As we were going in, this guy stopped us and asked if he could take our picture. It turns out he was working with collegeclub.com, and they were taking pictures for their website. I thought that was pretty cool. So we found our seats (we had a great view!) and saw Tonic play. I was surprised that I liked them. They seemed a lot louder and heavier than I expected. But anyway, back to the story! So then we waited, but it wasn't long before we saw all these crazy flashing lights on stage and disco-type music was playing. I didn't think it was the Goos yet, because I hadn't heard about them adding this to the show, but sure enough, there they were running on stage to the opening of Dizzy.
The whole show was so awesome! I noticed that John and Robby seemed to really click that night. It was so cool to see them interact like that. They just really looked like they were having a good time. John's soloing was so impressive, he was just seriously getting into it. The show had so much energy! John told the Ricky Martin joke, which was a big hit in Mississippi. He introduced Two Days In February as "a song about a girl who turned out to be a bitch," which I thought was sorta interesting. And I got to hear "A Thousand Words," and it was so touching.
John's voice was so beautiful. Even though I seemed to be about the only one there who knew the words to all the songs, the crowd really got into and sang along with Iris (John stopped singing and just let the crowd take it) and Slide. After that, when they left the stage, everyone started chanting "We want more! We want more!" So then they came out and played the encore, which of course, was great!
The show ended and I got Jamie to go down front with me to see if we could get a pick or something from the security and crew. They handed the setlists to these other girls (!) but one of the guys did feel bad for us, and just as we were about to leave, he handed us each one of Nathan's picks. It's yellow and says "Goo" on the front, and on the back, it says "12". It's pretty cool.
So then, as we were leaving, Jamie asked me what I wanted to do now, and I said "Um... Do you want to be really crazy and go stand by the bus and see if we can get their autograph?" I was sort of kidding, since she's not a big Goo fan, but we actually did it. We just walked down next to the tour buses (the security was so lax at this place!). There were maybe twenty or thirty people waiting around. The guy from Tonic came out and signed autographs and took pictures. Then, after a while (maybe ten minutes), I hear all these girls screaming. And we all know what that meant. "Johnny! Johnny!" I looked up and there he was, standing two feet away from me. Everyone was pressing in on him, getting him to take pictures and sign stuff. It was chaos! It felt almost like those clips you see of the Beatles hysteria with their teenage fans and everything. But anyway, I'm normally very shy, but I really wanted to get John to sign my DUTG cd jacket, so I held it up and waited patiently. Eventually he reached up and took it from my hand and signed it and gave it back. Then he signed one more autograph and said bye to us and got on the bus.
I was so lucky! It sounds cheesy, but it meant a lot to me, since he's basically my guitar hero and I am a huge, huge Goo fan! Robby came by with some girl (who looks very very much like the girl on the Fly2K commercial, it turns out... hmmm) and got in the bus. Then Mike ran out of the bus and into the coliseum to apparently go and get a shirt or something to give to the bus driver. Then the bus backed out (and I finally got to see Elmo!) and they drove off. Jamie and I headed to the car, me smiling the whole time because I had the BEST time that night! Thank you, Goo Goo Dolls, for being so good to your fans and for putting on such an awesome show!