California Dreamin' - Marysville, Concord, San Jose

[Livia]

What a week! I decided to hit San Fran early since I’ve never been there, and do some site-seeing. I stayed in a really cool hotel (thanks for the recommendation, Jason!). Check it out: Triton . I did the Alcatraz tour, Sausalito (visited the Record Plant, birthplace of Rumours, and wondered which condos Stevie and Christine had lived in), got a new belly ring, shopped a lot, and ate some really good food. There were flyers for the Concord and San Jose shows all over the Haight. I took one off a pole right on the corner of Haight/Ashbury. The weather was fantastic the entire time – while there was floodin’ down in Texas. Christie, you’re not drownDing are you? I saw that roller coaster under water at Six Flags. Yikes!

Everyone else who went to the three northern California shows have already covered most of the concert details – but, here are some of my personal highlights (I’ll add more after I transcribe my notes):

Marysville: Watching LB get all verklempt during his SG dedication, talking about his dad growing up in those parts, on the farm. It was quite touching.

Concord – IMO, the best show out of the three. It was a combination of the beautiful rolling hills and area surrounding the venue, a vibey-thing of this being where Stevie and Lindsey got their start, Stevie’s performance…and the sound was fantastic. Stevie said, “Concord, San Francisco, bay area, welcome!” She forgot to put her gloves on before BC, so she was putting them on as she was giving the intro to the song…she went so crazy during Stand Back that we thought the two birds of Rhiannon were going to break free!

Vanessa Carlton was there with her boyfriend, Stephan Jenkins, aka the lead singer for Third Eye Blind. We saw them arrive and get escorted backstage by Karen. When I went for cig break during ISO, I saw Stephan hanging out in the concession area. As you've heard, Stevie dedicated Landslide to Vanessa and said, “I think she’s one of the great ones.”

San Jose- Front row seats, and best front row compadres ever! No drunks, no idiots waving their old, ratty Tusk t-shirts around, and great security guards – who kept catching people climbing over chairs and sending them back to their seats. Except for the one security guard who told me to stop taking pictures during GDW. Wonder if she was related to the security beeyotch in Dallas who did the same thing, also during GDW? Oh well, I’m just glad Tiffany was at all these shows also, to capture the moments! I’ve been up front before, but never have I had so much LB eye contact! I usually always watch Stevie during BC and GB, but this time, I sang along with LB, as he was mouthing the lyrics and looking directly at me - hee! Stevie must have had her nails done on their day off - they're red again!

If you find your way to San Jose, you must check out the Winchester Mystery House . It’s creepy and it’s kooky, mysterious and spooky! Actually, their web site is kinda lame, but I’m sure they’ll rerun the Haunted Castles of America shows on A & E and the Travel channel around Halloween…our tour guide and the group we were in was lame – we kept catching up to the group who was supposed to be 15 minutes ahead of us – their tour guide was an older gentlemen, quite the character and seemed to actually enjoy his job…not like android girl we had…

Back home and back to work - need to make more $ for the next round of shows...been hearing rumours about 3 more weeks' worth of dates being added around the Camden rescheduling....guess we'll all stay tuned...I'm just glad I can give up on figuring out how to get to bum-f*cked-Iowa (no offense to any Iowans, I've got another SW ticket to burn and they don't fly there...)