Travisonline

Amandabug Posted: 28-09-04 3:33

I wrote this in my diary on Jun 28, 2001:

Yesterday ranked among one of the most ridiculous days in my life. Yesterday and Tuesday. Tuesday was the Travis instore performance at the Virgin Megastore on 14th St. Jess called me at 7am and we left 15 minutes after. Sick, no? The performance was at 7pm, but we got there at 8am to ensure our spots at the front. It turned out to be one of the greatest things ever. Only one other person, Maria, showed up that early - 0.2 seconds after us! We remained the only people camping outside Virgin on Broadway for hours. Slowly though, every 2 hours, a member of our Travis posse (tm) would join us, and by about 4pm when there was an actual line, we had a group of 9 people at the front. The Travis posse is hilarious. We had singalongs while waiting in the heat. The best one was 14 people at the front of the line belting out Travis's version of Baby One More Time. That was HILARIOUS. THe Virgin security guards would come and check up/hang out with us every now and then. By 7pm, the line was down the block and around the corner. Jess and I were at the front, throwing shit around because we all had gifts for Travis. I'd gone to Kinkos and made 4 copies of one of my drawings for each member on blue cardstock. And I also had these pocky stick things that I found at my best friend Viv's store. They're named FRAN. Isn't that hilarious? And I was making the Posse book which we're giving to them at Letterman. That book is so great. We were logging every 2 hours and writing random things like "TRAVIS I'm melting from this heat!" or "I have to pee. BRB." At 7, they had us go in one by one, the store was packed with people who didn't get a VIP pass to go downstairs to the perf. & signing. Our security guard friend bustled us to the "stage" - nothing more than a slightly elevated platform with just enough room for 4 stools, mics, guitars, and some amps. The Virgin DJ were playing The Invisible Band and The Man Who continuously, so while we waited for Virgin to pack the other 400 VIPs behind us, the same 14 of us started to sing along REALLY loudly to Travis. So that was a lot of fun. The band came out and performed a short acoustic set. I was directly in front of Fran. They played 5 songs and an extra dedicated to our friend Eric because Fran liked him and Eric wanted to hear 'Safe' (Jess cried during 'Safe'). I got big smiles from Dougie. HUGE smiles. I motioned that I liked his hair cut and he said "Ooh really? I got it cut today!" and later, Dougie asked if anyone had any comments/suggestions about the setlist (from the Dido tour) so far, so I yelled out "Play Happy!" and he had a very impressed look on his face and said, "Oh, Happy, hmmm yeah." And then Fran started talking about how the older stuff was heavier and they played AIWDIR the other night in Boston for the first time in ages, and probably scared all the Dido fans. The performance was just amazing. We were being so silly and singing to 'Sing' and afterward, Dougie APPLAUDED me and Jess! And we also started swaying our bodies back and forth during Flowers In The Window and Dougie cracked up and started to sway with us. Fran let everyone sing a part during Why Does It Always Rain On Me? and both he and Dougie cracked up afterward. Andy winked at Jess. She freaked.
We didn't want to be first at the signing so we waited at the end and hung out. When it was our turn, we got to the table 4 at a time and basically got a chance to have something signed and shake hands with each member. I don't know what was wrong with me... maybe the Red Bull was kicking in or my caffeine mints, but I couldn't stop talking. I gave each of them my drawings, and Dougie my petition to play Happy, and I couldn't stop jabbering. I don't even remember half the things I said to Dougie. I rambled on about Happy, about my picture, and I told him to keep moving his hips! I'm so stupid! Well, stupid in restrospect only. I jabbered to Neil... asked him about Lola ("auugh she's gettin' fecking big y'know") and the Boston & New York shows last year. What's hilarious is that as soon as I got to Neil and shook his hand, he said "Hey, it's nice to see you again!" FECKING HE REMEMBERED ME FROM LAST YEAR. SOoooooo RIDICULOUS. He laughed at my drawing of Travis camping drunk. Then I got moved on to Andy and GAWWWD I was rambling. Something about how awesome the Boston show was at and Back in Black, and I told him to play Happy. He said he'd try. I told him to just start the chords and everybody else'd follow. And then I got to Fran and I dont know how I kept a straight face. I gave him the drawing, I showed him the Posse book, and I gave him the Frans. He showed a record company guy them and said he was so sweet that they made candy and named it after him. It took awhile to wait for all 14 of us to leave the area. We went upstairs since they made us leave the downstairs part, and hung out by the magazines so we could see the band from the balcony. The last people were getting their things signed, and they were still playing Travis, so Jess & Fo went to dedicate a song to Travis from the Posse. They played Andy's song and dedicated it to them from us, so we started cheering and Travis looked up and started waving and yelling at us. Dougie kept motioning for us to come back down, but the guards were so gestapo and didn't let us. When Travis left, they applauded us and waved and cheered for us. We found out that they were going to be at the Doves concert 2 blocks away and were about to head over there, but we were so tired. By then, it was 9/10ish and Jess & I had been up for 16 hours.

I'm sorry to everyone out there who has a copy of this show on bootleg. I think there's only one original from which all of the copies were made, and you can totally hear myself and my friends singing obnoxiously loud.