Jennie and I have been friends since high school, we lived across the street from each other in Anaheim, and we were pretty much inseparable for years. We went to every party together, every concert together and when my mom took my banana phone away from me, I moved out (to Jennie’s house) and then we lived together.
Then life happened. She got married and had kids, I got married and had kids and we were out of touch for a while. Then Facebook happened. We reconnected and picked up where we left off. Only this time around, we are much more mature. (Well, kind of.)
The above picture is Jennie and I in the early ’80s on our way to a Prince concert. We loved Prince! And since our car stereos sucked so bad at the time, we drove around with a huge ghetto blaster/cassette player so we could listen to his music louder. (Kids these days have no idea what we did for the love of music!)
Jennie texted me a few weeks ago and said to keep May 8th open because she had a surprise for me. Then she texted me a picture of 2 Prince tickets. I was so excited, I screamed! We met last night at her place before the concert to go over our game plan.
First, we would talk our way through the security guys and get backstage (something we used to be pros at). Then, we would see Prince and tell him how much we loved him. Next, we would pull out our old picture and he would gladly sign the back with the purple Sharpie that we had conveniently brought with us.
The first security guy was great. He took our picture in front of the marquee and joked around with us. (I was hoping they would all be like him.) He also warned us that there would be absolutely no pictures inside and that we would be escorted out if we didn’t comply.
We got down to the front and tried to get past the backstage security, but were stopped when they noticed we didn’t have wrist bands. I told him we were supposed to cover the story and we weren’t told about any wrist bands. Then he looked at my iPhone 3 with the Star Wars Yoda sticker on the back (my seven-year-old thought my phone needed a little decorating) and I knew it was over. I had blown our cover as reporters.
I could see him laughing inside, “Yeah, no mam! I’m sorry!”
I had to think quick so I pulled out the purple Sharpie, “I have this purple Sharpie, it’s like an all-access wrist band. I can’t believe they didn’t tell you to let the girls with the purple Sharpie back stage? Go get your boss!” And for that very moment, he thought about it. We almost had him, until Jennie started busting up. Our cover was blown again, and this time for good.
“Um..yeah. I’m sorry mam! I can’t help you.”
We gave up on trying to get back stage and took our place in the audience. They made several announcements about how there were to be absolutely no pictures. Failure to comply would result in an escort out of the building with no refund.
The concert was amazing and Prince looked sexy as ever. The man does not age! His new music was very funky and rocky with a trance-like feel. We kept waiting for him to play some of his old stuff like “Purple Rain” or “Little Red Corvette”, but nothing. After he left the stage the audience insisted on an encore and started chanting: “Purple Rain! Purple Rain!” He came out again and played another new song. Jennie and I were getting pist (and so were a lot of other people)! The concert ended and we all left the building without ever hearing “Purple Rain.”
I’m not saying we did anything wrong, I’m just saying, I have no idea how this picture of Prince ended up in my in box this morning?
Oh, and I was able to fashion stalk a bit. The last picture was my favorite concert look. Liquid silver pants with a swag T-shirt. Epic!
