Two Wrongs Do Make a Right

Friday night, I went to a Julian Perretta/ Inna Modja concert with a good friend of mine. Since they're both much more popular in Europe, I'm providing links to their most well known songs for those of you who are interested.

Julian Perretta: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlRcLU3gBy0

Inna Modja: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdnGfzzk18k

Marie and I were determined to be in the first row for the concert, so we decided to go early and arrived at 2 P.M. The only person in sight was a casino worker. In order to make sure this completely deserted area was, indeed, where the concert would take place, we asked the lady.

Lesson #1: If someone of almost seemingly highish authority asks if you're an artist performing that night, say yes. 

Unfortunately, we told the truth and said we weren't. This led to us wandering around for over 3 hours in the middle of a town built for people turning into vegetables.

After the 3 long and completely uneventful hours had passed, we went back to the casino to see if any other people had arrived. Two girls had waltzed in to wait for Julian during the time that Marie and I were doing nothing, so we waited with them. A little over 5 minutes later, in walks Inna Modja, just as calm and cute as can be. She had such a welcoming vibe that I just had to go talk to her.

After that nice little moment, we went ahead and got in line, even though there wasn't much of one. As we're sitting there, listening to Julian rehearse through the walls, we start thinking, "Well, we probably won't meet Julian. At least we met Inna, right?" This was a slightly disappointing thought, for we absolutely adore Julian.

When the doors finally opened, we raced in and got standing spots directly in front of the microphone. Even at this point, there were only a roughly estimated 50 people or so. It wasn't until a few minutes before he started that more people came in. Even then, there were less that half a thousand. 

Eventually, Julian started singing in his captivating English accent. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. The atmosphere that the spectators were creating, however, was not beautiful. Every time I turned around, I saw the rest of the crowd standing in the corners of the room with their arms crossed, completely unaffected by the magic Julian was creating. 

For the first time ever, I was utterly disappointed in Luxembourg. Julian must have been equally disappointed, because, although was really nice about it, he made multiple references about how we weren't giving him much to work with. 

The concert finished, and everyone cleared out. The band started to pack up the equipment, and because Marie and I were still hanging around, the guitarist gave us a set list and talked to us a bit. He then went back to packing up and Marie and I went outside for a walk. We discussed whether or not we wanted to go watch Inna perform, or be obsessed fans and wait for Julian to come around. We chose the latter. 

We were sitting near the entrance of the casino and noticed a huge line. We spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out why everyone was standing in this massive line and came to the conclusion that it was for the bathroom. Then I realized that Julian probably wouldn't be walking out this way because there were too many people. I got up to go to the back of the building, but Marie just stayed where she was. 4 footsteps later, I make the grand discovery that the line was not for the toilets, but for Julian. Way to go, Cayenne, he was merely a few feet away from you this entire time. I signaled Marie over and we waited in line to meet him.

He promised Marie that he'd take a photo with her if we waited a few minutes for everyone to kind of scatter out a little. While waiting, I had an excellent conversation with the keyboardist who found it "cute" that I'm from Arkansas. It was during this time that I lost Marie. 

Lesson #2: Never leave Marie's side.

I don't handle getting lost very well, so I paced in circles and panicked for half an hour until her dad showed up. We looked everywhere, but had no luck in finding her. Inna was in the process of playing, so her dad told me to go watch the rest of the concert.

Right as Inna was wrapping up, I received a text from an unrecognized number. 

"Hey, I'm in Julian's cabin. Wait for me by the doors."

Lesson #3: Seriously, never leave Marie's side.

I went around and asked various staff members to lead me to these supposed doors, but each one told me they weren't accessible to the public. That is, until some super nice lady told me I could be an exception and led me not only to the doors, but directly into the room of Julian, Julian's overwhelmingly attractive brother, and his band members. Keyboard Boy (who was well on his way to the happy land of drunkenness) greeted me with a big shout of, "Arkansas!" Normally, people forget I'm from Arkansas 5 seconds after I tell them, so this provided a surprisingly nice feeling.

Due to my tardiness, I missed out on picture time, so I don't really have many pictures of us together. I'm trying to convince myself that it's okay. Despite my relatively unreliable memory, I'm pretty positive I'll be able to remember this. If not, I still have the signed ticket, set list, and a piece of his candy....

So many little things went just wrong enough to have wonderfully positive outcomes. For this, I'm going to consider Friday night to have been a hectic, panic-inducing success.