WARNING-This account is loooong, but it was about 6 hours long, well 9 hours including waiting. I like to include as much as I can remember. It may be choppy as I am writing stuff down as I remember it. I’ll try to give as much context as possible. I tried to film as much as I could of the backstage stuff that Stephen did, or anything interesting that won’t air. Photos are here and videos are here.
Here’s one pic that I took with my phone, the stage before the sun went completely down:
Before I headed over to the Intrepid, I was planning to park at the garage right next to TCR studios, but it was full. As I was walking around in that area, I noticed some pink papers taped all up and down the street, and I also saw them at the garage where I parked. This is what they said:
Just thought it was interesting.
So as I was driving closer to the ship, I saw the picture on the side of the Daily Show building that says to go one block down and turn right, so I followed Jon’s directions. It just so happens the garage that is right across from the Hustler club offers discount parking for the Intrepid. SWEET!
I got to the Intrepid at about 4:20 or so. There were already about 50 people in line and more coming all the time. I was standing in the direct sunlight. I was happy that the sun had come out but not happy that I was dripping sweat by the gallon. Thankfully, after only about 5 minutes in the sun, we got moved up a few feet and were now in the shade. Much better. I wanted to hug that security guy, the bald one, for moving us.
Among all the fervent activity, I could see a bunch of nice people in tye dye shirts wheeling out Ben and Jerry’s carts. So I knew they’d have some Americone Dream.
There were many interesting characters in line. Many were dressed up in costumes, one guy had a pig costume on. In 90 degree humidity. Yeah.
As we finally started to move in we kept inching from one barrier to the next over the course of three hours. At the first station the lovely kids in tye dye shirts gave out free scoops of Americone Dream. Man it was good. One person brought a huge pink balloon with “Happy Birthday (carol?)” and some other sayings on it. People started batting it around to entertain themselves.
We got to the next barrier and could see the ship.
Beyond the barrier, where the TV trucks were, someone kept launching one of those robotic droids, i.e. taco copter, sans tacos. I never did find out what that was all about, but it was interesting to see.
We moved to yet another barrier, a little closer. I think they were teasing us. We could see all the VIPs and show staff going in and out. I saw this guy:
Couldn’t figure out where I had seen him at first. I didn’t know if he was with the show or just a celebrity. He kind of looks like a Baldwin brother, but then later I remembered that graphic. So I guess he is with the show.
I met up with karenatasha from the Hub, (and later met up with somuch2kno.) shortly before we were let up to the flight deck. We saw Evie and the kids get let off and head up. I heard one of the staff talking to someone in line and she said that Stephen had interviewed all the bands earlier and they were now doing sound checks and then we’d be let up. We could hear fun. doing their sound check.
No sign of any rain, but I kept wondering what they would do if thunder and lightning were threatening to cancel the whole thing. No need however, the rain held off. It was a perfect, only slightly cloudy night.
As we were waiting in line at the last barrier, there were some camera guys capturing the crowd. I probably got in the shot as I was right at the front. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.
Everyone was in good spirits, but also anxious to go up. At about 7:20 we finally got let up to the flight deck. There were about seven flights of stairs to get to the top.
I had always wanted to see the museum. It was so awesome. Beautiful views of the skyline and the Hudson, cool helicopters, jets and planes. We approached the stage and they already had Grandmaster Flash pumping out the beats.
Here’s the thing I did not know. They were filming all the shows for the following week. I thought they were just having a concert that they would broadcast at some point and they were going to show parts of it on the show. So this was kind of like the Olympics in Vancouver with parts of it outside with the audience and then Stephen in the studio without an audience. I couldn’t believe I was going to see the whole week of shows. I WAS PSYCHED!! I had been planning to stay in NYC to catch a taping on Monday or Tuesday but I got ‘em all. 
It was hot, really hot. Why oh why did Stephen agree to wear that outfit?
They were generous to us. They gave out a lot of stuff. They had given us tickets for free beer or soda and a snack. I don’t like beer and really just needed water so I didn’t use mine, but I got the snack. They gave out bottles of water. They didn’t just give out bottles of water, they had people dressed up in formal waiting attire to hand out the bottles on a tray. Picture an art gallery with wait staff walking around with trays of full champagne glasses, then switch the glasses to bottles of water, bingo!
There was a VIP area with tables and chairs and a tent, but it was further back. I would’ve preferred to be up close to the stage.
Pete Dominick came out and did a quick warm up but, no disrespect to Pete, I think Grandmaster Flash was really the one who warmed everyone up. He was great.
Pete did a few jokes and then said, “You ready for Stephen?” Everyone cheered. Then he said, “well he’s flying in right now on a helicopter” and points off to the north. Everyone turns to see nothing and then Pete says “just kidding”. I think that was totally believable. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see that.
When Stephen came out he was doing the beginning of Monday’s show, which I didn’t quite realize at first. Like during the Olympics he “throws” it back to the studio, to himself. Then they did three more intros for Tue. Wed and Thurs. At the end of each one, they panned up to the command deck where someone was holding up various things like puppets that were supposed to stand in for Stephen. There was a puppet, a cardboard cutout and a broom, plus one other thing that I’m forgetting. I’m wondering how that’ll look in the final cut.
The beginning of the night: Stephen comes out and does an intro for the first show on Monday. He looks so cute with his Capt. Spaulding get up, but I can’t imagine how much water weight he lost that night. As he seems like he’s about to go to break, then you hear “Stephen? Stephen?” over the speakers and Stephen says, “Jimmy, what’s that? cut that mic” but I knew who it was. I could tell by his voice it was Jon Stewart. I just didn’t know if he was actually there, but then I could see he just came over the monitors.
He says, “we were in the middle of something, let’s continue” and Stephen goes to get his Battleship game. They play one round, Jon gets a hit and Stephen brings out a gigantic battleship peg and proceeds to install it in the Intrepid.
Jon makes a couple cracks about his outfit, calls him Capt Spaulding. It was great! I couldn’t figure out if Jon’s piece was pre-taped or not. If it was they did a good job with pacing. One take only.
Then the bands came out. Two of the bands had to play their songs completely over again due to technical difficulties. During the times when they were setting up the stage for the next band, Stephen taped the goodnight segments. If you want you can read those below in my spoiler reporT. They were AWESOME, especially the final one.
At one point I saw a man backstage dressed up like the tin man. Couldn’t quite imagine what that was supposed to be about, but it was a piece for the air, so you’ll find out or you can read it below.
We were on the side of the stage where we could see Stephen in the wings as the bands were playing. I was sort of focused on that. I think at one point when the Flaming Lips were playing, you could see Stephen in the background, contemplating something or maybe watching.
I have to admit, I’m not a huge “music” fan, I mean the industry. I hadn’t heard of two of the bands and didn’t know a whole lot about the other two. I think fun. was the most, well, fun of course.
They played first and that was the most fun (pun intended) I had during the sets. I love their song, “Some Nights” and still like “We are Young”, although it may be a little overplayed. Still it was great to hear them do it.
I think it was around the end of fun.’s set that there were some really interesting smells wafting around. I think the crowd was preparing for the Flaming Lips. Let’s just say that soon after this, I imagine people started to storm the snack tables.
I did enjoy Santigold and learned that I did know one of her songs, just didn’t know that’s who it was. I also admit I didn’t know Santigold was a woman. As I said, I don’t follow the music scene. The first song she performed, “The Keepers”, I heard on the radio the next day. I remembered it!
Not a huge Flaming lips fan either but it appeared that many people had come just to see them. Grizzly Bear, I’m afraid, didn’t make an impact on me. That’s just me though. Although, I haven’t seen the interviews, so who knows.
At times I headed over to the part of the flight deck with the jets and took some nice pictures. It would’ve been cool enough to just be on the Intrepid on a beautiful summer Friday night to enjoy a low key concert but we got such a high energy concert that will be broadcast on TV.
At times I noticed Stephen’s staff rockin’ out, when they had free moments. They had on hats that said Colbchella with a US Navy insignia, or something similar to it. They were usually very busy though. When I was coming back up the elevator after using the facilities, one girl had a big thing of OJ. It was a juice emergency and she had to rush it up. I can’t imagine the logistics of putting on a show like this. (ahem, Emmys?)
At one point, in between bands, they showed us a field piece that Stephen had taped on the ship, where he talks to a pregnant woman and gets a tour from a man named DeLeo (sp?) As everyone was watching it, I was watching everyone watch it. There was another security guard who was facing the crowd that was watching the monitors. Everytime there was a funny part of the video, he was laughing along with the crowd. Even though he wasn’t watching it, he was hearing it. I thought that was so cute.
Santigold tried to keep the crowd entertained while the technical troubles were delaying things. She said she doesn’t know any jokes, but asked if anyone knew any good ones. She put the mic out and one kid told a joke, but no one could hear it so she re-told it. It was the one about the papa tomato and the baby tomato walking behind him down the street. Apparently it was in Pulp Fiction, but I didn’t remember it. Cute joke.
I was lucky enough to get close enough to Stephen to actually just reach out and touch him. You can read more about it below or wait to see it. I can say that I can die happy now. 
I also chose to go use the facilities at the same time that Evie and the kids were leaving. I got to ride down in the elevator with them. I thought the bald security guy was going to tell us that we couldn’t go in but he waved us in. The kids are tall. I think the middle boy (always forget his name) is taller than me and Maddie is definitely taller than me. I didn’t say anything, just observed their dynamic. They were talking about the technical troubles.
There was a huge crate of beach balls on both sides of the stage that they threw out into the crowd during the show. At the end of the show they threw them to the crowd as they were leaving. That was nice.
A bunch of the hardcore Flaming Lips fans wanted an encore, but I don’t think they got one. I can’t blame them. It was late and the crew had a lot to clean up.
So now to get on my soapbox. To see the enormity of this undertaking, all I could think was, Stephen has an amazing staff and crew to be able to pull this off. Karen reminded me that they pulled off a week of shows in Iraq. This concert might seem easy in comparison. They did Iraq, the Rally, the Olympics and now this. THEY DESERVE THE FREAKIN’ EMMY!!!!!!! The Emmy people need to come and experience what goes into getting these great shows out. Anyway…
*climbs down from soapbox*
I can’t wait to see it and I can’t wait for everyone else to see it. At one point I was wavering about going because of the rain that day, but I am so glad I went. I would’ve had to punish myself severely for not going, after realizing I could’ve seen an entire week of shows in one night.
—————————SPOILER REPORT SPOILER REPORT—————————————
DON’T READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW STUFF YET!!!!!
SPOILERS BELOW DON’T READ ANY FURTHER!!!!!! WARNING! WARNING!!!
On one other night, maybe Tuesday, Jay the Intern comes out dressed up in tinfoil. I thought he was the tin man. He is actually a lightning rod, to protect the audience.
On one other night, Stephen is doing a promo for Pepsi. Their motto is, “Live for now” and Stephen says that if there were a comma, “Live, for now” then that motto would have a much different meaning. He launches into a very deep monologue about death and life and then manages to work Pepsi into it somehow.
Stephen asks Grandmaster Flash how he’s doing and Flash says he needs the bathroom. Stephen tells him it’s not possible and he’ll just have to hold it. Then they launch into a conversation about life in the ‘hood. Stephen says he wants to visit the ‘hood and asks if his outfit would be appropriate to wear there.
As far as the bands playing, it was pretty much just a straightforward concert. Santigold and Grizzly Bear had to do some of their sets over again. There were problems, due to the rain from earlier in the day.
So when Stephen was filming the ‘goodnight’ segments he did two in the crowd. He had to film the first one a few times. The crowd around him was making his mic malfunction, so he used a handheld. But then they had to film it again, because he was supposed to say something else, and he decided to let the crowd hold him up. He was lying horizontally and the crowd was literally holding him up. JEALOUS!!! however….
For the second ‘goodnight’ he came over to my side of the crowd. I started to walk closer to at least maybe just get a high five or something, but I then suddenly got squished and swept up in the magnetic field that Stephen had just created. It’s like he’s a positive and we’re all negatives. He just creates that polar field that attracts everyone to him.
It was actually a little scary for a couple seconds, because I couldn’t move freely, but was being moved involuntarily by the crowd. Once Stephen took his place and was ready to shoot, it was okay, but I couldn’t even move my hands. However, I could see him so close, I could make out the wrinkles around his eyes. He was close enough to me that if I had been able to reach out, I could’ve touched him. Good thing I couldn’t though cuz his security guy was right there and would’ve carted me away.
I think he had to do two takes. I don’t even remember, my mind was swirling, and I couldn’t film it due to being squished, but I think I’m in the shot.
In the taped field piece where Stephen is touring the Intrepid, he and the pregnant lady and the older gentleman named DeLeo (sp?) sang a rendition of “New York, New York (a hell of a town)”
The finale of the concert was Stephen and Wayne from Flaming Lips, crowd surfing in giant hamster-like inflatable balls. They were standing on stage, inside the balls, and from my vantage point it looked like boobs. Not implying anything about Wayne and Stephen, just that they literally did look like two big boobs.
You can see the crowd surfing when it airs, it was a spectacle. Stephen was falling around inside the ball, laughing and you could tell he had pretty much reverted to the little boy that is inside of him that we all love.
There were a lot of other things and of course, the interviews that no one has seen yet. Should be a great week of shows.
Colbchella '012: Rocktaugustfest Taping ReporT.
WARNING-This account is loooong, but it was about 6 hours long, well 9 hours including waiting. I like to include as much as I can remember. It may be choppy as I am writing stuff down as I remember it. I’ll try to give as much context as possible. I tried to film as much as I could of the backstage stuff that Stephen did, or anything interesting that won’t air. Photos are here and videos are here.
Here’s one pic that I took with my phone, the stage before the sun went completely down:
Before I headed over to the Intrepid, I was planning to park at the garage right next to TCR studios, but it was full. As I was walking around in that area, I noticed some pink papers taped all up and down the street, and I also saw them at the garage where I parked. This is what they said:
Just thought it was interesting.
So as I was driving closer to the ship, I saw the picture on the side of the Daily Show building that says to go one block down and turn right, so I followed Jon’s directions. It just so happens the garage that is right across from the Hustler club offers discount parking for the Intrepid. SWEET!
I got to the Intrepid at about 4:20 or so. There were already about 50 people in line and more coming all the time. I was standing in the direct sunlight. I was happy that the sun had come out but not happy that I was dripping sweat by the gallon. Thankfully, after only about 5 minutes in the sun, we got moved up a few feet and were now in the shade. Much better. I wanted to hug that security guy, the bald one, for moving us.
Among all the fervent activity, I could see a bunch of nice people in tye dye shirts wheeling out Ben and Jerry’s carts. So I knew they’d have some Americone Dream.
There were many interesting characters in line. Many were dressed up in costumes, one guy had a pig costume on. In 90 degree humidity. Yeah.
As we finally started to move in we kept inching from one barrier to the next over the course of three hours. At the first station the lovely kids in tye dye shirts gave out free scoops of Americone Dream. Man it was good. One person brought a huge pink balloon with “Happy Birthday (carol?)” and some other sayings on it. People started batting it around to entertain themselves.
We got to the next barrier and could see the ship.
Beyond the barrier, where the TV trucks were, someone kept launching one of those robotic droids, i.e. taco copter, sans tacos. I never did find out what that was all about, but it was interesting to see.
We moved to yet another barrier, a little closer. I think they were teasing us. We could see all the VIPs and show staff going in and out. I saw this guy:
Couldn’t figure out where I had seen him at first. I didn’t know if he was with the show or just a celebrity. He kind of looks like a Baldwin brother, but then later I remembered that graphic. So I guess he is with the show.
I met up with karenatasha from the Hub, (and later met up with somuch2kno.) shortly before we were let up to the flight deck. We saw Evie and the kids get let off and head up. I heard one of the staff talking to someone in line and she said that Stephen had interviewed all the bands earlier and they were now doing sound checks and then we’d be let up. We could hear fun. doing their sound check.
No sign of any rain, but I kept wondering what they would do if thunder and lightning were threatening to cancel the whole thing. No need however, the rain held off. It was a perfect, only slightly cloudy night.
As we were waiting in line at the last barrier, there were some camera guys capturing the crowd. I probably got in the shot as I was right at the front. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.
Everyone was in good spirits, but also anxious to go up. At about 7:20 we finally got let up to the flight deck. There were about seven flights of stairs to get to the top.
I had always wanted to see the museum. It was so awesome. Beautiful views of the skyline and the Hudson, cool helicopters, jets and planes. We approached the stage and they already had Grandmaster Flash pumping out the beats.
Here’s the thing I did not know. They were filming all the shows for the following week. I thought they were just having a concert that they would broadcast at some point and they were going to show parts of it on the show. So this was kind of like the Olympics in Vancouver with parts of it outside with the audience and then Stephen in the studio without an audience. I couldn’t believe I was going to see the whole week of shows. I WAS PSYCHED!! I had been planning to stay in NYC to catch a taping on Monday or Tuesday but I got ‘em all.
It was hot, really hot. Why oh why did Stephen agree to wear that outfit?
They were generous to us. They gave out a lot of stuff. They had given us tickets for free beer or soda and a snack. I don’t like beer and really just needed water so I didn’t use mine, but I got the snack. They gave out bottles of water. They didn’t just give out bottles of water, they had people dressed up in formal waiting attire to hand out the bottles on a tray. Picture an art gallery with wait staff walking around with trays of full champagne glasses, then switch the glasses to bottles of water, bingo!
There was a VIP area with tables and chairs and a tent, but it was further back. I would’ve preferred to be up close to the stage.
Pete Dominick came out and did a quick warm up but, no disrespect to Pete, I think Grandmaster Flash was really the one who warmed everyone up. He was great.
Pete did a few jokes and then said, “You ready for Stephen?” Everyone cheered. Then he said, “well he’s flying in right now on a helicopter” and points off to the north. Everyone turns to see nothing and then Pete says “just kidding”. I think that was totally believable. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see that.
When Stephen came out he was doing the beginning of Monday’s show, which I didn’t quite realize at first. Like during the Olympics he “throws” it back to the studio, to himself. Then they did three more intros for Tue. Wed and Thurs. At the end of each one, they panned up to the command deck where someone was holding up various things like puppets that were supposed to stand in for Stephen. There was a puppet, a cardboard cutout and a broom, plus one other thing that I’m forgetting. I’m wondering how that’ll look in the final cut.
The beginning of the night: Stephen comes out and does an intro for the first show on Monday. He looks so cute with his Capt. Spaulding get up, but I can’t imagine how much water weight he lost that night. As he seems like he’s about to go to break, then you hear “Stephen? Stephen?” over the speakers and Stephen says, “Jimmy, what’s that? cut that mic” but I knew who it was. I could tell by his voice it was Jon Stewart. I just didn’t know if he was actually there, but then I could see he just came over the monitors.
He says, “we were in the middle of something, let’s continue” and Stephen goes to get his Battleship game. They play one round, Jon gets a hit and Stephen brings out a gigantic battleship peg and proceeds to install it in the Intrepid.
Jon makes a couple cracks about his outfit, calls him Capt Spaulding. It was great! I couldn’t figure out if Jon’s piece was pre-taped or not. If it was they did a good job with pacing. One take only.
Then the bands came out. Two of the bands had to play their songs completely over again due to technical difficulties. During the times when they were setting up the stage for the next band, Stephen taped the goodnight segments. If you want you can read those below in my spoiler reporT. They were AWESOME, especially the final one.
At one point I saw a man backstage dressed up like the tin man. Couldn’t quite imagine what that was supposed to be about, but it was a piece for the air, so you’ll find out or you can read it below.
We were on the side of the stage where we could see Stephen in the wings as the bands were playing. I was sort of focused on that. I think at one point when the Flaming Lips were playing, you could see Stephen in the background, contemplating something or maybe watching.
I have to admit, I’m not a huge “music” fan, I mean the industry. I hadn’t heard of two of the bands and didn’t know a whole lot about the other two. I think fun. was the most, well, fun of course.
They played first and that was the most fun (pun intended) I had during the sets. I love their song, “Some Nights” and still like “We are Young”, although it may be a little overplayed. Still it was great to hear them do it.
I think it was around the end of fun.’s set that there were some really interesting smells wafting around. I think the crowd was preparing for the Flaming Lips. Let’s just say that soon after this, I imagine people started to storm the snack tables.
I did enjoy Santigold and learned that I did know one of her songs, just didn’t know that’s who it was. I also admit I didn’t know Santigold was a woman.
As I said, I don’t follow the music scene. The first song she performed, “The Keepers”, I heard on the radio the next day. I remembered it!
Not a huge Flaming lips fan either but it appeared that many people had come just to see them. Grizzly Bear, I’m afraid, didn’t make an impact on me. That’s just me though. Although, I haven’t seen the interviews, so who knows.
At times I headed over to the part of the flight deck with the jets and took some nice pictures. It would’ve been cool enough to just be on the Intrepid on a beautiful summer Friday night to enjoy a low key concert but we got such a high energy concert that will be broadcast on TV.
At times I noticed Stephen’s staff rockin’ out, when they had free moments. They had on hats that said Colbchella with a US Navy insignia, or something similar to it. They were usually very busy though. When I was coming back up the elevator after using the facilities, one girl had a big thing of OJ. It was a juice emergency and she had to rush it up. I can’t imagine the logistics of putting on a show like this. (ahem, Emmys?)
At one point, in between bands, they showed us a field piece that Stephen had taped on the ship, where he talks to a pregnant woman and gets a tour from a man named DeLeo (sp?) As everyone was watching it, I was watching everyone watch it. There was another security guard who was facing the crowd that was watching the monitors. Everytime there was a funny part of the video, he was laughing along with the crowd. Even though he wasn’t watching it, he was hearing it. I thought that was so cute.
Santigold tried to keep the crowd entertained while the technical troubles were delaying things. She said she doesn’t know any jokes, but asked if anyone knew any good ones. She put the mic out and one kid told a joke, but no one could hear it so she re-told it. It was the one about the papa tomato and the baby tomato walking behind him down the street. Apparently it was in Pulp Fiction, but I didn’t remember it. Cute joke.
I was lucky enough to get close enough to Stephen to actually just reach out and touch him. You can read more about it below or wait to see it. I can say that I can die happy now.
I also chose to go use the facilities at the same time that Evie and the kids were leaving. I got to ride down in the elevator with them. I thought the bald security guy was going to tell us that we couldn’t go in but he waved us in. The kids are tall. I think the middle boy (always forget his name) is taller than me and Maddie is definitely taller than me. I didn’t say anything, just observed their dynamic. They were talking about the technical troubles.
There was a huge crate of beach balls on both sides of the stage that they threw out into the crowd during the show. At the end of the show they threw them to the crowd as they were leaving. That was nice.
A bunch of the hardcore Flaming Lips fans wanted an encore, but I don’t think they got one. I can’t blame them. It was late and the crew had a lot to clean up.
So now to get on my soapbox. To see the enormity of this undertaking, all I could think was, Stephen has an amazing staff and crew to be able to pull this off. Karen reminded me that they pulled off a week of shows in Iraq. This concert might seem easy in comparison. They did Iraq, the Rally, the Olympics and now this. THEY DESERVE THE FREAKIN’ EMMY!!!!!!! The Emmy people need to come and experience what goes into getting these great shows out. Anyway…
*climbs down from soapbox*
I can’t wait to see it and I can’t wait for everyone else to see it. At one point I was wavering about going because of the rain that day, but I am so glad I went. I would’ve had to punish myself severely for not going, after realizing I could’ve seen an entire week of shows in one night.
—————————SPOILER REPORT SPOILER REPORT—————————————
DON’T READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW STUFF YET!!!!!
SPOILERS BELOW DON’T READ ANY FURTHER!!!!!! WARNING! WARNING!!!
On one other night, maybe Tuesday, Jay the Intern comes out dressed up in tinfoil. I thought he was the tin man. He is actually a lightning rod, to protect the audience.
On one other night, Stephen is doing a promo for Pepsi. Their motto is, “Live for now” and Stephen says that if there were a comma, “Live, for now” then that motto would have a much different meaning. He launches into a very deep monologue about death and life and then manages to work Pepsi into it somehow.
Stephen asks Grandmaster Flash how he’s doing and Flash says he needs the bathroom. Stephen tells him it’s not possible and he’ll just have to hold it. Then they launch into a conversation about life in the ‘hood. Stephen says he wants to visit the ‘hood and asks if his outfit would be appropriate to wear there.
As far as the bands playing, it was pretty much just a straightforward concert. Santigold and Grizzly Bear had to do some of their sets over again. There were problems, due to the rain from earlier in the day.
So when Stephen was filming the ‘goodnight’ segments he did two in the crowd. He had to film the first one a few times. The crowd around him was making his mic malfunction, so he used a handheld. But then they had to film it again, because he was supposed to say something else, and he decided to let the crowd hold him up. He was lying horizontally and the crowd was literally holding him up. JEALOUS!!! however….
For the second ‘goodnight’ he came over to my side of the crowd. I started to walk closer to at least maybe just get a high five or something, but I then suddenly got squished and swept up in the magnetic field that Stephen had just created. It’s like he’s a positive and we’re all negatives. He just creates that polar field that attracts everyone to him.
It was actually a little scary for a couple seconds, because I couldn’t move freely, but was being moved involuntarily by the crowd. Once Stephen took his place and was ready to shoot, it was okay, but I couldn’t even move my hands. However, I could see him so close, I could make out the wrinkles around his eyes. He was close enough to me that if I had been able to reach out, I could’ve touched him. Good thing I couldn’t though cuz his security guy was right there and would’ve carted me away.
I think he had to do two takes. I don’t even remember, my mind was swirling, and I couldn’t film it due to being squished, but I think I’m in the shot.
In the taped field piece where Stephen is touring the Intrepid, he and the pregnant lady and the older gentleman named DeLeo (sp?) sang a rendition of “New York, New York (a hell of a town)”
The finale of the concert was Stephen and Wayne from Flaming Lips, crowd surfing in giant hamster-like inflatable balls. They were standing on stage, inside the balls, and from my vantage point it looked like boobs. Not implying anything about Wayne and Stephen, just that they literally did look like two big boobs.
You can see the crowd surfing when it airs, it was a spectacle. Stephen was falling around inside the ball, laughing and you could tell he had pretty much reverted to the little boy that is inside of him that we all love.
There were a lot of other things and of course, the interviews that no one has seen yet. Should be a great week of shows.