Suspicious Minds

"So that you'll say you're not afraid to let me steal your heart,
So that you'll say a prayer for me, in bed at night,
And that you'll save a page for me in the book of your life..."

So, I really should have blogged after Tuesdays Ingram Hill show in Lawrence because I've had such a busy week and now I'm faced with the daunting task of recapping it all in one blog.

Tuesday Jenn and I get ready and decide to head out to Lawrence about 11a so we can get there about noon and be in the front front row. First of all I wanted to go print off my picture of me and Justin and me and Matt from last November so they could sign them. (I have misplaced them since we moved.)

We get to CVS downtown and their Kodak machine is "out of order"... "Fuck my life." I said and the photo person said, "excuse me?!" Whatever, I'm too cool for you... so we left and I didn't get to print out my photos.

We get there at noon and we get coffee and bagels from Einstein next door. We sit out there for hours and finally two other girls come around 3ish. Around 4 we got let in early because there was only 4 of us and it was very chilly. Once inside we got to see their soundcheck and Justin came and said hey to us.

Their soundcheck was amazing. It was like an hour, I recorded some of it, "Cold in California" and "Why The Wait" which are on my youtube.

Doors were at 7, but we were already inside so I just went up and stood right in the very middle of front row.

Before the show we met Hana Pestle, the opening act. She's 19, soooo nice and incredible. She said she liked my hair. :-)

Her set was great. She covered "Creep" by Radiohead (I think... "you're so fucking special... I wish I was special... but I'm a creep.") And she also sang "Hallelujah" which she was amazing at, but I still prefer Jeff Buckley's version.

Ingram Hill came on and there was probably only 40 people in the whole place, which sort of rocked for us, but sucked for them -- which I told Matt later. Justin gave me his guitar pick during "Cold In California" which is my favorite song off the new album... the girls that we met that stood next to us? They took my sign idea and wrote a sign that said "Please Play "With You"!"... but Justin was like, "We haven't played that since June... (posted the Chris Brown cover on their youtube site.) She said, "it's okay, we'll help you remember it." Justin seemed irritated and they kept pushing for them to play it.

Speaking of new albums, they played new songs!! You can't understand how happy it makes me that they're making a new record!!

After the show was over we went and talked to Justin for a while. As soon as I walked up to him, he was like, "hey!! How are you?!" (I'm friends with him on myspace and Facebook) We got pictures and then he was like, "Are you the one who told me about the Mad Greek?" My eyes lit up and I was so surprised that he said something to me about it!! I had messaged him on Facebook the day before and told him how the Mad Greek was across the street from the Granada where they were playing and how awesome it was...

He said that they ended up eating at Ingredient, which I hadn't heard of. He said it was alright, but that he wanted to go to the Mad Greek. It was pretty awesome of him to say something.

We chased down Phil and I finally got my picture with him! He's pretty shy and sneaky, but he was the nicest person evars. Matt was tearing down the stage and I didn't want to bother him, but finally I needed to because we needed to go. We ended up talking to him for 10 minutes. He was trying so hard to talk us into coming to the Chicago show... Later Justin was trying to talk Jennifer into the Memphis show...

We said goodbye and Justin gave us hugs. (I love his hugs. He always initiates. Loves it.) When we left we had no plans of attending another show...

Thursday we went back to Lawrence to the Mad Greek to have dinner with my parents. My Dad actually came!! I was so surprised!! He usually says he's going to, and then doesn't, but it was great to see them.

After dinner we went to this place called, "Au Marche" a European market and next door is a place called "Brits". Brits obviously a place for British things... which I found out they sell my favorite candy, Refreshers, but they were all out. :-(

So at Au Marche we got some candy. I got some marzipan, and some German chocolates. Got some Nutella!!! Woo!! And I got this chocolate, I don't know where it's from, actually, but it's chili chocolate... It's got just a hint of spice to it. I loveeee it. It's expensive, but delish.

We already know how this story ends. We decided to go with what Matt suggested and go to Chicago. We actually planned all this out on the way home from the Ingram Hill show and we were planning on going to their Memphis show initially, which was the day before Thanksgiving, but Jenn was going to have to call into work.

When we got home and saw the tour dates, the 2 shows then that Jenn said we could go to were Chicago or Oxford, MS on the 5th because she already had those days off. I said, "lets go to Chicago"... it's closer in time. haha...

And so we bought tickets.

We were going to try and get up to Chicago at like, noon on Friday, but we ended up not getting there until about 6p... on the way up there I got my first speeding ticket in a year. :-( Not so happy about that. The cop was actually really nice to me, even though I was going 92 in a 70. Just fuck my life... haha... well, there goes $500 because I'm going to HAVE to hire a lawyer to take care of it. I cannot afford the points on my license or it'll get suspended again and fuck that shit. I lived 2 years without my license. No way am I doing that again...

It's straight distances that always fucking kill me... and I was only 82 miles outside of KC! Fuccccck. Anyhow, don't wanna talk about that anymore.

So, we get up to Chicago about 6p or so, but then we have to sit in traffic because, oh yaaay, it's rush hour all the time there. As we were entering Chicago, I realized that this is where they filmed Batman... so I asked Jennifer if after the show we could go down to LaSalle and see where the flipped the truck... she said no.

We finally find the club they're playing at and as we pull up there I see Zach and 2 other Ingram Hill boys get into a cab. I kinda freaked out a bitttttt... haha. We had plans to go to Panera, but there was no parking, so we went to Dunkin' Donuts instead. That's where we had planned to get ready and stuff...

So we're sitting at Dunkin' Donuts and this 61 year old dude comes over... doesn't look homeless, just looks poor, drinking whiskey out of a paper cup... sits next to me and starts talking like he's black to me... asking me personal questions, yadda, being obscene to me... finally, in a nut shell tells me he's going to murder me.

No lie.

I go up to the manager and all I had to do was say, "there's this drunk guy..." and he was thrown out.

We have some dinner, get our makeup and hair done, change and head back to the club. I find parking right across the street from the club. (If you've ever been to Chicago you know parking is impossible and expensive.) Not only did we get parking right across the street from the club, it was free. Wow.

So we get into the club and there's a line to get into Ingram Hill. The previous night they had a show @ the same place that sold out and last night's Chicago show also sold out. We were about 30 people deep into the line and I was mad because I knew I wouldn't be in the front row... we get in and what happens? Everyone goes to the bar and I get in the front row right in front of of Zach, the bass player on the right of the stage.

The stage was soooo small, it was nice though. Hana came on and did a fantastic set. I adore her. After the show I told her that I wished her all the success in the world because she truly is blessed. She hugged me. She really likes Jenn and I.

Ingram Hill came on and did a completely different set from Tuesday. Jenn had emailed Justin and asked him to play "Hangin' Around Again" for meeeee, and they did!!! It was 3rd. Unfortunately, "Cold In California" was first. :( The did an acoustic set of about 5 or 6 songs in the middle of the show which was SWEET...

Matt came out and was right in front of me. I loveeeed it. Justin got his guitar out... the acoustic that was broken Tuesday, LOL and before he was going to play he was checking the strings and popped a string... he called Chris out and Chris fixed it and brought it back out to him and what did he do? Popped the string again!!! So then Justin just used Hana's guitar. I told her I was jealous of that after the show... also she got to sing "On My Way Out" with them last night!! That just plain wasn't fair!!!

Anyhow, Justin gave me his guitar pick during "Almost Perfect". :-) The girl next to me looked like she wanted to barf on me. haha...

They ended with "Chicago", just like Tuesday except it was awesome to see them play "Chicago" IN Chicago. haha...

After the show we went up and chatted with Justin who was so happy to see that we came out, we got another pic with him too. I got a t-shirt!! FINALLY! We chatted with Hana, who thought we were crazy for driving up there, seeing the show and driving back... then we talked about White Castle. haha...

Got to talk to Matt and Phil for a bit. Told them all that we were thinking about coming to Oxford, MS on the 5th for the last show. ;-) Phil told us that it was one of the top places to retire. haha... random.

So we left and then tried to find I-55S instead of taking 90 and 94 back home because we paid $6 in tolls. I don't care if it was 20 minutes faster. I knew there was a way to get there from downtown, so we headed downtown...

Hey... since we're down here, I thought... ;-) We went down to LaSalle and I saw where they flipped the truck in Batman... where Heath laid in the middle of the street... where the Bat-tumbler turned around at the end of the street...

I cried...

It's not like I hadn't been to Chicago a hundred times... it's not like I had never been on LaSalle... but... Heath.

The street was completely empty except for me, it seemed to have the same tone and attitude (not to mention lighting) that it did in The Dark Knight. It was absolutely incredible. I couldn't take very many photos. Jenn was cranky and hungry and my camera was dying. I'm going back up to Chicago in May for my cousin Erik's graduation from college and I'll just have to take a ton when I'm up there.

I'll load pics of it when I get them off my camera, and they will of course be on my myspace, please comment.

We just got home at 730 or so... we stopped about 50 miles outside of Chicago after we got on 55S because we were both too tired to drive... Jenn was supposed to be at work at 5p. Oops.

I'm glad to be home and be with the babies.

BTW, I wanna thank Vessy and Kim for all their comments. I appreciate them sooo much... annnd, yaaa, Gem and Rae, you know I always adore yours as well.

xoxox