San Diego: BIGfoot or bust!

So, yeah…you are looking at the title and thinking…wha?!?!?!?

Let me explain…(WARNING, mcwordy words start here…)

So one of my friends is very much…uhmmm, specific in that a certain contestant from this year’s Rockstar Supernova, has uhmmm, BIG feet. And you all know what that fact leads many to conclude………………………………

Consequently, post show, a small few of us have been referring to this Artist come rocker as BIGfoot. It is our fun little nickname as it were…both highly amusing and provocative. We are easily amused, clearly.

Anyway, this muscian, is none other than Mr. Ryan Star. I had been following his progress since he left the show. I was a bit perturbed that I was able to make a taping literally the only week he was absent, as he had been eliminated the week prior, and came back for encore the week following…the Sunday I was there, was seriously the only Ryan-less taping ALL freakin’ summer… Not fair, lol ;) Sheesh, what do I have to do to see this guy on stage? Well, it just gets funnier (though I might have lacked amusement along the way!). It is announced that he will be hitting some west coast cities before returning for his big ‘welcome home’ in NYC. I was excited because this meant I would not have to miss him, nor contemplate traversing the continent for yet another rocker… Sounds good, yes?

Yes, well… Once the dates were announced…I was like, ooh, a Seattle date! Yay, home….errr…oh no! it is during the time while I am in CALIFORNIA…grrrrrr!!!! What the hell. Seriously?!?!?! BIGfoot is trying to escape me. So my mind starts churning…what to do…do I see if somehow I can switch weeks with my sister (we are helping my mom out)? No, that is not cool, I had already committed to being in Fresno for a very specific time. What else could I do. I looked at all the dates available, and note that there is a stop in San Diego the Friday that I was due to arrive in CA. Well, I immediately contact my So Cal buddies and am like…hey do you all want to get together in SD and see Ryan aka BIGfoot? Answer: yes! BIGfoot was on the itinerary. The planning commenced.

So I bought tickets, literally the day BEFORE they went on a 2fer. So typical! Then I finally schedule my open jaw flight…literally the day AFTER the prices go up like a $100…Gee, I am just full of luck, eh? Whatever…nothing is getting in my way…BIGfoot will NOT escape again! Logistically we even had some rearrangements to tackle last minute…including waiting until the day before to book hotel, where ONLY one room is left. We were getting to San Diego, but is was NOT easy, people! Good news towards our arrival in this lovely Southern California city…one of our other concert buddies was in So Cal, and would also be joining us! Yay! We were SOOOOOO going to be having a good time. These peeps are my FAVORITE people to hang out with and see a show. Pure fun we have. Pure fun we would have. Heck, BIGfoot could bomb(he would not), and we would still have a raging good time. That is our way. Good times or bust!

So we arrive in San Diego…nice room! Yay. Things are going well. We all get ready and head to the House of Blues. We plan to have dinner there, so we get first in privileges. All is as planned. We arrive, and as we are waiting to be seated, first sighting, as the BIGfoot-mobile rolls up behind us, waiting at the light to go around the block to the entrance to the showroom. Yeah, BIGfoot is too cool for school, slipping his shades on…I am sure the fabulousness of all that was 5th Avenue was overwhelming, lol;) My friend, who is the one that is very much responsible for all of these feet references, SQUEE’s---‘that’s Ryan!’ LMAO. Yes, we are sooooooo going to have a good time. We just have to sit down, order some food, and have a drink! Ooh, I had a mojito…yum! So we eat, we amuse ourselves...


Eventually, the rests of our crew shows up. We then head out to find our early entrance line. Well, this gets a little comical. We literally were led 2-3times back and forth through the restaurant and back, being directed different places where we were supposed to be….errr! What the…. Anyway, we finally found the ‘line’ we were supposed to be in, first we were…shocking. Here's a picture of us (or our feet, lol) as we wait...


So finally, we get to go in, and most of us head right up front, as that is what we had all done this for. We are front row wenches, we were not to be distracted! But wouldn’t you know it…a few were…the merchandise table held a few rapt for a bit…but they soon realized their distraction and glided over to the stage along side us and some other cool fans. Many of the folks there were for reasons OTHER than BIGfoot. That is cool. We made friends with them, told them they could scoot right up front after Ryan…Always make friends with those around you! Rule one of successful Front Row experiences (we should write a book gals! Eh?)

So we are there, about an hour before BIGfoot is scheduled to grace us with his dark presence. What to do? Well, we should probably get drinks. So we send a couple of our peeps up stairs to the bar. They, so nicely volunteer to get us drinks. Well funny, they are ceremoniously told, after they order like 5 or 7 drinks between the two of them, that they were not allowed to bring them back…and they had already been made so…what to do…well, they courageously knocked them ALL back. What seemed like an eternity later, they come back to us, making their way through the fan friends we had made…and told us this sad tale. Needless to say, they were feeling GRAND! Shocking, I know.

Pre-show we got to see the very Zen one that is referred to as Elephant Eye…Stoney, some will call him. He recognized some of the others from previous shows, and I make sure and point out to the others that the Zen one is in the house. He seems very cool. I am glad Ryan looks to have some very cool people in his circle. Also, once our imbibed gals rejoin us, I decide to go ‘powder my nose’ and check out the merch table. I decide I should support them, and I guess I will get a tshirt, since I already have both CD’s. So I proceed to have the gal working the table (who I would later figure out is the one oft referred to as CakeorDeath) to pull out at least 4 differernt sizes of shirt. Needless to say, I decide on the last shirt extacted. So I head back over to the stage…Soon, the show would commence.
So, finally…the shadow of the TALL dark one enters the stage…Squee! Behind the keys he first sits. My friend that KNOWS feet, nudges me, ‘he is good looking, yes?’ Yes, lol. He is. Shocking, not!

My impression of Mr. Star, on stage is that he is VERY much INTO his music. Completely drowning in it. He is a one man show here, this night, and yet, he does fill the stage, and his concentration and sheer intensity is palpable and very cool. I believe he could have been up there, with none of us there, and the same energy, and intensity would have happened. I see a true artist on stage. Once he steps out from behind the keys and the Zen one hands him a guitar…he comes up front of stage, and we really get to view and feel, the intensity a bit closer.

That said, the aforementioned friend, nudges me again…’see feet?!?!’ Uhmmm, yes, of course, and yes, they are, in fact, BIG. Confirmed.

BIGfoot lives!

So, throughout this night, amidst the intense and emotional performance, there is much squeeing along side me…much, errmm, mentions of foot size, and some conversation of his eternal hotness. We are rather obvious in our observations, no? Yeah, uhmmm. Friend next to me calls other friend that is home far far away, as she is ALSO a BIGfoot admirer, to let her listen in to the show. In addition to basically allowing said remote friend to enjoy the show audio-ly, she also gets to hear our squees, etc, and references to foot size. I am sure, even remotely, we are highly amusing, or not, lol;) Hey, we amuse ourselves! At one point during the night, early on I think….BIGfoot is close to front of stage, right in front of us, playing his guitar, he is starting, what I think is a somewhat serious number…and I think some of the squeeing from my friends along side me, penetrated his concentration, lol…I believe we got ‘shushed’! bwah! I think it was half in jest, or not, errr…my friends that were most excitable though, failed to even take this in…they were having too good a time…Sorry Ryan, we are in our own little world. Oh well, clearly we were all enjoying ourselves. Soon enough, BIGfoot, errr, Ryan, drowns once again back into his performance…all squee’s aside, the night’s performance is quite good, interesting, and intense.

At the end of the show, Ryan, grabs his backpack(yes I said BACKPACK) and hops off stage…this is too funny…shifted from that guy on stage, intense and dark, to a normal guy, off to his next destination (just a few feet away, but still! lol)

Following the BIGfoot show, we retreat, handing our front row spots to the Cheyenne fans behind us..they were very excited. Fans working together, very cool.

We make our way over to the merch table, to where the de-packed Ryan has set up shop. Folks there to see him , are lined up to buy more merch, have stuff signed, get pictures w/him, etc. Our group is a jumbled one, chatting and wandering off at intervals as we await our turn. Honestly, I already had my cd’s, and had already bought my shirt, so I really had nothing to do. So just hung out w/the girls…chatting and waiting. My friends all picked up one of the CD’s. Most got them signed. I believe my one friend introduced herself to CakeorDeath and identified herself as the one that most often referred to the Dark one as the one with BIG feet…CorD amusingly retorted, that they were very thankful, bwah! I am dying. Some more amusing interactions followed, and then we were done for a bit…the Dark one aka BIGfoot, continued for a long while to do his job, signing and posing…His fans might have not been vast here, but they were very dedicated. He is much loved. After the show, we saw some of the Cheyenne(the headliner) fans exit w/some of Ryan’s CD’s, etc…yay! New fans. Always a good thing.

So after we dispersed, we briefly went back to our hotel...I opened a an event thread on Rockband.com including the set list...thoughts of decoding the extended scribblings?!?!?! I will leave that to your imagination...


…I left the Zen one a comment about how cool he was on his myspace…then we went back to the HOB to have a few cocktails as the main show, and set breakdown finished up…

Once it was all over, we all hung out at another club for a bit…as per our typical beverage of choice while in San Diego especially, Cosmos were flowing. Yum. This club, no idea what it was, I was just a sheep this night, and followed my friends, opened my wallet for what I thought was a steep cover, $20…but hey, it did look pretty trendy…so out came my hard earned cash…we all got stamped w/the invisible stamp…how classy (sarcasm). We go in, ‘My Humps’ is playing, our eyes roll, lol;) Overall though, good mix of music, for all ages, lol…good mix of people…including BIGfoot, the Zen one, etc who we eventually ran into. I think they thought we were quite odd, as we liked to take pictures of our feet and what not…LMAO. Seriously, do we have a problem????? Don’t answer this. We all live with our own illusions;)

...I believe this is SOH's, the Zen one, and my feet...the Zen one is apparently giving either our feet or us the bird! lmao...


And then Stoney show's us his famous pose...


After we had our fill of cosmos, took pictures (of our feet, etc) we eventually leave to go for yet, another meal, just my small group of friends…some of us decided we deserved another meal, and one had missed dinner earlier, so…of courses, 1-2oclock is a normal time to have another meal, right? So what do you call a meal between Dinner and Breakfast? LMAO, well I had breakfast, and I think the others had either items off of the lunch or breakfast menu…then we all toddle back to our hotel, to crash for about 4hours, before we must break back to our real lives.

As we all awake about 7ish the next morning, we are chatting, and it comes up that NONE of us had told BIGfoot that he had a great show, or thanked him for the performance, etc…What the heck kind of fans are we?!?!? Oh, well, I hope our endless squee, and our obvious admiration were just that, obvious. It was our little ‘Oscar moment’ where we forgot the most obvious thing…to thank the artist. 20 lashes!

So the great adventure to see BIGfoot had wrapped up…myself and one other stay behind to have breakfast on the roof of the hotel, and we witness a serious downpour in usually sunny San Diego…nice, lol…

Soon, we leave, I pick up a car at the airport to drive up to Fresno…pop the Dark Horse CD in…6hrs later, I arrive here…Ryan’s voice was a perfect accompaniment for my journey. Never once changed the CD out. Nice.

Right now, I know BIGfoot is in Seattle, my hometown, and his most faithful there, are excitedly anticipating him taking the stage. They will not be disappointed.

I wish all of them the best, and Ryan a great show. My belated thanks to him and his…. I can’t wait to hear where the future next takes him in his career, his success, and his fans. BIGfoot, forever;)

www.rstar.net
Rockband.com forum on Ryan Star
www.myspace.com/rstar