San Jose Concert Review

We walked the five blocks from the Brittania Arms pub to the San Jose arena in little clumps, still chatting and laughing from our get-together. I was still palpitating from the meet-and-greet, and excited about sitting FRONT ROW CENTER! We paused in the lobby to get water and souvenirs before working our way down to the floor.

The best FRONT ROW evah! Good
Baby Brush, Nova, toofargone, Surf4Sue

The front row was a bit intimidating at first. The stage looks so high, you wonder how you will ever see over it! Of course, that problem was easily solved by standing up all night. My photos do have a bit of an Adam's-apple perspective, but it was so amazing to be fifteen feet from the performers. The PRoC Trinity (Nova, Goood Baby Brush, and toofargone) had brought so many signs they probably couldn't have sat in regular seats, but fortunately we had plenty of space on the floor in front of us. We settled in with all our stuff and took the lay of the land. Red shirts everywhere. Clay t-shirts, Clay buttons, Clay glasses, Clay jewelry, Clay, Clay, CLAY. My kind of town, San Jose.

Soon the AI intro clips started, and I waited with anticipation for the familiar pattern to repeat itself: sudden surging screams each time Clay appeared on the screen. I never get tired of experiencing this. Atlanta Clay is always first to appear. The funniest one is where Clay can just be seen next to Carmen in her birthday party; Clay's face is barely in frame, but elicits screams nonetheless. I should have had the order memorized by now, but I wait and watch and scream with the rest. It's ironic that Ruben's face almost always follows Clay's in the clips, so you can't really tell if people are screaming for Ruben or not.

Charles came out and gave us his usual all. The PT had made a sign for everyone, which was a really good idea; they all responded in kind, waving at us and smiling. We were digging Charles and he was digging us. We could almost have touched his hand as he reached out to us - if only Clay would come that close! Surf4Sue was to my left and her normal pep and enthusiasm went up by a factor of ten, she was a jiggin' jivin' fangirl and loving it. I decided to take some pictures of each act, thinking that if I make a compilation for Faye it should have something of all the other Idols. (I ended up filling three 64MB memory cards with over 250 pictures that night alone!)

Julia did her couch thing. That's a nice couch, I want it. Should I send it to Clay? The floor crowd was a little dead at first and mostly sitting until Rickey got them going. I thought he was going to jump right off the stage into our laps! He looked right at me several times, he might have recognized me from the M&G because he was the nicest. The performers seemed really ON and our front row standing up finally got the rest of the front floor section to realize that it was their JOB to stand up and cheer. (Or else they just decided they had to stand if they wanted to see over us!)

KimMe did her thing. She waved at the front for and loved her sign. IMO she has the second-best stage presence of the group. *ducks* I've enjoyed her performances at every concert and I hope she gets some decent opportunities to do something besides shake her boobs at Branson. Carmen bopped and baaahh-ed but didn't interact much with us. Trenyce rolled us on the river. Kimmel banded us with gold. Finally Kim introduced you-know-who to the screaming mob, and my big front-row moment was finally here.

The place erupted into ear-splitting shrieks as the opening strains of TITN began. Even after five concerts, I never can seem to find exactly where he's rising out of the stage. The smoke doesn't help, it's like they want to MAKE you look for him. Finally I spot ol' spiky-head. (Hmm, spot spots...) He looks gooooood. I can barely hear him sing at first, but the screams die down quickly, these people WANT to hear him.

I had made a sign and was holding it over the railing; that's the advantage of front row, you don't hafta hold them up and block other people's views. Now, I never saw him acknowledge my sign; apparently I was taking a picture at the exact moment he came to the lyric "waiting forever for THIS", pointed at my sign and winked! He WINKED AT ME and I didn't SEE IT?!?! Rats!

TITN was hotter than the sun. Jazz hands! Microphone lean! Lasso fist! He looked incredibly SMUG throughout the whole song, just enjoying the hell out of it. He changed up the mike grab; at the usual place on "told me", he did a little wrist-snap with his right hand instead, maybe a head-snap too. I think he snatched the mike out on "r-i-i-i-i-ght", I was passing out about then. Crouches and knee bends RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!!

The PT had brought a series of Olympic-judging signs for Clay. As he finished the last note of TITN, five of us held up "10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 9.9 (Simon)". Clay was looking around at the crowd, he glanced down and saw the signs and cracked up, shaking his head as if to say, "You guys! Good one!"

The crowd was freaking out after the song. He looked wide-eyed around the arena a lot at the cheering, screaming fans, drinking it in. He's no longer quite as amazed when this happens, but he eats it up. I think he said "Wow!" a couple of times and noted how every seat was filled. Then he launched into his introduction of Ruben, pointedly explaining how sick Ruben is and how we should support him and love him and forgive him for stealing the AI title and for suing Flava and taking bribes and putting his head on Mt. Rushmore and he's-my-best-friend-cakes, and just like that, Clay was gone again.

Ruben warbled. And sweated. And after a verrrrry long time, it was intermission.

I met some more Clay fans during intermission, including Dorothy who bought my extra second-row tickets and was soooo grateful. A lady behind me in red (of course) recognized me from my photo on the web and my Faye-semblance, introduced herself as Valerie, and we talked for a bit. Two young women came up behind in the third row and asked if I was Faye (hee). Then Valerie came back over and said, "I want to introduce you to someone." I crawled over into the second row, I thought she wanted me to meet her friend next to her. But she pointed me to a brunette woman in the third row and said, "This is Laurie McAdam, who does the art work for Clay's t-shirts." WOW! Could this night get any more exciting?

Laurie and I talked for a few minutes. I told her how wonderful her artwork is, and mentioned my photographs from all the concerts and that I gave some to Clay. I asked her if she would be interested in using any of them for future artwork, and we exchanged e-mails. Holy Christmas!

We had a serious plan of attack for the second act, with signs and throwing materials. The act opened as usual with the "mysterious" lead-in for Lady is a Tramp, with some twists. I was all set to take a photo of Clay in his opening pose in the Jumbotron door, but he never appeared! Instead, he came up thru the floor on the left side! Apparently the door was broken again for part of the show. Damn! I love that pretty pose.

The boys did their thing, the girls shook their booty. I got many Clulia pix. The Clulia was less sexy tonight. He gave her a little kiss, but not the lingering smoldering one from Sacramento. And then it was time for the some real fun.

I had made a "clothesline" of underwear to throw onstage. I got this idea from hearing about the "panty altar", the string of panties collected on the tour that they hang on the side of the stage. I figured the bigger the better, so as not to get lost in the shuffle. My string had four pairs of panties (pink, lavender, black, and LEOPARD), an ugly black bra with appliqued red roses in the middle, and a bag of two Krispy Kremes stapled to the ribbon holding all this stuff together. Churchmouse provided the donuts from the only KK around, in Mountain View. (She made two trips there in two days! Gotta keep Clay fed!)

I knew the first thing thrown always gets the attention, so I was at the ready when the lights went out after Bootylicious, while Clay moved into position for pre-TGIM.

The lights came up, Clay started to say something, and I launched right at Rickey's feet (I hadn't even realized yet that it was Rickey out there and not Ruben). Clay hopped backward in mock horror, Rickey reached down and gingerly picked up the string, and they both gaped at it. The audience howled. I don't remember if they said anything. I am forever grateful to the San Jose audience, because everyone else held off throwing other things long enough for the string to get its due. My panty-line was a star.

Then the panty hail started. Rickey dropped the string and Clay started dodging the hail. He retreated to the rear of the stage and said, "Okay, you've all got thirty seconds. THROW IT NOW." And they did. Clay scurried around picking up underwear and and tossing it into the "hole" center stage, for some reason the platform had not been raised. Clay had to catch Rickey by the arm at one point, he almost fell in. Clay!In!Charge! Clay found a package of briefs and said, "Oh, good. I needed underwear. I don't have to go to K-Mart now." He picked up a small brown bear and used it as the family-friendly example. Rickey went back and got the panty string, which was the not-family-friendly example. EEEEEEEE!!! CLAY TOUCHED MY PANTIES!!!

Just then Rickey noticed the donut bag on the string and said, "Clay, there's some Krispy Kremes." Clay nearly snapped his neck whipping his head around and was all over that bag in a nanosecond. Rickey helped him open it, Clay snagged a donut and quickly walked away with it, saying, "Excuse me, I'll be busy for a minute." And he ate the donut onstage! Churchmouse fed Clay! Rickey said, "Can I have the other one?", and he did. I was dying! (Thank you Matt in AZ for the fabulous donut-eating pic!)

But we weren't done yet. I had made a 12-foot banner saying "CLAY - These Girls Are YOURS!" We had unrolled it on the floor in front of us to be ready. I thought Rickey was going to sing TGIM with Clay, but at the last moment Ruben appeared onstage and Rickey faded away. Clay and Ruben did a short intro and started the song. Clay sang his first line of the song and walked away from us to the left. As he turned back, about eight of us in the front row held the sign up over the railing. He spotted it and cracked up. GBB reported that he pumped his arm "Yesss!". The sign went up on the Jumbotron; the cameraman had to pan across it slowly because it was so long!

So we put down the sign and they finished the song. They've walked up the steps to the Jumbotron and are finishing the "argument" over the girl, when Clay says something like "I've got plenty of girls, didn't you see that sign in the front row?" We scrambled like drunken meerkats to get the sign back up! Clay says, "I don't need Kelly Brown, I've got all of THEM!" I'm sure we screamed like idiots. I didn't hear it, but GBB reports that Ruben said, "We're talkin' about one woman here, not a whole row." Bitchy Ruben.

I don't remember much after that. Kim Locke sang Inseparable well, I'm sure, but I had things on my mind. We had made Clay laugh twice, scowl at a string of underwear and chastise us, eat a donut, and call us his girls. Puppet!Clay! My life was complete.

Clay reappeared soon for a spirited BeeGees medley, including a heart-stopping TLS and some luscious boppin' and jivin' by our boy. The Clarmen was all in fun tonight, as Churchmouse noted later their pelvises were grinding in rhythm, but from the neck up they could have been talking about the weather. Then Clay and Trenyce and Kim came out for the 205 pump-up, where Clay mentioned again how amazing the San Jose crowd was, calling it one of their best ever. Clay and the girls demonstrated his lack of dancing prowess once again, and then we did everyone's favorite area code. NOT.

Can You Feel The Love. Boy, could you. It was incredibly rich and beautiful tonight, orgasmic. There was a lot of chest-touching RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. And before the last note, he teased us and teased us with The Look. "Beg for it, baby. I can wait all night. You are so my bitches." And we were. And he waited and waited and waited, and we screamed and pleaded so for him to finish that he laughed -- with us, not at us. And then he gave us what we wanted.

And then there was a rainbow. And Kim sang a 19-second note. Surf4Sue timed it. It was good. Kim wore a blue top that really looked good on her. It was purdy. Why do I sound like I'm channeling a tipsy HeidiHo from Anaheim?

There were several more excellent but Clay-less songs. Kim C especially enjoyed her sign from the PT and motioned for them to pass it up to her; it said "Kim Rocks" I think. She danced around with it and took it offstage with her; Jerome returned it a few minutes later with an autograph. Clay came back for "I've Had the Time of My Life", where he looked a bit emotional. Afterward during the band intros, he was less hyper than usual and there was no shirt unbuttoning. But toofargone had a shout-out for him from Sacramento, a sign saying "Chippendale Clay" with a little bow tie on it. It took him a minute or so to see it; he cracked up, pointed at her, and shook his head "Noooo way." Then they all sang, waved goodbye, and disappeared, leaving the band to pump us into a frenzy for what was coming. I didn't see anybody leaving. San Jose is internet-savvy.

The two people next to Surf4Sue had left early, so she quickly snagged Churchmouse from the third row and pulled her up front with us into the empty seats.

And then...he rose up thru the floor. He was in his usual crouch, wearing a Sharks jersey. There was a brief moment of disappointment; I had expected him to be wearing the teal-and-black version -- he looks so good in blue-green -- but this one was all black, a very dull black at that, not tucked in, fitting him like a monk's robe.

But then -- he sang. And snarled. And growled. And wailed. At one point in the first chorus, he pranced over to the left and saw some girls in the back hopping up and down and waving, so he hopped up and down and waved back. Friggin' adorable. And there was much gratuitous touching of the torso, and clutching and yanking and tugging, and stalking and prowling and deep-knee-bending and leaning and crouching and leaping and fist-pumping. One thing about a loose-fitting jersey, it can move around a LOT! We got a substantial glimpse of white t-shirt tummyl! Clay was absolutely ON FIRE and so was the crowd, and this HAS to rank among the top five Invisibles on the entire tour. This man made public hot monkey love to fifteen thousand people for four solid minutes, and as GBB noted in her review, we were all breathless and totally sated at the end. Churchmouse had to hold onto the railing to keep from falling down.

Just as he finished Invisible and looked out at the audience, we revisited the Olympic judging signs, but this time they were 11 - 11 - 12 - 12 - WOW! He cracked up again, with a rueful head-shake at our persistence. He scanned the wildly screaming crowd from one side to the other, drinking in a palpable tidal wave of adoration. I thought the cheering would never stop. I hoped it would never stop, and maybe then he would never go away. But it did. And he did.

Then something happened to our wings, but we had to fly anyway. For a very long time.

Then it was time to "wrap it down", as Clay likes to say, mixing his "wrap-up" and "wind-down" metaphors. Clay, Kim, and someone else sang "Imagine" and then we were into GBTUSA and the fireworks. Clay savored the moment. The group took their bows, then Clay and Ruben came out for one final wave to the audience; and Clay did his more-than-a-little ironic "presentation" of Ruben. The superstar fades offstage and the second banana takes the final bow.

And the Best Front Row of all time collapsed into their seats in joy and exhaustion. It was an amazing, amazing journey [tm Clay]. I got to meet Clay and AND sit in the front row for the very best concert EVER, all in my home town.