27 Ain't So Bad

It's been a Heaping good time, in fact. My birthday was on Sunday, but I'll work backwards because I am still buzzing from the Imogen Heap show last night at La Zona Rosa in Austin. I don't recall what led me to Imogen in college, but I've had her "Speak for Yourself" album for several years, and she just recently followed that up with "Ellipse"...hence she's on tour again. I saw her at La Zona Rosa in 2006, and it was a momentous show for me. That kind of technology onstage is rare in my folk world. Also she wore a pink feathery dress and had crazy hair and hopped around a lot. I was right up by the stage so I got quite the eardrum pounding. It was awesome. So "Ellipse" is out and I love it though have not internalized it all yet because Imogen is complicated musics (while outwardly very fun and accessible...smart), and luckily Austin was a stop on the tour. This time I got there kind of late to be in the front without being one of those jerks I hate at shows who nose their way up to the front even though they just walked in...so I scouted out the highest point in the back of the venue (which was still small enough for me to see facial expressions and everything). It was a great vantage point compared to my last show, because this time I could see the whole stage, her multiple gear set-ups, the band, etc. Good choice. She rocked it. I won't go into glowing descriptions of individual songs. She managed to get the audience involved in 3-part harmony in a round for the encore on "Just For Now." Impressive and always a crapshoot with audience participation. She explained to us that she had microphones strategically placed everywhere, like ON HER WRISTS, so she could play all her percussive doodads and not have to walk to a microphone. She played the KEYTAR. Heck yes. Afterwards I walked all the way to my car, said goodbye to some friends, and then had a flash of groupie-dom and went back over to the front of the venue where the tour bus was parked, and where about 30-40 people were hanging out. After 10 minutes of standing, Imogen came out and I decided to get my iPhone cover signed because her music lives on my iPod...and I had no CD cover with me, haha. And someone took a dark and slightly blurry iPhone photo. The least prepared I have been for a celebrity encounter EVER. Which makes sense because I was pretty good at that stuff in high school and college -- meeting the artists and having a photo taken and all that. And then somewhere in the past 3 years, probably after the privilege of some of my favorite artists becoming my good friends, I stopped caring about the autographs and the tour busses. This was neat, though...a tiny unremarkable chat amongst a sea of people (she apologized for the rude girl who had cut in front of me moments before...haha), a signature, a photo with one of my Top Fives. I guess we all need to be a fangirl sometimes (or fanboy...you can be a fanboy too). I'll value the show and the interaction, though already the signature on the iPhone case is rubbing away, and I don't think I'll shellack it on. It was there and it will be gone but I'll have the picture to remember it by, and the mp3s to blast through my stereo on the many more miles of road to come. A face to a name is always nice.