, a
Dick’s Last Resort t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up a little and those gray
sneakers that we all hated in L.A.
Prologue: Normally
at these fan events I’m very quiet, reserved and behave myself like a
non-psychotic stalker fan but in this particular instance I got a little wired
and I’ve decided it’s way more fun this way. J
Also, I wouldn’t normally include a song list (because I never remember
it all) but since I videotaped the concert I didn’t have to rely on my foggy
memory so it’s included. My
friends Janice and Lisa were accompanying me.
This was the first K&T concert for both of them.
For
pictures of the concert click here.
Everything got started late allegedly because the band
was trying to tweak everything so it sounded perfect. My theory is that they all slept late, but whatever.
We got a little mini-concert while they were warming up and yes, Brandy I
saw you tell Kim that I was standing back there in line singing along.
Once inside we arranged ourselves, hit the ladies room,
the bar (she CARDED ME!!) and the tables to check out the items for sale.
I decided that my desk was in desperate need of a K&T mousepad to
replace the old ugly gateway mousepad and Janice bought one of the black and
white photos of Wally in the fuzzy sweater…. you Wally fans know the one I
mean - -his hair is looking especially fabu and he’s just oh-so-huggable.
Before the concert info, let’s start with my trademark
shallow observations: Wally was
wearing well-worn (take that any way you want) Levis that were just-snug-enough
, a
Dick’s Last Resort t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up a little and those gray
sneakers that we all hated in L.A.
Gratuitous Ass Shot
Ok, shallow stuff out of the way….They opened with
“Hero” and went right into “September” followed by “Who Knew?” {My
former favorite K&T song, which is not on any album much to my chagrin}.
They stopped briefly to welcome everybody and talked for
a minute about how long it had been since they were in Boston.
Next up was “Heartland Train” and in the video you can hear me hear
me ordering Captain & Coke just as the song begins.
It was followed by “Freedom” and a statement from Wally that it was
their latest “LP” and he went on to say that that probably dated him.
Christian teased him about it for a minute.
Next was “Surrender” which shall forever be associated with the
Gatekeepers in my mind. Afterwards,
Wally said that the band would be playing on GH again soon at Jake’s, because
they are “too good for Luke’s”. He
talked a little more about Tibet and his poor photography skills which he tried
to blame on China Air saying that the windows on the plane were all scratched so
all of his pictures of the Himalayas are less than spectacular.
The finished the first set with “Let It Go” with a
little vocal help from Kalil somebody-or-other (I forgot his name.
I suppose I could check the tape but I’ve finally gotten over the
giddiness and I don’t want to go there again right now.)
What I do remember about Kalil is that he was a total babe and pretty
easy on the ears too. Before the
band left for a brief break Kalil presented them with a proclamation from the
mayor declaring that day as “Kurth & Taylor Appreciation Day”.
It’s K&T Appreciation Day everyday in my opinion but I suppose a
proclamation from a sometime web-soap journalist doesn’t carry as much weight
as one from the Mayor of Boston.
A few of the auction items and their selling price along
with a few random comments:
Autographed GH Scrubs ($175.00)
Wally talked about Tibet some more and announced that
the Board decided to donate $1,000 to an orphanage over there.
Hand painted K&T
jacket ($500.00). Wally was
modeling the jacket and trying to raise the bid and some random person in the
crowd (hereafter SRP) asked: “Do they get to take it off of you?”
Wally: “They
can do whatever they want with it!” (A dangerous statement in that crowd!)
“You get a big hug and a kiss from Wally!” He referred to himself in the
third person several times.
SRP: “With tongue?” {It was NOT I before anybody
asks!}
Wally: “What?”
-- Somebody tells him what was said
Wally: {Pointing to the crowd} You are bad!
There are children here!! Give
an inch, ya’ know…they want a mile.” (I told you he was treading on
dangerous territory.)
The lady who bought the jacket wanted Wally to have it
so she gave it back to him. All
together now: “awwww”.
Autographed Script ($450.00)
2001 Nurses Ball T-shirt signed by the cast ($225.00)
Kurth & Taylor video photo album.
Wally asked Christian where his copy was and CT told him he’d have to
buy one.
Autographed Photo Scrapbook ($350.00)
CD single of “Hideway” ($175.00 I think)
Two movies that Wally was in: Final Embrace and I love you, Don’t touch me ($175.00)
{Liquor
needed to sit through Final Embrace: Priceless!}
Wally’s sweaty t-shirt ($175.00)
Studio Tour with Wally ($2,000.00)
Second half of
the concert:
Started with “Power of the Heart”. You can hear me
talking about going to North Carolina for the K&T concert next April during
this song. {HI MARTIE!} Next was “Believe” and was followed by “Barefoot
Ballet” and some chick named Kathy sang with them.
They stopped for a minute for some more chitchat.
He said that the K&T concert during the GH weekend would be acoustic
from now on. When they got ready to
play again he asked jokingly if anybody else wanted to come up and sing with the
band, called it ‘Kurth and Taylor karaoke’.
Then, finally, they played my new favorite song “Hideaway”.
I LOVE that song. I intend
to rip the audio track off of the tape later and burn it to a CD so I can listen
to it until they get the entire new album put together.
Next up was “Anything” and then Wally talked about Man on Fire
briefly mentioning that it is taking longer than he anticipated but they’re
still working on it. Then they
played “Blacktop Blues”. Christian
said that Pat would not let them quit playing that song because it’s the one
time during the concert that he gets to be in the spotlight and I have to say
that he totally rocks during that song. As
the finale they went with the traditional “Seventh Son” introducing the band
during the middle. That was the end of that
part.
After a leisurely walk to the Boston Park Plaza Hotel we
found the most important room in the building.
Yes, that’s right ---the ladies room!
(You thought I was going to say the bar, didn’t you?)
Just kidding. We found the Georgian Room where the reception was going to
be held and then we discovered that we had 50 minutes to kill before the guests
of honor would even be there, so what’s a girl to do?
Hmmm? We went to the lounge downstairs, of course.
While
we were kickin’ back, coolin’ our heels and I was entertaining the waiter we
saw Wally and the band start to walk through the lobby right beside the bar
within earshot soooo….I whistled at him (one of those ‘hey, good
lookin’ whistles). He turned around looking uncertain at first then saw me
cracking up so he flashed the dimples, waved and went on his merry way….then I
was really cracking up.
Once we got back upstairs we took our seats and politely waited our turn. It was my intention to wait until everybody else had his or her chance to talk to Wally and then I could go last. He was actually sitting alone when I walked up there. Both of my friends had already moved on to the rest of the band. They were both alternately drooling over CT and Pat.
First thing he did was give me a big ol’ hug:
Ohhhh yeah.
We settled back to chat then. We didn’t even mention
GH because…let’s be honest here, GH sucks out loud in Dolby stereo surround
sound, so I didn’t care. I’m
not sure exactly how we got started talking about The
Gate, but that was the first topic of conversation.
Maybe it was because I was wearing my concert badge from the L.A. gig
last month so that Kim could find me (which worked!). I told him that none of The Gate staff was there so I, as a
lowly minion of The Gate, was the only one present.
He said that we are “the hardest working fan group in America”.
I definitely agree. I also
happened to have one of our group pictures from L.A. so I flashed that for him.
He asked who all of the people were so I ran down the list of people in
the picture, told him that he could keep the picture if he wanted it so he wrote
down everybody’s names on the picture (ladies - - you know that means we’re
going to have to give him a name pop-quiz in Chicago! lol. Anji, how is it that
you managed to NOT be in that picture???) Moving right along the other picture I had with me was the
one that is now the banner of my column:
I didn’t intend to show it off but it was stuck to the
other picture. He flipped it over
and signed it so fast I didn’t even notice and when he slid it back to me he
said, “Look I even drew a little heart. I’ve
never done that before in my life.” Aww,
I’m special. I have WK original
artwork now.
Isn’t that just too cute?
We talked about the fan club, his vacation, the concert
and a few other things and before I left I asked him, half kidding, when he was
going to do a concert in Memphis because we now have a Dick’s Last Resort on
Beale and he said they were trying to set one up, {Picture me shocked!} but that
they wanted too much money. {Bummer}
We continued that topic for a few more minutes and I got ready to go but he said
we needed another hug and a picture so here’s the second one:
You knew I
wasn’t going to refuse, right?
So I went back
to my table and was telling my friends what he said about doing a show in
Memphis when Wally walked over to the table munching on some snacks.
The Memphis conversation revived and then he dragged me off…well, more
like crooked his finger and said ‘come on’ and I was like ‘alrighty
then’ and he shuffled me over to talk to whoever is in charge of booking this
stuff since I live in Memphis and have good contacts.
That made for another looooooong conversation for the three of us, but I
might just get him to visit me instead of me flying all over the country to see
him!! Woohoo! Oh, I also asked him
if he came to Memphis if that meant I’d have to take him to Graceland.
He said, “well, yeah”. Grrr.
I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.
We
broke up that conversation and a few minutes later when I was talking to some
people at the silent auction table and introducing myself he walked up again
just as I said my name and I looked at him and said “just like Ned’s
Mommy”. He snapped his fingers
and smiled at me. I guess that’s how he’ll remember it from now on.
We chatted for a few more minutes then everybody got set to leave so I
gathered my things and noticed that we were the last people there.
On my way out Wally was standing in the doorway so I waved and got my
“goodbye Tracey” out of him and we were off to the house.
This was the best K&T show I’ve seen and I think
it was because Wally seemed more relaxed and looked like he was really having a
good time. I guess that’s the
end. If you made it this far
through my ramblings: Congratulations!
<~This
was pretty much me by the end of the day. Bring
on the Chicago concert!
~Tracey~