I was meeting
Steve Page.
Now, someone who is an old hand at meeting their rock idols and chatting with them might have been self-possessed enough to introduce themselves, or say hello, or at the very least smile. I am not that someone. I immediately turned around to the bin on the other side of the aisle and freaked out. I spent the next few minutes very carefully wandering around on the other side of the store.
I relaxed a great deal when
It was a most excellent show. He opened with a stirring rendition of "Wilted Rose", which may be my favorite song on the solo album, and then followed it up with a mix of Vanity Project songs and BNL stuff, both classic ("Brian Wilson", "Old Apartment") and recent ("Upside Down"). He was friendly and funny, not as wacky as he would be at a BNL show, but that makes sense when he doesn't have the guys to play off of. In a way, this felt more authentic than a super-jokey manner would have.
Afterwards, we lined up to meet the artist. He signed my album, after checking that he had the right spelling of my name, talked to us briefly about an upcoming show in Denver, and then posed cheerfully for a picture with me despite technical difficulties with
Whee!!
On a completely unrelated topic, my afternoon workstudy student rocks. I had a terrible, tiny computer monitor on my desk in this office. I asked him if I could have one of the extra monitors that are lying around (they've been cleaning out classrooms and offices lately, digging up all kinds of stuff), and he gave me the best of the bunch. Glorious.