so take a good look at my face

At Long Last, the Gavin Degraw Incident:

Everyone reading this should know that i have loved Gavin for quite a while. What I don't think anyone realized, including myself, is how MUCH i love him. Tuesday night, at the 9:30 club in DC, my love for him forced me to do something that has happened before, but never at the 9:30 club of all places!!! sit down, please, it's quite a shocking story.

tuesday afternoon i drove up to the club, and met chris (superball9) outside with almost perfect timing. we went inside, and stratgically placed ourselves upstairs against the railing. we sadly accessed that most of the crowd was young, late high-school aged females. gross.

micheal tolcher (?) the first opener, apparently has this huge following i wasn't aware of. after his first song chris and i agreed that he's simply a disgused Jason Mraz. not terrible, but not great either.

tobey lightman played next. she is a tiny tiny little woman with a big voice. (actually, physically she reminded me a lot of my friend shannon from harrisonburg - i know, random). she opened with "down to the river" which is actually my favorite song on her CD. and she covered "real love" by mary j. blige. the whole thing was very good. chris and i decided her best moments were the acoustic ones with just her and a guitar... no band.

so then gavin comes on, the stage back-drop this huge gavin degraw sign (quite different from last i saw him) he looked hot, as usual, in a black jacket and signature hat. he immediatly flew threw four of my favorite songs and then went into some covers and newer stuff. i was extremely disappointed to see the ENTIRE crowd performing the exact same hand motions that i had insisted tracy perform everytime the songs came on at FYE. i really wanted a big sign to hold up to the entire audience that said "don't fall in love!!!!" like i did for sarah and kasey just one short year ago, but seriously, it was clearly too late.

everyone had already fallen, deeply, in love.

he did "sexual healing" and then a new, heavier, number which can only be compared to GnR's november rain. t'was long, very long and much to boring for gavin degraw. he then went into "tracks of my tears" sooooooo good! after this, things start to get hazy for me. ...

so chris and i are standing there, against the railing, when i start to get this strange feeling. i wasn't sure at the time, but now i recognize that it was the dread of familiarity. i stand there for a couple seconds, growing more and more uncomfortable, and finally decide to commit the unthinkable and actually walk away during a performance. i tell chris i'm going to go get some water, and start to make my way through the crowd towards the bar. i approach the steps that lead up to the bar, and grip the railing as i climb the eight or ten stairs to the top. my vision begins to get hazy and i remember having no clue what song gavin was singing, because i couldn't clearly hear it anymore. i struggle to the top and barely acknowledge that the closest pitcher of water to me is nearly empty .... then....

i feel someone holding my hand, telling me to get up, asking if i'm okay.

yes, folks, that's right, i FAINTED at the 9.30club!!!!!
oh MY god!!!! SO EMBARASSING.

two people helped me to some nearby stairs and i sat down. my head was spinning horribly, and it was at least a full two minutes before i could see anything. my body temperature was approximately 1 billion degrees; i was sweating so bad my hair was stuck to the back of my neck. ewww. one of the people who helped me up, (a saint of a girl named jenn from baltimore), told me she was a nurse and asked what drugs i was on and where my friends were. i was like OH MY GOD i'm NOT on drugs. again she asked where my friends were and what my name is. i told her i was courtney and there was no point in looking for my friends and i'd be fine in just a second. she asked if i wanted water and i said yes and i could tell from her response that she was holding water right in front of my face but i couldn't see it. finally i downed the whole glass in like three seconds and on some level i registered that gavin was playing "i don't wanna be". jenn asked me again what drugs i was on and was i pregnant. by this time my vision was clearing and the geography (!) of the situation was starting to sink in. i asked her if everyone around had seen what had happened and she laughed and said, uhhhh yeah. then i asked if the bar staff had done anything to help and she said "no, but i'm sure that they saw you fall." she said that she had noticed me coming up the stairs b/c i nearly fell over the last step, and i was standing at the bar and just literally fell over and that i started shaking while they were helping me to the steps to sit down and she was afraid i was having SEIZURES.

okay does anyone realize how INCREDIBLY embarassed i was by this point!!!??? oh my god, people the NINE-THIRTY CLUB. ahhhhhh.

i asked jenn her name again b/c i had forgotten after i asked the first time. i had another glass of water and i started rambling on about how embarassed i was and how much i love gavin and i guess i just got too hot/tired. she told me she was from baltimore and she was a nurse, and i was like, thank GOD you were here!!! i sat there for a while, trying to calm down and i started to feel more normal finally. i was looking around trying to see how many people were staring at me for being the big weirdo fainting but thankfully most of the bar crowd was drunk and not caring.

i hear gavin get ready to start another song and i decide to go tell chris i'm just going to leave before i'm forced out on a stretcher, then i hear gavin say, "what? oh, sure i'll play Hallelujah" (which i've only ever heard him do on 'last call with carson') and i knew my fate was sealed. i thank jenn profusely for SAVING MY LIFE and rush (as fast as i could) back to chris to take in "hallelujah".

t'was glorious! :)

so this fainting spell, (my 2nd seemingly random one since august of 2003) can only mean one of two things:
1) i should take that whole "diabetes running in my family" thing a bit more seriously and go find out what the hell's wrong with me.
OR
2) my love for gavin has become a fever and the only prescription is More Gavin.

haha. but seriously if this doesn't qualify me as the biggest fan ever, i don't know what will. so horribly embarassing.

yusef and i both agreed that sitting there feeling embarassed was much, much, better than laying on a stretcher being carried out to an ambulance feeling embarassed.

geoff called me on my way back to harrisonburg and asked if i would be able to stay awake for the whole drive home. i'm like "are you kidding? i slept in the 9:30club!"
hahaha... *sigh*... so embarassing!!!!

but, fainting aside, Gavin Degraw just makes me understand everything i want in a man. no more settling. and he also makes me realize that the best men are slightly shorter than me. interesting.

and he makes me realize that men are sooooo much sexier behind a piano then behind a guitar. also, it made me long for the days when i was the only one that loved gavin. i know, that's so annoying to be one of those "i loved him before he was popular but i did!!" (see post from 7.13.03)

so what have we learned class? we've learned chris is an excellent date and provides some fantastic conversation. we've learned gavin is still an amazing performer. and finally, and most importantly, we've learned it's always handy to have a the random nurse from baltmore around... ahhh jenn, thank you for saving my pathetic little existence. i might not know you or ever see you again, but in the immortal words of phil collins "you'll be in my heart".

~courtney

"you'll see my smile looks out of place,
if you look closer it's easy to trace,
the tracks of my tears..."
~smokey robinson