TOFOG in Portland (Part 2)

[annathepiper]

Edited 8/22/01 8:58pm and 8/23/01 6:55pm, and added to LJ as a backdated entry 5/15/03 -- herein being the description of passing Russell Crowe on the street, and of general wackiness in the line and before the show

Opportunity Knocks But Decides I'm Not Home, or, "Egads, Who Was That Masked Gladiator?"

We were crossing the street, a stone's throw away from the 24-Hour Church of Elvis, when this small crowd went past us in the other direction. I spotted a guy wearing a dark cap on his head and a blue and white jacket in the middle of them -- and was struck by the vivid blue shade of his eyes.

Then my brain went, "Wait... I know those eyes. Was that--"

And Mimi turned to me and said, very dryly, "You do realize, that was him that just went by, don't you?"

I started to freak a little. We made it across the street, while Mimi proclaimed to everyone who we'd just passed, and everyone made the obligatory "NO WAY!" exclamations. Kathryn and Jessica both made teasing commentary about him not looking as good in person; later on, Kathryn would chortle that I looked like I was about to hit her. I made attempted lofty replies about how they were entitled to their opinions, but I was pretty blown away at that point and I suspect my voice was a tad shaky. The rest of me certainly was!

And then the others realized that he had in fact STOPPED in the little park area we'd just passed, and told me this and turned me around.

One must understand, gentle readers, that I had already announced to my friends my intention of -- if the opportunity presented itself -- of trying to score an autograph on the copy of Bastard Life or Clarity I had purchased for my little sister Becky (wildshadowstar). This is the same little sister who, on the night that the lovely and talented Mr. Crowe snagged his Best Actor award at the Oscars, called me up from three time zones away for the express purpose of squealing to me, "HE WON! HE WON! HE WON!" Since then, each time I have gone home to visit, we have had the pleasure of discussing Russell, his movies, and TOFOG. Becky had heard some of their music, but didn't yet have any albums, which made my choice of gifts for her upcoming 21st birthday pretty much a no-brainer.

And I'd thought, if by some miniscule chance I could score an autograph for her on one of those discs, I'd be a shoo-in for Coolest Sister of the Year and may well get to hear Becky spontaneously combusting all the way from Kentucky.

With this in mind, it seemed that opportunity was not only knocking, but damned well trying to beat down the door.

So everyone pretty much turned me around, while Russell was busily signing things in the midst of a horde of what looked (at least to me) like a bunch of teenagers. That's about all I remember about them, though, that and a fleeting glimpse of a poster in someone's hand. Cyn told me later that she'd identified someone who had to be Russell's bodyguard, a guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt, but I remember seeing no such individual. I was utterly preoccupied with Crowe himself, and the closer we got the more nervous I got. I reached out for Cyn's arm, while Jessica kept gently nudging me forward and asking me if I had my sister's CD.

The only problem was, Russell looked a little harried and cranky. He turned away from us, and although I cannot for the life of me remember either him or those around him saying anything, my friends all said after the fact that the herd that had accompanied him across the street were apparently autograph hounds. They had several posters and other things clutched in their hands and were asking him to sign four or five items apiece. He apparently got fed up before we got to say anything, and tersely announced something to the effect of "show's over" and went on about his business.

And although I was disappointed, we were all pretty much fine with that and agreed that the man was clearly busy, and none of us wanted to hassle him any further. If nothing else, it was growing close to time for the show and I figured he must have been on his way back to the Roseland, to check in for sound checks and other pre-show sorts of things.

Everyone had great fun, nevertheless, ribbing me mercilessly. For several minutes after that brief near-encounter I was experiencing in actual reality, for the first time, the state that Kathryn calls "whomperjawed" -- i.e., the state one is in when one's jaw goes WHOMP on the ground. I hadn't been expecting any sort of Russell-related incident before the concert, much less getting within five actual feet of the man! It's probably fortunate that he didn't actually say anything to us, because I am convinced I would have had a difficult time actually trying to speak coherently. I had been wondering whether physical proximity to Russell Crowe would hit me harder than physical proximity to Alan Doyle, lead singer of Great Big Sea; now I know that the answer to this question is an unequivocal yes.

Cyn claims that I was about to faint and that she was in fact worried she'd have to figure out how to carry me away, when she looked back at me and I apparently looked as though my eyes were rolling back in my head. All I know is, I am stunned and also rather amused at myself by how a few potent impressions of one nearby man knocked my powers of perception significantly out of whack.

I felt like lightning had struck right beside me without so much as singing my hair. Like I'd narrowly missed being hit by a Mac truck. Like a storm had roared past me, but all I'd caught was a rumble of thunder on the edge of my hearing and a whiff of ozone in the air. I had a sizzling afterimage of Russell's eyes emblazoned into my memory; they weren't quite the pure unadulterated blue of a noontime sky, but tinged with a hint of gray. This didn't lessen their intensity in the slightest, though. They were the shade of a sky just before dawn or just after sunset, and perhaps because he was cranky, what little of his stare swung in my direction seemed as piercing as a searchlight.

I had a lingering impression of his size, too. He is not a small man, either in height or in build, though I couldn't get more specific than that if I tried. I couldn't tell you if he was 5'10" or 6'3" or somewhere in between. All I came away with was 'big'.

He was bearded, too, which seems to be his preferred state from what I have observed of him thus far during the months of my fandom: a full, short beard.

And I remember his clothes, mostly because I am fairly sure he had on the same hat and jacket he'd been wearing in a picture I'd seen of him on the streets of New York, taken from earlier in the year, when he was on a bicycle. This made me wonder whether this was supposed to be his Shh I'm Incognito attire, but:

1. Even this impression is somewhat blurred in my memory, eclipsed as it is by the recollection of his eyes, so I'm not entirely sure if it was the same hat and jacket or not.
   
2. As James has since written in his own online journal, wearing that cap and trying to pull it down over his eyes wasn't exactly effective. Especially since the cap didn't do a thing to hide those eyes of his, and they are what clued me in as to who we'd just seen.
   

Which, we discovered to our disappointment, was actually CLOSED. We couldn't find a way to get in, and Kathryn even whipped out her cell phone and attempted to call to find out if anyone was up there and if so when they'd be open. Via this means, we learned that the place's hours were erratic at best -- that, in short, the name doesn't necessarily mean that the hours of its operation are 24 consecutive hours.

We wandered around a bit more, and Kathryn asked me about ten minutes after the Russell Bomb had dropped whether I was still whomperjawed. I giggled and told her no, that I'd been downgraded to merely 'poleaxed', which led to amused speculation on what the next level down from 'poleaxed' was. We decided on 'flustered'. And we talked some, too, about the propriety of leaving celebrities alone. Mimi has bumped into a number of famous people in her time and asserts that the Right Thing to Do is in fact to let them go about their business. The others said nice supportive things about me having that attitude as well, and we mused that it was in fact a bit sad that Russell couldn't in fact wander around the streets like a normal guy.

I can only hope that the sight of the six of us didn't make him too much more annoyed that he already seemed!

With nothing else to really occupy our time, we finally decided to head over to the Roseland even though it was half an hour before our appointed time for the Scoping of the Line. And we discovered that the line was already about to get around the block; thus, into the line we went.

Holding the Line, or, "BALLOON HATS! BALLOON HATS FOR ALL!"

I didn't actually recognize the Roseland when we first walked up to it. On portland.citysearch.com I had seen the picture of its neon-pink sign and was looking for that, but somehow managed to miss it until I looked up. Most of my attention, at any rate, was seized by the huge line already waiting for the place to open up. We could see it stretching the length of the block, and so we started strolling down to look for where the line actually ended.

As we started to go past, this somewhat bedraggled-looking, dark-complected little guy in an orange and yellow safety vest got cranky at Cyn, who had tried to put the container left over from the Velvet Hammer she'd finished into what she thought was a trash bag near him. Apparently it was the cans and bottles he was collecting for recycling compensation, though, and he yelled at Cyn, quite rudely. She yelled right back at him, and we went on. Cyn then explained to us that Portland had a rather bad homeless problem, and that a lot of the homeless in Portland do in fact wander around trying to collect recyclables.

Once we got into the line, we found Dana at last when James recognized her, and naturally we had to relate the story of just missing her back at the Coffee People. The last member of our party thusly successfully found, we all settled in for the long wait until the doors opened, and I started keeping an eye out for the Gruntland.com folks I hoped to meet -- Karen and Rhiannon, a.k.a. Blondie and AlaskaGrrrl.

Rhiannon duly arrived, and easily spotted me on the corner since I'd given her a description of what I was going to be wearing: my purple-and-gold sparkly shirt, my multicolored hat (red, purple, blue, and green) made out of velvet and a couple other different cloths as well, and brown feathers in my hair. So I was rather hard to miss. However, there was no sign of Karen, even though I spotted what I suspected had to be her purple truck!

Mimi had told me before that I should tell the Gruntlanders that they should look for a girl in a 'crazy hat', and resolved to bring her balloons with her and make herself a hat made out of balloons. She is, you see, a talented maker of balloon animals, and this was put to very gigglesome use as she made hats not only for herself, but also for Cyn, Kathryn, and eventually Rhiannon and Dana as well. Kathryn crowed proudly about the coolness of the hats, but Jessica demurred having one for herself -- though she eventually gave in enough to accept a balloon bracelet. Me, I already had a hat so I didn't get in on the fun, but I was greatly entertained by watching Mimi hand out her creations to everyone else.

In addition to the hats, Mimi whipped up one of her own special creations, a balloon Alien (specifically, the Queen Alien from Aliens). She invented this several years back and for the longest time has made them as a tradition at the annual Murkworks Homeless Waifs Thanksgiving Day Turkeyfests.

All the balloon activity attracted the attention of those in the line around us, and although there was a bit of concern from a couple people about whether we were going to actually wear the hats during the show and potentially block people's views, we also got some smiles and grins. One lady stopped and told us amusedly that she thought the band would want the balloons, and Mimi told us she was hoping Russell had a secret balloon animal fetish and would invite her backstage for a close-up demonstration. Heh.

Most satisfyingly, we also got the attention of an adorable little girl with soft brown hair and big blue eyes, wearing a yellow jacket. She came up to us to ask us where we got the balloons, and we all waved Mimi forward to talk with her. The waif scored herself a purple balloon parrot, affixed to her shoulder (where, of course, a parrot ought to be perched, neh?), and trotted off again a very happy little kid.

I had told everyone that those of us who were the actual diehard TOFOG fans would hold our place in the line, and if others needed to wander off to kill time, stretch their legs, or get food, that was absolutely fine. Jessica wandered off the most (and even wound up popping into Powell's Books for a little while, she told us later). The rest of us took turns to go off and get bathroom breaks or food, and since we could in fact go into the Roseland and use their facilities, this was all very well and good.

Jessica came back from her food run to inform me that she'd spotted one of the band members getting food of his own, but she didn't know which one it was. I asked her if he was a young-looking guy, and whether he had long hair or short hair or what. She said he wasn't young-looking, which counted out Stewart Kirwan, and he had very short dark hair, which counted out Dave Kelly and Dave Wilkins. I concluded she probably therefore spotted Billy Dean Cochran.

Not long after, I popped in to find the ladies' room, and while I was in there, heard the opening bars of "Sail Those Same Oceans" -- the Grunts, apparently warming up.

We yakked up a storm betwixt us. Rhiannon told us about her accident she'd had in her truck the day before, which had totalled the vehicle though she and her little boy were thankfully all right, and she'd borrowed her grandmother's car. Dana told us that she'd chatted some with the people at the beginning of the line, and had learned from them that they had in fact been there since 8:30 in the morning. She proclaimed them quite nice, though, as they'd cheerfully answered the various questions she asked of them.

I amused Kathryn by turning to her and commenting, "There must be almost a dozen men in this line!" Which was about the state of things. The vast majority of the people in line were in fact female, and when passersby asked us what we were in line for, after we told them we were there to see Russell Crowe's band we also told them that there was another show the next night and it'd be a good place to pick up chicks. ;)

The subject of the British comedian Eddie Izzard came up, and since Dana hadn't heard of him, we had a great deal of fun taking turns quoting his various routines at her and explaining that while he's a transvestite, and while this does in fact contribute to the material of his act, he is under no circumstances limited to just that. He is very well-rounded, drawing on history, religion, politics, media, pop culture, the differences between cats and dogs, and a wealth of other topics for his material. He is incredibly hilarious, and each and every one of you need to check him out, right now, if you haven't already!

But again, I digress!

The near-miss encounter with Russell naturally had to be relayed, and again, I got some merciless ribbing. I'd never actually blushed hard enough to feel my face heat up before, I'm here to tell you. I was told I achieved a pretty impressive shade of pink, too.

Dana took pictures of those of us wearing our balloon hats, and she said she was surprised that we didn't have cameras. I warned her that this was in fact because I'd been told beforehand that they weren't going to let cameras into the show, and that she would need to do something about making sure her camera didn't get confiscated. Plus, I'd seen signs on the front doors of the Roseland when I'd popped in before that specifically said they wouldn't allow cameras. So although Kathryn found a rather entertaining place upon her person to hide said camera if need be, Dana wound up doing the Right Thing and going to tell the Roseland security people that she did in fact have a camera. They nicely held on to it for her.

I did not, in fact, play my flutes at any point even though I had Jade and Sage in my velvet bag -- Jade, the best of my bamboo flutes, a lovely green-tinted lady with a tone like glass, in the key of E minor. Sage, a smaller one in A minor, brought because it could also talk C and was a good flute for playing "Things Have Got to Change" on. But since I never saw anybody who identified themselves as either Karen or Blondie, the flutes stayed where they were.

Slowly, inexorably, the line crept forward. Once it began to seem that we were actually finally moving in, I had a brief flutter of excited anticipation in my belly. And at last... we were IN.

Before the Show, or, "For the Love of God, Bob, Change the Music Tape! The Natives are Getting Restless!"

Once inside the Roseland we had our bags checked. Not a murmur of protest was raised about anything in my velvet bag, and none of the staff people were bugged by Mimi's balloons; in fact, a couple of them were actively amused. The bag check was apparently the first checkpoint, too. Checkpoint #2 was ticket collection, and Checkpoint #3 was getting the insides of our wrists stamped. When we got into the main part of the club, James showed me his stamp and proclaimed, "Look, I'm USDA approved!"

Rhiannon and Cyn and I had discussed the plan of trying to snag a spot by the stage as close as possible as soon as possible, and we'd been hoping that we'd have a good shot at it on the grounds that many of the attendees would probably not be interested in the opening acts. We were mistaken. There was a large ring of people around the stage as we came over, so we wound up about 7 or 8 bodies back from the center of the stage as we made the plan to take turns alternating between holding the spot and buying TOFOG loot being sold. We all also wound up deciding that the actual fans amongst us would stay on the floor; everyone else went up to the balcony because they wanted to sit down. But they got good seats, and we could see Mimi's balloons from where we were.

Rhiannon went to get her merchandise first, and then I went to get mine. While I was in the line for that I chatted some with this pregnant woman who was very friendly, and whose husband was up in the balcony waiting for her. As we got close enough to the merchandise counter to see what was being sold, she advised me to go for the blue tank top instead of the black one when I asked her which one I thought I should get.

They had quite the assortment of shirts. I had in fact hoped for a tour shirt, and they did indeed have one, but I was also ogling those tank tops since I am (I note with pleased modest pride) getting to a point with my workouts where I can wear a tank top well. There was a black T-shirt with the slogan "Get Back 30 Odd Foot" on it, which I thought was cute. And there were black basketball-style jerseys like the ones the band wears, with the name of the band on them; there was another which had 'Crowe' and the number '30' on it, too.

Unfortunately, though, none of the shirts they had were larger in size than XL, which meant that not a one of them would fit my little sister. So although I half-considered buying a shirt for her anyway, I finally opted to just get two shirts for myself and make the two CDs I'd bought her her birthday present. I got the tour shirt, and the blue tank top with the TOFOG logo on the front in black and purple.

There was also a DVD being sold, about which I'd already heard the fans on Gruntland.com talking up a storm. This DVD has footage of the shows in Austin from last year, as well as a whole host of extra goodies on it. Some fans have been complaining about the price -- fifty dollars for an unsigned one, and a hundred for a signed one -- but I had decided that from the sound of things it definitely sounded like fifty bucks' worth of material. I wasn't fangirl enough to go for a signed one, though!

The DVDs were a limited release, and I was given to understand that there were only 10,000 of them being sold as they were advance copies of a short film which would be later released by Miramax. When I asked for one, I was given a little card to fill out and sign, which basically asked me to affirm that I wasn't going to copy it and sell it. My DVD is #01202.

Lastly, I got a poster of the same photo that's on the cover of the DVD -- Russell on stage in Austin from last year, his back to the camera so that you can see the "Crowe" and the "30" on the black jersey he's wearing. He has his guitar in his hands, and you can see the spotlights up over the heads of the audience before him. In the upper right hand corner, there's a star and the word TEXAS, and the name of the band.

They were also selling CDs, copies of Bastard Life or Clarity and Gaslight. I was happy to see that James actually wanted to buy one, and I recommended he pick up BLoC as I consider it the better album.

Once loot was purchased, I sent mine upstairs with Dana -- who, I noted, had bought something for herself as well, one of the bandannas with the TOFOG logo on it. And Rhiannon and Cyn and I parked ourselves to wait for the show to start.

The tickets claimed that the show was going to start at 8pm. The tickets were lying. We waited on the floor for a good half an hour, getting increasingly restless as the canned music tape went through the same fairly dull music over and over and over. Every so often it would stop and the audience would begin to cheer, but then it'd start up again. Cyn started getting actively cranky, and while I wasn't as annoyed as she was, still, it was pretty aggravating. I finally wound up suggesting that she head off to get something to drink, and gave her money so that she could get Rhiannon and me some bottled water. It was beginning to get pretty toasty on the floor, though fortunately the ventilation was good. People were smoking, but the smoke rose straight up and so I barely noticed the smell. If we lifted our hands, we could feel air significantly cooler about a foot and a half over our heads, so a lot of us did that fairly frequently.

Cyn and Rhiannon and I started getting chummy with the women around us, and we took turns ogling the roadies as every so often one of them popped out to arrange chairs or a microphone or some such.

At one point, Cyn and Rhiannon mentioned seeing a woman in a wheelchair having trouble getting to a point where she could see the stage; apparently, some of the fans were being less than civil and wouldn't let the poor woman through. This was a bit of a precursor for some of the audience attitude, later.

At last, around 8:30 or so, the show began.