Fair Warning: This Post Has Absolutely Nothing to Do With Pastry Methods and Techniques.

So, I went to the American Idol concert in Charlotte with my mom.  As it turns out, I didn’t think we looked like Old Hookers at all.  I thought we looked Very Nice.  I shall now Recap the show for you.  If you Do Not Care about American Idol, or if you are Not a Fan of Adam, you might want to just move along now.  Tomorrow, I’ll be back to my Normal Self, but today, I’m still channeling the fangirl within.

Mother and I have been Giddy with Anticipation of the show for weeks and weeks.  And weeks.  Since the tour began on July 5, we’ve been following all the concert videos, reading all the recaps and local reviews and generally acting like Hysterical Tweens.  And why all this furor?  Why would we try to listen to a cell cast of a show that makes everyone sound like they’re under water?  Why frequent a blog where people seriously debate the merits of throwing bras onstage?  Friends, his name is Adam Lambert.  This 27-year-old has turned my mother and me into a Pile of Goo.  Heck, I’m old enough to be his mother fun aunt, and mom is old enough to be his grandmother fun great aunt.  Nevertheless, we are both Over the Moon for Our Boy.  Not only is he strikingly handsome, but he is also probably one of the most talented singers I’ve ever heard.  Seriously.  Not only can he belt out Whole Lotta Love and make everyone in the audience think he’s singing directly to them, he can also do this:Wow, right?!

The show started at 7pm.  I started getting ready at 2:30pm.  Yeah, that’s how bad I have it.  I was going to be one in about 15,000 folks there, but I had to look Just Right.  Pitiful.  But, not only did I have to Bathe and Shave, I also had to put on a Ton of makeup, make my hair stick up artfully, glue jewels to my face, put on Serious undergarments and my keen dress and have The Beloved Bedazzle my tattoo.  That’s a lot.   My mom came over at 3:30.  She was already dressed and wearing Turquoise Eyeshadow, but she also had to sew a Thing onto my dress and paint her nails with sparkly black polish.  That’s a lot, too.  And, here we are:Here are my Facial Jewels:

One at the outside corner of each eye, and one fake nose piercing. I'm not proud, but I am committed.

And, the Bedazzled Tattoo.  The Beloved did this all by himself.  Someone took a picture of it at the concert, and I got a couple of compliments on it, too!

We left for the venue at about 4:45pm, found parking and then went and had a Smackerel to Eat.  Mother had a bottle of water in her handbag so she could take her pill during the show.  This struck me as Very Humorous.  Anyway, the security lady at the arena made her throw it away.  When mom told her she needed water so she could take her pill, the security lady gave her another bottle of water.  She might have taken it from another concert-goer.  We’re not sure.

We had reasonably good seats with an Unobstructed View of the stage.  I futzed about with the camera to see if I could figure out how to get the Best Shots Possible.  I settled on Portrait + Night Scene, in case you were wondering.  Here is the view from our seats:

Section 116, Row W. Not bad.

And here is a view of us in our seats:Mother and I decided we should clap and cheer for everyone.  Even the ones of whom we were Not Fans.  So, Michael Sarver came out, and we clapped and listened to him sing his two songs.  It was nothing special, but he seems like a nice guy, and he certainly had a lot of energy.  We clapped at the end, too.  Some of the folks in our section Did Not.  Rude.  Megan with her Hot Pink Self came out next, teetered about on some very high heeled hot pink gladiator-type sandals.  Props for balance.  We clapped because she Did Not Fall.  Go Megan.  Scott arose from under the stage and sang his two songs and told the same jokes he’d been telling since the start of the tour.  YouTube, Scott.  People watch it.  He sang Reasonably Well, so we clapped for him, too.  Wee Lil Rounds came out next and sang with her Big Voice and pranced about.  She finished her set with Single Ladies.  Lil is lovely, and she will make a great front person for a Very Nice Wedding Band.  We clapped for her, too.

Anoop Desai was up next.  For those of you who don’t know, he’s from Chapel Hill, NC, so Charlotte was Home Turf for him.  He got a huge ovation.  We stood and cheered and yelled, “Anoooooooooop” with everyone else.  He got choked up, which was Precious, so I got choked up, too.  We had a Moment, Anoop and I.  He has a lovely, smooth voice and did a lovely job with his ballad, Always On My Mind.  He finished his set with Bobby Brown’s (not Britney Spears’) My Prerogative.  Fun.  More cheering and Anoooooop-ing.  Yay.

Matt Giraud, who might actually be Jerry Lee Lewis reincarnated, pounded out Hard To Handle.  He was here.  He was there.  He played the piano standing up.  He played the guitar with his feet.  Okay, not that last, but he was Truly Impressive.  More standing and cheering and yelling.  Even ma mere was yelling, and her voice doesn’t work so well.  So, go Matt, for making mom yell!

And here we are at the end of the First Half.  We could tell, because they did a Group Number.  The girls sang You’re Just Too Good to Be True, and our ears bled just a little.  We shuddered and rolled our eyes, but we clapped anyway.   A couple of other Bits of Song happened, and then the boys ended with Beggin’.  Nice.

There was an Intermission, at which time I had to find my phone which I had dropped at some point.  The Helpful Ladies in front of us found it for me.  Thank you, Helpful Ladies.

The Second Half.  Whereas the first half was a showcase of finalists 10-5, the second half was a Concert.  That wee little flame-haired Allison Iraheta came out and punched us all in the face with So What, Cry Baby and Barracuda.  Punched us in a Good Way.  The girl is 17 but has a voice like cigarette smoke and sandpaper.  And I mean that in the best way.  She moved around so much on the stage that, in a couple of my shots, she’s not even in them.  We stood and yelled and cheered.

Up next was Danny Gokey.  Mom liked him okay on the show.  I, however, was Decidedly Anti-Gokey.  But, we cheered anyway, and he actually did a nice job, even though his background for PYT looked like a game of Tetris.  He also sang Maria, Maria and What Hurts the Most.  He gave us a little Tony Robbins-esque speech about never giving up on our dreams and then dedicated his last song, My Wish, to Every Single Person In The Audience.  Thanks, Gokey.

Gokey finished, and we clapped.  Then, we paused for a moment and began to Leap About and Yell.  Our Boy was Up.  I hardly know what to say about his performance.  It was sexy.  It showcased his technical prowess and his vocal control.  It slithered around the stage.  Pheremones literally flew off of him in every direction, and all of us were lost in an Adam Trance.  We were well and thoroughly Adamized, and we loved every single minute of it.  The set:  Whole Lotta Love (Led Zepellin), Starlight (Muse), Mad World (Tears for Fears), Slow Ride w/Allison (Fog Hat), Medley of Life on Mars?/Fame/Let’s Dance (David Bowie).  We screamed.  We yelled.  We danced.  We might have Welled Up a little.

The Glittery Alien Prince from Planet Fierce

Last up was Idol Winner Kris Allen.  He is extremely talented–a great guitarist and pianist.  He also has a rich, smooth cappucino voice.  He is not Sexy like old Adam, but he is handsome and adorable, humble and confident at the same time.  He sang his masterful version of Kanye’s Heartless, All These Things That I Have Done by The Killers, Matchbox 20’s Bright Lights, Ain’t No Sunshine and Hey, Jude.  We yelled and screamed for Kris, too.  Adam’s and Kris’s sets couldn’t have been more different, but they were both excellent.  More yelling and clapping.

The grand finale had everyone out on stage again, singing Journey’s rather cheesy but fun 80s anthem Don’t Stop Believing.  A great way to end the show.

We actually Braved the Barricades and were 2 rows back from the front.  We stood there for about an hour chatting amiably with our fellow Barricaders.  And then, when the idols began coming out for autograph signing and pictures and Such, it went from an Amiable Group of Sisters in Arms to The Barricade Scene from Les Mis.  Adam arrived; everyone shrieked and heaved forward on a Tide of Estrogen, as I in vain actually tried to tell everyone to calm down (!) because if we knocked over the barricades then they would whisk our boy away and nobody would get to see him.  Security was yelling at everyone.  I was Smooshed between the folks in the front who were moving back and the folks behind who were still shoving forward.  Something was pushing into my ankles, and I turned around to see a wheelchair-pushing lady pushing a wheelchair (avec passenger) into my Self.  A large Pink Woman shoved in front of me, and when I Called her On It, she yelled at me that she had as much right to be there as anyone because she had paid her money, too.  And then, she called me a Mean Word.  I managed to snap a dim photo of Adam before I backed out of the Melee and shoved Wheelchair Girl forward so she could see.  I kind of was hoping that I had hit Pink Woman in the ankles with the wheelchair.  I am Not a Saint.

My hard won photo of Adam.

And that, my friends, was that.  Overall, Mom and I had a Fantastic Time at the concert.  I would definitely go and see Adam again on a solo tour.  Ditto Matt, Allison and Kris.  Anoop is actually singing at the NC State Fair in October, and I will probably go to that, too.  This was our first and only Idols concert.  I can’t imagine going back for seconds next year, because I can’t imagine that any of the contestants could come close to Adam’s talent and showmanship.  We shall see, though.

Tomorrow, it’s back to business, but I just had to let the Fangirl Within blather on for a bit.