendly Fire songs, including his new one, Smoke and Mirrors and lastly, Mystery Juice from Into the Sun. I think the first song was Spectacle; I could be wrong. I know the second one was Dead Meat 'cos it got a huge applause. I really dug the live version of Headlights - I basically made up my mind on the way over to Austin that it's my favorite track off Friendly Fire. I could never get tired of it. I thought about recording some of the songs but I only did a few seconds of Smoke and Mirrors... I decided to stop it midway through because the footage was really dark.

I sang to pretty much all the songs - I did that during Cirque du Soleil's LOVE too, but I tried to keep it down some XD Like I said, I thought he saw me in the audience so then I got really self-conscious about my singing along. The reason I think he did see me was the mom who was standing next to me - the first time we shared eye contact (I think) she looked over at me like, 'what was he looking at, you??' LOL Sooo, I dunno. I think the other time was during Mystery Juice - xxprettyinmetal, you know I was singing to the part when he goes 'Everyday I watch the TV shows/it's getting so I know the show's hosts/I DON'T BOAST' ! Another thing that didn't surprise me - Sean is so damned charming. I knew this from all the interviews he's done... but it was just so pleasant in person. I loved his in between songs banter. thharwood, you know what I'm talking about :3 He mentioned Israel again! He said that it was an amazing place and people should really consider it as somewhere nice to travel. He apologized to the audience saying he had to back out on the South by Southwest gig with Pete Townsend because he was so "fucked up" after the Europe tour, that if he had done that Austin gig he would have seriously cancelled the rest of the tour.

He mentioned some other artist that was performing the same night as him... ugh, I can't remember the name. He said he "outcoolled" him - maybe it was Kool Keith 'cos he said Dr. Octagon was his all-time favorite rap album. He also said he tried to buy a new guitar 'cos Austin is known for their great guitars, but he just zoned out walking the streets LOL He also added that he was drinking a bunch of Bourbon during his stay. Oh, and that The Parish was better than the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas, which he played the night before... that The Parish had better speakers ;P That was a nice dig 'cos I hate Dallas. Especially their basketball team. Sorry, got off on a tangent. Then someone yelled out, DO YOU SMOKE??? And he said, what do you think... he said he's really bad on pot though. LOL I remember reading that in an interview. He gets super paranoid - he said, 'I can't do pot... it's like I'll ask someone to put me in a closet, but put a blanket over me, and just leave me here...' XD Then he noticed these huge read 'orbs' above the audience (really it was just gigantic Chinese light fixtures) and said they looked like UFOs. He said he saw a UFO once... he was in a club and it was Paris Hilton. LOL That got major cheering from the audience. I snickered 'cos I knew about this pic:



UH HUH.

I noticed that he jammed a lot with Yuka on stage - like playing his guitar towards her. It was really sweet. He also said he'd love to play more electric guitar on stage, but somebody has to do the acoustic... to which some idiot replied, 'YEAH, WHERE'S GEORGE AT?!' Luckily, he didn't hear that. The girl next to me said, 'Are these people of AGE?' LOL Again, I concur. It was an all age thing. Oh yeah, someone shouted that it was their first time in Austin... Sean asked them, where are you from? They said San Antonio and someone else said Houston... and I was like puh-lease, that's like two hours away LOL I would have shouted out 'HARLINGEN' but I would have gotten crickets ;P So I guess that's it! I really enjoyed myself. :) The show was over at 1AM and I was getting kinda antsy about meeting him after... I know if I had gone with Sharon, I would have totally waited. But I was with my mom, and she was tired, and so was I... I had to go to the bathroom like a mother (LOL) and my feet were killing me. It was a standing room only thing. But there were benches on the sides of the walls. Oh well! I'm sorry, thharwood, that I didn't get to deliver your message... I was going over and over in my head about what I would say and I was totally going to include that. I had a feeling he would stay after 'cos after all, Austin's a chummy town... and now I leave you with a bunch of pictures, and the nice autograph my friend Peggy got for me. Before the show Peggy warned me not to use flash, but I couldn't help myself! Everyone else was doing it :[ Sean didn't say anything... I tried using the other non-flash options but the quality turned out like shit.

All in thumbnails:




The Parish, non flash



My mom!



The Parish, with flash



Lead singer of Women and Children



'Why don't I live in Austin?'



I love this picture, even though I suck at angles



























Sean warms up the audience.






Sean said he had bad guitar karma :(









I would have taken more pictures of his solos but I wanted to savor the experience w/o the camera.


















Hehe!



He looks so much like John here.






Drinkin' the Jesus juice.



More guitar woes.



Sean in the middle of a good story, prolly.



Sean leaves with a smile :)


The auto Peggy got for me in December:


<333




I bet you Sean replies, if at all, that he was mistaken - it was some hottie that he had seen LOL. Nevertheless, I'm still in luuuv ;D It's been like a 180 since all the MySpace drama I had with him LOL The older f-listers will know what I'm talkin' about.