The Metal Files

You read that right.  I went to the above concert.  It was important that I went.

History…

I like to give some personal background on the bands that I see, especially bands that have been integral to my musical life.  As strange as it may seem, Paula Abdul is in that mix.  Her first album came out in the summer of 1988.  I had just graduated from high school, had tickets to the upcoming shows by Yngwie, King Diamond and Iron Maiden.  But I saw a poster or maybe it was on MTV at a friend’s house (I grew up without cable TV), but I saw her face and just like in The Godfather when Michael first sees Apollonia, I was stricken by the thunderbolt.  BOOM.  I was knocked out, some might say.  From that day forward, she has always been the most beautiful woman on the planet that I had never met.  I bought the tape for Forever Your Girl soon after and actually liked it.  Cheesy pop songs, but enjoyable.  I do like some of that stuff as you are likely aware if you’ve been reading this site for a while.  With Paula, I became a fan of her music and bought her next 2 albums as well.  All 3 of them are really good for what they are.  And seeing her in videos throughout those years always made me all gushy.  I will even admit to watching the first couple of seasons of American Idol with the volume turned down just to see her pretty face and that gorgeous smile.  Most any of my friends that I’ve known for a while have known about my obsess…erm, crush on her.

Flash forward to not too long ago and when a friend alerted me to this concert announcement.  I had never seen her live and don’t ever remember her coming around my hometown area in the 90s.  She probably did, but I was a little less apt to see pop shows back then.  Nowadays, I don’t care what someone may think.  I wasn’t thrilled about the other two bands on the bill but it made sense.  I saw that there was a VIP presale for NKOTB and I wanted to be as close to the stage as possible, so I got the best I could get without buying the meet and greet.  Right.  Don’t really care about meeting the grown boy band.  Boyz II Men had announced their VIP package shortly after but nothing about Paula’s mentioned on the venue page or on her website.  Bummer.  A bout a month or so after buying my tickets, the venue announced that her VIP package was forthcoming.  So of course I hyperventilated briefly and checked the site daily for an update.  After about another month, detail finally appeared and the sale was on.  I’ll just say that it was a painful purchase as I bought the top tier pass which included an “intimate Q&A” in her dressing room.  I’m thinking, “A lot of people are going to be in there and it’s going to suck, but whatever…”  *Click*  Done.  I had a brief moment of buyer’s remorse but quickly got over it.

So a few months passed of just getting myself mentally prepared to finally see and meet her and then the actual day arrived.  My friend Sarah Beth accompanied me and we got in before the crowds.  Since I had the NKOTB VIP tix, we got 2 swag bags full of stuff.  I gave them both to her.  It had a hat, socks and some other stuff in there.  I couldn’t care.  I was just getting more and more giddy the longer we had to wait.  Originally the meet was supposed to be after her set but they moved it to before Boyz II Men so that we wouldn’t have to miss any of the show.  Okily Dokily.  So they line us up at the backstage door and asked the three of us with the super access to go last.  There were only 15ish people for the meeting.  Boyz had about the same amount and NKOTB had 140.  That was an interesting crowd of people to see.

They start herding in the first folks for their photograph and it was happening fast.  Her tour manager came out and said to just wait after the last of that group was done.  Then we were all three ushered into the photo room.  It was us 3 guys, Paula, her photog and another tour manager.  The first guy went up, she gave him a hug and they snapped a few pics.  I was second.  I was dying.  The moment was here.  The voice in my head right now as I write this is of the narrator from A Christmas Story.  haha.  So the first guy is done and she puts both of her hands out and says, “Come here.”  Yes ma’am!  She looks at my vest and looks up at me and says, “This is awesome.  You’re precious.  Give me a hug!”  Yes ma’am!  Here’s where things got difficult.  She gives me a huge hug and I gushed hard, almost to the point of shedding tears.  I said in her ear, “I could so easily cry right now.”  She said, “Go ahead!”  I responded quickly with, “I don’t want to mess up your makeup.”  She let go and laughed.  “That’s funny!”  We snap a couple of pictures with her in my arms then she says, “OK, I’m going to kiss your cheek now.”  FUCK.  I bend down a little and wrap my arms around her again and she kissed my cheek and they snapped another picture.”  The world stopped for that moment.  To be honest, I’m still not sure it has started spinning yet.  I said, “May I kiss you back?”  “Of course!”  Sadly the photog didn’t get a pic of that one.  The last guy went next and had her hold a sign for his friend.  He was only in town on business from Belgium and a friend from back home wanted him to hold a sign with his friend’s name on it with Paula.  She was gracious and obliged.  He was a pretty interesting guy.  As we were in line, he showed me pics of his son with Dave Murray and Adrian Smith at a restaurant in Italy from a while back.  Super cool.  After this, the manager said to hold on a moment and then we’d be escorted to her dressing room.

We get in there and there are 2 sofas.  She gives us each a nice little hug again and asks us to sit.  The 3 of us on one sofa and her and her 12yr old Chihuahua with her on the other.  The lights were low, some candles were burning and one of the managers poured each of us a glass of champagne.  She welcomes us and thanked us for coming.  Then asked if we had questions.  I don’t remember what the first guy asked.  She gave him a nice long thoughtful answer and then I asked her about the album that she had supposedly recorded in the late 90s or early 2000s and why it never came out.  She explained about her plane accident and subsequent surgeries and that she wasn’t physically able to tour, so she didn’t want to put anything out if she couldn’t support it on the road and then American Idol happened and took up a lot of time for the next several years.  “I have so much stuff recorded from those sessions and even some newer stuff that I’ve been working on.  You’ll hear new stuff soon.”  The Belgian fella asked a question about Idol and about how she handled seeing the rejection of very talented singers.  Again she gave a nice long answer.  We got to ask another question but the first guy didn’t have anything.  So I asked if we were going to get anything from her third album, Head Over Heels, in the setlist tonight.  She said that Crazy Cool was talked about but that it ended up that nothing from the album was happening.  Bummer.  I really like that album a lot and I told her that.  “What’s your favorite off of that one?”  Loaded question and I had to try not to get all uber nerd, so I just said right off the top of my head, “If I were Your Girl, My Love Is for Real and Missing you.” “Oh wow, that’s sweet.”

We were in there for about 20 minutes and they said it was time for us to go.  She thanked us again and as we were about to walk out, I asked, “Paula, may I ask one more thing?”  She said, “Of course” and I asked if she’d sign my arm.  “Absolutely.”  As she’s walking over to me to sign it, I told her that I was going to have it tattooed in after the show.  She looked me dead in the eyes (me dying again) and said, “That’s incredible.  I will absolutely do this.  May I draw a little heart, too?”  My obvious answer that probably sounded like MushMouth from Fat Albert was, “You may do whatever you’d like, Paula.”  She signed it carefully and the photog snapped a couple more pics.  Again.  Dying.  Well, dead at this point, really.  I snuck in one more little hug and floated out of the room.  We were then ushered back into the photo room where dude was printing out one of the photos and put them in a frame for each of use.  As we’re waiting, a girl comes in with a pro video rig strapped to her and on of the managers said she was filming the tour documentary.  She asked us about being fans etc and then said, “Which one is getting the tattoo?”  I acknowledged and she turn the video camera back on and asked about it.  She filmed me and the sig on my arm and said, “This will most certainly make it to the final footage.  This is so awesome.”  One of her dancers came out and snapped a pic with us.  Cool dude named Gianni(?) from Amsterdam.  And that was that.  We could hear the intro music for Boyz II Men starting as we were walking out of the backstage area.  Some tall guy wearing all white damn near knocked me over running by me and turned quickly and said, “Sorry man!  Didn’t mean to hit you!”  I said, “All good!”  He ended up being of the singers for Boyz II Men.  haha.

Sarah Beth was waiting for me in the lobby area with a beer waiting for me.  She saw the look on my face and understood where my brain was.  I sent a quick text to my buddy Chris Carlton that she signed my arm and I needed his services after the show.  “Done.”  We had discussed previously and he was stoked to do it.  We finally go in and BIIM was on.  They were really good.  I’m not a fan at all but they put on a really good performance.  Two of them played instruments while covering a couple of Lenny Krazitz songs.  We were 6th row center, but were still pretty far back because of a catwalk and NKOTB party pit in front of us.”  BIIM was out near us quite a bit.  Again, they put on a great show.

After a quick set change, Paula was on.  Much of her set was all the way up there at the stage with her dancers so were weren’t really that close.  But it was good.  During her more intense dancing songs, she was obviously lip syncing, but on some of the slower ones, she was definitely singing and she sounded just fine.  For the last 2 songs, she was out on the catwalk in front of us.  I was still just in awe of everything that had just happened and that I was finally seeing her live.  It was just awesome and I’ll admit that during Rush, Rush I got choked up.  Total time and place type of song, ya know?  She closed with Forever Your Girl and that was that.  The show was over.  Her set was shorter than BIIM’s which was a bit of a bummer.  But let me tell you, at 54, she’s still got the moves, in heels even, and she is still absolutely extremely beautiful.  I hated that it was over.

New Kids came on and I don’t really know their stuff beyond The Right Stuff.  The middle aged women in there were loud.  LOUD.  When they were infront of us on the catwalk, their main guy, Jordan(?) looked at my vest and gave a thumbs up.  Whatever holmes, I’m not here for you.  haha.  After about 4 songs, they all came out into the crowd and did some other song I didn’t know.  That was pretty cool.  Then they all donned UT football jerseys and did another song from the rear stage.  As that ended, both Sarah Beth and I had had enough.  We were both tired and hungry so we left mid set and took a pedicab down to Valhalla where Chris was hanging out.  We grabbed a quick bite then walked across the street to the tattoo shop.

Fifteen minutes later, the tattoo was done.  We all went back to Valhalla where I bought a couple of rounds for our group and then I went home.  I was wiped out.  So much of an emotional drain.

Meeting her was special and pretty much a once in a lifetime kind of thing.  It was a great experience reminiscent of meeting John Arch or Adrian Smith.  HUGE.  She was so incredibly kind and sweet.  Hopefully we’ll get a new album eventually.

For the record, I washed my vest a few days before the show.  It was pretty ripe.  I also got a haircut and trimmed my beard.  I needed to look good for her.  Well…as good as I could.

Monkey Boy and the Pretty Princess

OMG OMG OMG

Forever my girl.