I almost didn’t make this trip because my cousin April and I had a miscommunication regarding going to Las Vegas with her Jeremy, and Jeremy’s friends Sean and Annie. She thought that I wasn’t going to be able to go, so she didn’t buy me a ticket. I found out about it a couple of days before we were to leave for Vegas and I told her that I had wanted to go. I asked her to see if she could get another ticket for me in the same row they were in. She called me back the day before we were to leave to let me know that she got my ticket, but I was not going to be sitting with them.
“That completely sucks” I thought. It wouldn’t be as much fun sitting by myself watching Rockapella. Or so I thought. ;)
(April and me) So, we got to UNLV, went to the “Will-Call” window to pick up my ticket. Walked in to the theatre and we split up. I proceeded to look for my seat, and I found myself sitting all the way in the back of the theatre, in between 2 “not-so-young” couples and I was absolutely mortified! And just looking at how they were, I wasn’t sure if I wasn’t going to be able to let lose and have fun. I started to look around the theatre and noticed that they were some empty seats in the very front row, so I waited until they turned off the lights, got up and headed towards the front row. I found an aisle seat, front row, on the Kevin/El side of the stage!
The show… The guys started off with
“I Am Your Man” and during the song, I caught Kevin’s eye. He saw me, gave me a big smile and waved at me from the stage. I waved back, and when I looked over to the side, I saw a couple of people on the row just behind me looking at me, smiling. Elliott saw Kevin wave at someone and he got curious so he looked to where Kevin was waving at, and saw me. He smiled as well and gave me a little wave hello. So, I smiled and waved back at him. I noticed that the same people who were sitting in the row behind me were looking at me again. I guess they were probably wondering who the heck I was, since both Kevin and Elliott waved and smiled at me. LOL Throughout the show, I would interact with Kevin and Elliott now and again, since I was sitting on their side of the stage, and it was so easy to catch their eye, which was a lot of fun, at least on my part! And I believe at one point, Bear saw me and did a double take. Later, at the meet and greet, he would tell me that he actually recognized me, but he wasn’t sure that it was me because I looked a little different that night.
The meet and greet… Weeks before the show, a lot of the West coast Rockapellaheads from the Yahoo! RKP club planned on doing something special for the guys for the UNLV show. So, someone had suggested to design t-shirts for them, with all the pictures of the West coast Rockapella diehards printed on the back. That night, Lilly, a fellow Pellahead who designed the shirts, brought them and we all signed the back of the t-shirts for the guys and present it to them at the meet and greet. We assigned 5 girls to present the shirts to the guys. I ended up with the Jeff shirt, much to the teasing of everyone there, led by my dear cousin April. So, we waited around until everyone else was pretty much done with the guys, then we all stood in line, with shirts in hand, and got ready to present them their shirts. First up was Barry. I shoved my CD in front of him and he looked up he had this surprised look on his face. He got up and gave me a hug, then said that he thought he saw me sitting in the front row, but he wasn’t sure if it was really me. But now that he'd seen me up close, he was sure it was me that he saw during the show. It was sweet of Bear to remember me. :) Kevin and El were next, said my hellos, etc. I didn’t get to talk much to either of them since the line was moving along very fast. I reached Jeff and he was signing a bunch of CDs, then accidentally signed one CD twice, so he put “Jeff 2” on the CD. I told him that the CD should go on ebay. And then he said,
“ahh, so you’re one of those people who pay 50 bucks for a CD!” I laughed and said,
“Nope. I haven’t really paid 50 bucks for a CD yet.” Then he looked up at me and said,
“It’s nice to see you again.” I smiled back at him and moved on to Scott, who was sitting at the end of the table, he wasn’t even behind it anymore (the table wasn’t long enough for all 5 of them). So, I said hello to Scott and he smiled at me, said
“how are you?” as he signed my CD. After I got my CD back from Scott, I stood right next to him while waiting for the moment when we would present the t-shirts to the guys. Scott, at this point was just sitting there, waiting for someone to hand him a CD to sign, so he looked over to me and said,
“it’s good to see you”, looked me up and down and read the writing on my t-shirt out loud (my t-shirt said, “Tommy Girl” on it), and he just kind of stared at it for a while and then just kind of nodded. I wasn’t sure what that was all about so I just said,
“yeah, it’s Tommy Hilfiger” or something like that, and then he just smiled at me. We chatted for a bit and I said that he must be really tired and he said that he was and then the next thing I knew, I had my hand on his shoulder and started giving him a rub. It felt a little weird after a bit, so I stopped. haha As the crowd started to leave, we all got ready to present the guys with their gifts. I moved in front of Jeff and then gave him his customized shirt. His eyes lit up and he was completely surprised at the gift. He examined the shirt and noticed all the little details on it. At one point, he asked me if the drawing of the little Japanese phone operator girl was me. I told him that it wasn’t and he said,
“Oh look. She speaks Japanese!”. I thought that was cute. And then said,
“This is great!”. I told him that it was for him from all of us. So, he got up and gave me hug across the table, and said
“thank you” but before I pulled back,
BAM! he kissed me on the cheek! That caught me completely by surprise, I didn’t know what to do next, so I kissed him back! Now, I think that caught him by surprise because as I pulled away, he didn’t let go of my arm. I looked at him as if saying,
“Umm...let go of my arm” but the next thing I knew, he started rubbing my arm (well, my sweater sleeve actually) and said,
“Oh, you’re warm”. I thought that was totally random and I didn’t know what to say so I just said, “
yes, the sweater keeps me warm”. And then he sat down and finally let go of my arm. It was quite a weird moment there with the Spitter, but it was nice nonetheless. :) The whole thing left me a little flustered (duh! LOL),
I almost forgot to ask him for a picture! So, I turned back around and asked him if I could take a picture with him. He said,
“sure!” and I tried to walk around to get behind him, but there were a few people blocking my way, so I couldn’t get to him. He saw this and said,
“Will you please let her through? I would really appreciate it.” Hello! Thanks Jeff! I took a picture with him and then as I got up, he turned around and asked me if he was going to see me again. I told him that I’d probably see them again whenever they’d have their next show in L.A. He then told me that they were going to have 2 more shows in the L.A./O.C. area the following month, so I told him that I would probably see him then. I said thanks and then walked off. I walked back to where the rest of the girls were, and one of the girls, Laura, asked me what went on over at the autograph table. I asked her what she was talking about, she said,
“I saw that kiss!” I started laughing and then my cousin April said, “
Someone’s not going to wash her cheek tonight!” LOL So apparently, some of them saw what happened at the autograph table with Jeff. It was too funny. After the presentation of the t-shirts, some of us sort of lingered around, so I decided to go talk to Kevin about getting my cousin April up on stage for “Pretty Woman” the following month as a birthday present to her. I sat behind him and asked him and then he said, “
Hey no problem. I’ll get her up there.” I thanked him and said,
“At least I get to live vicariously through her since I don’t think I’ll get my chance to be Pretty Woman” (yeah, I know, I'm sad eh? LOL). He turned around and said,
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get you up there too.” (Umm Kev, still waiting! LOL) Then someone asked if he could take a picture of me and Kevin, so I put my arm around Kevin and leaned over as the guy took the picture. Not long after that, another person came up again and asked if he could take a picture of me and Kevin, so I looked at Kevin and said,
“what do you think?”, he just smiled and we posed for the picture. I was about to get up when another person asked if he could take a picture of me and Kevin. I leaned over to Kevin and said,
“How many pictures are they gonna take of us?” He sort of laughed and as the guy was about to take our picture, I pulled Bear in and got him in the picture! Rockapella sandwich! That was great! That picture is one of my favorite pictures with any of the Rockapella guys!
Right before all of the Rockapella Yahoo-ers were to leave, we got our pictures taken by some of the husbands/boyfriends/stragglers who were waiting around. There were too many flashes going off, we felt like the celebrities. The guys got curious as they got up from the autograph table, they stayed around for a bit and watched while our pictures were being taken. At one point, they started applauding us! I thought that was great! I wasn’t sure why they did, but hey, I’m not gonna complain! LOL After we got our pictures taken, we made sure that we got some good group shots of the guys before they left. The guys started posing and modeling their shirts. They were acting all goofy, it was the cutest thing! When we were all finished taking their pictures, we all said our goodbyes and they were whisked away.
