Well, that was just a hell of a lot of fun. I have seen a number of QAL concerts all the way from the nosebleeds to an aisle seat near the runway and that 'been there, done that' attitude encouraged me to try my very first onstage experience and what a good choice it was. Absolutely worth every incremental penny. I'm not sure that is true for all the previous onstage tickets. A couple of the people I spoke to said this opera box set-up was quite the best.
My trip to Dallas and to the American Airlines Center was uneventful. It was a lovely day for a drive, the roads were clear, and the speed limit on a lot of interstates is now 75 mph. People in Texas call that a suggestion and so I got to Dallas in under 3 hours at 80+ish. I was so excited that I got to the venue early but there was really no need. Your VIP ticket gets you two drinks (beer or wine) and the appetizers, as someone else said, were not in the same ballpark as the spread provided at the Forum in LA. The tour didn't start until 7:10 so I just hung out and talked to a couple of people.
The backstage tour was quite short but entertaining. We didn't go anywhere near the dressing rooms, although we did see Neil and Tyler walk by. Tyler tried to hide but the stage manager who was speaking did not let him. You couldn't see a lot and really, much more interesting stuff could be seen from the opera box ... more on that later. I asked the videographer about the integration of live to recorded video in Radio Gaga and despite what
kryptoman68 said here
www.adamtopia.com/post/922870, the videographer said it was done totally with magic.
So, what's a girl to believe?
I also asked the stage manager if Harley provided the "bicycle" and he said no, they just went into a dealer and bought it right off the floor. I hope they at least gave him a nice cup of tea or a beer! I didn't ask what they were going to do with it after - I think they should raffle it off to the crew, QAL license plate and all.
On to the Opera Box experience. As is obvious from the videos, there are four opera boxes. You are assigned a box but not an actual seat by the VIP crew and the boxes are numbered 1 → 4 from left to right as you are facing them. I tried not to hope for a particular box because I wanted the one in the middle on the right behind Brian's station, so I could see Adam come and go and be close when he is on the riser behind Roger ... and *drum roll* ... I got Box 3!!! Damn, I was excited. When we got to the boxes, there were 10 stackable movable chairs in two rows of five. I was last up and so seated on the second row and the lady I had been speaking to was disappointed because apparently, the last time she had purchased an onstage seat, people were not very accomodating. I told her, don't worry I will speak to folks. She said good luck with that, but I asked in my best charming old lady reasonable voice
and pointed out that in the box next to us they had already moved all the chairs to the back (there was plenty of room) and why don't we do the same. Done! You can basically squeeze 8 people standing along the balcony railing so there was some shifting around during the concert but it went well. BTW, there is a monitor mounted into the solid railing showing a feed from the front of the B stage, so occasionally we would move out of the way to see some fun thing, like Brian standing on an asteroid. Of course we could actually see Brian securely strapped to a crazily high lift. I'm glad he's not afraid of heights (or Adam either during BR). You also have your very own security guard to make sure there is no hanky panky going on.
So what can I say about watching and listening to the concert from behind the band, facing out toward the arena, only a little above stage level? Lots, I am not even sure where to start. I won't speak in length to the music, we have all heard it so often, but let me tell you, it is loud but overall quite balanced. No wonder Roger has hearing loss. All praise my good earplugs!!! A few things stand out.
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First and perhaps most surprising to me was how small and intimate the venue felt. That's crazy because there were 15,000 people there all the way up into the rafters but from the stage they felt close. It just reinforces the whole concept of a direct feedback loop between the performers and the audience.
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Second, and don't get nervous now, but those guys on stage can see you - really! If you are anywhere close to the stage, they can see every look on your face. It's totally reasonable that Adam called out that guy that time, whenever it was. When I wasn't watching the band, I was watching the people and man oh man, were they having a good time. There was face-warping smiling, dancing and jumping, chill cool-guy attitude, adoration, and just general joy all around. There was one lady on the front row who caught my eye that I decided was perhaps blind. She was wearing sunglasses and very still but she would turn toward any individual source of music like a sunflower toward the sun. My favorite was two guys (late 20s, early 30s) obviously together who were on the front row right in the notch of the main stage and the runway. They almost never took their eyes off Adam with complete deer-in-the-headlights, gob-smacked adoration. If my feet got tired from standing, I just looked at them for sustenance. It was wonderful.
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Third, Brian does without doubt love the lights during LOML, but pardon me if I say that it is not because of Freddie, but because of his deep love of the stars. It is really beautiful and by letting go just a little, you can imagine yourself adrift in space. It was only then that I understood how big the arena was because the lights from the nosebleed rafters made you feel that space was infinite.
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Fourth, OMG, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders! What a surprise and what incredible fun. The arena erupted. Since I could only really see them from behind, I was glad the official video showed that they were interacting and responding to Brian and Adam because both of them were having a really good time, well all of the band and stage crew were having a good time, and why the hell not, those were some fine, not fat-bottomed girls.
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Fifth, you know all those times that Adam has his back to us and is facing Roger, well he really is hamming it up and entertaining Roger. So if you see from the front that Roger is smiling, it is because Adam has done something funny or charming. Adam is never by himself on stage, he is always looking for someone to interact with, it is obviously his life's breath.
Unfortunately sometimes, he is interacting with the sound crew and there was quite a bit of that in Dallas. He spent a lot of time with his earpieces out because he was not getting the feed he wanted, so I guess we need to start worrying about his hearing on top of everything else we think we need to worry about.
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Sixth, I promised I would talk a little bit about the staging. One of the guys in the box with me was a lighting and sound engineer for a venue in OK City; he and I got all nerdy just looking at and watching all the tech and rigging. Just wow! One time when we got distracted slightly away from the music, we looked up and that giant screen above the opera box was all the way out, almost horizontal, with the back end no more that four feet from our head. We laughed because the two young women in the box were totally oblivious to their near concussion. Of course, it's not really a screen but a mesh with scads of tiny little LEDs and not only can you see through it, but there are large spotlight grids behind the LEDs. The grid above the box is 4x4. During the tour the stage manager said that the movable grids were meant to be able to position as a direct homage to Queen's famous touring rig that I think I remember they called the Pizza Oven!?! Anyway, it was amazing.
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Seventh, I should probably try winding this humongous recap up, so let me skip to the stage bows at the end and tell you that Adam's applause is only very very slightly less than Brian and Roger's. They were loud for "the rest of the band" but when Adam stepped forward, the arena roared! I felt like the Grinch, what was it the Narrator says, "And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say – that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day." ❤️❤️❤️
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ighth and my final Opera Box comment. No food or water is allowed in the boxes and it does get hot. You can walk a long way to water and toilets, but who wants to leave. I was glad I got to park close to the venue and that I had a large Yeti glass full of ice water in the car. I spent the first five minutes just basking in the car AC and drinking water. So make sure you have water in your car.
I will close with Adam waved at me.
What, you want more Well I got waves from Brian (he turned around a lot to acknowledge the proletariat) and also Roger once when he was going down the backstage stairs. But my favorite was of course Adam. He was going down the stairs and we were all acting goofy but he smiled and waved right at us. The lady to my right laughed and said he waved to you. I said he was just waving at the box and she said no, he was waving at you. A few minutes later she said, see I got a photo, and sure enough he is waving directly at me. I probably glowed at that point.