LMPYITP: The Random Passages

Flashbax - 2

June 2nd, 2015

"Less than twenty-four hours!"

Luke's words from our phone conversation the previous night rang sweetly in my ears. Not because he said them though.

In less than twenty-four hours, we'd be on our way to see Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds...and that was pretty frickin' sweet.

I got on Facebook the night before and found out the concert was going to be streamed live. Why they chose this concert out of all the others was beyond me. But I wasn't complaining. I emailed the link to my family and they were going to make sure to watch and see if they saw us.

I had the evening down to a science. Eight years prior, I'd been to the same venue to see Jet. My mom and I got lucky when the manager told us that night all we had to do was buy a drink and we could join the line that got to go into the venue first. Had it not been for that, I wouldn't have gotten as close to Nic Cester as I did and those crystal blue eyes might never have met mine.

I called the venue and made dinner arrangements for me and Luke. The earliest ones available. I wanted to be in that line as quick as possible.

Downtown Cleveland reminded me a bit of New York, albeit on a much smaller scale. The buildings were huge. People were everywhere. It was kind of cool.

We headed straight for the venue to scope it out. It wasn't quite what I remembered from the last time but good Lord, that was a long time ago.

"Aww the 'r' fell off!" I said as I looked up at the marquee to see the announcement for the show. I took a picture of it anyway and sent it to my mom and sister.

Kelsey: Rest in peace r.

"Do you guys need tickets?" A guy said to us. He was standing in line to wait for the general admission doors to open.

So far, the three of us were the only ones standing around the front of the place.

"No thanks. We're good." I assured him.

"Okay. Just figured I'd ask." He said. "A few of my buddies were gonna come too but they backed out."

"I see." Luke said. "Where are you from?"

"Boston."

"Isn't he coming to Boston?" I asked.

"Yeah but I'm just following the tour." He replied.

Lucky duck.

Luke and I killed time at the casino. When it got closer to the time, we went back to the venue.

We walked around the back of the place and saw a crowd of people waiting by the fence. One of the crowd members, a tall, bald guy, was wearing a Man City jersey with "Gallagher" written across the back.

It was pretty obvious what they were there for.

"They're waiting to see him get off the bus." I mused as we looked through the fence at the big shiny tour bus parked in the back of the place.

I wanted to stay. Maybe I'd get a chance to meet him.

But our dinner reservations were only fifteen minutes away.

And I knew it was more important to be upfront during the show.

The food was good and once we were finished eating, we headed back to wait two hours in line before heading into the concert.