Drop In The Ocean Intro
Find Your Way Back
Breathe
You Get Me
Everywhere
Where Are You Now
Empty Handed
Desperately
Game Of Love!!!!!!!!!
One Of These Days
Hotel Paper
Goodbye To You
Love Me Like That
Tony
Tuesday Morning
'Til I Get Over You
All You Wanted
Are You Happy Now
I spent most of Friday in line on Market Street. By far not the best place to be if you're a twenty-something female who is frightened of most people. Luckily, there were other non-drunk people around to protect me. Waiting in line is always fun.
The best part of the line experience came at about 6.
We had given up on Michelle coming in the building, so I decided it was time to have people sign the card I had bought for Michelle. While having people do that, I also passed out bunches and bunches of stickers that had
www.pifsf.com and "Breathe Remixes in stores 11/25" written on them. Someone called me hardcore for handwriting all of those. Darn tootin I'm hardcore.
Around 6:30 I found out that I had been given M&G passes through the goodwill of special people. We'll just end that there. At 7, the doors opened and we went in.
My friends and I took "our" spots in the front, a little left of center. That was one of many song title puns I managed that night. The opening act came out right at 8. His name was Jim Boggia and I was definitely impressed with his performance. It seemed like it was over in no time. He had a great presence and is just an all around awesome performer. Check him out...he comes highly recommended (Michelle herself personally endorses him).
After Jim's set, we all waited (im)patiently for Michelle to take the stage. From our vantage point, we could see Michelle and the band getting ready on the other side of the stage. Once the opening strains of "Drop In The Ocean" came over the system, everyone knew Michelle was coming out. They all made their way on stage and launched right into "Find Your Way Back". The security guard in the front was cracking up because everyone in the crowd starting singing so loud right away. It was incredible.
Michelle put down her guitar and walked around for her next two songs. "Breathe" the second single from Hotel Paper was very well received, as was "You Get Me" which is most famous for being the theme song to MTV's Sorority Life. The guitar came back for a revamped version of her very first single, "Everywhere". This new version is very cool. It started off with just her on the guitar at a slower tempo. The full band came in midway through the song and brought it back to its original speed. Totally awesome. My two favorite songs from Hotel Paper were next. "Where Are You Now" and "Empty Handed" have always blown me away live. I would love to see either of those become the third single from this album.
Michelle sent the boys away and sat down with her guitar to perform "Desperately". On previous tours, when performing this song, she had added the lines "Back to you, it always comes around...back to you" to the end of the song. On this tour it was "I think we're alone now, there doesn't seem to be anyone around". Since Rene and I seemed to be the only ones who knew this would happen, we were singing so loud and got a look from Michelle. We made her laugh.
The SF crowd got quite the surprise when Michelle starting talking about how she doesn't really play this next song live anymore, but that she always thinks about it when she's in San Francisco. The guy she normally plays it with lives in the area. So she decided to throw the show off and add in a special treat. She asked the boys if they wanted to come out and play "Game Of Love" with her. Brad (the lead guitarist was all o_O) and she told him just to come out and join them when he was ready. We were all so excited because we knew she hadn't performed the song at any of her other dates on the Where Are You Now Tour. She kept Kevin (the key man) around after GOL and they sat down and did "One Of These Days". Just piano and vocals. This is not one of my favorite songs on the CD, but hearing it stripped down, and feeling the emotion coming from Michelle made it very very awesome live. Keeping with the acoustic theme of the previous three songs, the band came back and did a toned down "Hotel Paper" and left again for "Goodbye To You". Right before GTY, Michelle told us we could leave to take a pee break, but I don't think anyone took her up on that offer.
The speed of the show was brought back up when the band came back for good with "Love Me Like That", another personal favorite. The song I was most looking forward to was next. "Tony", a Patty Griffin tune, was delivered so flawlessly. It's a very moving song with content much different from most of Michelle's stuff. I was super glad she threw that in there. It was an excellent choice. "Tuesday Morning" is always great. It's a wonderful way to sing at the top of your lungs and be very dramatic. At least for me anyway. lol "'Til I Get Over You" was the last of the slow songs.
The best part of the show, for me, came right after TIGOY. Michelle had been getting presents all night, but during this break, she got the most. First was a Giants hat after telling us she was a big Giants fan. Every sports fan in the room swooned after hearing Michelle dug the home team. Then, some girls gave Michelle a shirt. So Rene decided it would be funny to yell out "They want you to take of your shirt!". Unfortunately for her, but SUPER funny for the rest of us, Michelle only heard "Take off your shirt!" so she looked right at us, and then right and Rene and was like "You want me to take off my shirt?". That definitely came back to haunt Rene, courtesy of yours truly.
"All You Wanted" was next. The very first time I saw Michelle, she told us this song was going to be her next single. Two years later, it is probably the most popular single she's had (next to GOL which so doesn't count). After AYW, everyone cleared the stage.
The break before the encore seemed really long. Michelle explained that it was because she needed to take her pee break. Then she kind of got embarrassed and said "That was too much information". Maybe just a little, but that's ok.
"Are You Happy Now" was the song that closed the show. She extended the song to be close to ten minutes. It was so awesome. Kenny (Aronoff...the MAN) was rocking out on his set in the back and Michelle even went over and "helped" Brad play the guitar. The crowd was totally loving it and going crazy. That's the way a show should end.
We heard that Michelle had been pretty sick and had to cancel a lot of shows (including another one I was going to), but she didn't let it show in SF. She gave it her all, and we weren't disappointed. Her voice never faltered, she didn't seem to be tired or in pain, and she even threw in an extra song. It was also uber-cool because there was this screen behind her and during all the songs, they were showing videos. Like during "Everywhere" and "Goodbye To You" it showed part of the official videos, and during other songs it was just random images that tied in with the song's theme. This was probably the best Michelle show I've seen (and I've been to
and is definitely on the short list of my favorite concerts ever. I know I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again: Go check out Michelle in concert whenever you can. I promise you will have a great time. Especially if you take me with you.
