Something out of Almost Famous

Wow what can I say but last night seemed to be right out of the movie Almost Famous.

It all started with two girls who love music and share their love for music. Both girls were way past the stage or age of being a groupie (a person, esp. a young woman, who regularly follows a pop music group or other celebrity in the hope of meeting or getting to know them.) but within their hearts there is always a groupie longing to get out. One of their common favorite artists was a man straight from the land of Down Under, a man with musical talent and an encouraging message of respect for the earth and people. Oh the thrill to find out that he was going to be playing in LA. Well long story short, he was going to be playing on Bill and Betty's 33rd anniversary and despite my encouragement Betty resigned herself to not buy the tickets but instead entered a contest on facebook to get two free tickets. SHE WON!!!! What a great anniversary present!!! Then Bill had to go to Japan for a family emergency and Betty asked if I would be her date, on her anniversary, to see Xavier Rudd. Huge massive smiles followed by some contact via facebook with Xavier Rudd daily making him more personal and filling our heads with all kinds of great grandeur of meeting him and him calling Betty on stage and so on and so forth. You know mental groupie stuff.

Well we get to the Greek Theater and squealed like little girls when Betty received her two free tickets, asking the man behind the counter if there was a personal note from Xavier Rudd with the tickets. Oh no note well than he must be waiting to call Betty up on the stage. :)
As we were walking into the venue heading straight to the bathrooms before we went to find our seats, we heard what sounded like Xavier Rudd playing. He was on the stage, the concert had started!!! We quickly forgot the need for the bathrooms, stood in the aisle and than randomly picked a seat in the half empty venue. Thrilled to be hearing Rudd live we were quickly full of screams and dancing moves. With each new unrestrained screech of delight from myself, the older lady in front of me who remained seated with her arms crossed, would turn her head to roll her eyes at me. I quickly realized that outside of Betty, myself and half a dozen others no one seemed to be into Rudd or his music. Oh well, we loved it, moved more than 5 feet away from the older lady's ears and were thrilled as Rudd played three songs than waved to the crowd and walked off the stage. Oh he must be having a break, quick lets go to the bathroom, see if Betty could give Rudd a hat I made and a hug, then quickly come back.
Well we got back to find that all of Rudd's instruments were gone from the stage, the venue was filling up fast and we had no clue what was going on. Is Rudd coming back? Who is playing now? Lo and behold Rudd was just the opening act for the main show. It was in that moment that we finally looked at our tickets and did not see Rudd's name on them at all but Rodrigo and Gabriela, an amazing couple that took our breath away with their guitar skills but is Rudd coming back? We sat through and enjoyed the magical music waiting to see if Rudd was coming back on stage and making a few journeys to the backstage door to ask once again if they know where Rudd is. Has he left and is there a chance to meet him? Betty has to give him a hug!!! The show ended and the security guards, who at this point knew our whole story, said we could stand next to the backstage door to see if Rudd was going to the lounge after the show. We waited and waited as the throng of people left. With few remaining people and no sign of Rudd we decided that we should be getting going as well with happy hearts that were slightly disheartened that we did not get to meet Rudd and thank him for the tickets. Out the venue we go and onto the street where a tour bus is parked in the road.

Is that Rudd and his band standing right in front of the bus?!? Holy smokes with a much quicker gait in our steps we quickly make our way over to the crowd of less than a dozen people. Walking right up to Rudd I quickly asked, "Did you get the hat from us?" We had given it to the security guard at the backstage door who said he would give it to the manager. We proceeded to talk to him and the other band members who all were drink happy. We were hanging out with the band!!!!:) After informing Rudd that we had come to see him at the Greek Theater and were shocked that he was not the main show, he told us to go talk to the lady with the long hair who was standing next to the bus' open door. Over we go and talked for a while to the sober Rudd manager. She was very nice and we thanked her for the free tickets. Returned to the tipsy band and gave them each a hug, got our pictures and thanked them again for their music. We could have easily hung out with the band for much longer but did not want to appear as complete groupies so walked 15 feet up the road and watched the band to make sure that Rudd got into the bus safely.
What an amazing night!!!! I felt like we could have been in a new version of Almost Famous about an artist that is almost famous. Keep up the great music Rudd and thanks for hanging out with a couple girls that will be your groupies-from-a-distance for a long time to come.