Fluff & Friskiness [ROA:91/16]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

As soon as we were done stage dooring the matinée, my fellow ROAdie and I headed to the box office. She hadn’t intended to come this evening, so needed to pick up a ticket (see, I’m not the only crazy one :P) and I wanted to swap mine from G to the front. They wouldn’t give us A, which sucked, but fortunately there were two individual seats left in B so we snapped them up. Admittedly we did still try and sit in A, but people kept turning up with tickets again so in the end we gave up and to be honest, I would rather have been in B on my preferred side than in A on the wrong side anyway. You see, I felt like this evening was a bit of a preliminary goodbye to Sam. It was certainly my last chance to see him on such a small stage and of course it was also the last time he was performing opposite Kevin & Zoe. Needless to say, I barely took my eyes off of him ;).

So when Sam was doing his goodbye instastories earlier, he said something about missing kissing Kevin. Given he’s not done that in weeks, it left me wondering whether he might do it one last time tonight and I kept a special eye out just in case. Despite that, I’m still not sure exactly what he did. It certainly wasn’t a kiss, at least not the way he used to do it, because it was far too brief, but it was something. A lick maybe? There does seem to be a lot of licking in this show (not that I’m complaining, obviously). Whatever it was though, it clearly wasn’t enough of a farewell for him, because later on when Stacee told Dennis to get rid of Sherrie, Sam gave Kevin Constance’s panties from out of his trousers…! I think I mentioned earlier that Sam always grabs his crotch when Sherrie is talking about it, but he doesn’t usually shove his hand inside his trousers, so I was confused but intrigued when he did it this evening (to retrieve the pants). I love Sam. He just gets Stacee. Even when he’s messing around, he does it perfectly in character so it just enhances his performance even more and I just frickin’ love him. Have I mentioned that already?!

On which note, his hat fell off during Wanted tonight, just before the bit with Alex on the flight cases. I kind of expected one of the roadie boys to give it back to go him, but they didn’t, so I waited with baited breath to see what Sam would do. To be fair it wasn’t all that different really, he just elbowed Alex instead of smacking him with his hat, but it was a really sharp movement and it was hot as f***. I’m very glad I got see it. And just in case that wasn’t enough, he’s taken the restroom opening pose to the next level too and added some hip rotation to his arms-above-his-head stretch position… and I’m not even sure there are words for that. I think I died. Does he really truly have to leave?

And speaking of arms… I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it before, but after he sings ‘I’ve gotta take a little time’, he adds in a high pitched ‘oh’, which is somewhat startling even though I’ve heard him do it a dozen times. At the same time however, he dramatically throws a hand up in front of his face and I love that, because ARM. Also while I’m on the subject, Jodie copies the move and I’ll confess I’m not quite sure why, but she very much takes her cues from him throughout that number and it’s kinda cute. Although that said, her Sherrie makes a real effort to be seductive despite her awkwardness/inexperience (and I imagine she’s still pretty starstruck too). I noticed the other day that she only stops stumbling around clutching her nose (after the stall door smacks her in the face) when she realises he’s looking at her and abruptly straightens up, trying to look sexy.

On a slightly different note, Sam was apparently feeling a bit frisky tonight, because he was all over everybody. Not that he isn’t usually, but he fluffled both Saran and Josh this time, plus he kept stroking Marc’s head when he was on stage with Arsenal. He also pulled Saran’s arm right out her jacket during the Young Groupie bit in Here I Go Again and usually he just pushes it open while he’s bending her back over the railing. Maybe there was something in the water though, because it wasn’t just him; Bobby and Josh were all over each other at the beginning too. I was right behind Lucas’ victim, so I was perfectly positioned to watch the way the rest of the cast respond to her and it’s a lot of fun, especially with those two boys on the end. Bobby has been waggling his tongue filthily every time I’ve looked over at him recently, but I also noticed this evening that Bobby and Josh had their hands all over each other. Bobby in particular was stroking rather ardently up and down Josh’s leg. Bobby always has been rather physical though; another thing he does pretty regularly now is give his arse a good scratch while he’s peeing during I Wanna Know What Love Is. Really enhances the romance of the scene, that does :P.

Anyway, something else I’ve been meaning to mention for ages is the way Lucas joins in with the harmonies in Waiting. In between spying on Drew & Sherrie, he turns to the audience to sing along and it’s kinda sassy, but also really cute and it never fails to make me grin. Although speaking of cute; Lucas blew Luke a kiss tonight when Drew thanked Lonny during his support set… I mean what’s that about?! I don’t think I’ve seen him be nice to Luke in that scene the entire run! Although it wasn’t just Drew getting positive feedback; when Lucas announced the act one finale, he got a round of applause and had to shush everyone for the ‘and yeah, everyone’s s***’s got real emotional right now’. Once he’d got his line out though, he allowed it. Of course he then had a similar problem at the end of Here I Go Again and had to shush us so he could do jazz hands. He told us he loved us all, but shut up :P. Later, during the slow claps, the lights flashed again, only this time they were in time with the claps. It made me wonder if that’s actually a thing and I’d just never noticed it til they f***ed it up this afternoon. Anyway, it was a thing and for whatever reason (the lights or just the fact he had an auditorium full of people under his spell) Lucas said something like ‘I feel so powerful right now’. Also on the subject of things which are now a thing; ‘stop crying like a little b****’ is now a thing. In case you were wondering.

On a rather different note, you may recall one of the things I missed from the original production was the mouthed ‘oh my G-d’ when Drew & Sherrie first realise they have oh-so-much in common. I still miss it, but since Jodie has taken over they’ve added a thing where they turn away from each other and both do a double fist clench/’yes!’ movement. It’s not the same, but it’s in the same vein and it’s certainly better than nothing. Of course there’s always been a ‘ting’ sound when he helps her up off of the floor and their eyes meet for the first time, but it’s less dramatic and I like dramatic :P. Although speaking of dramatic; Jodie practically jumps out of her skin when Sinead starts singing To Be With You at her. She then remains leaning back in her seat looking rather stunned until she hops hastily to her feet when commanded to do so. Also, since I’ve mentioned Waitress #1; for quite some time now, Kevin has been telling Sinead not to forget the baby oil as they leave the stage at the end of that scene, except the only time he’s done it all weekend was last night. Not that it matters particularly, but it was a point of discussion amongst us fans and it had been suggested that perhaps he was skipping it at matinees. Only then he didn’t say it tonight either, so there goes that oh-so-fascinating theory.

So another thing I don’t believe I’ve mentioned before is Vas’ reaction to Adam’s ‘white people’ comment. In the immediate aftermath of Lonny running through the street with his pants down, Hertz evidently thinks he and the Mayor are on the same page and when Adam first speaks Vas goes to agree with him, only to be brought up short by what he’s actually said. I think he takes it quite personally too, it’s kinda funny. I do enjoy some of Hertz’s hard done by moments, like sometimes when he drives in at the start of the Final Countdown, Vas waggles the digger a bit with a ‘what the f*** is this? You see the s*** I have to put up with?’ sort of expression.

Something I’ve been interested in recently for no particular reason is the sweet situation in the Mayor’s office. Adam has a pot at the very start of the scene that he seems to keep in his desk, so I’m not sure if that’s where Vas gets them from, but he always seems to take three. One for himself, one to throw at Regina and one to feed to Franz (like a treat for a puppy) when Andy’s sprawled across the table between Hertz’s legs, showing off the really cool model he made. Today however, I happened to notice that Vas offered Andy his hand earlier in the scene so that he could choose which sweet he wanted. Whether Andy genuinely made the wrong decision or just thought it would be funny, he did not get on with his sweet choice. In fact, at both shows today he pulled an utterly disgusted face while eating his sweet. Bless.

On the subject of Franz’s tongue (it’s not my best segue, I’ll admit), I happened to be watching Luke during the eminent domain scene, so I have no idea what happened centre stage, but I had a feeling Andy missed the ‘but it is a handsome sad’ line and just went straight into ‘like Falco’. I genuinely have no idea if he missed it or I did, but I assume something happened, because when Vas shouted Franz’s name, he sounded like he was laughing so much he struggled to get the word out. I hate missing funny things, damn it! Although I suppose it could have been something off stage? Who knows. Anyway, one thing that still makes me grin is the way Franz and Regina have to relocate to centre stage at the end of the Final Countdown, but I won’t pretend I don’t frequently get distracted by the riot police loitering at the back of the stage. It’s not even just Sam that catches my attention either. I love the way Alex and Luke exchange looks when the centre spotlight comes on and Rhiannon & Andy aren’t in it. Admittedly Sam is sometimes involved in that too, but it’s Alex’s concerned expression that tends to draw my attention the most.

So this post has turned into a bit of a brain dump of all the things I’ve noticed over the past few days/weeks/months but haven’t yet mentioned, so I apologise a bit for that, but before I finish up with a bunch of specifics from tonight, I have a couple more things to say. There’s something about Zoe’s manner with Luke outside the Venus that I really like. It’s as if she knows she f***ed up with Sherrie and doesn’t want to make the same mistake again. Justice genuinely cares about her and I think she’s sees a lot of herself in Sherrie too, especially after their conversation about Edgar. At this point I reckon she’s actively playing matchmaker in the hope of making amends for the damage she feels she caused by forcing Sherrie to dance, but even more than that, I think she’s also trying to stop history from repeating itself. To me the way she tells him exactly which train Sherrie is getting is as close as she dares get to outright telling him to ‘go get her, kid’. And since that’s apparently not enough over analysis for one paragraph, I also want to talk about this: Every now and then Rhiannon gets whistled at when she takes her dressing gown off, but tonight it was loud. The thing is though, even in her underwear she’s more covered up than nearly every other girl on that stage and besides which, this takes place after her rainbow leotard scene. It amuses me what a difference context can make, because I’m sure I’ve never heard Sherrie get whistled at like that when she strips off her gown!

And now, back to tonight…! Lucas came over all Italian (or thereabouts) when he said ‘don’t play games Franzy’. I have no idea where that came from and evidently neither did Kevin, if the WTF look he gave Lucas was anything to go by. Although to be fair, Lucas’ sleazier producer has gone rather European this weekend too, so there’s a precedent, ish. Anyway, I apparently forgot to write it down so I can’t remember when Lucas and I had this conversation (was definitely this weekend, might have been this afternoon), but we were talking about the way Jodie says ‘Michigan’ during Don’t Stop Believin’ and how it’s a little bit Mrs Meers. He’s stood on the Bourbon stage at that point and I couldn’t help looking over at him. Only he looked back, our eyes met and he pulled a Meers face at me and I ended up laughing so hard I was nearly in tears. I f***ing love that boy.

So I’m not sure where Lucas disappeared off to when he climbed down into the audience at the end, but he didn’t quite make it back to the stage in time. Not that he’s got a hard deadline or anything, but towards the end the whole cast come forward and stand in a line across the front and generally he aims to be back as that starts to take shape. Today he totally missed half of it (not helped by the high stage and lack of a step, of course), but he got up there eventually and he & Kevin then linked arms and danced round in a circle, so that was fun. Of course as I told you before, it was Sam’s last show with Zoe (& Kevin) and he blew her a kiss as he passed her when he rode his llama off stage, then planted a smacker on her as they left at the end. Before that though, he smiled at me, so yay. Also Kevin waggled his tongue at me, so all in all it was a rather fun end to the show.

Now, when I booked my coach home, at no point in the process did megabus point out that Meadowhall is nowhere f***ing near Sheffield. I mean, had I known I probably would have booked it regardless and at least I realised this yesterday and not when I turned up at the wrong place and missed my coach, but still. Rather than sitting in my nice cosy hotel lobby and blogging for a few hours before taking a leisurely stroll to the coach station, I had to drag my stuff to the theatre again, then ensure I caught the last tram, after which I got to sit at the coach station in the cold (the indoor bit was shut, obviously) for nearly two hours instead. Not impressed at all. On the plus, the ROAdie I was with had parked near there, so we got the tram together and we still had time to stage door before we left.

Of course, because we had a deadline, they were all having prosecco in Jodie’s dressing room, but fortunately I still got to see everyone I wanted to see (Sam. I wanted to see Sam). There were also plenty of them that didn’t stay, or didn’t stay as late, so we were kept entertained at intermittent intervals. Vas was one of the first to leave and as he passed he asked me to make sure his body gets back to his family when he gets shot next week…! I mentioned I’m not there till the weekend and I think he said he might not make it that far. I asked if they’re changing anything expecting a resounding yes, but apparently the only thing he’s cutting are the salutes…! WTF? I’m morbidly curious to see how that goes down…!

Anyway, when Josh appeared I called him over for a photo and we then ended up chatting to him for ages, because it turns out that he and the ROAdie I was with grew up in the same place and even went to the same school a few years apart. Admittedly I didn’t have a huge amount to contribute to that conversation, but it was still crazy to listen to; it’s such a small world! We also talked about the show and stuff he’s done recently and he told us that he hadn’t wanted to be in the ensemble unless it was Rent, JCS or this and then he got to do all three back to back. I’ve seen them all too, although I hadn’t realised he was in Rent.

We also had a really long chat with Barney about all sorts of things. He told us he’s only MDing this year and then he’s stepping back to musical supervisor duties and Liam will take over as MD full time. I hadn’t realised until he told us about it, how involved he was with the whole creative process of this production though. He didn’t have anything to do with the set and praised Morgan for that, but he was involved with the rest, even costume, ish. Apparently he disagreed with having Regina in sexy underwear (fair point) and found her a crochet bra instead. (It was from Etsy, in case anyone was wondering. I mean, it’s something I frequently wonder about. I love finding out where costumes come from, particularly the ones that are bought rather than made and can therefore potentially be obtained or copied for, er, purposes. On which note… if anyone has any idea where Sam’s tshirt came from, I would love to know. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for something similar before I had to admit defeat and create Staceebear’s shirt from scratch. It was particularly frustrating because after tracking down Heather’s dress from Idiot, I genuinely thought I could find anything I set my mind to :P). Anyway, he made a good point that the original production was an American transplant, whereas this time around, they’ve given it some more British (Monty Python-esque) humour. I’d never really thought about it like that, since last time they changed the language to make more sense to British audiences and this time they haven’t (I mean who the f*** knows what Arby’s is outside America?), but in retrospect I see what he means.

Of course we chatted about the band too. Barney mentioned that he’d done Sunny Afternoon with Marc and I said something about the insane solos Drew keeps posting on instagram, which turned into a bit of a tangent about how much I love watching incredible guitarists and how in awe of them I get (I can’t even move my fingers that quickly, let alone with any form of skill). We also got onto the subject of how great Lucas is; how he’s naturally very funny and perfect for Lonny. I mentioned how frequently I hear the audience raving about him and clearly his ears were burning, because at that moment he popped out for a cigarette! We explained what we were talking about and I then stroked his ego even further but telling him about all the conversations I’ve been overhearing, including one in the queue for the ladies at tonight’s interval. There were two women in front of me and they were going on about how brilliant he was and wanted to look him up. I interrupted briefly, checked they were indeed talking about who I thought they were and then told them Lucas’ name. Admittedly they clearly thought that the film came first and that the reason the show was different was because they couldn’t do the same things on stage, but I decided against correcting them on that. I mean Lucas kinda corrects them anyway during the show, right?

Anyway, Barney had an area booked for the company in a pub round the corner and was trying to persuade Marc to join them, which vaguely prompted a conversation about drinking in general. Barney was saying he wanted a party row on the plane to Berlin! Then after Lucas went back in, Barney was telling us how amazing Berlin is as a city and reeled off a whole host of must-see places that I won’t have time to visit because I’ll be at the show… and I really do want that matinée ticket! He headed off to the pub eventually, but we both got hugs goodbye. Lucas left not long after that too and I hadn’t intended to speak to him again, but then impulsively stopped him briefly to ask him to let me know where the stage door is in Berlin… I love going to new theatres, but I hate having to locate stage doors, especially abroad!

We also had a rather lovely chat with Bobby and I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him so much before, so it was particularly appreciated. My fellow ROAdie told him he was her favourite ensemble member, or something like that, so I added that I love how he can say so much just with one expression. He joked that he likes scene stealing, but he’s so frickin’ good at it and it’s so much fun to watch him, I hope he continues to steal away! Anyway, I’m not sure what else we talked about and I can’t even remember how this came about, but I definitely said ‘I’m obviously a bit smitten with Sam’… and whilst I’m aware that he already knows how smitten I am with Sam (he pays attention on twitter), I’m really not sure why I felt the need to say it out loud…?! Although he did say he’s going to miss Sam too, so it’s not like it’s just me…!

As for Mr Ferriday, he came out with a group so I waved goodbye to them (I noted down that this group included Alex, but have since forgotten why I felt the need to single him out…? Maybe I waved to him specifically?), but Sam came over to us for a chat, so yay. He’s seemed kinda quiet the last few days and as I mentioned earlier, I was going through one of my paranoid phases this weekend, but then he came over and hugged hello and goodbye and chatted for a good while and even when I exchanged goodbyes with Luke and Rhiannon (who left with Jodie) while we were still talking, Sam didn’t run away so I’ve stopped being so ridiculous now. Anyway, the ROAdie told him he was her favourite Stacee, so he said something like ‘that’s two’ and she also asked him if he was enjoying it. He assured us he’s loved it and somehow we then ended up talking about his replacement. He’s never met him and was very diplomatic. I on the other hand really wasn’t (there may have been some scowling), but I still think it’s a really odd role for a dancer. Sam said he’d use his skills to enhance his performance, in the way he moves etc. but I pointed out casting Jo in Flashdance (and even Millie for that matter) made sense because they were heavy dance roles, but this…? Meh. I mean hopefully in a few months it’ll all be grand and I’ll be eating my words, but I’m really gonna frickin’ miss Sam and I am not ready to be thinking about someone else attempting to fill his boots. Hmph. Anyway, back to happier things; Sam wasn’t wearing a hat! He even fluffled himself before he came outside, using the inside of the door as a mirror, which I assume must have looked reflective to him, but was perfectly clear to us. FLUFFFFFFFFFFF! And whilst any sort of fluff is always appreciated, I wanted my photo today, so it was even more wonderful. Plus after I took a selfie (which came out beautifully) the ROAdie offered to take a pic for me, so she snapped a couple from further back as well. And he was FLUFFYYYYYYYYY! *Ahem*. Needless to say, I was very giddy after he left (because he was lovely, not just because he was fluffy)!

So all in all, it went pretty darn well. I’ve lost track of hugs now too, which is always fun, especially since I got quite a few new ones today I think, including Vas, Josh and Bobby. Anyway, we saw everyone we wanted to see and easily made the tram we needed. Plus there was WiFi at the coach station, which was very much appreciated since I struggled to get data to work at all from the moment I hit Doncaster (despite apparently having full 4G signal. Sigh). It’s amazing how much time you can waste on social media when you’ve not checked it all day… Although I will say that both Sam and Lucas liked my tweet asking them for a photo, but did they post a photo? No they did not. And to make matters worse, Sam teased horribly by posting a collage full of costume pics with Kevin, but they were all tiny and washed out and written over, so none of them are remotely useful for lockscreen material. I mean, it was even worse than one of Golan’s! It’s such a hard life :P.

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

Free The Fluff [ROA:90/15]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So I can’t tell you how good it felt to have a decent night’s sleep. I probably still could have done with a few more hours/days/weeks, but even so I felt a lot better for it. Of course the weather was miserable when I got up, so I decided to find a ‘Spoons for lunch and just sit and blog until show time, but I went via the high street and did a bit of shopping while I was at it. I managed to pick up decent birthday cards for my parents for a change (I always leave it too late and have to choose from the three birthday cards left amongst all the Christmas cards) and even more excitingly, finally managed to buy some new jeans with ankles intact! I also accidentally followed Sam down the street when he suddenly appeared in front of me after I left a shop, which was a bit awkward. I tried to hang back and let him get ahead, then caught up with him at the lights anyway, so ended up stopping completely for a moment just to give him a sufficient head start!

Anyway, I did manage to do a bit of blogging over my usual veggie brunch, then headed to the theatre, where I bumped into the ROAdie I was hanging with yesterday out front. We loitered for a bit and while we were there, Lucas walked by on his way in and stopped for a brief chat, so that was rather lovely. He then returned a few moments later because he was worried about the average age of the matinee audience and who he’d be able to pick on! He asked where we were sitting, so we explained that we were both in the second row, but intended to move to the front. I think he was rather relieved by that and said he might have to pick on one of us. My companion pointed out she’d already had a turn this week, so he said he’d pick on me and added that he could really go for it with me, because he knew he wouldn’t get in trouble! Only then we got inside and they’d started giving out actual tickets for the front row, so we couldn’t sit there in the end. Somewhat bizarrely, there were a bunch of small people sitting in front of me and it was kinda distracting at first – I kept finding myself glancing over to watch their startled reactions to some of the early swearing/general filth. Fortunately however, the girls in the middle were at least old enough to be drinking alcohol and were clearly up for it, so Lucas didn’t get stuck. Even better, the one he chose happened to be called Sam. Needless to say, the board made me giggle again. Me too, Lucas, me too :P.

So I’ve taken to watching Bobby and Josh before Lucas starts on his victim and I think a part of me is continuing to hope that one of these days they’re just not going to stop. Sadly today was not that day, but Josh did wrap his leg around Bobby before they pulled back from each other, so that was fun. Also, I only noticed today that at the end of that scene Bobby and Luke found each other in the crowd, took each others’ hands and then skipped off into the wings together, it was so cute!

Speaking of Luke, during the programme scene that isn’t, the girl waved at Luke when he asked who the f*** she was. Lucas even informed him that she was waving at him, but Luke didn’t even look round and remained completely oblivious. Although on that note… I still find it sort of amusing that when Lucas first selects his victim everyone on the stage looks at her too, including Luke… In fact, that whole scene is ‘we are in a musical’ and Drew is very much a part of it. Just sayin’ ;). Anyway, back to the ex-programme scene and Luke (usually) pushes Lucas back with one hand when he says ‘took my dream’, the other hand for ‘my girl’ and both hands for ‘crapped on them both’. When Lucas ‘no no no’s back at him, he just pushes him back the way they’ve come with one hand, but there was a phase earlier in the tour when Lucas used to mirrored the way Luke pushed him and I kinda miss that. Especially the times when Luke switched it up slightly and Lucas would then copy that too. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to anything of course, but I forgot to mention it at the time and they don’t do it any more and I wanted to record it so I had to mention it like this instead.

In other overdramatic reactions; I checked on Lucas during Drew’s set tonight and when Luke thanked him, Lucas pretended to hang himself with his scarf…! Also, when Lucas started the slow clap thing, the lighting people started flashing the lights pointed at the audience and I don’t think they’ve done that before? Surely I would have noticed if they had, even from the front row? Anyway, it wasn’t quite in time and it was a little odd, but it was fun and Lucas made a comment about having the power, so that was fun.

Another thing I’ve not noticed before and I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve missed it or because they don’t always do it, but Lucas and Andy were slapping at each other outside the Bourbon at one point and it made me giggle. I also found myself watching Andy and Rhiannon after Hertz gave Franz the money and they tried to high five, but failed spectacularly so had to try again more carefully and it was adorable. Although on a less adorable note, Vas threw in an extra salute when departing the building site on his little digger. He also seemed to temporarily forget the word ‘city’ (at the end of ‘the sex, drugs und rock ‘n’ roll are destroying your…’, I think) and it happened just as I took a sip of water… I mean it was fine, he finished the line, it wasn’t late enough to sound wrong and I didn’t choke on my drink, but it was a close call! On the plus(?), he’s had a whole chorus behind him in Keep On Loving You this weekend. Every show so far the audience has carried on singing after he stops, so he ends up looking out and aiming a slightly confused ‘scheisse’ at them.

Something I picked up on earlier but forgot to mention is that Jodie seems kinda chuffed that she’s been mugged and it reminded me of an old Sherrie so much that it gave me a bit of a pang… Only now I can’t even remember which one it was and that’s really quite depressing. I think it was Natalie, but it might have been Cordelia? Meh. Anyway, I watched Jodie again in I Wanna Rock and it tickled me when she held out her hand for a high five, only for Luke to walk right past her, leaving her hanging. On the flip side though, I was watching Luke after Sherrie went off with Stacee and the expression on his face was heartbreaking! He looks so gutted and even Josh (crouching on the floor by the flight case just behind him) looks as though he can feel Drew’s pain. Bless.

So the last few shows I’ve felt like I’d calmed down a little over Stacee; I still swooned, but for example, I didn’t end up drooling every time Sinead pushed his shirt up in Too Much Time (she’s been doing that for a while now, I appreciate it). Today however, I was back to being a total fangirly mess and by the end of Wanted I was little more than a puddle on the floor. I mean, I’m talking similar levels to that time in High Wycombe when he looked at me and I died. To be fair I did half catch his eye tonight when he was on the Bourbon stage, but that happens at nearly every show in as much as it was another one of those ‘it was probably coincidence and he didn’t actually look at me, but it sorta looked like he might have, so I’m calling it because it makes me happy’ moments. I just love Sam’s Stacee So. Damn. Much and I actually got a bit emotional over the fact I’m going to have to say goodbye so soon.

And I know I’ve mentioned this before and I’m making a real effort not to keep rehashing the same things in every blog, because the Idiot ones are ridiculous and I need to not do that again, but the way Sam steps off of high things is really f***ing hot. It’s so beautifully arrogant when he does it to confront Drew (after he interrupts Stacee’s moment with Sherrie on the flight cases), but he does it before that too when he gets down off of the bar in Wanted and I can’t always see it that clearly because of angles, but fuuuuuuuu…! I don’t even know why it’s so hot, but it just is. Maybe because it’s so cocky and self-assured? And since I’m on the subject of er cockiness… (which might be my favourite segue ever) I’m still loving how much filthier he is with Jodie in the bathroom. When he says ‘I’m a danger to even my own heart when I love this hard’ he grabs his crotch to emphasise ‘hard’ and it’s glorious. It also kinda mirrors the way Stacee readjusts himself when he’s walking across the Bourbon afterwards, just as Sherrie says ‘smaller than I thought’ to Waitress #1. Just in case anyone was in any doubt as to what she was referring to…!

On a slightly different note, Sam fluffled Josh again when he was on the flight case today and said ‘curly hair’, so clearly that does not just apply to Ryan. Sam seemed to enjoy it though, because when he came out of the restroom later on, he fluffled Josh instead of Saran, who incidentally looked very jealous indeed. Josh was delighted though, as was I! Although Josh turned on him pretty quickly after that and I’m not sure why I’ve never noticed it before. After the knockout, when he’s not struggling to keep the girls from molesting Stacee’s unconscious body, Josh has a right go at Stacee. I’m not sure exactly what he was saying but I interpreted it as a fanboy rant; ‘you were my idol, how can you let me down like this?’ sort of thing. Whatever he was saying, he was very passionate about it! Also, before I move on, Arsenal roadies Josh & Bobby caught my attention during that same bit Ryan & Bobby did last week (in Too Much Time) and whilst I was too distracted by Sam to watch them properly, I caught a few bits and that’s one thing I’m going to have to keep tabs on going forward, because it was very entertaining and they obviously change it up. Today, Josh was showing off an arse clenching move to a suitably impressed Bobby, who then responded with a little foot dance (a side to side wiggle of one foot, then the other, then a faster version of it) that was adorably simple, but roadie Bobby looked very proud of himself indeed.

So I didn’t have to lead the whoop for the band today, which was frickin’ awesome, but obviously I still joined in and helped with the general audience encouragement and I think I got a grin off Marc for my trouble. On the subject of Marc, I noticed yesterday he’s been patting Wolfgang (he did it to both Josh and Luke) on the shoulder in commiseration after his ‘makes your boobies hard’ lyric fail. I also had a much better view of Amanda than I usually do and I could see her reaction to it as well. In the immediate aftermath, she gave it a very clear double thumbs down, then when Luke turned back to her imploringly, she shook her head at him and he then turned away a tad dejectedly. It was rather cute really. I love that they haven’t killed the band interaction in this production, even if half of them are off stage and they keep hiding the rest of them behind a curtain.

On that note however, they had a bit of a glitch with that today. I’m not actually sure what happened and it could well have just been someone pressing the wrong arrow on the controls, but the whole band stage ended up abruptly going backwards instead of forwards, right near the end. They fixed it pretty sharpish, but I was a little concerned they might knock a guitarist off if they jerked it back again! That wasn’t the only staging issue either. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but it was before Stacee’s arrival at the Bourbon. The door to it got stuck moving onto the stage and didn’t come out all the way. It looked like a bit of wood had fallen onto it from behind the stack of amps and I was wondering what they were going to do about it and the door was pretty badly blocked. In the end, when Josh came out the door and managed to squeeze through the smaller than usual gap, he sorted it out and it was fine after that, although I was rather confused about his fix… He pushed the ‘Stacee has arrived’ lever (see gif below… any excuse) up to where it should have been anyway, the wood disappeared from view and the set was then able to move as usual. I have no idea how any of those things were related because I’m sure that lever does f*** all and is just there for effect, but colour me intrigued.

Finally, I have one more thing to say before I cover the curtain call and stage door; Alex’s hair. Now you may or may not recall that I discussed this fairly early on in the run because the movement of it fascinated me. I haven’t really thought about it so much recently and I assumed it was because I got more interested in the rest of him, but now I’m not so sure. You see this weekend it really stood out to me how immovable it is now. He uses far too much product to keep it in line and for a fluff lover like myself it’s really quite frustrating, no matter how convenient it may be for him :P. That said however, one sizable lock made a bid for freedom this afternoon and spent much of We’re Not Gonna Take It tickling his nose. I enjoyed it immensely. Forget Save Our Strip, I need a ‘Free the Fluff’ placard!

Soooo…! I’m not sure what was up with Lucas in the curtain call, but when he headed back to join Sam he just bounced up and down on the spot in front of him. I wasn’t impressed and evidently neither was Sam, because he grabbed hold of Lucas’ head with both hands and pulled him down for his usual session of suggested fellatio. It was f***ing glorious and I loved their shared laughter afterwards as well. They all seem to get on so well still, despite several months on tour together and I love watching them all play around at the end. In fact, Luke found a however-many-dollars bill on the stage and decided to tuck it down the front of Sam’s shirt. Plus the two of them always hug before they leave the stage and it’s all so lovely and d’awwww!

Stage door was an odd one because they had notes immediately after the show, which I only knew because Lucas told me when he popped out for a cigarette first and chatted to us for a bit while he was at it. It meant that they all came out together so I didn’t get to talk to many of them. It also rather messed with my I-still-look-a-bit-of-a-state-but-it’s-an-improvement-on-yesterday-so-I’ll-get-photos plan and the only one I ended up taking was with Alex & Bobby together. Of course I’ve got plenty of time to get selfies next year and at this point it’s probably better to wait til I recolour my hair again anyway, but there’s one person I can’t wait for… Only Sam walked past without looking in my direction and I’m in the middle of one of my standard fangirly ‘he probably hates me’ phases for some reason, so I didn’t want to call him back. Sigh. On the plus though, when Luke and Rhiannon saw us hanging around, they came out to talk to us while they waited somewhat impatiently for Jodie to join them. Rhiannon mentioned something about me coming to Berlin and apparently Luke didn’t know that. She said she’d be on for one of the matinées, but still didn’t know which one and Luke added that Josh didn’t know which show he’d be doing either. Something about not announcing understudy dates in advance – where have I heard that before… :/. Anyway, I admitted I might miss it as I definitely maybe won’t be at the Saturday matinée… *ahem*. At one point Luke said something like ‘stop being mental’ and I took a second to reply because I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that, only then the words sunk in and I simply told him ‘no’! I don’t think he said anything back, but seemed to accept my answer as fair :P.

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

Filth [ROA:89/14]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So a big part of the reason I ended up coming today was the row D seat they had left for tonight, which was the best seat I could get for the whole weekend. Only they hadn’t sold the front row and there was plenty of space so I ended up moving. I probably should have just moved my ticket to B when I called up to swap the matinees cos where I ended up was £15 cheaper, but I figured the chances of coming back to use the credit wasn’t worth the effort. Either way, I was happy and that’s what matters. Admittedly I was on the ‘wrong’ side (stage left) but it’s such a small stage, even when they were over on the other side, they didn’t feel far away and I’ll be on the other side tomorrow, so it’s all good. The angles also meant I caught something I’ve never seen before; I was watching Sam as usual when he headed off to the Champagne Room in Sherrie’s wake, but at one point Zoe was in between me and him and I saw something in her face. In the immediate aftermath she’s still counting his money, but then her expression suddenly darkens and there’s a moment of regret, as if she’s having second thoughts already about pushing Sherrie into dancing for him. And while I’m talking about angles and Zoe… I noticed something else this evening. There’s now a production photo of Zoe and Danielle stuck to the middle mirror in the Venus dressing room! I got a bit emotional when I spotted it, it’s such a lovely thing to do! I hope Sam makes it onto the set after he goes too, even if it isn’t something visible from the audience.

Looking forward however, tonight I spent a fair bit of time watching Jodie, although I don’t have that many specifics to talk about. I’m sticking with my theory that she’s a fairly mature Sherrie; she’s got confidence and a real sense of ambition, but underneath all that, she’s still the naive country girl that’s way out of her depth in the big city. She really pushes Drew into I Wanna Rock, but the way she watched Luke once he launched into it made me grin. She attempted to interrupt him a couple of times before she managed to get his attention and in the meantime she tried to join in with the dancers too. In fact, her Sherrie’s attempts at dancing were fairly entertaining in general; I liked how awkward she was in Any Way You Want It and the way she clutched her inner thighs in pain after accidentally sliding down the pole (the second time). I also thought it was amusingly adorable this afternoon that she didn’t actually know where Detroit was & pointed to completely the wrong place on the wrong hand…! She had it right tonight though, so I’ll forgive the mishap :P.

The other thing about Jodie’s self-confidence is that she’s far more forward with Stacee. For example, when he first takes hold of Sherrie’s arm atop the flight cases, Danielle used to pull away when he reached his belt, but Jodie leaves her hand in his. The best thing about it however, is the way Sam responds to her. He’s so much filthier and I f***ing love it. Unfortunately I don’t really have specific examples, it’s just a general vibe, but there are lots of little things, like the way he pulls her head against his chest and keeps it there, plus he was tugging on the bow of her apron when he was kneeling in front of her. Also the leaning back against the stall with his arms above his head seems to be a thing now and it’s so wonderful… I’m going to miss him so f***ing much. Waaah.

Sam was having a lot of fun this evening too and during Arsenal’s performance at the Bourbon, he kept holding the mic in front of Drew & Marc so they could ‘sing’ the lines that Stacee doesn’t. The three of them seemed to be having a whale of a time and it was making me happy just watching them enjoying themselves. Although on that note, Marc grinned in my general direction at both shows today, only in standard me fashion, I wasn’t 100% sure he was actually smiling at me, especially since he had his mirrored shades on one of those times. I was sat in totally different places though so it would be an odd coincidence if it was indeed a coincidence. Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t know who I am… and by this point I’m pretty sure both guitarists are more than vaguely aware that I’m the nutcase who insists on them getting a cheer every time I’m in…!

So Lucas went with titty/boob and then smeg/ma as his call & responses today, admitting after the latter that it was kinda gross. Given he did the same thing at both though, I assume he got a kick out of it. He’s also sticking quite firmly with Lee Keyanus as his second support act suggestion, so I reckon he likes the laugh that one gets. And speaking of laughs; I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it before, but when Hertz comes on to shout at Franz about the protestors still being out there, he steps over the line of the ensemble just as they’re standing up in the wake of Regina kissing Franz’s cheek. As such the chain between Alex and Saran ends up between Vas’ legs and the two of them have something of a tug of war, while Hertz continues to shout at his son. Usually he finishes his conversation then snaps his fingers at Saran who nervously ducks down to let him go. Today however, Vas said ‘you can stop now’ and even though I have no idea what prompted it, it very much made me giggle!

And speaking of Alex, I watched him quite a bit today and it was wonderful. There’s been so much else going on recently, it feels like ages since he’s had my focus and I’ve missed him! Not that I have a whole lot to say, but I did notice that after Lucas stole his beer during the post-Stacee-knockout chaos, he found another bottle sitting atop one of the amps and was so delighted than he kissed it. That seems to be a bit of a theme in fact, because I definitely saw Adam tonguing the mouth of the bottle Sam threw to him in Wanted. Anyway, I thought I’d use the roadies pulling the girls off of the unconscious Stacee in Wanted as a segue into my next comment, but I couldn’t make it flow seamlessly, so I’ve gone with explaining it instead… At the end of Don’t Stop Believin’, while Luke was doing his big belty bit, Bobby was behind him and trying quite doggedly to grab his arse with both hands. This time it was up to the girls to hold him back and I was rather entertained by the whole interaction!

So stage door went pretty darn well. I said lots of passing hellos, Josh teased me about being back again and I got a Sam hug. Yay! Admittedly I didn’t talk to him for all that long, but it was still lovely to see him. I had my poster in my hand at the time and I think he asked me who I still needed, so I told him I was just waiting on Amanda. He then questioned if I had Jodie, so I admitted that I didn’t, but wasn’t sure if I should ask her since she’s not actually on it. He thought I should however, and at that moment she came out, so I let Sam go in order to go and talk to her (who even am I any more?!). Jodie was with Rhiannon and Luke, so I stopped all three of them and apparently I’m on hugging terms with Luke now, so that’s exciting!

Anyway, I told Jodie I thought she was great and Rhiannon put that into context by explaining to her that I see the show a lot. They asked me about numbers, but I couldn’t remember so I guesstimated at 80 something, with around 13 on this production, so I wasn’t far off. I then got Jodie to sign my poster, because why not, but added the disclaimer that she’s not on it. Luke told her to sign across Danielle’s face and she kind of did, which was funny and sort of annoying, but mostly funny and it’s not like Sam didn’t already sign across faces, so I can’t really complain!

I also had another long chat with Alex and just in case you weren’t already aware, I’m totally f***ing smitten. The soft spot I have for that boy is immense. He’s just too cute for words. Anyway, we mostly talked about all the cover shows they’ve had and how crazy it was at the beginning of the week when they were low enough on cast that they had to cut things. He mentioned that it had been rather stressful for a lot of people, but that he actually enjoys the craziness. He’s been a swing quite a lot in the past, so it’s just business as usual for him. On which note, I ended up explaining that I watch Ryan a lot in the ensemble scenes when he’s on because I don’t get to see him very often, although I managed to refrain from mentioning that I usually watch him when Ryan isn’t stealing my attention away… Although if Alex is even vaguely aware of this place, he’s probably not exactly oblivious to my fascination with him. Anyway, we also touched on all the cover shows I missed earlier in the tour in Darlington (I couldn’t remember where it was, but he knew which week I’d been talking about, when everyone was off sick and Ryan went on for nearly every track). I said that obviously I don’t want anyone to get ill, but I love cover shows and I’m gutted I missed so many!

I ended up hanging around til pretty late, but it was worth it when Amanda eventually appeared and I was able to complete my poster. Yay! I mean I suppose there’s a chance I might want other Stacees to sign it next year, but… Well let’s just say, I’m not holding off putting it up for that. It’s going on my wall as soon as I get home (and have had a bit of a sleep). Anyway, Amanda was surprised I knew her name, but seemed quite chuffed about it. She recognised me too and we ended up having a nice little chat. I talked about how much I love the show and she said she’s nerdy about plenty of things too and it’s good to be nerdy about stuff. I like her :P.

Of course I couldn’t leave without seeing Lucas either and while I was waiting I ended up taking to a couple that were also loitering. They’d been hanging around for a while without stopping anyone and I thought I’d best check who they were waiting for in case I could help. As it turns out they wanted to see Lucas too because they loved him so much :D. The guy had only ever seen the film before and loved it, but I think his other half had wanted to introduce him to the stage show. They’d both had a great night and had nothing but good things to say and it was really lovely to chat to them. When Lucas appeared we continued on the subject of the film, which was probably far more interesting than my train problems, which is what I ended up telling him about after they left…!

So in the end I didn’t make it back to my hotel til around midnight and I was so desperate to get inside and put my bag down that I couldn’t face stopping for food. I did intend to go back out again, but of course once I sat down I wasn’t going anywhere. I’m not sure the cereal bar I found in my bag filled the hole quite as well as a pizza would have done, but it took the edge off and at least I didn’t have to move! It was a very long day!

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,

K xx

Lost Innocence [ROA:88/13]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

So it was a bit of a morning. We had a health & wellbeing day at work so my day started(ish) with a very enjoyable massage. Unfortunately it was all downhill from there, which was almost funny given that the masseuse specifically told me to try and take it easy for the rest of the day… You see, I had this brilliant plan to get my hair curled at the office, add a bit of make-up when I got to my hotel and then get photos with everyone at stage door whilst looking ravishing(ish). Only my hair looked awful and even though he didn’t use hairspray (thankfully), it still had horrible kinks in it after the curls dropped out. To add insult to injury, the trains were a total nightmare so I didn’t have time to so much as check-in to my hotel, let alone sort out my dragged-through-hair-straighteners-backwards appearance and needless to say photos were definitely out.

The real kicker though was that I had to change at Doncaster because I couldn’t afford a direct train. Only the direct train that I couldn’t afford got cancelled and everyone from that one ended up on mine. It was cool til I had to change; I had a seat and the tiny baby across the aisle didn’t cry, but then we got to Doncaster and it all went wrong. The train to Sheffield turned out to be a single carriage, possibly dating from 1903, with a stroppy conductor who wouldn’t let any more people on even though there was clearly loads of space. So I missed the train I booked, but not to worry, says the conductor, you can get any train and there’s another one in twenty minutes. Well that was just fine and dandy, because it’s not like I had places to be or anything. And luckily for us the next train had two carriages, maybe dating from as late as 1950, and it was only 5 minutes late, so I was totally winning, right?

So I did not make it to Sheffield in time to go to my hotel before the show, although I am aware it could have been so much worse and I genuinely am grateful that despite national rail’s best efforts, I got to the theatre in plenty of time. They even had a free cloakroom and chose not to throw a strop about my bag, so it all kinda worked out in the end. The best part of ‘it all worked out’ actually happened earlier in the week, however. You see when I booked this, the ticket situation wasn’t ideal. There were a handful of seats left and none of them were all that good. Given the prices I made a few compromises and for both matinees I’d booked up in the circles. When I realised I was at the back of the dress for Josh’s Drew, I was really rather gutted about it, only it turned out they hadn’t initially put the front couple of rows on sale. They added row B a few days ago and as soon as I found out I called up to move my seats, so I ended up getting to watch Josh from the middle of the second row and I was absolutely delighted. It’s also by far the smallest stage I’ve seen them at so far this tour; they were back to not really using the side platforms and they didn’t have the arch at the front at all, just a pile of amps on either side of the stage. It was kinda weird not having it and I was only recently writing about how much I like what that arch brings to the lighting design, but I won’t pretend I didn’t love the smaller stage. Even with a fairly sizeable space in front of row A, they seemed so close, it was wonderful!

Now, I have to confess, I hate having two new leads to watch at once, because I feel like whatever I’m watching, I’m constantly missing things. It was slightly easier today because obviously I have plenty of time for Jodie, so I mostly focused on Josh, but Jodie was still new and exciting, so I frequently found my attention caught by her, no matter how much I was trying to exclusively watch him. Before I get to their performances however, I want to take a moment to talk about costumes, because I’ll admit they threw me a bit. I’m not really sure what I expected Josh to be wearing, I suppose I wasn’t necessarily expecting identical to Luke, but I thought he’d be in something different. He wasn’t. He wore his usual costume, complete with bandana tied around his bicep and the only differences were the addition of the fringed leather jacket when needed and the Street Boyz outfit. The leather jacket was identical from what I could tell, as were the Joshy J jacket and shirt combo, although he was spared the horror of the leather trousers and I think his boots were slightly different. Jodie on the other hand mostly had the same costumes as Danielle, except for the boots and underwear (she doesn’t have the ropes on her Venus costume either), but there were a few differences there too. She’s got a trench coat instead of the red crocodile leather one and a yellow kimono instead of the pink one (which confused me slightly as Jodie posted a photo of herself in the pink the one other day with a reference to Heathers). She also has a red patent skirt and matching boots at the end, although she’s still wearing the fancy pinky/purple & black jacket that Danielle wore. It clashes horribly and that upsets me, but oh well :P.

So Josh was absolutely adorable as Drew, but in a totally different way to Luke. There were so many little bits that he played completely differently and I loved it, I’m just not too sure how to explain it. I think the best way I can put it is that Luke has a naivety and innocence about him, whereas Josh seems more self-conscious; he’s a little bit more mature perhaps, but that gives him a self-awareness that seems to leave him lacking in confidence as a result. They’re both just as uncertain of themselves and of Sherrie, but I felt like they come at it from very different places and it was fascinating to watch. Of course there were countless things that back up what I’ve just said, but I’ve forgotten most of the little details that stood out to me at the time.

One thing that did stick in my memory though was the scene before High Enough. Josh was pretty agitated and really tripped over the ‘when you fuuu… Stacee Jaxx’. He also kept arguing back, even after she threw the ‘just friends’ comment back in his face. He was very defensive, holding on to his righteous indignation right up until she said she’d been crazy about him. At that he stopped short and you could see the fight draining out of him as he realised exactly what he’d lost. Also, after she revealed she was a stripper (Jodie looked like she hadn’t meant to say that at all and was just as surprised by the revelation as Drew was, which was rather cute) and then attempted to correct herself to ‘exotic dancer’, Josh nodded at her in an ‘ah ok that makes sense, no biggie’ sort of way. As if he didn’t know they were essentially the same thing and he was taking her at her word, that her correction meant she wasn’t actually a stripper. I’m really not explaining any of this very well, but despite what I said earlier, there’s certainly still a bit of naivety to his Drew!

On a slightly different note though, one thing I was really entertained by was the way he acted in the ‘if you want something you can’t just wish for it’ scene (I really need a catchier name for referring to that). As Lucas was talking to him, Josh looked out at the audience several times, only he made enough of a thing of it that it was quite obvious he couldn’t see through the fourth wall at all, which I really liked. He also had a bit of a moment after the long note in Oh Sherrie, until she called his name and he abruptly snapped into what I can only refer to as ‘seduction mode’. He looked up at her, said her name in a slightly deeper tone and with such seriousness and intensity, it made me giggle. I’m not sure that was exactly the response he was going for, but it was brilliant! Anyway, needless to say I really hope I get another few chances to catch him in the role, once certainly wasn’t enough!

As for Jodie, I’ll have more to say about her tonight, but a little like Josh, she’s nowhere near as innocent as Danielle was. For example, she was all over Stacee from the start. I mean, she nearly licked his face when she leaned in towards him atop the flight cases at the end of Wanted. In fact, she also licked (or came very close to; I’m not sure if she actually made contact) Alex’s face when she pulled back after giving him his lap dance. She’s a girl after my own heart, this one! In fact, I’m half tempted to title this Face Licking, except that it feels wrong to use that phrase for something not involving Nick Kent :P. (I’m really struggling with titles though, it’s so hard to keep coming up with names, especially when you don’t want to risk wasting a ‘good’ one when there might be a more appropriate use for it later in the tour).

Anyway, speaking of pretty boys; the angles meant that I had a clear view of Alex when Stacee was being interviewed before Wanted and speaking of wanting; the way Alex gazed at Sam…! He looked how I felt, it was brilliant! Although it’s possible I looked even more smitten than that when the restroom rolled into view because Sam has apparently stopped humping the stall and whilst you’d think I’d be upset about that, the new pose is OH so much better. He was stood with his back to it instead, holding on to the rail across the top with both hands. And you remember how I like it when he does that on the platform at the side in the bigger venues? Well imagine it when he’s not wearing his jacket…! Those arms… and the way he stretches… and holy f*** it was beautiful.

On the subject of the jacket though, I was kinda relieved when he wasn’t wearing it today and not just because it hides his arms. Generally I actually quite like it; he wears it very well and I it’s really rather hot, but the trouble is there aren’t many photos of him in it so I had to base a lot of the design for Staceebear’s jacket on memory and similar products on google. I knew I’d missed a few details, but there wasn’t much I could do until I saw it in person again. Today was that day, so every time Sam appeared wearing the damn thing, I was more focused on pocket angles than the rock G-d inside…! That said, it did throw into relief something I absently noticed ages ago, but never thought to write down: When he first walks in to the Bourbon he stops in the middle of the floor and crosses his wrists high above his head (which is f***ing hot, by the way) and clicks his fingers. The click brings a roadie running to remove his jacket for him (although sadly not this ROAdie, even though I’d be more than happy to help divest Stacee of his clothing) and it’s disgustingly arrogant and insanely hot and I love it and… I really do have horrific taste in men, don’t I?!

Anyway, on a slightly different note, I’m not sure what they’re using for cocaine in this production, but whatever Sam ‘blows’ into the air is rather clumpier than I’d expect. So either their icing sugar is badly in need of sieving, or they’re using something else. Some days it looks better than others, but more entertainingly, some days it also ends up all over the ensemble. Saran ended up with a face full of it today and I’m not sure Erin escaped un-dusted either. I mean if ever there was a time for face licking…!

Moving on… I’ve always wondered what would happen if Lucas’ victim refused to tell him her name and today it finally happened (apparently for the first time, so that was even more exciting)! Of course he initially turned to her friends for assistance, which has worked for him in the past, but this time they stuck by her and wouldn’t tell him either. When it became quite clear he would not be provided with a name, he informed her that for the purposes of this show, he would be calling her Fanny from now on. Of course it’s a fairly comedic name in this modern era anyway, but seeing Lucas holding a board that said ‘I love Fanny’ has to be one of the highlights of the tour so far! I think he had a lot of fun with it too and got his own back by being more overtly crude and flirtatious with her than he usually is. Not that it was particularly obvious if you didn’t know the show, but he looked over at her lot, pulling extra faces and such. He also told her to ‘stop crying like a little b****’ at the end, so that was new!

In fact, Lucas had quite a bit of fun with the audience in general this afternoon. For one thing, the people at the end of my row (who to be fair were clearly having a great time) f***ed off as soon as Here I Go Again ended, so he made quite a thing about that before he finished the act. He also asked one of the boys in the middle of the front row to help him back onto the stage in the finale, so that was rather entertaining to watch too. Finally, on a slightly different note, but before I move on to stage door, I’m not sure exactly what happened, whether Lucas broke his scarf or it just fell off or what, but right near the beginning it ended up tied around his wrist instead of wrapped around his neck. There was some kerfuffle over it anyway and he relocated it, so then when he was waving his arms around, he accidentally smacked himself in the face with the end of it, which made me giggle more than it probably should have…!

So what I should have done after the show was go to my hotel, but it would have been at the expense of seeing the cast and that clearly wasn’t going to happen, so round to stage door I went. On the plus I hadn’t actually intended to bring the poster today (because I was going to get photos instead. Sigh), but since I had it with me anyway, I figured I may as well get it out and I managed to get a few more signatures for the collection including Zoe, Marc and both Barney & Liam, which was an unexpected bonus. They didn’t have a lot of time between shows, so in most cases I just exchanged greetings, but it was still lovely to see them all and I did have a few brief conversations. Liam was in less of a rush than the rest as he was only in for the matinee and won’t be back now til next year. It was lovely to see him though and he clearly knows exactly who I am because he commented that I’d have plenty for the blog from this afternoon’s show…! Although oddly, this feels like one of the shortest posts so far. I did struggle to get a lot of my notes down on (digital) paper though because I was too busy chatting to have a chance to write much after the interval, so there’s probably a lot missing…!

Of course I couldn’t let Josh go without complimenting him on his performance and he was nearly as self-deprecating as his Drew :P. I think it’s been a pretty crazy week for all of them though and he’s not been back from illness for long either. On which note, I also chatted to Ryan a bit, who was obviously on covering Josh’s ensemble track today. He talked about it being a very different show today, so I commented that I really can’t handle two new leads at once! He pointed out I’d only have one tonight, then asked if I knew who was doing Berlin yet. I’m not sure if I was supposed to know, I’m not sure there’s been an announcement at all, but I’ve known for a while now either way, so FYI, Cameron Blakely will be Dennis and Tori Allen-Martin will be Justice and I am SO excited! It really sucks that I have exciting new people when all I’m going to want to do is watch Sam, but it’s not like they’re in THAT many scenes together and I’ve got several shows anyway and possibly another one if I give in to temptation and book the Saturday matinee and I’d have been gutted if I’d missed them and I’m so thrilled I’m going to be there and eeeeeeeee! For the record, I was not that giddy to Ryan, he got a significantly turned down version of my excitement, but that’s how I feel generally and I was on the subject anyway, so thought I’d mention it! Weeeeeeeeeeee!

So there were a couple of ROAdies in that I knew and one of them had brought his daughters with him, so when I wasn’t talking to the company, I was talking to them. When Lucas nipped out we had a group chat about the show in general, so I didn’t have that much to add, but we did talk about the nameless victim, so that was fun. I mentioned I’d always wondered what he’d do and he admitted he hadn’t 100% decided until it actually happened. He also told us that he’d been intending to step his teasing up another notch after she swapped seats with her friends at the interval to sit further off centre (and they was pretty off centre to begin with), but she softened as the show went on, so he decided against saying anything. I can’t remember exactly what he’d planned; it was something about her not being able to escape him, but much funnier than that. I did mention the board though and I think it amused him just as much as it amused me.

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

The Last Carnival – July Tour, Sheffield

So the day started much like yesterday, with a morning at work and then a rush to the station to catch my train. I did, however, manage to make in in time to grab a snack for the journey, which was somewhat unexpected. What was even more unexpected was the discovery that one of the cafes at St Pancras sold kosher bagels. It was cool for novelty reasons more than anything – I think I’d have preferred bread that wasn’t mezonos…! Anyhoo, on a different, but no less unexpected note; my friend sent over a few of his London photos during the morning and although I didn’t have time to go through them properly, there was one of Justin where he’s mid jump (and had achieved some serious height) that really caught my attention so I tweeted it to him and the band. Justin then retweeted it (it’s not quite as awesome if it’s not my photo, but I tweeted it which would usually be enough to blacklist it so woo, I guess) so that was another surprise. Five months of nothing, then two in 24 hours. It’s like waiting for a bus. Or a man. Anyway, it did brighten up my day somewhat; I could get used to that. Except I’d best not because, yeah. So the only problem was that I then started writing up the blog post for yesterday’s show and ended up getting annoyed with him for no particular reason except that he messed up my lovely signed print. Hmph.

Club:

VIP was also unexpectedly good. Not that I had particularly low expectations, it’s been good all tour so far, but I was in a strop and a bit flustered by the heat, plus the fact I’d been running late didn’t help either, so I didn’t have overly high hopes. So I got a decent haul of photos and kept getting band members to take them, which made the routine particularly fun. I’m also doing fairly well with my Kieran bunny ears series :P. Other than that I had some nice long chats with the usual suspects. Russ was telling a few of us that he can get quite angry, which apparently can be messy but gets stuff done! Justin, we were told, is the opposite and never gets ruffled or some such. I commented that perhaps it was because he makes no sense (which incidentally doesn’t quite make sense in this context, although I’m sure it did at the time. I think I meant that he always seems calm and collected because no one knows what he’s on about?). Russ was saying they’re actually quite similar, but Justin is like his surreal side. I suggested that Justin was his evil twin, which Russ found that rather amusing, except I was being semi-serious :P. What can I say? I was in a strop with him.

I also had a debate with Kieran about films. We were talking about the hilarity of Kieran’s photo history on Facebook and I commented that I’d found Justin’s myspace page with a bunch of old photos from back when he had long hair. Kieran asked how it looked and I compared him to Professor Snape (side note: I’m not the first to have made that comparison), which then lead to a conversation about Alan Rickman and Tom Hanks, although I don’t know where the jump between those two actors came from. I talked about Dogma and realised that Justin’s faint resemblance to Ben Affleck may not be entirely unrelated to why I find him so damn attractive. Anyway, I said I didn’t like Tom Hanks, mostly because he’s not a romantic lead in my opinion and that’s what I originally know him from. Apparently I need to watch Saving Mr Banks and Captain Phillips. Kieran also pointed out they’d gone for Bon Jovi for the music (and not steel Panther for the reasons we discussed yesterday).

The conversation was interrupted by the acoustic set, which was fabulous as always. I’m digging Adam’s shaky eggs, they’re so cute :P. I also still find the fact that Kieran and Mike share a microphone highly entertaining. There’s a serious height difference going on there! So, the lighting was still a bit rubbish but I filmed There’s A Road anyway. I very nearly cried at the end again, in which case I figure Russ would have owed me a pair of shoes :P.

The Last Carnival

So as I’ve already alluded to, I was really annoyed with Justin for absolutely no reason (except for, I suppose, the residual irritation about that damned autograph). Still baseless or not, it was bad enough that I consciously avoided speaking to him before the acoustic set. In the VIP photos I’ve been switching positions each night and I still need to split up Russ and Justin, but decided to go for Kieran and Mike tonight, just to avoid him. It seems they’ve realised I’m working my way along though and Mike was joking that I should photoshop the pictures together so I’m in between all of them at the same time. I’ll need to come up with some other ideas for last two VIPs, I think. I do wish I could see pictures in advance to see if any need retaking, though.

Anyway, I was seriously considering telling Justin that I was annoyed with him but wasn’t sure why (which I suppose would have been part apology and part attempt at resolving whatever was bothering me), however, when I actually spoke to him after the group photos he was lovely and all my animosity thankfully evaporated pretty much instantly. So I’d been promising my friend that I’d send her a snapchat of Justin (she didn’t want one, I was just winding her up :P) and tonight seemed like the opportune moment. I managed to get a selfie with him (which was pretty horrendous of me, but I wasn’t about to retake it) and then had to hide the phone so I could inappropriately caption it before I sent it :P. At some point during the proceedings, Russ noticed the photo of Satchel that I’ve got set as my wallpaper and he asked me if I knew his real name (I did; it’s Russ – I didn’t make the connection until I said it aloud) and we discussed him briefly.

I then continued chattering away to Justin about all sorts. He told me about the severely limited nature of his tour wardrobe (I’d noticed…) and explained that he doesn’t want to ruin all his nice expensive clothing by wearing it on tour. Apparently he’ll be slowly introducing new items into the rotation (I’ll admit I’ve kinda been noticing him doing that too…). It certainly sounds like he has it all planned out with near military precision; it was quite an amusing conversation.

I also finally remembered to ask about Venice (he was there the other week; posted a couple of photos, including a stunning one of a bridge over a canal (which left me with an incredibly strong urge to book a weekend away) and the band tweeted about it too). We chatted about the city a little (I’ve been once, a very long time ago) and he was telling me that you really need someone who knows the place to show you where to go (in terms of bars) so you don’t end up getting stranded. Sounds like it was a short but enjoyable (working) trip. I’m not jealous at all ;). He also asked me what I thought of last night so I explained that I love the venue because of the stage height etc. so it was fab, plus added some of the background about how much of a pain it was to be there and about blowing off Tides for them.

We all headed into the main room after that and I got the ‘buy merch’ spiel from Mike again. As I recall we had an extended discussion about the brilliance of the tote bag (I told him I use mine all the time and in fact it was back in my hotel room as I spoke) and he was also trying to persuade me to buy the white t-shirt with the band name on it as I (stupidly?!) admitted it was the only piece of merch that I didn’t already have. I point blank refused however, having already purchased far more of their merch than I could ever need (especially in the form of clothing I don’t wear). I also chatted to Benji a bit and said hey to the Afterparty boys when they walked past.

I spoke to a couple of them about the new logo and I’d been told that Adam had painted the picture on the keyboard box thing, but I was furnished with the additional information that he’d done it in a relatively short space of time from a stencil the Kieran printed for him. I was suitably impressed. I also told Mike and Kieran that it was too Gryffindor (in terms of the colours – I reassured one of them (Kieran?) that the logo itself was not remotely Harry Potter-esque) but that otherwise I love it. I told Mike that I was a Slytherin but added my usual ‘not if it was real life’ disclaimer.

A couple of girls had made Kieran some marshmallows (from scratch – it never even occurred to me that it was possible!) but made him guess what they were from a few clues about the type of sweets that they were. They were talking about the celebrity chef who’s recipe they’d followed only Kieran (and I) had never heard of him, so Justin joined in and provided a relatively in depth explanation of who the guy was (not that I can remember now, of course [Edit: I’m told it was James Martin, for those who may be interested!]). The group conversation was sadly cut short by the doors opening but Justin actually instigated a hug before he headed off backstage; he’s forgiven :P. [Edit: He also called me by name at one point, although I can’t recall when or why. It might even have been after the gig rather than before. It still throws me, though. As if there was any chance they could not know my name at this point… And it probably shouldn’t make me so fluttery…]

Support:

First up were Lacey and it was brilliant to see them again. It was a very short set but I got to hear Contender again and Graz motioned to me for a drink (even though I was too far away) as a joke during the song, which made me laugh :).

The Afterparty had no intro music for the tour and last night they came on to It’s Raining Men. I was told that the plan was to go even cheesier so I’ll confess I was intrigued. I’m not sure Miley Cyrus’s Party In The USA was quite as brilliant, but it was certainly cheesy. Aside from that, I thought that Lacey were a much better opener for them as I was more prepared for the loud and actually quite enjoyed them tonight :). They’re definitely growing on me.

I didn’t even catch the name of other support band (Revolvers or something like that?) but they didn’t grab me at all so I made no effort to find out.

Anyway, I could see Justin’s amp peeking out from behind the covered up keyboard and it made me grin when I caught sight of it, as did Luke soundchecking the guitar, as usual. On a slightly different note I’d been very much looking forward to seeing The Colliers again and I saw them before the show (minus Mitch) from a distance but wasn’t willing to give up my prime spot to say hi :P. It’s a narrow stage and there are large boxes (containing speakers, I think) on each side so there’s only space for half a dozen people in between. I ended up behind one of the boxes (on Justin’s side, obviously) which wasn’t ideal, but it did give me a prop and distance, both of which came in useful whilst filming. The former also helped me to have a pseudo-nap between bands!

The show:

[Note from time of publish: It’s at this point that my notes get a bit sparse and vague. I’ve done my best to string them together but there isn’t much there to string, sadly. I’ve no doubt that the gig was as fabulous as always, but I apparently didn’t feel the need to write any of that down at the time (possibly due to post-show intoxication/sulking), so all I have is the following… (however, I’ve added a few extra photos to the post by way of compensation)]

The Last Carnival – Russ & Mike

The setlist was ever so slightly different, although I didn’t notice at first, simply because I haven’t quite got to grips with all the new music yet. The one change was the addition of a song I hadn’t heard before called Runaway Screaming. Fortunately, my videography mission this evening was to capture Setting The World Alight and Futile, neither of which I was familiar with enough to anticipate, so all I knew was that I wanted the first two songs after Dancefloor. It did mean I missed Futile as I dutifully recorded the first two and then stopped, but I can always catch that one later in the tour. I’m certainly pleased to have caught a new song by pure luck. It was a good one, too :). I also captured the Crazy guitar solo because, well… *coughs*. There was a moment towards the end when Justin was, er… stroking the neck of Russ’s guitar… with increasing rapidity… (A more appropriate description of the movement would be one beginning with ‘w***ing’ and ending with ‘off’…). My reaction to that was basically just f***… So, um, yeah… *ahem*. Anyhoo, I can’t think of an appropriate metaphor (or even an inappropriate one), but Justin was apparently done impersonating the sun tonight (in other words, I was able to look directly at him), so that was a relief. I even got a smile from him during the set. Will wonders never cease?!

Hair!

So, I shouted to Justin for his setlist at the end and he threw it to me but it ended up behind something and I couldn’t reach. Fortunately, one of my friends was able to retrieve it for me and I got him to sign it. This time I told him I was dictating and ordered him to write; to [me], lots of love, Justin. And he actually did it. I was so surprised I couldn’t help but verbally express the sentiment. Although I do now wish I’d done that for the fancy photo yesterday instead, given that actually mattered to me… Sigh.

The Last Carnival – Sheffield Setlist

Post-show:

I’d hoped to catch up with Lacey, but they had all vanished by the end of the gig, save Josh. I had a nice chat with him about the album though. They finished recording at 1am this morning, apparently. It’s all rather exciting :). I also finally got around to taking some photos with all The Afterparty boys and grabbed a random one with Harry (Bullas) while I was at it. I’d have liked one with Danno too as I was chatting to them both for a while, but I rather missed my opportunity. It would’ve been nice to have spent a bit more time catching up with all of them, but it’s probably my own fault for not making more of an effort earlier on in the evening. It sounds like there are plans afoot from a very cryptic conversation they had with Justin in front of me, but it was all very ambiguous, so they could have been talking about anything and I’d have been none the wiser! Anyhoo, I’d intended to ask if they were going out for a drink too, but never quite got around to it and then they vanished when I wasn’t looking.

I also got my usual round of selfies with the TLC boys, of course, and had an entertaining chat with Kieran. I’m not sure exactly what I said to him to prompt it (probably something about the stage height in Birmingham again – I suspect it was at least partly my fault anyway), but he accused me of looking at things I possibly shouldn’t have been, in the general vicinity of a guitar… Which I really wasn’t! I’m a good girl, I am… :P. He was also gossiping about last tour’s after party, so that was fun…!

I hung around until the end as usual and somehow found myself on guard duty, watching their stuff inside while they loaded out to the street/van. Nice to know I’m trusted :P. They then loitered in the street for ages during which time I had a long chat with Russ (about make-up, randomly) and another chat with a Justin. I complimented him on his latest jewellery addition; a strip of worn leather on a short chain around his neck and he told me it was actually a bookmark (taken from something really old, I believe, but I can’t recall what) only he’s just got himself a kindle so it’s not much use. We then discussed books for a while so he was subjected to the story about my deaded kindle as well. I really am quite frustrated that I can’t continue reading From Here To Eternity!

Anyhoo, The Ratells and The Retrospectives were there and when they all (finally) headed out for a drink I tagged along. Only unlike the nice cushy pub we went to last time, this time we ended up in a car park. I got the impression there had been a live music event there earlier in the evening, but it was just the tail end of whatever it was by the time we arrived. Still, I got a drink out of it; Kieran ended up getting trapped a rather pricy round for six people at a cash bar when he didn’t actually have enough cash on him – and was then vilified for it, poor thing! From what I could gather, he’d initially intended to buy for himself and Justin, plus Luke as a thank you for all the hard work. Only then Mike joined them and Tony had offered me a drink too, so we joined him at the bar too before he’d finished his order. In any case, I still ended up with my wine (courtesy of Tony), which then went straight to my head. I don’t think I’ve ever been so intoxicated by a single drink before, it was weird. And probably not a good thing.

I did have a nice chat with Tony about theatre though, plus he told me that they’d thought I’d like Beautiful, which we then discussed. I have to confess I have something of a love/hate relationship with the fact that they talk about me, but I suppose it’s neither here nor there how I feel about it, they’ll do it anyway and I’d rather hear about it than not. Although I obviously won’t hear about anything negative that they say, so it really doesn’t make a difference… Anyway, I also hung out a bit with Russ and Kieran plus spoke to Justin a little as well, informing him there were more photos on the way courtesy of my friend. As I recall I also told anyone who got too close about my drunkenness; another example of my sophistication whilst under the influence… Sigh. Fortunately, I suppose, given that I ended up in a rather morose mood (I suspect as a combined effect of the alcohol and my usual awkwardness in such situations) they didn’t stay too late and after walking back to the van with them, I headed off to my hotel, repeatedly reminding myself of my love of Irregular Choice shoes in a surprisingly successful attempt at keeping my emotions in check.

So, the journey north continues tomorrow, but for now I’m going to go and enjoy my nice big bed!

Peace, loVe loVe and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

[Actual publish date: 29/8/14 – Incidentally, I felt the need to re-watch the video of the Crazy solo (for research purposes, you understand, it was a hardship that simply had to be endured…) and I couldn’t help but notice that the, er, hand movement I mentioned above (in the heavily asterisked section) slows down on the last stroke or two, making it even more reminiscent of, er, something else… *fidgets*]