2003-07-21
6:12 a.m.

BEVR: Kelly/Detroit

Ok Broads and Brudes: Let me just start by saying that if the only reason you are reading this is to find out whether the Virgin Queen met her Virgin King...I am sad to inform you that the fated meeting did not take place. The concert was by no means a disappointment and I think I learned some new tricks to try in Cleveland.

My niece was unable to attend the show because she was sick. It would have been great to bond with her at this concert, but my roommate made a more than adequate companion. In fact, she is the only reason I came as close as I did to meeting him. She woke me up at about noon today saying, "If you wanna meet the tour buses, you need to get up now!" So with the coffee in hand that she so graciously made me, I moved over to my computer desk to type my last entry of the P.C. (preconcert) era.

After showering and confirming directions, we headed out the door with our signs in hand. Leah admitted to being a bit embarrassed about the sign she had made, saying, "When I made it I thought you'd be the one carrying it around, not me." Nice friend. We drove down to Joe Louis Arena (home of the Red Wings) and pulled up to the parking structure. The attendant asked us if we were working with the tour and my roommate said that no we were there to see the show. The woman seemed puzzled since we were, after all, FIVE hours early for the show! She just said, "Whatever" and took our $6.

We milled about on the roof of the parking structure looking down to see where the tour buses might pull in. All we saw was the Pop Tart lackeys setting up the little freezers. Little did we know how good those Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tarts would sound after not eating for nearly 24 hours. You see, not only do I deprive myself of sleep for Clay, but all forms of normal survival fall to the wayside. Neither Leah nor I ate anything before leaving: we just packed up our signs and bolted. We also were not with it enough to bring water and in fact the only thing we ingested was coffee which is a diuretic.

After wandering for a while, we finally found the small cache of Clay fans sitting on the steps waiting for the tour buses to pull up. We chatted it up a bit with the other fans that seemed quite nice until one of them, after reading my sign looked at my feet and asked me if I had bought them in Clay's size...

Rant time! I know I have big feet, but I don't wear a men's 13.5! Ugh! What a mean thing to say really, especially from one woman to another. I graciously said, "No, my feet are just this big."

Finally three tour buses pulled up and past us. The last one was the one with the Idols on it, and we know this because we saw them get out of it. My roommate swears that as the bus drove by she saw Clay in the window. She was holding up her "CLAY IS SEXY! VVVROOM!" sign and she said she saw a reaction through the tinted glass. I, of course missed it all and was probably staring at my shoes, contemplating foot minimization surgery. Once the bus had passed through the gate we all stood there waiting for someone to get out. Kimberly Locke and Carmen exited and waved and then a couple of minutes later, Mr. Golden Delicious himself got out! He was wearing tan pants and a green shirt. He waved at us as we all screamed. And. That. Was. It.

Some of the Clay fans caught the scent of backstage passes so they followed the trail around to the front of the Arena. There stood this guy with 50 passes around his neck and a handful of bracelets for the meet and greet before the show. Well we started asking him how one went about getting a pass and he basically told us that there was no way.

"Even if someone doesn't pick up their pass!" He replied, "Nope, they'll just go to waste."

While waiting out front, my roommate had the opportunity to be taped for two of the local news stations. One of the interviewers from Fox 2 asked us to show our signs and then all of a sudden the cameraman was there and there were about twenty people behind us screaming. The interviewer talked to Leah and she was so together I'm surprised it wasn't on TV. A couple of minutes later, a Channel 7 guy came up and zoomed in on my sign and then my face and then my shoes. He was laughing his ass off!

For the next couple of hours we sat around the meet and greet door waiting for a chance to get in there. A really nice woman named Abby and her sister Tova sounded like they had adequate connections to get in there, but alas, the powers that be were extra stringent here in D-Town for some reason. Later, the previously mentioned backstage pass asshat walked by and totally DROPPED A SHEET OF BRACELETS! Abby picked them up, but was an honest person and returned them to him, asking if she could have one in return. He initially said no, but later relented and let her have one. Lucky girl.

The impression I got of the meet and greet is that it's not all it's cracked up to be. You are literally pushed through a line that goes in front of the Idols and cannot have a conversation with them. All the people who went in seemed to come out bewildered and unsatisfied. I may just be saying this to make myself feel better about not getting a pass...

I won't bore you with our laying about stories and our grouchy under the breath comments to the Pop-Tart cronies about not letting us have the delicious frozen treats before the show. But just know that the last time we had eaten was at midnight the night before. And the last time we had had water was just before we left the house.

Upon getting in the door, we immediately got some water and then bolted for the 93.1 WDRQ radio station booth. They were giving away five sets of ticket upgrades in rows 5, 4. 3 and 2. We entered the contest and leaned wearily against the wall while people got overly excited about answering questions for DRQ shirts they could have gotten for free. Again, alas we did not win ticket upgrades so I bought a ($20) program and we contemplated buying a pizza for us two ravenous women to eat. As we were making our way to the booth...we saw that the lights were dimming and we heard good ol' Randy Jackson's voice booming. "Shit" was yelled simultaneously by us both and we started running.

We climbed the 85 million stairs up to our nosebleed seats and were sitting by the time Charles came out. A few minutes later a woman sat down next to me and for the rest of the night, her various sections of body and arm fat would be touching me...this was the real reason I stood up, Oh angry poopheads who sat through the whole show!

A few comments on non-Clay performers:

Charles: Still as blah as ever...

Julia: Much better than I thought she was going to be.

Ricky: Why wasn't he in the Top Four again? Oh yeah... Marines!

Kimberly Caldwell: Skank ho! No spoiled expectations there!

Carmen: Roommate says, "She still can't sing. But I can't help but like her. She's so cute." I say, "Die!"

Trenyce: Man that girl really brings it baby! I had forgotten my love of Trenyce.

Kimberly Locke: She actually gave me chills! For the reals!

Ruben: Sounded really on tonight!

Some comments on generalities:

Apparently Detroit has been the largest audience thus far. 20,000 people in fact. You could really see it in their faces when they came out that they were excited to be there. Lots of Motown mentions. Very nice! And Ruben wore a Detroit Tigers away baseball hat!

Also, The Joe has great acoustics. Even though I was in nosebleeds, I could hear everything. Also, kudos to the audience in general for not completely drowning out Clay when he sang.

On to CLAY!

When he came out for "This is the Night" I could do nothing but scream! I was screaming before, but Clay screams are ripped out of you by his shear sex appeal. He stood in one spot for the most part, but near the end, he RIPPED the microphone out of the stand to sing the CLIMAX! Also, the first deep knee bend of the night was a doozy. His knees touched the ground. He also did all the appropriate motions that go with the song. The "hold me close" belly hold; the "lift me up" arm spread; and the "I want you so bad" finger point.

"The Girl is Mine" was so special to me because they used my name in it! Apparently every night they change the name of the girl and tonight it was KELLY! WOO HOO! Also, Clay kept trying to grab Ruben's hat and couldn't quite get it off. Many giggles!

Don't shoot me, but tonight Clay danced terribly. I, of course, thought it was a riot!! He even mentioned how crappily he was doing when he, Trenyce and KimberMe were psyching up the crowd. He was like, "I think I do worse every night!" Then KimberMe showed everyone the move that he was having trouble with and he tried to do it again and messed it up. He then said, "I usually just do this instead. I cheat." And he showed us his lame-ass (but hilarious) alternative which was basically him just swinging his arms around. "But tonight, I can't even do that right!" What followed was an impromptu contest to see if the audience could do it.

When Clay came out for "Invisible" he was wearing a RED WINGS jersey. He proceeded to tell us that Raleigh, NC has a way of producing runners up. Like him. And the Hurricanes who were beat by the Red Wings the last time they both made it to the Stanley Cup. He said that North Carolina might disown him so maybe, HE MIGHT HAVE TO MOVE HERE!!! The crowd went insane. He also mentioned the formation of the Bubel Foundation which I think many of you already know about.

On to the performance: This has to be the best "Invisible" so far! We didn't just get a clutch folks; we got a clutch, grab, pull and yank up! It was the sexiest thing I've ever seen that guy do! The scream just flew out of me! He also bends so deep at one point that his KNEES TOUCH THE GROUND! Just phenomenal! And he had this grin on his face that just said, "I know exactly what I'm doing."

So all in all, the show rocked! My roommate and I dubbed the way we felt after as, "F**ked up in Detroit" or FUD. It was a good FUD though.

Kelly and Roommate Leah

-

Note from Nelle: You, too, can participate in the LBFCA Summer Series, and have your Broad's Eye View Report of Clay's Summer Concert Tour on the LBFCA Main Page. Just send it to Nelle via email, and she'll post it ASAP. (If you are a lurker, or otherwise wish to remain anonymous, just let me know that in your email). Don't worry about your BEVR not being the same size or looking the same as anyone elses. Here at LBFCA we celebrate diversity. Every BEVR is unique. This is your personal experience of witnessing what Katynka so gloriously described as "a little hockey-jersey-clutchin', white-leather-wearin', DTTR revealin', mic-flickin', thigh-strokin', eye-f***in', smokin', jokin', singin', hunk-o-burnin' libido."