an evening with good friends, and Gavin DeGraw

Last night was the Matt Wertz and Gavin DeGraw show that I’ve been waiting to attend for weeks! Despite the sucky things going on in her life, Aileen still went to the show with me, and we met up with Barbara. Barbara was smart. She got there way early, and into the venue all before 7:00. We were still looking for Barbara at 7:20 🙂 The show started at 8, so we had a decent wait with crazy people for 40 minutes.

I don’t remember the last time I felt so old. I was surrounded by teenagers, and they were SO. EXCITED. to see Gavin and Matt, and had traveled and/or waited for hours to see him. Aileen and I had driven from Chili’s to see him. That took all of 10 minutes.

People went nuts when Matt Wertz took the stage. He had a sidekick – Chris something-or-other, I think – but I’m going to refer to his sidekick as Silent Bob. Matt was great, and he had some hardcore fans that were there to see him and not Gavin. Rare for an opener. Matt played the guitar, and broke several strings, and each time, Silent Bob would grab the guitar and replace it with a new guitar. SB also played a guitar, mandolin and the box/shakers/cymbals combo. Seriously. He played a box. I need to find one of those things, but I think that’s an instrument I could pick up.

Matt Wertz and his sidekick:

Overall, Matt was really good, and I’m glad I pre-ordered his CD last week. (You get an EP download emailed to you, so that was a perk, as well.) And, props to Matt for visiting Mamacita’s AND The Dripolator yesterday! Great local food and coffeehouse, and they both make for a great Asheville experience.

Gavin DeGraw came out about 20 minutes later. My first impression of him was, “wow, he looks really full of himself.” I mean, really, he did. And, he looked like he was on something. Not a pedestal, but possibly something of an herbal sense. Maybe. I’m not one to judge him for long. His show ended up being really, really good. He didn’t do much storytelling (the show would have lasted seven hours, if he had started telling stories) and I wonder if he had been cooped all day before the show, and maybe he just wasn’t in the most fantastic mood? Not sure. It did rain all day yesterday – and hard. Asheville hasn’t had rain in months.

So, like Milli Vanilli once said (or lip-synced), I’ll blame it on the rain.

Turns out (from reading messages on DeGraw’s myspace page), Gavin might not have been feeling so well last night. Ah. Well. We didn’t wait around to chat with him anyway. Maybe next time.

Photos of Gavin (notice his sparkly piano – I’ve got to get one of those!)

I’m thinking of heading to Greenville in October to see Matt Wertz perform at the Handlebar. He really is that good. His CD comes out September 16, so that will be enough time for me to memorize it and be ready for a long live show.

The photos aren’t as great as what our professional photographer shot, but they’ll do. I’m looking at new cameras. Gotta get one. Gotta have one. I really want one.

Til later…I must rest.