Braden is Pererau, who twittered, quite hilariously I might add, the Sacramento Idol show. He was also the tweeter who started Matt-gate, but more on that later in the re-cap…
***
I’ve seen a lot of write-ups that follow the same formula, so I’m just going to let my ADD take over and post some random thoughts from the concert, in no particular order, followed by the text of my tweets during the concert:
Most pleasant surprise of the night: Scott M. He actually sounded good at the piano, and though I had grown tired of his voice through the competition, he came out with something new and I enjoyed his songs. I was particularly surprised that he could take a Vanessa Carlton song that I don’t like and have me enjoying myself.
Biggest disappointment of the night: 25 dollars for a program. Seriously? The 100-plus for two tickets wasn’t enough for you?
Best performance of the night: This is tough, because I love Anoop, and I think he nailed his songs, but I also think that Allison and Adam came out and really sang well. Adam’s set, generally speaking, wasn’t my style of music, but there is no debating how talented a singer he is.
Most over-rated performance of the night: My wife will argue this one, but I had read several people say how amazing ‘Georgia’ was at the other concerts, and, while I thought he treated it well, I wasn’t blown away. I was, however, very impressed with his first song, though I was listening to it from the concession stands (hey, when popcorn calls, you answer!) A close runner-up was Lil singing ‘All the Single Ladies.’
Dumbest lyrics: ‘I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier.’ I know that is not Kris’ fault, and the Killers have a habit of going with the first draft of their lyrics, but my over-analytical brain had a hard time getting over that one. And on that note’ ¦
Most memorable song moments: ‘I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier’ and ‘that’s my pre-rog-a-tive!’ were the two lyrics that I found myself singing over and over again in my head.
Least memorable song moments: Whatever Michael Sarver sang’ ¦ seriously I can’t even remember. Also, Megan’s second song. I only remember her first song because of the teardrop graphics behind her.
Funniest moment: Scott doing his little bit of standup comedy about the high-five and then his impression of Simon.
Favorite idol based on behavior after the concert: Michael Sarver by a mile. I have never been wowed by him as a singer, but when he came out and took his time going along the barricade and talking to his fans and signing autographs and taking pictures and giving me a high-five. Very personable and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. It made me wish I liked his singing more. Michael, if you are out there, bring your wife by and we’ll go out for dinner and play some games.
Biggest sinking feelings: Being told by the Arco Arena staff when calling beforehand that we wouldn’t be able to meet the idols because we didn’t have a special invitation. I felt better when I found out that they were wrong. The other one, repeated 4 times, was when Anoop didn’t see me when he was signing autographs and so he went right on by.
Happiest moment: Finally, at the end of the barricade, getting Anoop’s attention and having him sign our UNC hats. He is a lot taller than I expected, by the way.
Coolest musical moments: Kris doing an electric guitar solo and Matt and Scott playing a joint piano duet.
Biggest distraction: A woman sitting right by the balcony several rows ahead of me who got increasingly inebriated as the night went on. She kept standing up to dance at bizarre times, like right in the middle of a chorus or as a song was ending, or whenever she felt like it.
Biggest surprise: Twitter. Prior to the concert starting, I had 26 followers, 18 of which were spammers who I had blocked. I didn’t tell anybody that I was going to tweet-by-tweet the evening, but somehow word got out. By intermission, I had 100 followers and I peaked at 140. I was only going to use twitter as a way of keeping some running notes to help me write up the concert experience, then people just kept rolling in.
Even bigger biggest surprise: Mattgate. A little girl standing behind me had written some kind of a letter to Adam, and when started walking by without coming up to the crowd, she threw it to try to get his attention, but it landed just a few feet past the barricade. I asked Matt if he could get it to Adam, because he came by signing autographs just a minute later. He said that he wasn’t Adam’s messenger, and so the letter stayed there. I found it interesting, so I tweeted it, and before I knew it the war was upon us, with some hating on Matt for saying something like that, some hating on me for daring to mention it in a tweet, and some hating on Adam for not signing autographs. In the end, I just think it was sad for the little girl, and I don’t lay blame on anyone ‘ just the series of events that occurred. Matt was otherwise nice and took time to sign lots of autographs. He was surrounded by screaming fans and camera flashes, and he probably didn’t fully understand what was going on, so I’m willing to give him a break on the matter.
Biggest annoyances: Having to watch the same 4 or 5 music videos over and over is a runner-up, but the grand prize is the backstage pass ‘challenge’ where you watch three Ford Fusion commercials and then text in to get a chance to win backstage passes by answering some trivia questions. I don’t have a text messenging plan on my phone, so each text is 20 cents, but why not, right? Here is the entire text of that transaction, coming up to $2.40:
‘Reply Y to join the American Idol Fusion mob for trivia and to enter the Fusion Trivia Challenge for a chance to win American Idol backstage passes ‘ Via Mozes’
‘Y’
‘You’ve joined Fusion’s mob. Reply STOP FUSION to leave. Std rates only ‘ via Mozes’
‘Which Ford vehicle starred in all 3 videos? a) Ford Fusion b) Ford Mustang c) Ford Escape ‘ via Mozes’
‘A) Fusion’
‘Correct! The all-new 2010 Ford Fusion with 34 MPG. ‘ via Mozes’
‘To enter today’s sweepstakes and get cool updates, Reply Y to join the Ford Fusion mob on Mozes Std rates only ‘ via Mozes’
‘Y’
‘Thx, you’ve joined the Fusion mob. Reply STOP FUSIONCONTEST to leave. Std rates only ‘ via Mozes’
‘Ford Fusion: Thanks for entering, sorry you didn’t win. Stay tuned for more updates from Ford Fusion. ‘ via Mozes’
‘Stop fusion’
‘You will no longer receive text messages from Fusion. For more, visit Mozes.com ‘ via Mozes’
Wait a minute, did they just ask me to join the Fusion Trivia Challenge and then ask me which car was featured? That’s a little bit like going on ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ and having one of the questions be, ‘how much will you win if you get all the answers right?’
Well, I probably have more I could say about the concert, but let me just end with my overall impression ‘ it was good. The idols all sang well, particularly the final 8, and it was a fun time. I loved Anoop and Adam. Allison and Kris, while not my favs during the show, really did well. Scott and Matt both held their own nicely, and even Lil found her voice. Live-tweeting was a lot of work, and distracted me from the show a bit, but it was fun, especially once people started tweeting me back, and I got a lot of encouragement. Looking back over my comments from twitter, I wish that I would have been more positive at some points. I’m including the text of my tweets here, omitting a lot of the replies and some of the comments that I would rather take back. Hope you enjoy.
First tweet: 6:59 pm
They just flashed up pics of the idols and Adam got a huge roar. Nobody cared about Kris.
Michael leads off to mediocre cheers and a boring song. His idea of dancing is bending his knees slightly.
Michael said “I hope you don’t mind if I dedicate myself to my wife tonight.”. Like he doesn’t say that at the beginning of every concert…
Michael said “get up on your feet” in the middle of another boring song and 30 people up front stood up.
Megan is hot! She sounds better live than I expected.
I take it back, she sounds really bad in her second song. I can’t even understand her. Still hot, though.
Sitting at the piano, Scott comes up through a trap door. He sounds great! When he talks to the crowd he really connects.
He mentions the high 5 heard around the world. If he sounded like that on the show he would have made it farther. Huge applause at the end
The applause dies down as Lil comes on. She is wearing a dress and pants. Make up your mind, Lil.
Her voice is stronger than on the show, but I’m still not loving her. Lots of people up walking around during her set.
She sounds a lot better on her 3rd song.
A lady in a green shirt about 8 rows up is smashed and dancing around erratically. I vote her most likely to fall off the balcony.
Noop dogg comes up in a suit singing Always On My Mind. It’s enough to make this straight man swoon.
How did this guy not make it to the finals?
Singing Bobby Brown now. I adore thus guy! He sounds amazing!
Matt comes out and rocks the place with “Hard To handle”. It sounded good from the concession stand.
Everyone seemed to love Georgia on My Mind. I thought it was just aaaight. I like him with the rock edge. And yet he loses me with song 3
Somebody needs to tell him that the fedora looks silly.
To be fair, Anoop looked kinda silly with his green glasses.
Now Matt and Scott are playing piano opposite each other. Love the piano playing!
You can tell which singer is Michael in the group song. He’s the one that thinks dance=squat.
Intermission over. Here’s Allison! And there is drunk dancer. Please don’t fall over the edge. I’m off duty now.
Someone replied to me and said that Sarver is injured. That would earn him a pass, except that is how he danced on idol, too.
The crowd is loving Allison. And I gotta admit, she sounds great.
New drinking game: take a drink every time Allison says “honey” during Cry Baby.
Alternately, you could take a drink every time drunk girl jumps up and starts wandering around. See who gets drunker.
My particular poison? Lemonade spiked with sprite. Cost me 5 bucks.
Allison is running all over; really working the stage! Drunk lady is working the balcony, too. Who’ll fall off first?
Danny is out now singing PYT. He sang this on idol before he started sucking.
He’s wearing white framed specs. Some peeps have walk-in closets. I think Danny has a walk-in optical store.
Danny was trying to get the crowd singing with him, and so on the giant screen it said “NA NA”. You don’t have to be juvenile about it!
I hear that in the next song it’ll just say “phhbbbbbt!” behind him.
Singing Spanish Harlem now… He keeps singing “played by Carlos Santana” and pointing to random band member. Um, Danny, that’s not Carlos.
Now he is singing Rascall Flatts. This is the point during the season where he lost me, & true to form, he has resumed the halty choppiness
Danny, try to get through a sentence without pausing after each word. Please?
Message to Danny from my wife: clear your throat!
Danny just said “don’t let any tragedy define you.”. Is it just me, or is that the ultimate ironic statement?
He sounds better in “my wish”. I’m just a little distracted by trying to find Michael Jackson’s face in the sweat stain on his back
For the first time in the whole concert, the entire crowd is dancing.
My wife: “people are cheering because he is going off stage.”
Adam is coming on and the crowd is erupting!
Drunk girl is doing pelvic thrusts now.
All these girls are swooning. Umm, gals, he’s – how shall I say this… Ummm… Gay.
Adam is making the rest of the idols seem like they are singing in the church talent show.
Everyone else is doing it, why not me? “what’s up, Sacramento!?!?!”
I always hated Adam live on Ai but loved his studios. He is rockin it live here, though. I’ll go to his concert when he’s a rock star.
Adam’s vocal control is paranormal.
I’d love to hear someone come out on stage and start actually singing the phone book… “Mike and Ann Smith 555-1134…”
Guess what? Drunk woman is standing and dancing. Who’d have guessed?
Adam left on a powerful note with the crowd going crazy, then Kris entered on a quiet note, which kinda broke the mood.
He sounds good, though.
I have a hard time watching his facial expressions when he sings. He looks like he is passing a kidney stone. Or giving birth. Or both.
I’ve heard that these concerts don’t sell out, but this place is packed!
Kris is rocking it on the guitar!
Through some form of math I don’t understand, there are actually mire cell phones here than there are people.
Drunk woman update: apparently she has kids here. Three or four preteens. Hopefully they are driving home.
One of them could man (boy?) the pedals, one the wheel, one could watch the rear view mirrors, and the last one can clean up the puke.
They are ending with Don’t Stop Believing, and it actually sounds great! And holy molybdenum the bass!
Haha, the iPhone autocorrected moly to molybdenum!
There is a line of purple-clad security guards. How am I supposed to take you seriously in a purple polo?
Anoop just walked by without signing autographs? How could you pass up these beautiful blue eyes?
They all just walked by again and said, “we’ll be back.” There is hope yet.
It is tight quarters in this line, and I think someone keeps grabbing my butt. That better be my wife. Or Anoop.
Butt mystery solved. There is a little girl standing behind me.
Random crew keeps coming out to false alarm cheers.
One crew member walked by and I shouted, “I loved your singing.”. I think he thought I was serious. He said “oh, I didn’t sing.”
Random crew guy just introduced us to the hair and makeup department. Thanks, but I want Anoop and Adam.
We are getting so bored that we are cheering for the truck driver who is backing up to the freight entrance.
Michael just walked by and signed an autograph for my wife and gave me 5. Nice guy.
Very little fanfare for Michael. I wish I liked his singing better, because he was really nice and personable.
Once the idols came pouring out, it got crazy outside. Adam and Kris both walked straight to the buses. Kris may have come back out later.
A little girl threw a letter she had written to Adam as he walked by. I asked Matt if he could pick it up and take it to Adam…
Matt said, “I’m not Adam’s messenger” and moved on. I felt bad for the little girl who had been waiting to give that letter to Adam.
Anoop moved pretty quickly signing autographs, and it took me five times of running ahead of him and trying again, but I finally got him
I shouted, “you are the only autograph I want.” and shoved our two hats at him. He smiled and signed them. I said, “we love you…
…he said thank you and I said, “we’ll be at your concert when you get signed.” He laughed. That’s my brush with fame, folks.
In the end my wife got Matt, Megan, and Michael to sign a shirt, and Danny signed the back of her ticket and Anoop signed our hats.
I’m sorry, I created such controversy. Matt wasn’t my favorite contestant, but I am not the kind of person who would ever wish ill on anyone
Matt did indeed say “I’m not Adam’s messenger, ” but it was in the middle of signing autographs with cameras flashing and people screaming…
He couldn’t see the little girl, and had to take my word for it, and I’m not even sure he heard me correctly.
It’s not like the girl was right there in his face. Please give the poor guy a break. He did, after all, spend an hour signing autographs.
And ultimately, in the end, the whole thing started because Adam didn’t sign any autographs, though I don’t blame him.
It was just a sad situation, and I thought I would try to help the girl get her message to Adam. I should have asked a security guard.
I think Matt should have picked the letter up, but I don’t think he deserves to be hated on. It was a 5 second moment in time. Lay off.
Time home: midnight.
