Drama! - My Evening with Erasure

Last night was a night of a few firsts for me:
1. First “subway” ride
2. First time at the Ford theatre
3. First time at Hollywood and Highland
4. First time being propositioned (and in Spanish, no less)
5. First time I’ve ever had such good seats at a concert

#1 – I have never been to any major world city, let alone U.S. city to experience this before. However, the city of Los Angeles finally has an underground method of mass transportation. This was my first experience on the metro subway system. While cleaner than I would have expected, the stereotypes of such were nevertheless proved true. Inevitably, we encountered the dregs of society: gangster types, the crazies talking to themselves, the out of control teenagers, and the hideous smells that permeate and pervade mass transit systems.

#2 – I have never been to a concert at the Ford Amphitheatre. Having recently attended concerts held at the Hollywood Bowl and the Greek, I was anticipating a large venue in the out of doors. Not so the case! This place was tiny, and holds slightly more than 1200 seats. It is located in LA (in the hills of Hollywood), not so far away from the Bowl and the Greek, but it is a much more scaled down version. I would love to attend another event there as the location allowed for a greater sense of intimacy and participation. And also it was a beautiful venue!

#3 – Ford only offers stacked parking and I HATE stacked parking. This is the case at the Greek and the Bowl as well. When we were at the Greek, we were unable to get out of the parking lot for quite some time due to the people around us not getting back to their cars in a timely fashion. At the Bowl, the idiot in front of us actually backed in to my car (minimal damage done, thank goodness) while trying some creative maneuvering trying to get out since he did not have the patience to wait for others to get back to their vehicles. So rather than another disastrous experience in stacked parking, we decided to park at the Hollywood and Highland mall and take the subway and bus/shuttle to the Ford. Hollywood and Highland is of course a “famous” intersection where they have now built a mall attached to Graumann’s Chinese Theatre. The trend in CA lately seems to be to build open air malls instead of traditional enclosed malls. And in the cities where land is a commodity, these malls are built in a really weird multi-level, terraced fashion. It’s kind of neat, but sometimes is annoying when you cannot find the store you want. Anyway, we only briefly entered the mall to find a meal and use the facilities before we were off. But I want to back because there is an actual Aveda store there as well as a MAC store. That can only bode well for whatever other retailers are housed within that I don’t yet know about.

#4 – While my sister Patty and I like to joke at calling each other “hooker” or some other similar insult, I’ve never actually been mistaken for a hooker. I don’t honestly think I was mistaken for such last night (in blue jeans, tennis shoes and a T shirt, who would?) but I was propositioned, and in Spanish no less. This happened because I was alone due to the fact that my concert companion, Jill, got suckered in to having her fortune told by one of the teenage ruffians on the subway. This girl was sitting nearby us and started telling us all about how she could see our futures and would tell us our fortune for $10. This is after having learned from her that she is 3rd generation Romanian. Whatever! So I less than politely declined but Jill doesn’t know how to say no sometimes. So she agreed and after we surfaced, the gypsy told me she needed privacy for the reading. So I walked away and sat on the bottom steps of the Hollywood and Highland mall (this was a little after 11 p.m.). People were still walking out of the mall (this area is high traffic) and a couple of guys came down the section of stairs I was sitting on and just stared at me. So I stared back. Rude is rude and I was going to reciprocate. So then one of the guys says “Hey baby” (blech, ew, gross) and continues walking. I rolled my eyes at him and glared as I don’t know why some guys are stupid enough to think a woman will be titillated or encouraged by such rude twaddle. He kept walking away, but was doing so backwards so that he could continue staring and shouting at me because now he was just being nasty in an effort to be sinister and punishing. He quickly switched from English and began making offers in Spanish. The further he got away, the harder it was for me to understand, but I can confidently say I got the gist. Thanks, Jill, for leaving me alone while the gypsy “cleansed your damaged aura” and promised to light a candle for you for 9 days.

#5 – It was a stroke of pure luck that I was even able to obtain tickets since the number was so limited, but I wish blessings for the Ticketmaster Operator who obtained this for me when I called a few months ago. We were in the second row, dead center of the stage. Andy was less than 6 feet directly in front of me nearly the entire time. The people in the front rows seats directly in front of us never showed up, so my view was unimpaired! My eyes locked with Andy numerous times throughout the evening and I could not help but be thrilled.

The music was fantastic. It was acoustic-style, which really allowed for the purity of the vocals and lyrics to shine. I had a fair amount of trepidation about the remake of their best songs and how they would be presented (after all, Erasure is self-proclaimed Electronica in nature). Now I think this is something every talented musical ensemble should offer to their fans. WOW. The voice of Andy Bell really is an instrument and he knows how to use it. I’ve always appreciated the lyrics and I think Vince’s gift as a songwriter is in imagery and poetry. I’m certainly not trying to wax poetic myself because after all, it was just a concert! But I really had a wonderful evening because of the beauty of the music. I love music and Erasure has been at the top of my favorites since I was 13 years old.

A little about the concert… first of all, it was way too short. Having recently seen Depeche Mode I was disappointed that Erasure did not sing longer. I guess you are limited when an electronic band goes acoustical because they probably had very few arrangements to even present. But still!! They started around 8:30 pm and were done well before 11 pm. They sang nearly all of the songs on the Union Street album and sang GREAT arrangements on some of their best loved songs and hits (Like Chains of Love, Breathe, Blue Savannah, etc.). Andy was true to form and danced around and shimmied and shook and entertained. Of course, an Erasure concert in Hollywood meant that Jill and I were among VERY few in the audience who were heterosexual. The crowd was subdued for the most part and it wasn’t until the end when we finally leapt to our feet and danced, clapped, swayed, and moved to the beat that it really became lively. My favorite moment was when Andy (accompanied only by the guitar) got on his knees to sing ‘How Many Times?’. My favorite outfit was the VERY middle-aged Billy Idol look-alike who came in his leather pants, dress shirt, and red velvet jacket. My favorite song was the Salsa-like rendition of Blue Savannah.