The backstage pass

On Sunday I went to the Duran Duran concert at a local venue with some friends, my sister and her husband. My DH stayed at home to take care of the babies. He also said he had no interest in seeing a teenage girl crush band, so the ticket would have been wasted on him. I am actually a little glad he didn’t come, because my friend, from the playgroup, who was my date that night, is a great person to go to a concert with.

Our seats were somewhat far away from the stage, in the nosebleed section, but the venue is quite small and intimate, so we could see pretty well. However, my friend, who is even bolder than I am, said, “Let’s go down to the front! There’s nothing to lose.” I agreed, and off we went. We just walked up to the doors leading to the floor seats, and she started talking to a security guard. As he was busy filling his eyes and being flirted with, I just walked right on in. Ha ha! About two minutes later, she comes strolling on in and up to the stage we went. It was fantastic! We were just ten feet from the stage as they played Notorious and Wild Boys and Rio. I got all over excited, and even though I knew I would get to meet him backstage later, when Simon came out into the crowd, I hopped up on a chair and patted him on the back. I was standing on a folding chair at the time, and as I leaned over, the chair folded up, but a nice gay man caught me. How do I know he is gay? Well, I said “Oh! Thanks for the catch! I just want to touch him, you know?” He replied, “Okay, you first, then I want a feel.” Heh heh heh. So, I got to pet Mr. LeBon on the back and I got to see myself in my red plastic jacket on the Jumbotron!

After the show, I met up with my DS at Section 17, as we had been instructed and we waited and waited and waited. The people in charge of the meet and greet were bringing group after group through to the dressing rooms, but kept saying, “All of you with the green passes just wait here.” I found out from a couple of hard core groupies, who had been to about six concerts on the tour, that the green passes were the "best", because we would see them last, as opposed to the other passes, which just meant a quick handshake and then you were hustled out the door.

About 45 minutes later, the green pass people were ushered into a dressing room, with sodas and sofas. We were each given a special poster, in case we had forgotten to bring something to have signed, and then…ba DUM! Simon LeBon came in the door.

I must say the next fifteen minutes were a bit of a blur; the rest of the band came in, a girl launched herself on Simon and gave him a prolonged hug, which he obviously did not want to receive. I spoke to Andy first, got his autograph and a picture, then took a picture of my sister with Roger, who was her favorite. Simon had been my favorite back in my Duranie days, but he was obviously tired; he was lying down on the coffee table. Not wanting to bother him, I looked around and said “Hi” to Nick instead. Nick stopped and said, “That’s a lovely shiny jacket!” and I said, “I know…” Yikes, was that cocky or what? But he seemed to find that funny, and stayed and chatted with me for a while. We were off to one side and I asked if I could get a photo with him. “Of course!” he said and I looked around for the DS to get the picture. But she was somewhere else, so he said, “Oh, let me take our picture. Ready?” He put his hand on my back, leaned in close and snapped away. I told him he looked great and asked him what face cream he used, he said, “I use whatever I can get me hands on, I’m not fussy. But I moisturize twice a day and avoid the sun. I never go in the sun. Why are you worried? You’ve got lovely skin.” I told him my age, he was pleasantly disbelieving and we had a nice talk about skin cream for a while. Then someone pulled him away and someone else put a video camera in my face.

“Tell me,” he asked, “What did you think of the concert? How long have you been a fan? If you could sum up the show in one word, what would it be?” I answered his questions, gassed on for a while, then I took some more photos, and got the other guys to sign the Rio album I had brought along for the occasion. I don’t have any of my old records anymore; I had the misfortune to have all my Duran Duran and Adam Ant and David Bowie and Roxy Music albums destroyed in a fire in 1992. However, a woman I know had a daughter recently, who she named Rio. I went on eBay and bought a Rio album, which I was going to present to the baby. I told this to her mother, who said, “Oh, my husband is going to buy a record and have it framed.” Since I hate to be redundant, I didn’t give away my album, I just put it away. I never thought I would be going to a concert and getting it signed by Simon, Nick, John, Andy and Roger just a few months later. Sometimes things work out so well…Later I told the DS that I had been interviewed about the show while we were backstage, and she said that the band had their own cameraman who was making a video of the tour. I would be simply delighted to be on that video; my, my, red plastic seems to get a lot of attention, doesn’t it?!

Later, on the way home, I told my playgroup buddy/date all about the experience and she oohed and ahhed in all the appropriate places. Thanks to the fact the pictures are on a digital camera, we could look at them immediately; we giggled and yip yapped all the way home. We were both a little wired. She got home by 1 and I was home by1:30, but I really wasn’t able to sleep until 2.

Then, at 2:05, Baby A woke up. “Mama!” he cried, and since I had not nursed them for about 10 hours at this point, I was all too happy to respond. Isn’t it funny how life runs the gamut from the mundane to the super cool? There I was, at 11:30 PM talking to rock musicians, and three hours later, I am snuggling with an 18-month old nursling, who couldn’t care less who I met, with whom I took a picture and where I have been. About half an hour later Baby B woke up, and he needed his mama too. There I was, in my usual spot, trapped between two babies, for the rest of the night. Game over, MOT!

But I could still hear Girls on Film, in a loop, in my head.