i was at the tori amos/alanis morrissette concert in charlotte yesterday. i'm still swirly. and yes, i plan on retelling as much as i can remember so there. this time i'm a bit nicer than usual - stuff surrounding and inbetween the concerts are in this entry, the actual 'reviews' are on separate pages linked further down. have fun?

got up at 6.45 a.m. - showered, combed my hair and then grabbed a bunch of hair clips and put it up so it wouldn't be in the way when i was putting on me make up. unfortunately i forgot about the hair until 3 minutes before i had to leave for the bus so i had to have the hair up all day. anxiety. i never have my hair pulled back. bah.

shiny make up hooray! for some reason i think i did a pretty good job of sparkling myself up, and it seems other's agreed because i received several compliments throughout the day from complete strangers regarding anything.

like the ones about the t-shirt i was wearing (mind the gap) where a beautiful girl passing me at a cross walk expressed "i love your shirt!" and a stranger at the tori concert calling my attention so she could tell me the same..

or the secretary at school commenting on how clear and translucent my skin looked (heh, 2 eye shadows, lip gloss and glitter gel all the way, baby...)

anyways. so i woke gabbi up and when he was ready we left (i was showing him how to the got the south square mall) and i got to school and had the stupid class that i never told you about - reportive writing? sucks ass. i really like the teacher (he gave me a B last semester!), but he's making us write actual articles and submitting to the school paper. i have to do an interview with somebody over at career services and write 750 words about it by next tuesday. told you. sucks ass.

got to chapel hill around 1 p.m. and found that there wouldn't be another bus to the apartement until 1.49, and i'd told gene i'd be home by 1.30, so i walked home. yes, you heard me. i walked even though it was suffocating outside and i had to sweat and half ruin the make up and all, but it really wasn't that bad, and it only took me 40 minutes. definately new record.

once at the apartement i fixed myself up some more, grabbed the long, red on-top shirt to wear at the show, called mom to say hi, and ran out to catch gene when he got there.

now, you have to understand something about gene's car. it's fickle. it's gone from "may not start every now and then" to "will not start for an hour or more after you've driven it longer than 10 feet."

this means that whenever he comes by and we're going somewhere, i gotta catch him while his motor is running, and there's always at the back of your head the knowledge that if the engine stalls, we might not be able to get it running again.

the drive to charlotte was a pretty fun 2 hours. it started out with him and me getting food at wendy's (drive-thru...) and then not being able to eat it coz we had so much stuff and no space. at 3 times gene tried to have me hold the stearing wheel while he opened a lid or something, and i of course did a sucky job leading us to swerve suspiciously on the road.

what can i say? my only steering wheel experience comes from playing computer games. bah.

we spent the time talking and trying to find something good on the radio (heh, fat chance) and then ended up missing our exit - something we realised 10 exits afterwards... we managed to turn around and soon enough we were circling the blockbuster pavillion.

yes... we made it to part of tori's sound check, and hence heard northern lad live, and a new song that she sang about 5 times that i thought was a new song called glory of the 80's but found out was in actuality called juarez, and it premiered on this concert. yey.

at this point it was 3 hours till tori'd start playing and we had no tickets. i found a woman who wanted to seel two VIP 3'rd row tickets to us, but i was such a stupid-ass and had to be cautious and all and have gene come check so the tickets were authentic, and that extra minute gave two other girls time to come by and get the tickets because they'd been asking for them earlier and had just gone to get money. ah well, c'est la vie..

i left gene in the car and walked off to the box office to see if they were selling tickets yet, and.. well, yes indeed they were. she gave me two options - 15'th row first section, right, or 12'th row, third section, left. it was so hard to decide!

see, i've always been to the left when i've seen tori and have had a great view, and i've heard stories of people not being able to see tori's face to the right because the piano was in the way, but then a kind soul took pity on me and told me to get the right section tickets becauce they would be better so.. i did.

and he was right. they rocked ass. but that's for the concert review further down.

our seats marked in red

i bought a great necklace with a silverish medallion with a planet look to it and the words "venus envy" on the front and "torbiting" on the back. i've been wearing it as a choker ever since. lovely. i also got the tour program, as i never got one from the last tour and i figured, t-shirts are nice, but $27? nah...

we were let in around 6 p.m. and i immediately headed for the MP3.com tent where we got to download some songs and were given prepaid tour phone cards for... 5 and a half minutes.. hehe, very cute. further down the road we were given some condoms, although i gave mine to gene coz it was ribbed and i resent that so.. around 7 p.m., the opening band came on... it was an amazing chick named greta (gaines?) who sang 3-4 songs and totally impressed me. we got a chuckle out of the intro to one song.. "this is about big slut i knew at school, wanda... she's not here today..." - i remember the lyrics included 'beat-off queen'. pretty funny. matt chamberlain (tori's drummer) played some wonderful stuff in the background. keep your eye on this chick - she rocked.

i finally was spotted by my friends from rec.music.tori-amos, and we all gathered up by the stage to talk. i got to introduce them to gene and prove that these people i keep talking about are not just figments of my imagination. amy had me show off my tattoo to her sisters after telling them about it (coz they love the waitress) and we chit-chatted about GAP commercials and things. and then...

we left with a few of the rmt-a'ers and waited outside the pavillion so i could meet a few other friends there... i got some nice hugs, we gushed about the concerts, giggled about alanis spinning, and then off gene and i went to the car... and it actually started on the first try. amazing. we thought...

...until the battery light went on and stayed on for almost the entire ride back to chapel hill. we were so scared the car would die on us that we turned everything but the headlights off, and for some reason shut up completely, as if us being quiet would help matters.

he dropped me off, i wished him luck driving home and went up the stairs to find that gabbi had left the light on for me. i put my head on the pillow on my bed and that's the last i remember - that, and ringing ears. *sigh*