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| We casually bumped into Mike Hadreas behind Triple Rock. The result? A beautiful group picture. |
[Note: Rachelle’s name is actually pronounced like Rachel. Just so you pronounce it in your head correctly.]
Yesterday at around 6pm, Jason and I headed to Centennial to drop off his stuff and then to the Tofu House. We were roughly an hour late. Once we got there, we found Mitchell and Rachelle conversing at a table by the window. We were mildly and jokingly scolded, but then I rushed to Rachelle’s side and gave her a bear hug (it was my first time seeing her in months). While Mitchell and Rachelle were slowly recovering from their feast, Jason and I ate our tofu bowls with steamed rice. We had a nice talk about college living, friends back home, and adulthood. It’s funny how I always forget the six-year age gap between us.
After we finished our meal, we walked to Rachelle’s car and headed to Triple Rock Social Club. It took some getting through lousy bikers and awful pedestrians, with Mitchell sticking his head out of the window and door to scream at them, but after a ten minute car ride, we had arrived at our destination. As it turned out, we were super early and therefore were (pretty much) the only ones in the room for an hour or so. On the bright side, we got some great seats (and waited in them for another hour and a half).
To kill time, we talked about Jason’s malpracticing orthodontist that accidentally removed an extra tooth and totally denied it (Mitchell, being a dentistry student and aspiring orthodontist himself, was very interested and enraged by the anecdote), more adultly things like loans and paying the rent, horror electrocution stories, and Chinese philosophy. I even carefully crafted two paper cranes. And at one point, Mitchell and Rachelle were reading the broken English-filled text messages my mom sent me in the last week.
After a long wait, the opening act finally showed up. Her name was Matteah Baim, and she brought along a bearded guy with glasses in a rather comfy looking black cotton dress. It was pretty interesting stuff. The instrumentals were pretty nice and relaxing. They were pretty bleak. But cool, I guess.
Once Matteah Baim was finished, the music came back on the speakers and the club was bustling with conversation once again. It would be another fifteen minutes before the main act would arrive. The club began to fill up at a more rapid pace. The floor began to flood and a few rows of people stood behind us. Jason and I rambled to one another about life once more, and before we knew it, Perfume Genius had arrived.
“Shoot, I had like two more sentences left,” I whispered.
Jason crouched over and leaned his left ear toward me.
Discomforted by the sudden pressure to complete my thought in a timely and satisfying manner, I paused.
“Nevermind, I’ll tell you later!” I whispered.
“Okay, remember to tell me!” he whispered back.
[I never did actually remember to tell him.]
The next hour or so was filled with aching vocals, powerful screams, impressive falsetto, and piano-heavy love songs. I could feel myself sinking into my chair and wanting to hug the man (Mike Hadreas), especially when he sang Take Me Home and Mr. Peterson. Another one of my favorite performances was the one of Floating Spit. Pretty soothing, in my opinion. Overall, I enjoyed myself. But if you thought I was having fun, you should’ve seen Mitchell and Rachelle. They were constantly recording, taking video Snapchats, predicting the next songs, and squealing in their seats. I could hear Mitchell next to me:
“Oh my gahhhd, he is so cool.”
“Ahh I love this song!”
“Oh my gosh I think he’s gonna play this song, and it’s gonna be so great.”
“Isn’t this beautiful?”
“This is so good.”
“He is amazing.”
Once the concert ended, people started filing out the door. Mitchell went first, Rachelle and I followed, then Jason. I didn’t realize just how crowded it was until I found myself in a human traffic jam. When we finally got out of the venue, we found Mitchell standing by the door. Our group assembled and headed to the car. But beforehand, Mitchell grabbed the concert poster taped to the glass door.Turns out Mitchell is a mild concert kleptomaniac. We briskly walked to the Jeep and jumped inside. Just as Rachelle was about to start the car, we noticed something.
“Oh my God, is that him?”
Standing outside the back door was a man in a black jacket, rather familiar looking, puffing on a cigarette alongside another guy.
“Oh. My. God.”
“Do you have a Sharpie?”
“No, but I have a pen.”
“You guys, let’s get a selfie!”
“Noo, I’m too scared! I’m going to embarrass myself.”
“No you won’t.”
“I’ll do it for ya.”
“No, don’t do that.”
Rachelle and I got out of the car and headed towards the genius that is Mike Hadreas.
“Hey, great job tonight! My friend is a really huge fan, and I was wondering if you could sign this for him,” said Rachelle.
Finishing his puff, Mike looked up at us and smiled, his cigarette casually placed between his fingers.
“Sure. What’s his name?”
“Mitch,” we replied in unison.
He put the poster up against the wall and tried writing on it, but to no avail.
“Oh shoot, is the pen not working?”
“It’s okay, I’ll go grab a Sharpie.” How awesome is it that he went out of his way to grab us a Sharpie? So cool.
He promptly returned with his Sharpie and signed the poster.
“Did you want a picture, Brenda?” asked Rachelle.
I nodded eagerly. “Yes, of course!”
“--Wait, we need to grab Mitchell! Can we grab our friend quick?”
Mike nodded.
As Rachelle ran back to the car, Mike turned to me. “Oh, he’s here? I thought he was sick or something. Why didn’t he just come with you?”
“He’s just scared. He absolutely loves you. You know he stole that concert poster off the door for you? And during the show he kept turning to me and gushing about how cool you are” I answered.
Mike nodded his head, as if he truly understood just how much Mitchell adored him.
Mitchell and Jason got out of the car and came over. After brief introductions, we lined up for the picture, me awkwardly standing in the front because I was so short and couldn’t squeeze in from the side.
“It’s okay, that was like me in every single high school picture,” joked Mike.
Our photographer, the cool dude playing with Matteah Baim, snapped a few pictures before handing the phone back to Rachelle. With much jubilee, we thanked Mike and black cotton dress dude and headed back to the car.
As we drove along, we gushed.
“That was so cool.”
“He probably thought we were being weird. Those girls were being all cool and came in with their cigarettes like ‘Oh we tried to cover you once, but it did no justice.’ Nope. I was just like ‘Homghomg I love you.”
“I had no idea he was wearing lipstick this whole time.”
“He stepped on my toe. It was soo cool.”
“He was definitely wearing nail polish.”
“Oh my God that was so exciting. We’re going to get married.”
Needless to say, it was a great night.
