NSO @ Wolf Trap, Saturday 21 July

OMG. Best birthday present in the history of ever. I am still flailing helplessly from everything. Just... guh, Aaron. djkasl;dkf♥

Okay, so here's my best attempt at making this coherent and comprehensive. XD

I left my house around 1:45, after Deathly Hallows got here, of course. I didn't make any stops and I didn't really have any traffic, so yay. I did however get slightly lost because Mapquest's directions were slightly stupid. Oh well. Even going the wrong way I still made it to Jessica's house at 4pm. We were supposed to meet Kristin, so we sat and talked a bit. After Kristin arrived we went to have adventures. Namely we went to Whole Foods to find something to eat for dinner. Let me say, I'm glad we don't have these here; holy lord. XD Yuppie-Mart indeed. Their egg salad was infused with celery which really ruint it, however their rolls and cheesecake were quite good. We spent quite a bit of time in there, they even had free samples of some really yummy brownies, and then we took our food to go to Wolf Trap and eat it out on the lawn.

Wolf Trap is actually a giant park. With a lot of huge hills. I have to mention this because I had to hoof my sad out of shape self up and down quite a few large hills. XD I hate hills. Just like Pittsburgh all over again! We wandered around and finally found a nice little picnic table in the shade of some trees (I ended up running about without my shoes on for awhile. Hee) to eat our dinner. We spent most of it giggling over various Les Mis and/or Harry Potter type things. There was an older couple (and by that I mean senior citizen; the average age of the Wolf Trap patron that night) sitting at a table near us and kept staring at us. Oy. XD

Around 7:30 we decided we'd had enough sitting around and went to walk around the back of the Filene Center, where the performance was being held, to get to our seats. The stage door was well-marked, it had a nice big red sign on it. And our timing was impeccable: we walked past just in time to watch Aaron come out of his car and go inside. With his sunglasses on. ♥

The Filene Center is a large open-air stage. In fact if you have ever been to the Tweeter Center in Camden, NJ, it's pretty much the same layout. The Filene Center is a lot prettier, it's all wood-paneled stage, very nice. But it's got a whole lot of auditorium seats mostly under cover with some lawn space in the back. Row G was an extremely nice view. The rows of seats were spaced pretty wide, so there was plenty of leg room -- enough so that you didn't have to stand every time someone walked past you to get to their own seat. I said to Jessica who sat behind me and a few seats down, "The Broadhurst would be squeezing two rows where here there's just one!"

The concert started at 8:15. The concert was absolutely fantastic. It also emphasised the NSO far more than our guest singers. This is quite all right, I had a great time as it is. Emil de Cou, the Festival Conductor from Wolf Trap, gave an introductory speech with a few Harry Potter jokes involved, so that will tell you just how much Potter has infused itself into our daily lives. Heh.

Marvin Hamlisch, really great. I mean really great. He's a fantastic musician and conductor, and he made me laugh quite a bit. Definitely made the experience so much better.

The concert was split up into two parts, intermission of fifteen minutes in the middle. The first part -- far and away the best. During the first part, the NSO-only bits were the Overture to Gypsy, a medley from My Fair Lady, and Marvin Hamlisch's own adaptation of Scott Joplin's the Entertainer. Anne Runolfsson sang "Johnny One-Note" from Babes in Arms as the opening number to the show, and then after that she brought her daughter, Tess Adams, onstage to sing a duet -- "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" from Annie Get Your Gun. As the final bit before intermission? Phantom of the Opera. Aaron didn't appear at all before this bit. And... oh. They decided to do both "Phantom of the Opera" and "Music of the Night" so Anne and Aaron could have the duet in the former. Anne sang the first verse, and then Aaron came up the side aisle near where I was sitting as he sang the second verse. The song was beautifully sung and beautifully played by the orchestra and Aaron was being, well, teh_sex. He made the sexy hand gestures that are an essential part of any good Phantom's performance all throughout the bit. And then, oh, and then we were treated to "Music of the Night." Five minutes of pure sex. I mean. Pure sex. Hugh Panaro? Howard McGillin? Anthony Warlow? Matt Cammelle? Psht. Aaron is sexier than all of them. Combined. For seriously. Who needs Hugh when you've got Aaron?! ♥ I cannot coherently and intelligently describe how he did this. Just... yum. Sex. SEX. After "Let your soul take you where you long to be!", there were some fangirls squeeing in the back, but I was too overwhelmed with happy to do anything there. Just... whoa. Some seriously amazing stuff there. Aaron, for god's sake, are you trying to kill your fangirls?! XD I think the most coherent thing I can say in response to it is what I got to say to Aaron afterwards: "After Music of the Night, I think I just forgot where I was." ♥
Jessica and I spent nearly the entire intermission flailing and squeeing at Aaron and his pure vocal sex. "Aaron should take over for Howard," I said, and she replied, "Yes, but that would really kill our bank accounts, because the cheap seats at Phantom really suck." Oh, Aaron. That would be teh awesome if it could be so, but somehow I just don't think it will happen. At least, probably not right now, not at this stage in his career. ;) Perhaps a few years down the line, I can hope for it.

The second part contained Aaron singing, "The Way You Look Tonight," and after that Aaron talked a bit about himself and his upcoming project. Aaron tells us he's going to be in "not a boy band, it's a man-band" in London. And the CD will be coming out in NOVEMBER. NOVEMBER. YES! It also featured Anne singing "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic. Instrumental bits included the unused Overture to A Chorus Line, the Theme from Schindler's List, and a few things of Marvin Hamlisch's.

... Yes, I'm aware my discussion of the second part is much sparser than the first part. But after Aaron's Music of the Night... well, really. What can compare to that?!


So afterwards we tried to make our way to the stage door. This was ... really quite interesting. I have never seen a stage door guarded like that before in my life. Metal barricades to hold back the barrage of fans, yes. "I'm sorry, but you're not allowed back unless you're on the list, that's production company rules, not mine." New one by me. The people on the list included family and close friends of Anne, Aaron, and Mr. Hamlisch. Most people were disappointed but took it well. We stood off to one side by the fence, deciding to wait around and see if we could get a glimpse of Aaron as he left. One group of people decided they were just not going to take no for an answer. They asked the poor woman who was guarding the exit towards the stage door what would happen if they "crossed the line", and she told them very seriously that she would then have to call for security to escort them off the premises. So they hung out right there before the "line" and waited for Marvin Hamlisch, and when he appeared, they shouted really loudly, "HEY MARVIN! IT'S MERVIN, YOUR COUSIN!" just as a way to grab his attention. ...wow. Um. Creepy, much? A few people who were near us joked a bit about joining the Lazar family as they went back -- because there were fifteen or eighteen members of the Lazar family there that night, including Grandma and Grandpa Lazar. Awww. XD But no one actually did what these people did. Holy crap, I'd've been highly embarrassed to have been part of that group. Oy. But eventually the crazies left too, and soon we were the only ones. The lady guarding the line asked us if she could help us, and I responded, "No, I'm sorry, you probably can't, since we're not allowed to cross the line there -- we were really hoping to get the chance to talk to Aaron." She told us that he had a lot of family so it would be a long time. We stood around and chatted a bit more -- there was a nice young lady who was standing there with us, who was basically hoping for the same thing, as she'd done stagedooring before. We said to ourselves, watching the line of cars of Marvin Hamlisch and the orchestra attempting to leave, "Hey, we can just hang out here until everyone's left the parking lot, I mean we'd have to wait in traffic anyway, right? May as well wait outside here since the weather's so nice." This paid off. Because while we were doing this, a bunch of people were walking back and forth between the stage door and the guarded exit, and the usher doing the guarding came up to us and said, "How would you like to go backstage?" HELL YES. We had to wait by the door because of Aaron's massive family, but eventually they let us in. :D

"Hey, look who it is!" ♥ Oh, Aaron. He was still in the suit he wore for the performance only he had the top two buttons undone. The man is utterly beautiful. Seriously, in that suit and the way he had his hair done up, he looked so much younger. Yum. We got hugs! Really glad to see us, I said to him that I told him I'd be there, and he was like, "I didn't believe you until I saw you ... you're not coming to LA, are you?!" and I said, "I was going to! but I can't, I'm sorry," and he was like "Aah! Yeah, that's too far." And too expensive. Sorry, Aaron. You're worth it, but my poor bank account! Jessica asked him about his band, and he definitely insists on calling it a man-band. She tried to get some names but he was all evasive, which I guess makes sense because the CD hasn't been released yet and you never know if things are going to change or whatever. Although he did say he'd try to leak us unofficial fan copies of it. Oh, Aaron, ♥. I told him, "After Music of the Night, I think I just forgot where I was," and he was all, "Awwww! Thanks!" ♥ and went on to say, "Yeah, I had such a great view of the sunset during that piece," and Jessica said, "But we didn't have that view!" Aaron responded, "What are you talking about," holding his arms out to indicate himself, "you had a view!" Oh yes, we had a view, Aaron. ♥ I LOVE THAT MAN. We were all able to introduce ourselves. I said to him, "I'm not sure I ever told you my name..." and he was like, "I should know it, you sent me e-mails, uh...." ♥ I don't think he'll forget now. Hee. :D I really don't want to be, in his mind, just "that crazy fan who comes to all my shows", you know. (So he has read my e-mails. Har. Not going to say anything more about them but at least this means I can send him another one. I have to send him one about how much I enjoyed and appreciated that night.) And then it was time to leave and I got another hug and he wished me a safe drive home and oh my god I love that man.

We stopped at Plato's, a nice little diner in College Park, and chatted awhile about fanfic and Aaron and stuff, and I had a really messy but really yummy chocolate milk shake. XD Score. I am such a kid.

Drive home was really uneventful, I didn't get lost or take any wrong ways home, so that was nice. When I got home, around 3:30, I was too full of "omgAaron" to really sleep, so I stayed up, screwed around awhile online, and finally managed to get to sleep around seven-thirty.

Truly excellent birthday present, on the whole. Really can't think of any way to improve upon it. (Okay, I can; nothing that is likely to happen, anyway.)

Photos from the day:
Meadow at the Wolf Trap Park.
This was the view from our picnic table; that wooden structure at the top left of the photo is the Filene Center.