Mraz in Worcester!

Well, I had a great time last night in spite of the terribly rude people that were at the concert.  I got to meet Jenn and her husband Matt, they drove me out to Worcester, which was really nice of them.  I had a great time with them, we talked all the way out, had some dinner when we got there at a little hole-in-the-wall Chinese place that turned out to be pretty good, and then we froze for a while while standing outside in line waiting for the doors to open.  We got there at the perfect time, we were among the first few people in line so when we were inside we ended up standing pretty close to the stage, with just a few people between us.  Normally I'm scared of crowds but I didn't think this crowd would turn scary (they didn't really...just a little rude which I'll get to later) so I was okay with being that far up this time.

Anyway, Everclear opened for him...it was pretty cool to see them in concert.  They didn't do a very long set but they still put on a good show.  I yelled really loud when they announced they're from Portland, OR.  Art Alexakis actually looked in my direction when I did that, I think I was the only person in the room that was excited about that...lol.  What was weird was being surrounded by all these people who were too young to really remember when Everclear was really popular (or if they remember they weren't quite old enough to care), and seeing them all standing around like, "yeah, yeah, opening band, where's Mraz?"  They got into it a little when they realized they sort of knew some of the songs, but it was just a total trip for me because I remember both when Everclear would never have been just the opening band, as well as the day when Mraz would have been the opener instead.  It was so sad when they sang Santa Monica and tried to get the audience to sing along and hardly anyone knew the words.  But, hey, I enjoyed it.

After Everclear was done, the Makepeace Brothers and Bushwalla came on before Mraz, like they'd done in Richmond, along with Justin Kredible again.  This was their last concert all together like that, and you could tell that they were just having a great time together.  Jason snapped Bushwalla with a towel at one point, there was a point when they all "froze" and Justin Kredible ran around taking pictures of everyone on a Polaroid and then throwing the pictures out to the audience and Jason and Bushwalla were standing there talking and cracking each other up the whole time they were supposed to be frozen.  And Jason did a slightly different set of songs than he'd done in Richmond so it wasn't like I went to the same concert in a different place.

The only downer to the concert was that there was this group of obnoxious college kids (oh, by the way, the show was held at Holy Cross College) who pushed their way right up next to us...tried to get in front of us but we were pretty feisty and refused to allow it.  But they were talking the whole time after they pushed their way up, I was about to tell them that I don't know what they were there for, but I was there to LISTEN...but first I just gave them a glare, I met the eyes of one of them when I did that and at that point they pretty much quieted down.  They did almost knock me over while trying to push past me and I was pretty proud of myself for how hard I pushed back to not allow them to get up any further.  I got there early, I staked my claim, and I wasn't about to let a bunch of obnoxious 18-22 year olds get in front of me.  There was a time when my fear of crowds would have taken over and I would have just gotten freaked out and let them get around me, but I think riding the T every day has toughened me up a bit.  These little undergrads were much less dangerous than the crazy people I have to deal with on a regular basis.

There were some other rude people in the crowd trying to push and shove and throw elbows to get where they wanted to be, but that group was the worst.  Oh, and I guess they were drinking during the concert.  I didn't see it (although I smelled it but thought they'd just gotten drunk beforehand) but Jenn saw them knocking it back during a break.  Do you really need alcohol to enjoy a concert?  Especially a Mraz concert.  Seriously.  I know in Richmond I had a drink in the bar before the concert, but it was just one and I certainly wasn't drunk.  It was a good thing the concert itself was so great and that the performers were having such a good time.

Alright, I have to get back to studying.  I really shouldn't have taken the time to write out this post but I wanted to record the event while it was still fresh in my mind.  Time to get back to studying for Crim.

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