Backstage after the performance had finished! The piece was totally wild. It started with Theresa in a white-dress and lovely make-up. Her hair was pinned-up in an elaborate "beauty pageant-style" hair-do that concealed a bunch of large ink-filled balloons!
Grant and I emerged from backstage, carrying Theresa in a chair and set her down on a large sheet of paper in front of the audience. After we cleared away, a photographer approached Theresa and started taking a series of close-up portraits of her like they doing a fashion-shoot. She made uncomfortable smiles and posed for his camera. A minute or two into the "shoot," she acted like she was playing with her hair, but she was secretly popping the ink-filled balloons! As she popped each balloon, a gush of jet blank ink seemed to appear from nowhere and would stream over her face and onto the white dress.
The performance ended with the the lights suddenly turning off. Now came the part that we'd spent hours rehearsing! Grant and I had to go out in the darkness...
Here's Grant and I backstage with Theresa, about to lift her up in a chair and carry her out to the awaiting crowd for her performance piece "CLOTHED".
...so Sarah ripped a bunch of them in half, and then used strips of the backstage passes in order to turn them back into bracelets! All you gotta do is hold out your arm wrist up when presenting your bracelet to the entry guard. Voila! And that's how you can double-up your bracelets to make sure everyone can get it! Pretty sneaky, right? Sarah's like the MacGyver of gate-crashing.
After the show, there was a catered, open-bar after party in one of the Garden's Lounges. In order to get in, you had to have one of these bracelets. There weren't enough bracelets to go around...
The show was great. And it's really interesting to watch the show from the wings of the stage and get the same vantage point of the crowd that the band has. I can't even imagine what it feels like to have a crowd cheer you on when you're doing your job. Haha.
When we got to the entrance, we were directed to guest services where we got hooked up with free tickets and backstage passes. Matt, thanks again for hooking us all up. Being a "Great Adventure VIP" has been a dream of mine since Chris Toscano had his birthday party there back in '87. (Too bad you think I'm kidding).
...gone. (Can you see the sunset from the Southside?) Afterwards, I watch Matt's band for the first time, but it was pitch dark by then and all the pics I took on my tiny camera didn't come out very goood).
Back in their original hey-day, Lifetime was (in)famous for playing sets that were only 15-minutes long. This time around, they had a whole new record of material and played for almost a half-hour!
Here's Matt, (the magic man that made this whole incredible day possible!) seen here showing off the cut forehead and bruised eye that he got when his band's singer was whipping a microphone around his head on stage and Matt caught it with his face! Oooof!
How about getting to stand ON the stage to watch your favorite band of all time perform for one of the first times in over 10 years? After hiding out under the stadium and getting (pretty, pretty, pret-ty) drunk, we ran over to the back of the main stage. I got up there all out of breath, and was frantically asking people "Did Lifetime play yet? Did Lifetime play yet?" Then I turned around and...
...and started to ask these two "Did Lifetime pla...." and then abruptly stopped when I realized that it was Ari Katz and Dan Yemem (the singer and guitar player from Lifetime respectively) and immediately felt like a HUGE JACKASS. Hahahah.
On Tuesday, Josh hooked me up with a pass to get into the Red Bull house at SXSW. (Red Bull spends a ton of money renting out an entire building in Austin for SXSW. And if you have one of these dog tags, you and one guest can go into the Red Bull house and enjoy free food, free booze, email terminals and beds for napping. Insanity!) Thanks, Josh!
Sarah's all tight with them and shit (they played her prom party, remember?!?) so after the show we got to go backstage and hang out (which was pretty neat-o). Karen, Sarah and Brandon.
We tried to play it off like were really excited about the free booze and food - but really it was the eigth grader in me that was like "whoa, I'm backstage at the rockshow." GIZZAY!
...she snuck me into the room above the stage where all the bands and cool kids get to hang out. (In TV this is called the green room, but I don't know if bands also call it that...whatever.) Anyway, back here I met Mandy's friend from high school and we talked about how we were both embarrassed by that fact that we were both so excited to be "backstage." Hahaha. Dorks.
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