Friday, August 9th. Lawrence, Kansas
Pam, Missy, Erica and I arrived ridiculously early, but Pam is obsessed with being lst in line :). Walked around a bit, got coffee. Kelly and her friends arrived shortly after us. Everyone took turns waiting in line and shopping, eating, etc. The bus arrived and the guys came around 3:00 in a van. I saw Aaron and went over to say Hi. He was like OMG, what are you doing here, it was funny, but he seemed genuinely happy to see me. He gave me a huge bear hug and kept saying, I can't believe you are here. It was so cute. We talked for a bit and then I went back in line so he could have some time to do what he needed to do. He'd walk by us all day saying random funny things. Ok, more shopping, etc. Alex came off the bus to do sound check and headed for the venue door. I said Hey Alex, we flew from NY to see you and he picks up his head, recognizes Erica and I and gets this huge grin on his face and says Wow, that is so cool. They all filter by one by one. Poor Nate was the last one off the bus and set the alarm off. So much for a quiet entrance. We gave him a round of applause and he said "thanks, I appreciate it".
Got in the club finally at 8:00, got front row, yaaaaay, got my favorite spot between Aaron and Alex. Opening band was ok, nothing great and they played for 45 minutes. FINALLY, TC came on at 10:25. Aaron smiled and waved to us. The sound system wasn't the greatest there, but the guys did a great job as usual. Alex spotted us all and gave me his cute little smile wave thing that he does. Ok, so here is the best part of the show. He starts WYWG and partway through the song he goes "some people came a long way to see us tonight, (and he points at Erica and I) and he says "there's Debbie, she's our street team Mom and #1 fan" then he kneals down right in front of me, takes my hand and starts singing to me. He's just way to sweet to me. He moves on to Erica and it was just so sweet. So anyway, it's about 110 degrees in there and Alex still has on the leather jacket. Finally after the encore he comes back out in just a t shirt. The funniest moment in the show was when they ended Stigmatized without the extra verse and we all started screaming, OH NO, YOU DON'T......we almost started a riot so Alex goes, ummm, it's Nate fault he stopped playing but I guess if you guys really want it we can do it for you. Needless to say it was wonderful. ( i got aaron's set list )
Ok, so after the show we all go outside and hang out. Kelly got to go on the bus, I was so happy for her. After she came back out, Alex was the first one to come out and there was a huge line for him. A bit later Dino, Billy and Nate came out. I went over to them cause I really needed pics with them. I got to Nate first and I said Nate, I have never gotten a picture with just you and he said , well that is just wrong, so we did our pic and it actually came out good. you never know with Nate. I moved on to Billy and we talked about my son Corey and how much he admires Billy. I told Billy that corey even his own page on Billy's website (called BIT = Billy in Training, those of you who don't know the girls in the loft named corey that cause he plays bass and skateboards) with his photos and he was like YEAH, i saw that. He wanted Corey's email address cause he is going to email him. Got my pic with him and moved on to Dino. I introduced myself and told Dino I was a member of his Yahoo Fan Group. He seemed pleased. Got my pic with him. By then the Alex line was getting shorter so we got in that one.
Alex was very sweet to me as usual. He gave me a big hug and I thanked him for singing to me and he said, no problem, thank you for coming all this way to see us and for all your support. We got a pic (which didn't come out :(.....) and talked a bit more. I gave him the canadian petition from the fans to get them to come to Canada and he was very touched by it. He said they will def. get there by the end of the year. I gave him some more fan letters, etc. Oh, I also got them all to sign my set list. Alex wrote "MOM" You Rock, #1 Fan. AB2002. Aaron wrote a nice long message, I'm gonna scan the set list when I get to someone with a scanner.
I got Dan to go on the bus to get Aaron for me. He came out and I gave him some birthday cards from fans and one from me. Mine said , on the front "life's a party" and in the middle "no matter what your age" , I thought that was appropriate from "mom". So I got a huge bear hug good bye and he kissed me on the cheek and said thank you for being so sweet. awwwww. I said, no THANK YOU for all the amazing things you do. So anyway, we headed out to Pam's car at that point. We put the Next Door CD on and since Aaron was standing right in front of the tour bus (and hates the song LOST and we LOVE it) we Blasted it with all the windows down and pulled up by him. He looked at us like what the heck. Then he saw who it was and started cracking up and told us we were insane, which I think we are. Then we headed back to Pams. The End.
