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LEAVIN' ON A JET PLANE:
Indianapolis, IN | Murat Theater | 10.07.00
I could probably almost allow myself to enjoy airplanes if I wasn't so keenly, absolutely petrified of them. There's a definite element of romance there, of closing your eyes in one time zone only to open them again in another, of not just traveling, but of being transported. But being the feeble minded human animal that I am, I can't just sit back and abide by the illogic of it, the thought of thousands of pounds of steel and aluminum and plastic and fiberglass hurtling itself through space at warp speed, powered by highly flammable substances. I can't so easily entrust my body to this thing, coffin-shaped, womb-shaped, phallic, noisy, belching more smoke and fumes than all of Boston at rush hour. It's entirely safe, says everyone. Says my mother. Says the Institute of Psychology of Air Travel, whose webpage I frequented in the days before take-off. Safer than riding an automobile. Safer than walking down the stairs in my dorm. At one point, somewhere, several thousand miles above the earth between Boston and Chicago, I picked up my hand off the armrest and noted the small puddle of condensation that had formed under my palm. Nervousness. Panic. Claustrophobia. Fear of being away from home all by myself. Active sweat glands. Fervent prayers to the Virgin Mary during take-offs and landings. The "If we crash right now, what are my chances of survival?" game. I hate flying. But damned if I won't fly. Put the faces of those boys in front of me, a concert ticket in my hand, a Meet and Greet pass, and I will do it. I will smile as United Airlines sucks the funds out of my checking account. I will pack my bags. I will endure rubbery chicken and airsickness and high school boys in the row behind me calling each other "a-holes." I left my dorm room on Saturday morning in a sweater. It was 6:00 and Boston was desolate and too warm for October, a rather attractive orangy sunrise making the tops of the buildings on Newbury Street look like they had been dipped in Triaminic. I was very comfortable. When my plane landed (safely) at O'Hare airport, where I spent my first layover, the temperature on the ground was 34 degrees. By the time I got to Indianapolis, it was 31, so cold that I could feel the wind seeping through the cracks in that tube you walk through to get from plane to airport. I wore my winter coat for the first time all season. It was here that I met up with Jackie, venerable and highly talented webmistress and my generous host for the weekend. I'm not sure what I was expecting from Indianapolis, the city. Having only traveled to the Midwest twice in my life, I'm still a bit baffled by its flatness, its obscene expanses of blue sky, even so close to a metropolitan area. I can't really wrap my mind around it entirely, how there are miles and miles of checkerboard, cultivated nothing, then suddenly a city crops up in the middle of it. It's one of those distinctly Midwest cities too with no public transportation and a downtown that's useless and desolate any time after 5:00 pm and on weekends. A Functional Downtown, as opposed to a Recreational one. The Murat Theater proved just as interesting, equal parts rock theater and function hall, decorated in my grandmother's mauve and forest-green idea of what Egyptian décor might be. It was the sort of place that provoked the same reaction we had at every other oddly ill-fitting, second-tier venue along the tour: Hanson's playing here? In fact, Jackie and I initially pulled up to the theater to find it almost deserted, save a lone window-washer in the lobby. To a brain that, at this point, it very much predisposed to respond to images of sharpie covered limbs and painted poster board, it was surreal, like I'd traveled halfway across the country only to show up on the wrong day for the wrong show in the wrong city. The weather only added to the feeling. Hanson concerts and windy days, winter coats, earmuffs, mittens, cold noses, aren't things that fit well together in any way. The first time we saw Hanson this past spring, I was dizzy from heat stroke through their whole set, sunburnt to a rather festive shade of red on my nose and cheeks. Beyond that, the fact that I never changed my watch and spent most of the trip under the impression that I was in the Eastern time zone when I was in fact in Central, and the post-flight stress headaches my body seems to have such a propensity for, it all made for a strangely warped little picture. But it was exciting too, the idea that I could come all this way and still be seeing my Hanson, the same Hanson I'd seen two weeks earlier in Montreal, in Boston. Now, it was me coming to them, instead of the other way around. We did eventually find the Throng, the familiar masses of girls, teenage and otherwise, grouped behind the Murat Center, at an entrance that looked like the one the caterers might use. The whole Wait for Hanson to Walk into the Theater experience is sort of an overrated one on a lot of levels. The main problem with it is that… well… that's all they really do. They walk in. They don't hang out. They don't shake hands. They don't tap dance, although I'd wager Taylor has probably come close in his lifetime. They don’t profess their love to you. You might be lucky enough to get a wave or a smile. They did just that. The crowd screamed. Took pictures. Clawed. Hooted as much as they could from behind the metal barricades that kept us 25 feet from the band. After the band et al had been inside the Murat for a while, Mackenzie walked (stalked, charged, clomped) out, half-eaten package of Smarties hanging out one side of his mouth, to hand out random stickers to the throng. He's rather direct order to "TAKE ONE AND PASS 'EM BACK!" may very well have been the highlight of the afternoon, with the exception of the camouflage-print baseball cap that was clamped on his head. (Aside: We like Mackenzie Hanson. He seems to be a forward, No BS sort of boy like big brother Zac. Plus, he's got pretty, honey-colored Isaac hair.) Going in, I wasn't entirely sure what a Meet and Greet was, exactly. How much time? How much interaction? How intimate? How close? After having been through it, I can say with unwavering confidence that I still have no palpable idea what the answers to those questions are. You get in a line with other people who have geeky lime green stickers like yours, the Scarlet A of the Hanson concert experience. (FYI: Should get one of these stickers and not wish to discuss it, the details of how you went about procuring it, or whether you'd like to share it or not, it's best to keep it hidden under a jacket, sweater… you get the idea.) And you wait. And fret. And worry about your hair looking bad. (After several tense hours spent thousands of miles above the earth perspiring wildly, it will be duly noted that my hair looked positively awful.) And have random conversations with the people in your party that include things like, "I hope this doesn't suck…" and "What should I say to them?" and "Make sure you pay attention to Taylor's hair, because he got it cut again…." Janelle, Jackie's non-fan, yet ultimately highly agreeable and open minded younger sister and I talked about school. "Where do you go to school?" "I go to Emerson College in Boston…" "Are you Laura?!" suddenly, comes a stranger's voice from behind me. My God. I got recognized. Standing in the Meet and Greet line at the Indianapolis show was someone who had read the nonsense on this page carefully enough to know me when she heard me. Insane? You bet. Surreal? Not half as much as what was about to happen. We were herded into a basement dressing room. It was almost romantic in that watery yellow-lit, dirty, Life on the Road, The Things I Do For My Art way, but it was also icky enough to prompt some suspicious questions from my family, after they saw the pictures, regarding the "bathroom" where I'd met Hanson. (It wasn’t a bathroom, Mom. I swear.) It was empty, with lit dressing mirrors on all of the walls that tossed freaky reflections of you and that yellow light everywhere, creating an almost palpable haze. It made me giddy, heady, completely freaked out. I was backstage forgodssakes. There was that dizzy illogic on top of it all. Me. Stupid me. Stupid uncool me with my bad hair. Backstage. Backstage enough to see the band having dinner by candle lit buffet in one room. Backstage enough to see the "M2M" sign on a closed door. Backstage enough to see guys with headsets and lanyards around their necks pushing past in a hurry. It was so funny I almost laughed out loud. My brain shut off. I. Was. A. Teenie. Announcements. Something from a cute guy in a t-shirt who I saw in Boston and Philly about going in 10 at a time. Sure. Whatever you say, sir. There were 11 in my group. We tried for method. We didn't want to go first. Last would have been good. I don't remember if it happened or not because everything was just moving by then, just whirring right along as these awful, random gurgles of laughter kept welling up inside. Me taking a picture of Jackie, the flash bouncing everywhere. Me looking at myself in one of those hazy mirrors thinking, It's 8:00. Do you know where your kids are? A smaller room now. Still, more mirrors. And they're just standing there. Hi, Hanson. What's up? Thought #1: Isaac is wearing the exact same thing he was wearing when I met him in Boston. Thought #2: He has nice hair. I don't remember whose hand I shook first. Taylor? Taylor. Rolling stones t-shirt. Black. Cool artwork. Stupid armband in the wrong place, but he's immediately forgiven because I'm liking the way his arm looks under it, the random pulse of a vein against the leather, the soft pale little hairs. His hair is damp, just out of the shower. Cut so short and sweet around his face, like a pixie. You can see all of his face, no obstructions, the curve of his cheekbones. The eyes again. That cool, startling, watery blue. I'm staring at him. Completely staring. He's so beautiful that I think for an instant that he could be fake, that he's some well-constructed hologram of a boy that you could walk right through, a particularly accurate, sexy mirage. A full handshake this time, not a fingertip grip like Boston. Big hands, wide across the palms. That curious roughness again, right at the fingertips. The smile. Crinkles around the corners of his eyes. "Hey Taylor, how are you?" "Hi there. I'm great." Zac. Zac is taller than me. Zac is much taller than me. I have four-inch heels on. The top of my head is just above Zac's shoulder. I'm eye level with his throat. He is so much bigger than my moderately well honed preconceived notions allowed for and I'm shocked. He's got pimples, more than one. On his lip. His forehead. It's really cute. He's 15. I'm 20. I realize suddenly that he could toss me like a shot-put. He could toss Taylor like a shot-put. Zeppelin t-shirt. The Shannon Curfman cords with the rhinestones up the sides. The Dirty Sneakers. He looks old, grown up old. Like Taylor, or that weary look that's in Isaac's eyes sometimes. It's there. He's not amused by any of this, by the fact that I'm smiling at him. My God, he is breaking my fingers. Crunch. My knuckles. Can I have that back, buddy? Thanks. I'll be needing it. "Hey, Zac." "Hey." Confusion. People saying stuff. Taylor yapping just behind me about… I have no idea. Isaac. I need to shake Isaac's hand, or I will die or something. Target in range. I can see him. Smiling at me. He is definitely smiling at me and I'm undoubtedly smiling at him. Dorky yellow and orange plaid again. Brighter in these weird lights. His hair is longish, floppy. He's tall tall tall. Very tall. He carries himself like he's the eldest. Something commanding, regal, but there's something warm there too, a thing that makes you want to curl your arms around his neck. I think this as I'm standing in front of him and I almost feel bad. Then I don't. I extend my hand. He extends his. Collision. I'm sideswiped on either side by two young ladies who didn’t see me there preparing for the Moment of My Life apparently. Laura sandwich. Isaac laughs, his face crunching up and his teeth showing. He's shaking my hand as he's laughing. I don't remember the handshake because I remember the laughing. "Hey there!" (Oof. Squish. Whoops. Sorry about that.) "Heheheh…" And I'm moving through this shuffling, giddy crowd of people that includes Hansons and not Hansons and this formation starts to happen. And it kicks in before I have time to stop it, that snotty, I Am NOT a Teenie Laura pride, that pin prick of undiluted bitch that lurks just below my harmless college girl facade. I will not do it. I will not fight to stand next to them. I will not clamor. I will not whine. I will not make a fool of myself for 1.2 seconds of Hanson bodily contact. I will not. So I didn't. And I wound up very much crunched on the floor in the front row, one of the obligatory, brave, volunteer short people who inevitably populate (pollute?) the foreground of every Meet and Greet picture. I was miles away from bodily contact. Was it worth it? Forsaking a chance at Hanson contact, even if it was as minuscule as a hand on a shoulder, to keep my pride and my dignity in pristine order? Looking back… eh… probably not. But anyway… back to the story… I'm on the floor all crunched up and I'm staring again and now I feel guilty about it. Because all three Hansons, the famous visible celebrity ones, are standing behind me so I can't see them. The one I'm staring at, God help me, is their Dad. Because, deny it or don't deny it, he's cute. I'm more than staring. I'm staring with what I know must be a big, goofy, highly inappropriate grin on my face. I'm almost laughing. Because at this point, all of this weirdness has escalated into a frenzied, breakneck tsunami of pretension. People trying to act cool, to not freak out, to smile, to stay composed, to be polite and adult and Not Like All Those Other Fans when what every one of us wants to do is shatter into a million pieces on the floor and sob over how perfectly, gloriously human they are. And I'm one of those people. And it's funny as all get out. I'm almost lightheaded at this point. They take pictures of us. And the only camera I'm looking at is Walker's and I can't make myself stop, even when I know I should. Smile. Cheese. Recorded for posterity. For Hanson.net, which is even more foreboding, once I start to think about it. It's over. Bye now. Apologies. Isaac saying the words, "Fast and Furious" from somewhere in front of me. Behind me? My coat. My coat is on the other side of the room because I left it there because I didn't want it to be in the picture. Because it has dog hair on it and I forgot to pack my lint brush and Taylor would think that was stupid. And like it wasn’t warm enough in that room (cubicle, cell) already. So I go back to get it, and when I turn around, I'm like one of the last people in the room. And I have to walk by them again. And I can't think of anything cool to say at all. Zac first. I shake his hand again. Less masochistic this time. "Hey, have a really good show, OK?" Something, a fait little knit of his eyebrows. Something that I only detected because I was standing a foot away from him. A smile, an almost halfway genuinely genuine one. "Thank you very much." Taylor now. Oh God. Taylor. It's way too late to be original. Another handshake. Another nanosecond to be shocked by him. I'm looking at his eyes again. "I've already said goodbye to you once." Brain freeze. Sheepish little smile. "You can say goodbye again. That's fine." Thoroughly unflustered. A smile. "Hey, have a good show." Hey, it worked on the little one. "Thanks, we will. Have fun, OK?" Oh, I will. I most certainly will. I was in the hall when it hit me, when this palpable pang stabbed through my chest. I didn't say goodbye to Isaac. Shame. Horror. Was he hurt? Does that bum him out when he gets all shafted by the little girls who just want to fawn over Taylor? Does he think that I'm one of those girls, because I'm so completely not. I love Isaac. I love Isaac so so much that it's almost stupid. What if I just wrecked his night? Hell, what if I just wrecked my night? I want to go back. Rewind. Let's do that again. Like watching Leno (the beef stew one) on the VCR. For a second, I wanted to cry. And then I realized that I was being retarded and that I should cut it out. Not like he even noticed, Laura. Oh yes, and then there was a concert. I sat by myself again, which is OK. Better than Philadelphia this time, because hell, I'd just met Hanson and who really cares when you bring things to that level? I was Isaac side in the 15th row or so, still rather dazed and wondering what had just happened to me. I thought about those MIR cosmonauts, about what they must feel when their feet touch the earth again after floating and floating for years on end with only the occasional meteor shower for company. I had to sit down for a few minutes. The show started and I was thinking that I could still feel the airplane banking underneath me if I closed my eyes, one measured lurch to the left and then to the right, jettisoning us several thousand more feet into oblivion. So odd how I had flown just that morning, how I had taken the T, put on my sweater, called my Mom from O'Hare, all in a single day. I still hadn't bothered to change my watch. They started with You Never Know and Taylor's voice sounded iffy, but they were on. It was the first Hanson show I'd seen on this tour where I wasn't sweating even before the lights went down. I missed it almost, that almost sexual summer stickiness, always accompanied by the general desire to see naked limbs and beads of sweat. It's not as important an attraction as the music, admittedly, but it's still fun. The air in the Murat almost made me wish they'd stay clothed, if only because excessive sweating in that environment would make them cold-sweaty, the kind that happens when you get sick. But they did it anyway. By the third song, Taylor was sporting about 2.6 total inches of dry fabric on his body and that was that. The shirt came off. Even Isaac did it, obviously aware of the freaky line of sweat tracking diagonally across his back from his guitar strap. Things got interesting early and stayed that way, from the moment the first song ended. Because it didn't really end. You Never Know segued right into Crosstown Traffic, with all of its thump and grind firmly intact, but the transition itself came in the form of a minute-long, highly energized Zac Hanson drum solo, the first I've ever witnessed in fact. Nothing terribly awe-inspiring in its virtuosity, but it was certainly a lot of fun, pounding and loud and deft enough to silence any crabby local critic who happened to stop in out of curiosity. There was so much Isaac love. Every time he stepped to the edge of the stage, it just erupted out of the audience, this rush of adoration that seemed, for the first time, so completely worthy of the boy that commanded it. It wasn't residual Taylor love either, his skittish little contingent of fans feeling the need to contribute to the Isaac pool out of pity or something. It was unadulterated Guitar Boy/God Worship and it made me happy. Then Taylor said something… something about being in Indianapolis for the first time… something about wanting to do something for the first time… screaming… blah blah… and the song starts. And I wasn't doing much of anything because nothing terribly shocking was happening. Familiar song. Familiar screaming. Familiar song? Familiar song. Then the wheels started to turn. Yeah, stupid. A familiar song to you because you've heard the demo…. The demo. The Demo. Laura woke up. Bridges of Stone. The intro I was hearing, that random tinkle of notes from Taylor's keyboard was the intro to Bridges of Stone. My jaw hit the floor. "Oh my God. Oh. My. God." Where the hell were they? Stefanie? Corinne? Meghan? Amanda? The people who should have been there to freak out with me? They people who were sitting in their respective houses and dorm rooms on the east coast when I needed them in the 15th row of the ugly Murat Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, damnit? In three minutes, I heard it, what it Would Have Been, this aching, beautiful thing, so eloquent in its pain that it was too much for This Time Around. On the album, it would have been what they wanted, close to the demo, something unmarred by touchy producers who want to make things cloudy and meaty and commercial. And for one bleating instant, they gave it to us. More let us borrow it. And the show just kept moving, like it always does, into the next song and the next. But we had witnessed Hanson history, make no mistake, and that specialness hung in the air for the rest of the show. It was like being Chosen. Of course, what would eventually turn into the best moment of the night had nothing to do with musical reverence or anything spiritual or history making. In fact, it was the antithesis of all of that, more in line with the slap-happy surrealism of the dressing room hours before. It was however, just as exciting. If you caught it. Something happened during In the City. (Yes Laura, but something always happens during In the City.) No, but hear me out, because it's weirder than you're thinking. (How can it be weirder, Laura? Taylor jumps around so much that he nearly falls entirely out of his clothing. He and Isaac share curiously exciting moments of physical intimacy. It happens in every city. Don't tell me you've got anything new to add to that interesting, yet already much analyzed scenario.) Oh, but I really do. (Well then spill it, and it better be good. Because you're already just shy of 4,000 words.) Crap! Really?! OK. I will. They went to share the microphone, same as they always do, in order to create some sweet, heady band interaction and we all like it way more than we should. Except the timing was wrong. Taylor was moving way too fast. Isaac was way in the wrong place, on top of Zac's drum riser, rocking out just fine on his own before Taylor rushed over. So Isaac is on the riser and Taylor is on the stage, up on his toes, neck arching upward, his back to the audience, while Isaac is bending down to get to the microphone, and the picture is tantalizingly shocking, something that they're entirely unaware of, which most assuredly makes it even better. Someone moved in the wrong direction. Taylor moving upstage. Isaac moving downstage. There was contact. Lips. Faces. Noses. I wasn't close enough to see the specifics, but even from the 15th row, it was pretty apparent what had just happened. Isaac whirled around, back to the audience to either conceal laughter or mortification, who knows. Taylor. Jordan. Taylor. Hanson. Turns to the audience, stalks his way to the very edge of the stage in rhythm with the music, flashes a wry little smile, liberal amounts of mirth dancing in his eyes, and pointedly, deliberately, wipes off his mouth with the back of one hand. I stopped dancing. An errant, scrambling, impulsive, hysterical thought. Oh my God. He knows. I laughed out loud. Thought #1: Did that just happen? Thought #2: Yes, it totally did. Thought #3: Now that's one for the webpage. Then it was done and I was freezing, my teeth chattering in the parking lot as we looked for the car. The girl in front of me was wearing vinyl pants that squeaked when she walked. Painful sounding. And I went home. Airplanes and shuttles and take-offs and landings. And there I was again, landing over Boston at night, too enraptured by the twinkle of the skyline, too fascinated by the fact that I could almost see my dorm from the plane. (I could see the block anyway, the flicker of the weather light on the top of the old Hancock Building.) And I left Hanson for the last time on this tour, me going home and them going… on… somewhere… with a fervent wish, a whisper that the pieces might fall into place again, that fate will put us all down in some other city at some other time, for some other show, at some other moment in the very near future. Visual Aids: Me: Front row. White shirt. Dark gray cardigan. Red pocketbook. Light blue corduroys. Note the bathroom-esque ambiance. And my bad hair. |