What I Did Last Summer.

Tonight, in Anaheim, No Doubt played a Tsunami Relief Benefit with a bunch of bands, including but not limited too Linkin Park, Jay Z, and Incubus. Dammit, I couldn’t go. I cried into my box of See’s candy a little bit, but I’m trying to convince myself that I didn’t totally miss out. So tonight I’ve decided to reminisce about what I did LAST summer. Ahh... the memories.

I saw Dashboard Confessional at San Jose State. It was the beginning of my concert- going summer. Preyma (my best friend since I was 12) and I went to see No Doubt and Blink -182 at Shoreline on June 19th. Blink 182 played first and they were loud. Not in a ear- splitting kind of way, more of a "whoa I can feel the bass through my feet kind if way." When they played "Miss You", I was a bit disappointed, though, because it was like they were trying to speed through it to get to the next song. Which peeved me a bit because sometimes I’m a sappy girly girl and want to hear the ballads. And I want to hear them done right, dammit!

Our seats weren’t too great– basically the last row before lawn. Right before No Doubt came on, a banner was unfurled to reveal the ND logo along with a crown and "We Will Rock You" started to play. The crowd went fuckin’ nuts. It was great. Then Gwen appeared on the right side of the stage and walked up through part of the audience and made her speech:

"A long time ago, in a land not so far away, in a town called Anaheim, a band was delivered from the womb of musical creation. After a dark period, a victory was won against the radio waves. Tragic Kingdom, Return of Saturn, Rock Steady... but their ultimate weapon was their FANS! We have been summoned here tonight, to San Francisco, to ROCK YOU!!!!"

While she makes this speech, Tony, Tom, and Adrian start playing "Just A Girl." They played all of the songs on the Singles Album, except for "Trapped in a Box." This means they played: (I might have them slightly out of order.)

Just A Girl
Excuse Me Mister
Ex- Girlfriend
Bathwater
Hella Good
New
Underneath It All
Hey Baby
Running
Simple Kind Of Life
It’s My Life
Don’t Speak
Sunday Morning
Spiderwebs

During "Simple Kind Of Life" Gwen was so overcome with emotion that she actually started to cry and didn’t sing the middle portion of the song. SKOL was part of the acoustic set, so Tom just played on until Gwen collected herself. In retrospect, some fans have come to the conclusion that she cried because of the stress caused by learning that Gavin had a love child way back in the day. Who knows, really? It was such a great night. Preyma and I listened to Rock Steady twice on our way out the parking lot.

Two days later (June 21st) I drove to Marysville to see No Doubt yet again. I had two tickets for this show and was going to sell one ticket. I got to the venue at 1:30 pm. Stadium management wasn’t allowing people to park, so I thought I’d go into town and look around. But there was no town, no real one, anyway. So I parked in a dirt lot near a farm where I spotted a bunch of other No Doubters. And waited. And waited.
I waited for two hours in my hot car with the windows open– just in case a breeze decided to show up. No such luck. It was so hot my fingers were sticking to the pages of Vogue magazine, which I’d brought along to keep me busy. Around 4, cars started taking off towards the venue– so I followed. We were all turned away again at the gate. But then the dumbass security dude decides to tell me then, that the "general parking lot" is still open. Wait, what? Panic began to brew inside me. Sure enough, when I got to the other parking lot I was disgusted to see about 150 people already in line. My mood darkened even more. Instead of using my pit ticket, I decided there was no point because I wouldn’t be able to see anyway. Instead, I sat used my other ticket. At one point, these sixteen year olds walked by (they were trying to sell a spare ticket) and I noticed that one of them had pink hair too. Different from mine, though. Hers was more of a cotton candy pink, whereas mine is flamingo pink. On their second trip by the line, with a slightly less expensive ticket for sale, the pink haired chick asked, all excited– "Can I have my picture taken with you?" I was sure I was being punked. Somewhere in the shadows, surely Ashton Kutcher was waiting, trying to contain himself at my potential humiliation. I even looked around to see who they were really talking too. But they were talking to me. So somewhere in California is a picture of me and some other pink haired chick– insanely happy because we were about to see No Doubt. The best live band EVER!
My seat was actually great. It was on the right side of Sleeptrain Amphitheatre, so I was in the shade. I was in the third row, and every one else in my area was there to see Blink 182. No Doubt opened the show and (sigh) I fell in love all over again. Gwen was so funny talking to the audience. At one point, she said, "I’m having a real bad case of PMS tonight– do you better make it worth my time..." which made the audience go bonkers– screaming and jumping. During "Simple Kind of Life," Gwen came over to my side of the stage, and I swear, looked right at me. I was the only person standing up and singing in my section, so I’m sure she saw me. They dedicated "It’s My Life" to all the fans– one of my new live faves. The set list was the same as for Shoreline, but in a different order.

My next concert was on the 24th of June in Chula Vista. On the 23rd I drove from San Jose to Whittier. Since my grandma lives in So. California, I decided to use that as my rest stop for a few days. I woke up at 9am and left Whittier for Chula Vista at 9:30. I arrived at 11am, but I would have been earlier except for an incredible traffic snarl in San Diego. Although there were 25 or so people in front of me, I was pretty happy. The two girls behind me, Liz and Cathy, were totally cool. We played Go Fish, Hearts, and Gin Rummy for hours while we sat in the heat. We even pooled our snack and drink resources. It was the hottest day of the year (I’d find this out later) and we all were in outside in it from 11am until the concert ended. I felt like quite the smartie- pants ‘cuz I had almost everything I needed. I even had sun screen. Which I applied. But I must have missed a spot or two. I’ll get back to that later. Everyone was sweating buckets, except for me. Even though it was baking hot, at least I didn’t have the misery of being all sweaty.

Around 4pm, what little water we had left was practically boiling so Cathy decided to pack it back to her car. It was around this time that stadium security decided to close the gates, effectively locking us patiently waiting fans away from our cars, the bathrooms, drinking fountains and SHADE. This caused many of the people to panic, run to the gates, and NOT got back to their place in the back of the line. Not only that but people started scaling this gothic looking iron gate, complete with points, to ditch their stuff in their cars, and then climb back. It’s a miracle no one got impaled!

It was madness when security finally let people back in. There were three separate lines: Lawn, Pit, and Seats. The first two groups are more antsy because everyone is trying to get as close as they can. Security at the Chula Vista show was insane. I felt like I was going to into Tel Aviv. At this show, there were way more chicks than guys. So what happened at the metal detectors and pat down area was that guys from the back on the line got in front of certain people, such as myself, who’d been there since 11am!! (Hmm, Im trying not to get pissed about that all over again.) Some people almost got knocked down when there was a mad dash to get into the pit first. Even though the show was supposed to start at 6pm, it actually started at 6:45.

The opening act was a band from Australia called The Living End. They were pretty cool but during their set, I started to feel kind of weird. I got the chills and my legs started to feel like jello with electricity running through them. After some consideration, I decided to go to the concession area and get a snack and a soda. But with each step, as I got closer and closer to snack heaven, I felt weaker and weaker. There were only two people in front of me, but I swear, it felt like an eternity before it was my turn. When I got to the front, I told the teenaged employee that I wanted a Sprite and a plain pretzel. The kid must have been stoned though, because he asked me two more times for my order. With each passing second, it felt like someone was turning the volume down in my head. My sight began to dim and I could barely hold my self up. That’s when I started to panic. And not for the reason you might think. I was thinking "Damn... I’m gonna pass out and miss No Doubt." After I paid my $9.75 I slouched over to a tiny piece of shade and drank my soda and ate half of my pretzel. I was still shivering. I’d brought along a metallic looking bright green scarf I’d knitted for Gwen (hey, don’t laugh, lot’s of Gwen-abee’s make presents for her.) But I ended up wearing it because I felt so chilled. I was actually shivering for most of the night.

With ticket and wristband, I made it back into the pit. I didn’t go back to the front with Liz and Cathy, though. (Just in case I did spaz out and faint) I stood on the right side of the stage. The crowd was thinner. Also, at the other two concerts, Gwen entered on the right to do her speech. So I was a bit disappointed when she entered on the left. But is was sooooooo worth it. Since San Diego is Blink 182's hometown, they closed the show and No Doubt opened it. At this show, ND dedicated "Sunday Morning" to "all the old schoolers who have supported us for the past 17 years." Unfortunately, there was no encore ‘cuz the show was running behind.
On my drive back from Whittier to San Jose, I started to feel like I was losing my voice, and coming down with a cold. Plus, I had a sunburned nose, forehead, and lower back. Every time I hit a bump I felt the pain.
My last No Doubt concert was on July 2nd at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Phantom Planet opened. There was no Blink 182 at this show. Just ND, which suited me just fine ‘cuz they got to play longer.

The set list was:

Just A Girl
Excuse Me Mister
Ex- Girlfriend
Bathwater
Hella Good
New
Underneath It All
Hey Baby
Running
Simple Kind Of Life
All I Wanna Do/ Racist Friend
It’s My Life
Don’t Speak
Sunday Morning
Spiderwebs
Rock Steady

So— I couldn’t resist!!

Number of sunburns: 3
Number of new tires bought: 1
Money spent on concert tickets: $306
Number of miles driven: 1,300

Seeing No Doubt four times in 21 days: PRICELESS

See, I’m a real fan! (Desperately clings to eight month old memories.)

**Your favourite Tragedy**