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Tonight I went to see Tristan Prettyman, Jason Mraz, and
James Blunt (probably the one I was most excited about seeing). 
Yeah...best photo I could get.
I went to the venue after
being dropped off, my brother would meet me later. Immediately these
Panasonic people pounced on me. They were giving out sweat bands. Okaaaay. I
went to my seat and was relieved I had the aisle. The general area of me
was empty until midway through James Blunt's set.
I'm not too familiar with Tristan's work, but I did enjoy her duet with
Jason on "Shy That Way." Such a cute little song. So I didn't
really bother keeping a setlist for anyone that night. Tristan came out
looking all cute and she owns that acoustic guitar! She was a bit
nervous thinking that her guitar playing skills weren't up to par, but I
thought she was great. Even more impressive was that she came out solo
with just nice beautiful vocals. Some other female singers have a bit of
whining in their voices, but hers was just like honey. I knew I'd be
picking up some of her cds in the near future. The only songs I can
remember the names to is "Love, Love, Love" and her cover of
Britney Spears' "Toxic." Who knew that song can take on such
another life? Just amazing. After the set she said she was going to hang
out by the merch booth during the intermission. I didn't really go,
since it was packed!
Oh and James Blunt came on. I was swooning like an idiot. He had one
other musician with him that he called his "bitch" Paul. It
was pretty funny that right after that there were some girls calling
after Paul. James replied "leave him alone, he's my bitch! Not
yours." He opened up with "Billy" and also did
"High" "Wisemen" and "Goodbye My Lover"
for sure. Then he kicked Paul out from the keyboards and told a story
about how his mic stand kept sinking throughout one performance he did.
Like a pro he kept on playing and trying to fix it, but in the end he
guessed that the audience that night probably thought he was giving
himself head. He did "No Bravery" on that. He closed out the
set with "You're Beautiful" and after that he said he was
going to be at the merch booth. So from my seat I made a little mad dash
out of there. There was already a cluster waiting.
When James finally came out he was on the other side of the booth from
where I was. Being the idiot I tried to move myself over there until he
came to the side of the booth I was originally waiting on. So naturally I had to
head back. There were people just shoving their way to buy the cd (I
brought mine along - just in case) and tried to find him. Some people didn't even know what he looked like and had him sign their cd. I was
almost to him when he left to go to the bar. Some under aged patrons
tried to go in, which blocked my way. By the time the guy flicked my
ID to make sure it was real people were saying that he already left. I
stuck around a bit (James' bitch was there) and noticed on the tv in the
room Jason Mraz was on the stage so I headed back. My brother asked where I
was and seemed surprised that I said "the bar." I missed the
first song and part of the second.
The whole band was just amazing. Jason didn't really even have to sing
any words. He sang a lot of newer material. Including "Bella
Luna," my favorite, and asked that the audience in the balcony use
their cell phones to make it look like stars in the sky. There was a lot
of funny banter. One in which he was talking about how he was going to
make this place the best karaoke joint. But unfortunately they won't
have any lyrics projected and thus leaving out those who were dragged to
the show, chaperones, etc. Another one was when he asked Tristan to come
back to the stage to sing "Shy That Way." He ditched her so he
could go to the bathroom 3 flights down. He suggested it was the tea he
drank. Tristan joked about it and said he had the smallest bladder of
anyone she knew. When Jason came back they
started talking in British accents and blamed James Blunt for that.
After their duet, Toca the drummer came out to do bird calls. Or a
complete waste of time according to Jason. They also did "Curbside
Prophet" "Geek In The Pink" "Mr. Curiousity"
and "The Remedy" which had a bit of Oasis going on in there.
There were a couple of songs that Jason sang almost operaticly. I found
that amusing. I was a bit disappointed though that we didn't get
"You & I Both" "Wordplay" or "Sleep All
Day" disco version. Of course I'm a general believer that the
musician should play whatever they want. I was so surprised that he
didn't play those that I didn't think the show was over...that there
would be another encore. There wasn't.
I swung by the
merch table again and while waiting I spotted Tristan at the corner of
my eye. She had cds there so I picked up one of her eps (would probably
get it sooner or later anyhow). I thought she would leave before I got
to her, but she was very gracious with everyone. I did get to meet her.
She started spelling my name wrong so she tried to cover it up with a
smiley person. 
Oh
yeah. Here's a horrid sweaty photo of me with Tristan. 
My brother commented that James was the only performer that night that
we saw the whole set to. Is that really a problem? As we were
leaving there were more Panasonic people giving out more tees. I still
have no idea what exactly they were promoting.
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