|
Back to the East
Another
nine-hour trip from the West Coast, arrived at my hotel around 11:30 Saturday
night. I got about as much sleep as Clay that night, but at least I
didn’t have to be bright-eyed in New York Sunday morning.
Downtown Philly is pretty, looks about like you’d expect -- narrow
streets, lots of brick, historic buildings, old churches. I had walked only one
block before I heard a cab driver yell "f**k you!" at another driver! Yep, I'm in Philly!
I had a lovely breakfast in a sidewalk café near my hotel.
Let's
Play Tourist
Met
up with yalcteef and winkydink, who drove us all over
Philadelphia. We did the obligatory
Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. It’s
a shame about all the security they have had to put up around these historic
treasures, and more than a little ironic – liberty and security are just a
little bit incompatible. Yet
another proof that the terrorists succeeded.
The tour guide could have been Clay’s sister pre-makeover – reddish
hair, freckles, granny glasses.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| spot poses with the
Liberty Bell. |
A copy of the Declaration. |
Independence
Hall. |
Fifes and drums! |
Afterward
we went to the venue early and got to see the Idols get off the buses. There
was quite a contingent of fans, all women, pressed against the fence which was
above the entrance where the buses pulled in. A very aggressive woman who got
backstage at Wilkes-Barre (and would get backstage again at Philly) was
particularly noticeable.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Fan with yalcteef. |
Fans waiting for buses. |
More
fans. |
Winkydink. |
Aggressive fan! |
The
buses arrived about 3:30. Clay
was au natural with messy hair and looked about fourteen. Some girls threw dolls down to him
and as he bent over to pick them up, I got a nice photo for festivus.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Trenyce
arriving. |
Charles and
Julia. |
Clay. |
More Clay. |
Jerome watches, Clay bends over. |
Pre-Concert
The venue Formerly Known As First Union (would you believe they changed its
name to Wachovia over the weekend?) has a lovely little microbrewery
attached, and you can enter thru that instead of the other entrances, so we
did. While we were hanging around in the corridor waiting to be let in, a
VERY large black man walked past talking on a radio, and all three of us
exclaimed, "Jerome!" He turned around, we squealed
"Jerome!" again, and he smiled and waved as he kept walking!
After entering, we immediately found Jerome again by the stage and accosted
him with our Clay gifts. We were among the first, but it was all for naught.
He takes the gifts, takes seat numbers, and then later (supposedly) he draws
a few from a hat for backstage passes. By the end of intermission I figure
he had 300 seat numbers, and he was turning away another fifty people who
didn’t even get their gifts taken to Clay, it was rather sad. There was
this one pushy woman who pestered and pestered and pestered until she got
backstage -- again. She was already backstage in Wilkes-Barre. I thought I
was going to have to restrain winkydink from throttling this bimbo.
You’ve seen her picture with Clay. Folks, don’t get your hopes up about
getting backstage. It has become a game of persistence, working the angles,
and luck. Although they will TELL you that everyone’s name goes in a hat,
I suspect otherwise. Jerome seems nice, BTW, but he's got a
hard job to do. The desperation and aggressiveness of some of these fans is not a pretty thing
to watch.
I thought I had a pretty good Clay sign. All the people
who saw it thought it was funny, but unfortunately Clay
never saw my sign. I was far to his left and on that night, he didn't spend much time on that
side of the audience. I think he never quite recovered from the “Clay =
Female Viagra” sign right next to daisybumble. It was a real winner.
|
 |
The
Main Event It. Was. AWESOME.
The
crowd was simply amazing [tm Clay]. Philly
loves Ruben, but Philly WORSHIPS Clay!
The screams were deafening all night whenever he appeared. His face when
he came up for TITN was just in awe, and he must have waited three full minutes for the screaming to stop
after he rose from the stage to do Invisible.
There
was one point where Ruben had been onstage a while, and he was trying to
pump up the crowd, and he said, "Y'all want to see some more
Charles?" Screaming.
"Some more [insert name here]?" Screaming. "Some
more Trenyce?" Screaming. Pause.
"Some more CLAY?" (he punched it as if "of course, who
else") Pandemonium. So believe me folks, there is no doubt whose show this is. The sound was MUCH
better in Philly than in Indy, even though I was sitting in very much the same spot. I enjoyed the others more this time because I knew what
to expect and wasn’t counting the seconds until Clay came on.
This next part may get me kicked out of the ProC. As part of my strategy to
get backstage, I prostituted myself out to Kim Caldwell. I sent a little stuffed
armadillo backstage to her with a note (Texas armadillo) and told her to
watch for my Texas sign far stage left. Sure enough, when she came over to
my side singing, she saw my sign and waved. After the song, I held up my
sign and she actually said onstage, “Thank you for my armadillo!” So I
got a shout-out from the stage, but no backstage pass. It wouldn’t have
mattered anyway, because of the separate room thing they are now doing with
Clay.
This is the Night - fabulous. He sang the full-out version, no easier
version this night. He was working it like crazy, and seemed to be really
into the performance. He was full of energy and loving every minute of being
onstage. Baby seriously needs a haircut, though. We’re getting close to
Zootopia-land again.
The Girl Is Mine just gets better all the time. Someone posted that his
voice sounded strained in this, but I totally disagree, I didn’t hear this
at all. Before the song, the bantering with Ruben goes on for a long time;
they are obviously more comfortable with the ad-libbing now. There were
several things thrown onstage; Clay made a big deal out of being afraid to
pick up the first thing, I don’t remember now what it was, probably a
doll. Someone threw a t-shirt onstage, Clay picked it up and it was huge –
he said, “I think this is for you.” There were some yellow panties
attached to something else, and Ruben tried to put them on Clay’s head.
During the pump-up for Ruben with Trenyce and Kim Caldwell, someone up front
offered Clay a dollar to do the Grease hip-shake. He said, “It’s not
worth a dollar and I don't have change,” but of course he did it. Clay talked about the shoulder
move that he can’t do, and asked who in the audience could do it. They
called up a chubby boy about twelve, he looked like
Malcolm-in-the-Middle’s asthmatic friend, and the boy said he wanted to do
“Proud Mary” instead. It was at this point that Clay mimiced what winkydink
so aptly described as “Trenyce's flung-over-hair, backward-scamper".
It was absolutely hysterical and the crowd went crazy. Finally, they got the
boy to do the move and he was really good! Clay promised him a backstage
pass.
I think it was also at this point that Clay or one of the girls noticed a
Clay look-alike in the audience. They put the camera on him, and da-yum! He
did look like Clay! The hair was exactly right, face maybe a little more
classic than Clay, but they could be brothers. Clay said something about
ladies that are lookin’ for a Clay clone, there he is.
The Ruben yell was “Philly – Loves – Ruben”. They made us do it
about three times and then Clay introduced Ruben with his very best
Ringmaster dramatic flair. I thought he was never going to finish the
“Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu” in Ruben! He stretches it out to last the
entire time he is being lowered into the floor! BTW, there was a lot of the
“booing” sound in Philly, which of course is not booing but sure sounds
like it!
“To Love Somebody” in the BeeGees Medley was just – Wow. I couldn’t
see as much of Clay’s dancing this time because of my angle, but he looked
very comfortable and I also don’t see the awkwardness that others have
mentioned. He never missed a move or a step that I could see. Clay also chats and cuts up a lot in the background with the other
performers on the stage, sometimes this is a bit distracting. Probably
because I just watch HIM all the time.
“Invisible” has reached its peak, he now has it down to a science. Just
the right amount of knee bending, clutching, pelvis-wiggling, without
looking too overdone. He wore a Flyers jersey for Invisible, "Clay
1" on the back. He
combined a jersey clutch with a Grease hip shake and nearly tore the
building down. The best part is that every time he does one of these moves,
he gets this “look” on his face, part sexy, part amused/amusing. Sort of
“I’m doing this because I know you like it but isn’t this just the
silliest thing ever?” Sharing with the audience the whole joke of
how-did-I-become-a-sex-symbol.
At the end, Ruben introduces the band and Clay plays air instruments. The
funniest part – Clay’s standing right over the guitar player as he does
his licks, and he starts fanning the strings as if they are on fire. Then he does the
"We Are Not Worthy" bowing on his knees to the musical director. I think they
have changed some of the movements, because in Indy at the end he was
on my side of the stage, and now he’s on the other side. He really does
spend much more than half of his time to his own right side of the stage.
He’s very right-handed and always looks that direction and tends to move
that direction from the center. Which was not good for me, because I was far
to his left.
At the end of God Bless The USA, he did look a bit choked up. I couldn’t
tell if he was tired, or sorry to see the show end, or perhaps a little of
both. He was truly loving every minute out there, and it’s easy to
understand why – the cheers for him were truly deafening.
Mrs. Rosencrantz had some wonderful things to say in her review, about
how grown up he is now, exotic, erotic, sex-on-a-stick, and everything
she said about him is true. Just in two weeks since Indianapolis, he has
grown from a talented performer into an unbelievably smooth operator. It was
soooooooo worth the trip just to see this night.
I became a bit of a celebrity myself at Philly. While talking to some friends at intermission, a felt a tap
on the shoulder and turned around to find two little girls.
One said, “Are you Clay’s mom?” with very wide eyes.
I guess the resemblance is real!
I laughed and hugged the girl and said I was very flattered, but no,
I’m not. They look confused,
still holding out their autograph books.
So finally I just signed them. After
that another woman and daughter also approached me, and the looks I was
getting from people were PRICELESS! These young girls would pass by, they
would glance at me and then their eyes just started to get bigger and
bigger! One couple (about 40) wanted my picture taken with them, even though
they knew I wasn't her! I may just write Faye a letter about this.
Epilog
Winkydink and yalcteef dropped me off back at my hotel, and while
rummaging around packing to leave I discovered my brand-new cell phone was
missing! Thinking quickly, I called the phone. Four rings, then to
voicemail. In a bit of a panic, I call my husband back home to decide what
to do. We're talking, when there's a knock on my door: it's yalcteef
handing me my phone! Rescued by a PRoC'er! So
now I'm off to drive from Philly to DC! We'll see how tired our man - and is he
ever MAN now - is in DC after his big day in NY!
|
