So this evening found me on the second row, with four empty seats either side of me and four more empty seats in front… Admittedly I could have moved so I wasn’t quite so isolated, but it’s not like they don’t already know I’m a sad little loner and with no one next to me I didn’t have to worry about noisy neighbours so much. Plus with no one in front, there was no one blocking my view of the stage, although… every rose has its thorn, right? There may have been no people in my way, but that didn’t mean the set couldn’t block my view and it did rather badly in Every Rose. The Bourbon Room door was right in front of me and I couldn’t see Sam at all, no matter how far over I leaned. Naturally, I was rather gutted, although it did allow me to appreciate his voice more and even now I still can’t get enough of that ‘bonus’ vocal at the end of his line. In fact, I probably don’t say this enough because I keep getting distracted by everything else (STUBBLE!), but for the record; I love his voice.
That stubble though… I mean, it’s just perfect. I really was worried he was going to shave too, because his wig kept getting caught in it and given what he’s said before about hair in his mouth, I figured it must be annoying him, but no, the stubble was intact and I was (in)appropriately delighted. In fact, I was pretty damn (in)appropriately delighted all night, because in case I haven’t mentioned it, I f***ing love this show and these people, but I had a real moment of never wanting it to end in Wanted Dead Or Alive and gaaaaaaah. Time is moving too fast and I’m not ready to say goodbye and it really don’t get better than this and I know I don’t half go on about it, but I f***ing love Sam and I don’t want him to goooooooooo *wails*… *Ahem*. Ok, I’m done. For now. Ish. So, errr, where was I? On the subject of Wanted, I love how Erin times the ‘to’ at the end of ‘you don’t have to if you don’t want… to’ with the ‘two’ in his countdown to the song. I only half noticed it for ages and then kept forgetting to mention it. Also, when I wasn’t too busy being overwhelmed by how wonderful it all was, I was alert enough to pick up on a little detail; Sam almost seemed to prep for fluffling Josh, stretching out his fingers in a manner not too dissimilar from the ‘tingly fingers’ thing that I do when I want to fluffle, except I usually can’t! Incidentally, Josh happily fluffled himself afterwards too, it was very cute.
So just like this afternoon, Josh held Bobby against him at the start of their ‘love story’, but unlike this afternoon, tonight they stayed pressed together even after their focus shifted to Lucas’ victim. It just meant Bobby ended up bending over, waggling his tongue filthily at the woman in the front row, while Josh took advantage of the position to smack Bobby’s arse and the (b)romance didn’t end there. Admittedly I wasn’t watching them properly in Too Much Time because there was a lot of other stuff going on *cough*STUBBLE*cough*, but after one of them (Bobby?) did something rather violent with his fists that I’m slightly worried was supposed to be sexual, Josh turned around and did his arse clench thing, which Bobby responded to by squeezing a cheek and then sniffing his hand… Even Josh looked a little disturbed by that, but evidently something else caught my attention at that point so I looked away. Only when I looked back, they were in each other’s arms, eyes locked, only a few centimetres away from kissing and moving inexorably closer together until… the lights went out and the scene ended. So close and yet, so far. I ship them so hard :P.
Although on the subject of Josh and arse spanking/grabbing (at least, I think this was tonight, I’m not entirely sure. It’s all a bit of a blur, to be honest); after Josh smacked Jodie’s arse when Sherrie first arrived on the Strip, he then grabbed Luke’s arse too when he passed him on his way into the Bourbon. Luke is sweeping the street outside the front door at that point, while Lucas watches from his perch on the stack of amps. They frequently end up messing about with each other, only I keep forgetting to watch out for it and even when I do remember, I then forget what they got up to by the time I get the chance to note it down. I’ve definitely seen Lucas give Luke a kick up the backside on more than one occasion and the theme is definitely Lucas winding Luke up, but that’s all I can tell you right now. Anyways, continuing on the same theme; obviously Vas can’t goose step here, so in the bit when Hertz guides a rather confused Mayor into stepping with him (towards the back of the stage/desk), he’s replaced it with something else… and grabbed Adam’s arse instead! Although to be fair, Adam’s WTF reaction isn’t all that different. And finally before I stop talking about arses… In the Final Countdown, Sam spanked Lucas with his truncheon when he fell into place behind him on his way round (when the company walk in a circle around Bobby & Alex who are having a heavily choreographed altercation in the middle of the stage), so that was fun :P.
Back to marginally more sensible things and my growing fascination with Cameron’s portrayal of Dennis. I really do wish I had more time to appreciate him and I’d have loved to see where he’d have taken it given the time to really develop the character. To expand on that, I really enjoyed the way he played Drew’s audition scene. He kinda over reacts in a comedic way, falling dramatically back in his chair when he says ‘easy tiger’, but then thinks better of it when Drew starts to walk off. I thought he sounded almost curious when he called him back and I think he’s sufficiently intrigued that he doesn’t want to push Drew too far, especially when he knows his initial reaction has put Drew’s back up. He’s also fleetingly impressed by Drew’s music, even if he’s got a few reservations about his lyrics, so I reckon that’s why he’s less patient with Lonny than he might have been otherwise. Of course it helped that I think Cameron got more feedback from Lucas than usual, so it made sense that his ‘Lonny, go away’s grew increasingly irritable, but whatever was different I loved the way both of them played that whole interaction. Plus Lucas came back on to curtsy after he’d milked us for sympathy and (so I thought) departed. It certainly confused Cameron (who had his back to Lucas and didn’t see him come back on) when the audience suddenly cracked up over a line that had no particular comedy value!
So I have no idea what happened and I didn’t get the opportunity to ask, but when Alex appeared for his Dennis cameo in Can’t Fight, he didn’t have his bandana on. As a result, his wig turned into a mess of fluffy awesomeness and it was one of the best things that happened all night! It was then made even better by the fact that Lucas commented on it, so Cameron patted his when he came back on afterwards. And speaking of wigs… When Sam rode his llama onto the stage, I couldn’t help noticing that there was a deliciously thick stand of fringe caught between his bandana and his hat. I mean, there was a fine stand that escaped significantly earlier and I certainly appreciated that too, but this was better than anything I’ve seen since he got the bandana so it rather got my hopes up and I’m delighted to say those hopes weren’t dashed when he reappeared sans llama. That whole beautiful lock of fringe had indeed escaped the confines of his headgear and was hanging over the bandana looking glorious. I was thrilled.
Somewhat impulsively, I decided to record the second curtain call, because I’ve been seeing clips on social media all week, so clearly everyone else was doing it and I figured why not. Annoyingly the camera on my phone has been having increasingly regular fits and today was no exception so I completely missed the ensemble bow and all of Bobby’s awesome craziness, which sucked. Although Josh later pulled a face at me when he caught sight of the camera and I did at least get the bit at the end when Sam helped Bobby off with his shirt and swung it around before they left the stage, so there’s that…! Plus, most importantly, I got Sam and Lucas doing their usual ‘thing’ at the back, which I can presumably gif, so I will do that at the earliest opportunity and stick it in here ;).
So just in case I wasn’t quite giddy enough, I got a message from Lucas at the interval containing not one, but two photos of he and Sam together and I nearly hyperventilated. My face hurt from smiling so much, they were beautiful and I had totally given up hope of getting a photo of them so it was even better. Plus Sam had his arms up and they were obviously recent because STUBBLE and I genuinely don’t think I could have asked for anything better if I’d been directing the photo shoot myself. The best thing was that he sent me the first picture, then said he thought there was a better one and sent me another…! I’ll confess I nearly replied to the first one with ‘Really? Surely it don’t get better than this?!’, but then he sent me the second one and maybe it does get better than this, because damn! [Edit: I mean it was still my lockscreen six weeks later, so…] I f***ing love those boys and I really can’t thank them enough for indulging my crazy.
Anyway, I managed to pull my giddy self together enough to chat to the Saturday Guy at stage door while we waited for the company. He doesn’t usually wait afterwards as he suffers from standard stagey awkwardness about such things, but since I was there anyway he stuck around and of course they all recognise him from the front row. Admittedly as stage doors go, it wasn’t the most successful, in part because a lot of them left through the middle doors and I wasn’t expecting that, so was badly positioned. I did wave to Sinead and Saran, but spotted Bobby and Adam too late to greet them and didn’t see Alex at all, which sucked since I didn’t see him earlier either. Luke and Jodie vanished somehow (I saw them at the door and then suddenly they were gone) and despite keeping an eye out, I must have missed Cameron too, but on the plus I did manage to stop Tori, so that was something at least. I told her I thought she was brilliant and she gave me a hug! I like her :P. I also had a nice long chat with Josh, so that made up a bit for missing the rest of the ensemble. We mostly chatted about what he’s up to in the break (he’s got a ship gig) and the effect that has on spending time with family over the festive period, but he did add that his other half will be based in London next year, so they’ll get to spend more time together, even though he’ll still be on tour, which is rather lovely. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it must be a nightmare for stagey couples when they’re both on different tours at the same time.
As for Sam, he came out with Marc and Drew, so they all stopped, but the Saturday Guy ended up chatting to the band, while I fawned over Sam. Of course I hugged him hello, at which point a strand of my hair got caught in his stubble so obviously I then did the only logical thing and earnestly told him quite how much I loved it. He said that since it’s the end of the contract he can get away with growing out his beard and with an opening like that, I caved and asked if he has anything else lined up. I know it’s a horrible question and I hate asking it, but I just couldn’t help myself. Not that I actually know him well enough to know if I’d get a straight answer, but anyway. In any case, he also has a ship gig, next week I believe, but after that is anyone’s guess. Anyway, we talked about his knee slide and he told me he’s done it three times, but keeps hurting himself – the second time he hurt his hand slightly (which I assume is what Bobby was talking about earlier) and this afternoon he really scraped his knee, so he didn’t dare do it again tonight… which is totally understandable, but it’s rather a shame that I apparently recorded the wrong curtain call! I also mentioned that it was such a new show this afternoon, obviously because of Tori and Cameron, but I pointed out that I’d not seen Rhiannon or Erin before either. I think I then said something about how I’d wanted to just watch him, but then there was all this new stuff, so I couldn’t… And it still kinda surprises me how candidly honest I am with him (in a fangirly sense). It feels like I’ve only just met him (I mean, to be fair it’s not exactly been that long since Bromley), so logically I should be more guarded (because I’ve always been so good at subtlety…), yet I always come out with the most ridiculous stuff and it’s fine… at least, I think it’s fine…?! It’s nice though, feeling like I can be me without worrying that he’ll read more into it than I intended. It usually takes years to get to that point!
On which note, I also saw Lucas, who appeared while I was still talking to Sam. I know I gave him a big hug, but I can’t actually remember what we talked about in the end. I know he had some sort of fake cigarette thing he was puffing from, which he was chatting about with the band (I think?). He said he’d stopped smoking a couple of days ago thanks to his new gadget though, so good for him! Anyway, I definitely thanked him (quite profusely) for the photos so he told me they’ve been meaning to do it for ages. I’ll confess I was a bit giddy over the thought that it had been a topic of conversation & not just a lucky coincidence…! I can’t believe I ever doubted them :P.
Needless to say, by the time I finally headed back to my hotel, I was exhausted. Despite that, I would have loved to have gone for a drink on my way back, but by that time of night the markets were shut so my only option was a bar. I didn’t think I could face that by myself, though I was briefly tempted by an Irish pub with a live band that I passed, but it was really busy, so in the end I called in quits. Of course, I didn’t go straight to sleep anyway because I had notes to make, but I was so tired, I had a complete mental block of everything that had happened. All I managed to do was jot down a few stage door notes whilst hoping that the rest would come back to me the following day. There were so many tiny details I knew I wanted to talk about, yet I couldn’t even recall the bigger things. Everything unique about the show was gone… [Edit: I did manage to remember a fair few things over the next few days, hence why I had some stuff to say about the second act. If all I’d had to go on were my notes from that evening, this would have been a significantly shorter post].
So I’d been up for about 20 hours by that point and had barely eaten anything since lunch, so it was probably no surprise that my memory had given up on me entirely. I’m also pretty sure it was a good thing I didn’t get my hands on any alcohol. I nearly ended up in tears and whilst I can (and will) blame that on sleep deprivation and hunger, it’s also beginning to hit me that Sam is leaving tomorrow and I’m really not remotely ok with that… Waaah :(.
Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx
[Actual publish date: 21/1/19.
This has been nearly ready to go for a week or so, but I’ve been distracted by Idiots and didn’t get the chance to finish it. The tour restarts tomorrow though, so even though I’ve still got a few weeks to go til I’m back (and two more blogs to finish before then), I though it was about time to get this out there. Also, for the record, that stunning photo Lucas sent me was my lockscreen right up until a couple of days ago and even then it was a struggle to let it go. Only Nick happened, so… Sorry, Sam! I still love you, I promise!]
So Currently Captivated 
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