Cellcert 7/25/07 :: Meadowbrook - Gilford, NH

[Marilyn]

Excellent job, Marilyn!!!

This is fun!

[Marilyn]

Jerome said, "Don't let someone standing next to you mess up your evening!" (talking about using flashes)

Cellcerter said a security guard could not believe how quiet and organized the crowd is waiting for Clay

[Sundancer]

Cellcerter said a security guard could not believe how quiet and organized the crowd is waiting for Clay

We're so impressive.

[Marilyn]

Glad you are still with me, Sunny!!
The cellcerters phone is great-cant hear lots of noise- she thinks he is coming. They are toward the beginning of the line

[Marilyn]

He just came by and cellcerter got a touch

Thats it folks!!

Goodnight

Next concert--I will BE THERE!!!

[Sundancer]

Glad you are still with me, Sunny!!

Always, my dear.

Sweet dreams!

[Marilyn]

Does anyone know if we have a person for the conference call on Saturday?

[KSChristian4Clay]

I'll be bringing everything over Saturday.  Can't wait! 

[Marilyn]

I'll be bringing everything over Saturday.  Can't wait! 

Hey my friend- no I meant that Claymaniacs can call into.

[ILClaymate]

Does anyone know if we have a person for the conference call on Saturday?

Marilyn ~ no we don't.  Volunteers accepted though. 

Shameless plug:  If anyone has an upcoming concert they are attending and would be willing to use your cell minutes to call into our conference line, please pm myself, Pamela or aikenseeker and we will get you on the schedule.  Thanks ya'll!!

[Marilyn]

Does anyone know if we have a person for the conference call on Saturday?

Marilyn ~ no we don't.  Volunteers accepted though. 

Shameless plug:  If anyone has an upcoming concert they are attending and would be willing to use your cell minutes to call into our conference line, please pm myself, Pamela or aikenseeker and we will get you on the schedule.  Thanks ya'll!!

WELL I AM GOING TO BE WAY BACK IN ROW P, BUT I AM WILLING TO GIVE IT A SHOT.

[Marilyn]

[Marilyn]

[Marilyn]

OMIGAWD!! THE RIVET IS BACK!! AND BABY SURE HAS DEVELOPED SOME NICE..............UM, MOVES!!

[ChrisieD]

 

[mrs. c.]

Ditto

[Marilyn]

Few recaps from Meadowbrook posted at the CB via CH

Lawd Jesus, the show was wonderful!! He was very upbeat, funny, and voice was right on.

The big joke of the night were the New Hampshire bugs. Hundreds of them in the light on stage surrounding him and the girls. Clay joked that they were in his shirt, up his nose, and he swallowed one. Someone put a can of bug spray on stage and Clay was spraying the girls and everyone.

I'm sure you heard by now, the "A Thousand Days" replacement song is Right Here Waiting for You. OMG. We heard him rehearsing this song at 6pm. The rehearsal was late because they forgot the music sheets for the orchestra and had to get faxed copies of everything.

The stage here is very high, so he sat on the edge with his legs dangling over two different times. He looked beautiful. But he did not come out into the audience tonight.

Party All Night was HAWT!

During "Because You Loved Me", we all had glow sticks. The place was lit up.

Immediately after the show, they were lining us up, not by the bus, but throughout the venue grounds where all the food/beverage stands were, all the way out to the parking lots. He was brought to the end of the line first on a cart, so he ended at the beginning, closer to the bus. Seemed about 500 people on line. Very fast, but I got his hand.

Clay kept adjusting his shirt down-

the spirit of wheezy was in da house...dance moves to "Movin On Up" were da bomb...you gotta download this one.

Clay said they left the stools and orchestra sheet music at the last venue- so they had a late sound check (that's why the people waiting in line for the Buffett" were able to catch some of the songs). Gave props to the orchestra for learning the songs on such short notice.

Lots of bug talk- Quiana looked very uncomfortable with the flying livestock. Clay kept referring to horses (as the size of the bugs...as in they are as big as a horse). When one or 2 huge moths came by, Clay would back up to get away from them- I don't blame hiim - they were huge. Clay said you have no idea how many bugs are up here. Using Off bug spray. Also- a skunk was obviously in the neighborhood in the first half....Clay said they would be remembering this concert for sure. Quiana hit Clay with one of the seat cushions to get a bug off him- they were given seat cushions by members of the audience after Clay explained they did not have their ususal stools...

And -- Clay carried on a conversation from the stage with my Sweetie... MY Sweetie! (insert bouncing up & down here). After a rousing set of upbeat numbers, Sweetie sat down while everyone else was still standing. Clay noticed immediately and proceeded to tell him "DON'T SIT DOWN!!!" When Sweetie stood up and said "But I'm blocking the view of everyone 7 rows behind me" Clay said "OMG!!! You're like 7 feet tall or something!" (He's 6'5" but in his work boots, which he was wearing -- size 13! -- he's about 6'7" . He also pointed out that Sweetie probably didn't really want to be there tonight. :-) There was no time to explain to him that the reason he was there was because we'd made an agreement that if I'd go with him to see Black Sabbath in NY (which I did back in March), he'd go with me to a Clay concert. We each kept our end of the bargain!

Oh, remember how funny he was when he was talking about how humid and hot it was tonight? While looking out at the audience, he said "I think all of y'all should go like this" -- and -- with apologies to Lauren Bacall -- he put his lips together and blew out a big puff of air! What a hoot he is!

At one point, he hugged the seat cushion to his chest as if it were his most prized possession, but don't ask me what song he was singing at the time. I think I must go into some sort of trance while he's performing because all I can remember are the beautiful soaring notes and the vision of the man before me, but not the song title itself. LOL!

And he changed the words of another song to "something, something, and the mosquitoes". :-)

From clayleen at CB:

I don't think I've ever heard Clay's voice sound better than it did tonight. Just amazing and strong right through the entire show to the last song.

Very funny with the ongoing bug banter tonight. I hope there is clack of this. You should have seen the expression on Clay's face when Quianna told him there was one on his back and she was afraid to swat it. She finally got up and hit him with the chair cushion which, of course, he made a big deal out of her beating the crap out of him!

Speaking of the chair cushions....Clay was hilarious when they gave him the cushion and it said "tear here to inflate" so he tears the tag off and expects the cushion to automatically inflate itself. When it didn't, he starts blowing into it and then comments that he hoped no one's butt had just been on it!

The TV medleys and the Classics were wonderful. Clay commented before the TV medleys that some people were saying how he should stop doing them, but you could tell he was snarking on everyone and there is no way he is going to stop doing them. And he shouldn't....they were so much fun for those on stage and for us in the audience. The Classics were a riot. It gets more and more campy every night, as they all vamp it up on stage. Another fun part of the show for all! And Clay's dancing......OMG......over the top tonight!

I'm still in awe of how Clay's voice holds up through this show. He doesn't hold back a single note. He goes for every one of them and gets them. Every note was perfect.

The glow sticks at the end were amazing. You could see how touched all of them were by that. Someone gave Angela and Quianna one, and they were waving them during "Because You Loved Me". He signed thank you, gave the audience a huge smile and was gone.

I can’t think right now of half of the other funny moments and comments he made. I’m still a little clazed by it all. The cellcert picked up on a lot of it, and I hope we have great clack from this one!

One final thing…the audience was incredible. Standing ovations all over the place and loud cheering for every song. NH showed Clay the love tonight. I hope he remembers that, despite the mosquitoes!!!

FROM heavens2,

P.S. -- forgot to mention that this particular concert was being filmed by local news crews and apparently will be aired on TV in a couple of weeks. Lucky New Hampshire folks!

[Marilyn]

FROM LYLEKIRA AT CV

LAWD JESUS!!!

I'm very itchy today due to the influx of every bug in New England to the Clay Aiken concert last night, but alas I am smiling. I'm tired and will need a nap, but I just had a blast reading the concert thread from last night. Its a funny perspective when you see all the gaps from what you can and can't get from the cellstream. All those time you guys where like "what are they laughing at" it was probably Clay running, ducking, swatting in fear of the on-stage assualt he took during the concert. It truly was hysterical.

I will work up a true umbearably long recap after my nap...but let me just say the RIVET jeans did make an appearance, but none of us knew it until The Classics. The red glow sticks might have sounded cheesy, but it was amazing. All of a sudden during the first few chords of "Because You Loved Me" and right after Clay said "This is for you" about 1,000 red glow sticks went up simultaneously. A, Q, and Clay's faces lit up with wonderment. A & Q were given each one as well. The whole crowd waved them back in forth in unison to the music and Clay just smiled and smiled through the song. At the end, they gave us an extra little thank you and stood there a few seconds to acknowledge the gesture, and then he was gone.

DD#1 was there and was able to get an extra second and recognitiion from Clay in the handshake line. He spotted her and bent to her and said "Well hey there darlin'" while grabbing both of her hands. She was speechless. In fact as we all kept saying "How cool was that" to her, she just smiled and blushed coyly, almost embarrassed at her good fortune. It was the moment I hoped for her and the reason I personally braved an extra hour with the bugs before making the long trek back to Rhode Island.

Clay was amazing and amazing and amazing....

[Marilyn]

Recap from corabeth at the CH:


QUOTE("Corabeth")
My long Meadowbrook recap.


Our seats were in the section to the left of the stage, two two seats from the inner aisle. Those folks were VIP subscribers but didn't show so we slid down after the first song and I was on the absolute aisle. Great seats especially as Meadowbrook as the stage is so high and the Jumbotrons are huge (and the camera operators are very good at what they do.)

Random funnies and observations since some have been covered already

Flashers were horrible at the beginning and then security patrolled them to stop. One lady in our row wouldn't stop so we ratted her out. Some screamers in the 7th row had these plastic clappy things that were loud and obnoxious. They were the Jesse and Sean fanclub. I don't get it. Jesse is really cute but Sean looks 9 years old.

When he sang TWYMMF, he sang the line “kiss me baby and tell me twice” one line early so he sang lalalala something that rhymes with twice!”

I think the bugs got worse after they sprayed The Off. One was so big, he could have put a saddle on it. When he called for us to dance, he said “Clap your hands, maybe you would kill something.”

They forgot the stools and the music at the last venue. The had these little wooden stools that were very short. When he played with the blue cushion, I thought for sure we were going to get a whoopie cushion joke.

He sat on the edge of the stage to sing "Everytime You Go Away"...right at the start of the aisle where my new aisle seat was. MrNan pointed out the striped socks. He sang it very bluesey/R&B and it was great. Download that baby if it shows up.

He called Quiana, “Key” once. It was cute.

After The West Wing, he reminded them that the President from TWW was from New Hampshire.

Angela looked a bit nervous during her solo and remarked later that it was “close”. I guess her voice is not 100%. I think Angela has twice the voice as Beyonce but I think she just lack something (emotion? Texture?) when she sings this song.

He danced his ass off at the end of the TVMedley. At the beginning when he introduced it with the Idol Audition part, he really had a nervous boy look on him as he started to sing. When he mocked the TVMedley haters at the beginning, he was hilarious. He crossed his arms in a stubborn pose and said in a whiney voice. “I HATE this part, I wish he would cut it.”

He didn't “get sprung” this time but he had goofed and was over by Quiana. You can't get sprung with your sister, I guess.

After they had to calm themselves down post TVMedley is when he had to bring himself back to center to sing a ballad. Wax On/Wax Off with some Tai Chi type arm motions. Nanjeanne whispered to me “I wonder if he's thinking about his arms and legs.”

When he sang Sorry, he sang “What do I have to do to make you love me” A woman screamed ILOVEYOUCLAY and he said “apparently not much.”

In introducing Angie and Quiana, he said he is often asked who is his favorite singer. He said he has to always think back to singers like Martina McBride and Allison Kraus. He noted that Kraus was singing at Meadowbrook later this summer. Nanjeanne got all happy with that comment as she loves Allison Kraus and loves that he has mentioned both her and Eva Cassidy lately.

Jaymes is still a girl.

As I noted in the buscert, "Lover All Alone" was something to watch from my seat. My binocs were able to get Clay, first cello and second cello all at the same time. First cello as a woman in her 40's, very serious though often looking at him. (After all, it is a duet of sorts.) Second cello was a woman a bit younger with long dark hair. She had almost a sour look on her face at the beginning, almost like she had a bad day. Part way during the song when he hit a sweet note, she looked up at him and smiled. Then as he continued to tell his lonesome story, I saw her whole face change. She was staring intently at the music and listening and then the corners of her mouth turned down in a sad way and her eyes seemed to get a little glassy. It was incredible to watch, I almost couldn't hear him anymore as I was so riveted (heh) on watching her demeanor change as she got pulled in by the song.

The applause was thunderous and he did let it go on for longer than he did at the start of the tour. I honestly think people would have stood for longer because it hadn't died down when he waved us to sit down.

"Because You Loved Me" was wonderful and the glow sticks looked nice. He touched his hand to his heart (I think thank you is chin to open palm).

Walking out two skinny women were sort of complaining that they wanted less talk and more music. I commented to them that is what makes every show different.

The bus line was inside of the Meadowbrook complex. The security people were so stupid. They kept yelling single line and we were in the middle of the line so we told him, you have to move each end, we can't just “make space”. Accio Spreado! The lead security person said that maybe he would have Clay walk the line up to us and then have the rest of the people (maybe 300) walk toward Clay. I was almost laughing. I said to him “Have you talked to Jerome about that? I doubt he wants 300 people surging toward Clay.” He was arrogant about it.

Jerome came out and took charge and did exactly what we kept telling the security guys to do. I kept looking for Clay to come from the right but all of a sudden there he was coming from the left, quick and fast with smiles all around. I held out my right hand and he slapped it first with his left and then with his right. He was freshly showered with pj bottoms a tshirt and sandals. It was just fun.

After party in our room ended after 3AM. So much laughter and so much food. Thank goodness we knew the people on either side of us.

We're headed home now and will try the scenic route through Vermont this time. Newark will be so different from this but Meadowbrook always brings memories.

[Sasha]