The day started out with beautiful blue sky and warm sunshine. Perfect! Then I took a shower about an hour before I was going to leave, and the sun vanished! Rain threatened to make for a miserable night at the Ste. Michelle Winery and I wasn’t prepared to make a wardrobe change. So I stuck with the red halter and jeans but threw in a thin warm sweater.

Last year some numbnut in the front row made such loud noises about “paying good money” for his seat, that security ruined the stagefront experience by attempting to send everyone back to their seat. So I was fully prepared for the same to happen again this year. We also got seats pretty far back in the reserved section, and not on the aisle. This presented the problem of having to skirt past half a row of sitting people to get to the aisle, then up about 18 rows to get up to the stage when Chris gave the OK. Also this year, I lacked the knowledge of what song Chris played before he tells people to come up. So with all these different factors, I had resigned myself to the fact that we most likely would be a good 5-6 rows of people back from the stage. Totally acceptable anyway!

I had some pre-show panic and thought I was doomed. My plan (always have a plan) was to bring my old phone and my new phone. My new Xenon rocks and takes good pics and is super user friendly to text or twitter, etc. but my old phone has an app for qik so I can stream live video. The plan was to start off with the old phone, stream until the battery died (which would be quickly, it’s why I got the new phone), then switch out the SIM card and use the new phone the rest of the night. Simple.

Well, yeah till in my excitement I put the SIM card in the WRONG way and the damn thing only had 1/8″ sticking out. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. I have no phone! I have no camera! I have no video! NOTHING!!! I tried to stay calm and use my fingernails to pull it out. All that did was increase my panic as they’re too slippery and can’t grasp the slippery plastic. I did this once before but I was at home and used needle-nosed pliers to get it out. Nate said if only she had her Swiss Army Knife, it has little plier/tweezer thingy. Aarghhhh but she doesn’t have it. I continued trying as thoughts of going person to person to ask if they happened to have brought pliers. Uh, yeah… Hmm, I thought, maybe I could go ask one of the roadies or something. Then I noticed that I was seeing a hair (and I mean that almost literally) more of the SIM card than I had a minute ago. “Oooooh look!!” I asked Nate if I’m really seeing that and she confirmed that I was making progress. With that encouragement I continued, microhair by microhair and I finally managed to pull it all out right about the time Nate got all MacGuyver on me and was going to wrap our fingernails with the sticky label they use to enclose the CD she bought, so that it would stick to the SIM card to pull it out! PHEW!!! Disaster averted.

Chris and the boys took the stage, and I didn’t even care about being up at the stage (or the wet seat I was sitting on), I was just thrilled to be “in the building” (it was outdoors, but you get what I mean). A few songs in, he did his usual jaunt through the audience, singing and wisecracking as he went. Some songs later, he sang “Speak of the Devil”. I love this song, though I realize I’m especially partial to it because 2 years ago he pointed at me while singing the chorus. This time as always, it rocked.

This is it, I thought. When this song finishes up, he’ll tell people to come up. But instead, he segued into a ballad. I started to worry. What if he doesn’t call people up like usual? I had already heard rumors that he isn’t doing the usual “meet & greet” autographing after the show this year. Perhaps other changes have been made too. Such was not the case.

Scoot, scoot, scoot, past every person in our row… they ALL stayed seated. And up the seemingly non-ending aisle alllll the way up to the stage. Like touching the stage, up to the stage. Score!

The song titles are a blur. I love the man’s voice, no matter what he’s singing. After a few songs he walked over our direction and shook hands. Both Nate and I stuck our hands out and we were lucky. *swoon* We touched Chris Isaak’s hand!!

I brought my old phone. My Nokia N75 that has an app to stream live video. Why there’s no app for my slick new Xenon, I have no idea. But stream I did, and security was nowhere near what it has been in the past, and it was really nice. Nazi acting security makes for an annoying experience. I would be streaming for minutes and minutes and the security guy slightly behind me and to my right, would occasionally reach up and close my phone. I’d just start it up again with my body blocking his sight until he’d stop me again. Even after repeating this a good 6 or so times, he was still not an asshole about it. I’m so bad, LOL but hey I’m persistent, what can I say? View the videos here

Hershel was in front of us most of the time putting on a great show. At one point he got right in front of me… RIGHT in front of me, leaned in and looked me in the eye with this intense(!) look and pointed his guitar at me so that the head was about a foot away from me! It dawned on me AS I touched the head that perhaps I shouldn’t be actually touching it since he was still playing the darn (gorgeous) thing!! Sorry Hershel! And thanks!

A few songs later, Hershel and Rolly switched places, changing things up a little and we got Rolly for a song. Then HE came in front of me and really leaned in singing to me. Holy moly! When he moved away, Nate asked me what he said. Me: “I have NO idea! I thought he was singing. Was he singing?? or saying something?? If he was saying something I totally missed it!” I don’t know but I seem to be standing in front of the magic spot here and I’m LIKING it!!

Speaking of magic lucky spots, Hershel had tossed out a few guitar picks and one of them hit a guy next to me and as I was thinking oh darn, it bounced off him and landed on me!

In past years, towards the end of the show, they would perform a song and bring out a dozen or so girls that had been picked before the show to go up onstage. This was another change implemented this year. All of a sudden in the middle of a song, a guy came along and pulled Nate up onto the stage along with a few others! They went over by Scotty, the keyboardist, whose birthday it apparently was, and then up next to Chris.

Wow! What a night!

Oh and the funny thing was, at one point I looked out at the audience from our little magic spot and saw rain coming down pretty good and thought hmm but I’m dry… then looked up and realized the stage plus about 20 feet in front of the stage was under cover, so not a drop of rain touched us up there. Heh.

No actual pics except this one. I spent my pic energy on the streaming. The battery and security held out WAY longer than I thought they would!