Tonight will go down in history as my most frustrating and enjoyable VC concert evar! It was frustrating because of one member of the odeon staff and enjoyable because V (of course) was fantastic and on top of just performing superbly her interactions with fans were top notch!
First off, the setlist was:
Papa
San Francisco
Ordinary Day
Who's To Say
Swindler
Afterglow
White Houses
Half a week before the winter
C'est La Vie
Wanted
Rinse
She Floats
Annie
The Wreckage
A Thousand Miles
** Encore **
Twilight
So i got to meet 1vcfan and angelcorrine which was one of the highlights of the night. Both are mad cool and hope to catch up with them again in the future... just not at The Odeon.
Vanessa seemed very tired however she still put on a hell of a show. From what i gather they had driven all night to pull into Cleveland this morning. I first saw her at the Q show (thanks Roy!) where she did a quick meet & greet with a picture + autographed headshot (will scan later). Then she performed 3 songs (WH, Afterglow and ATM) and answered a few questions. I um... asked about Morning Sting not making the CD
She said she really wanted to keep it to 10 tracks and it basically just didn't "fit."
Rolled out of there and checked into a hotel... then took Grams down to where The Odeon is. I *assumed* (you know what happens when you assume things?) that there would be something around the venue but that whole area is pretty desolate. We grabbed some dinner next door at the ONLY restaurant around and then chilled in line... we ended up being the second peeps. I got to chatting with quite a few people that got there early... we'll see if they pop their heads in here
They let us in, i went to the usual spot and grams took a seat by the wall.
Low Millions... they're growing on me as i'm familiar with the songs heh... they had some house sound issues of some sort but Adam made humor of the situation with a nice recovery.
FYE is there and... guess what? They're selling copies of Harmonium for $15 plus an opportunity to meet Vanessa and get the CD COVER SIGNED! (Yes, I am in possession of a Harmonium CD cover). So she holla's to nessaholics in the CD! How cool is that? I <3 V so much... that is like a personal shout out to all fans -- mad cool!
V takes stage and all is well of course... for a while. She begins doing didley's between songs, playing a bit of chopin and trying to figure out if she can write a song in front of people... i think
She called afterglow one of her favs (and not her fav) this time tho. Now the issue with this show is... LIGHTING ISSUES! So they had these STUPID ASS lights that were blue/orange/red whatever and they would have one of them lit on the back of the stage facing the crowd at random times... so if you took a picture V either looked red, or blue, or whatever and half the time she was glowing. It majorly sucked ass... and it was somewhat hazy. Cameras with leaving their shutters open the way they do, we're talking like 1/4th of pictures *may* come out. Half the people are using flash and getting told not to one by one by staff because no one could have posted a sign or made an announcement on the way in. Of course that was annoying me cuz i felt bad for V getting flashed from all over the place. So here is my issue (since everyone was asking and wondering...)
Over halfway through the show I was getting frustrated about this lighting issue and the fact that no pictures were coming through so i set my camera to take a movie (which allows the camera time to focus for a bit) and ultimately you get a decent shot. My camera takes mpegs at 640x480 which is what i post all pics at anyway even if i take them at higher resolution. So I figured i would load the mpeg into a video editor and just pull out a couple decent shots and be done with it. Well, during this small process this staff member at Odeon takes my camera. So already I'm pissed because all the people using flash didn't have their cameras taken and I wasn't about to start a mess in the middle of the show so he says I can get it after the show at the box office. So after the show I go back to the box office and ask for my camera. They'll only give it to me if i'm leaving... well I had to get this FYE thing signed. So I go back and forth with this guy that had taken it in the first place and he is just incredibly unpleasant on many levels. Finally i decide screw the autograph and i'll just grab my camera. I get my camera and head out to leave the venue and my memory stick is gone! (How NICE of them to tell me this). So I go back inside and ask the gentleman that had given it to me and he radios someone else who responds with "It's property of the tour." I tell them i'm not leaving without it and ultimately we're not making any progress. Finally I ask "By property of the tour do you mean Mark?" .. he says Yes. So I begin to go up to talk to Mark and he yells at me to go stand in this specific spot and wait. There was some continued bickering, glaring and in the end I talked to Mark once he was done with everything and he gave it to me without any issues... of course, mad props to Mark. I think he is a neat guy -- not only does he make Vanessa sound great but he's a hard ass when he needs to be and a sweetie at other times.
So here is another awesome part about Vanessa.... She comes to the venue and signs for people on the way in to soundcheck... she does this HUGE ASS LINE for FYE at the end of the night... then she comes out to do pictures and autographs for a few people that had stayed even later! Everyone was taken care of, no one was left out.
So i despise this individual at Odeon... i have even more respect for Mark if possible... and V is as good as always.
-katia
p.s. Fuck this one guy at Odeon (just had to get that out). The other staff peeps seemed mad cool.
p.s.2. I bought some little Jeremiah stickers... teehee
EDIT:
p.s.3. peeping the pictures... tons of them came out as shit (by my standards) with V looking like she is possessed.
