• Mood: cheerful
• Music: Tori Amos

ten feet from Steven Page

That's where I was last night, at his solo show in the Mountain View Tower Records yesterday.

I was meeting luvmoose and grue23 at the store; they were a few minutes behind me, so I took some time to wander around and looking at music. Flipping through some bin or another, I looked up, and on the other side of the fixture, someone else was wandering around the store and looking at music.

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 luvmoose and grue23 arrived. The three of us continued to wander and talk music. About half an hour before the show started, we gathered up by the "stage" (really just a microphone and some speakers in a corner of the store). We took places at the front, and I ended up in the front row. grue23 was in that place at first; he offered to switch with me, and I almost said no. But in the end, I couldn't resist, and I watched Steven Page perform from ten feet away.

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 luvmoose's new camera. I will post the photo as soon as I get it.

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.