From: Kyra

Pictures at bottom...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! Phew! Ok, there - I just needed to let go of some of the excitement from the Goo concert in San Francisco last night! I finally have time to write about it and it's a day later, but I'm still in complete awe and hiper and bubbly as ever!!!

Last night's concert was the first Goo concert I've ever been to and it was UNBELIEVABLE - more than I ever thought possible! The show was sold out. I got to The Fillmore at around 6:45 and boy was the line long! Thanks to everybody's advice on taking pictures and sneaking in cameras to the show, I managed to gaffle my disposable camera in the building. They were checking the purses and stuff, so I stuffed it in my socks and no one noticed a thing - weird, I know, but hey, it worked didn't it? So, once I got in, I rushed to coat check, and right by it, there was this raffle contest for a signed poster by the Goos! I was like, "Alright! How cool is that?" so without thinking twice, I rushed by the table and bought three tickets. Don't know if I won or not, but I'm crossing my fingers! Anyway, it was still a long time before the Goos would come on, but people were already hogging up the first couple of rows, so me and my friends rushed up there and tried to get as close as we could to the stage, about the fifth row or so.

Then we waited for a while and at 8:00, Buffalo Tom starts blasting their stuff. They're a pretty damn good band, really nice guitar sound. I thought the bassist could have "woken up" a bit more 'cause during some songs, he seemed a little drugged or sleepy or whatever. BUT, I did think it really cool how their bassist sings a couple of the songs too just like Robby! :-) The crowd was a bit stiff in the beginning, but everyone started to at least move their bods by the middle of the performance and the applause and cheering when they finished was pretty receptive!

OK, on to Goo...oh but before they came on, there was of course equipment change and stuff. I was kinda bored, so I kept reading all those funky stickers the Goos had on their equipment. I thought they were really funny and they sure kept me entertained while we waited...actually I got so bored, I wrote them down to share with you guys! So here all the ones I saw - on their speakers and amplifiers, they had, "Poverty Sucks", "Mean People Suck", "Cheap People Suck", "Girls Kick Ass", and "Dont Be A Dick". Haha! On Dave's keyboards, he had "Ladies - Not from the earth" and "Only cool chicks can do me", (lol!) and on Johnny's guitar, I saw "Lawyers Suck" and something else with the word "dick". Hmmmm.....interesting, eh? Also, every once in a while, we got to see glimpses of Johnny and Robby from behind the curtains in the balcony peeping out at the audience! People were like, "Hey there's Johnny!" and "Oh my god, it's the band!!!". You could tell everybody was damn anxious to see the Goos! Heck, I was all ready to scream and jump up and down like a mad woman! :-)

Finally at about 9:45 (I managed to squish all the way up the second row right in between Johnny and Robby and all I had were two short kids in front of me! Yeah!), it went dark, and I could see Johnny on the side of the stage. He started strumming this buzzing chord, shook up the whole place, the crowd started screaming with anticipation....and wham! Johnny comes blasting in with Dizzy. Everyone had their hands up in the air and jumping up and down...Waaooooo!! I couldn't believe they what, six feet away from me?! Johnny and Robby were in GREAT spirits, smiling the whole time. I loved it how Johnny looked really flattered and smiled whenever the crowd shrieked and gave tons of support! When they got to Slide, everyone was just rocking and singing along. That song is sooo much fun! People knew Black Ballon pretty well too, especially the chorus - "coming down the world turned over..." (gee, I wonder why). When they got to the "name story", Johnny told a bit of a different version of it, but the crowd loved it and cheered hecka loud when he told how he decided to write back to the bastard who called him a faggot. "Dear Dick-face, Go eat a bag of shit....." LOL!

In the back, Mike was drumming away with all that fire, spark, and charm he has. Dave was head banging with his keyboards and his lovely hat, and Nathan December was rocking and smoking cigarettes in between. Robby was having so much fun with the audience, bare feet and all! I was laughing so hard when Johnny was running his fingers through his hair, making it messier than it already was (yes, the female race was drooling over this), and Robby was giving him really weird looks like, "Damn John....you are sooo naughty." :-) John splashed water into the crowd. I got wet and if felt GOOd! When Johnny introduced the band, he said about Robby - "my wife, my lover, who stuck with me through all those hangovers and throwing up - right here in this city too!" I was like, "hey cool! So San Francisco isn't just famous for the Golden Gate Bridge...it's famous for Johnny's barf too! Yeeahhh!" He also said, "Robby went with me to my first gynocological (sp?) exam. It was embarrassing....got my first pap smear....they said I was pregnant." Hahahahaha!!! It was sooo funny!

After they played Iris, they came back for the encore and that was my favorite part out of the entire show. They played a lot of their old stuff - Cuz You're Gone, There You Are, Burnin' Up (love that one!)....but the ultimate performance was during Two Days in February with just Johnny and Robby. Dude, those two know how to solo and rock together. The energy, spark, and bond between them beyond just mere friendship was RIGHT THERE. It was almost as if they were exchanging their souls. Very powerful indeed. It was just so enlightening. Usually I would've been rocking along, but at those moments, I just stood there with awe.

*Waking up from my trance* Ok, for all you fashion bugs, Robby was wearing a black shirt and pinstripe pants, Mike had on a brown button down shirt and green shorts, Nathan was in all black, couldn't see what Dave had on except his hat, and Johnny was wearing a white tanktop and black leather pants (hmmm...that boy knows how to look damn good in leather pants!)

Ahh...I'm just sittin' back and thinking how awesome and incredibly high energy and fun and down to earth and just simple great guys the Goos are (I can't stop smiling like an idiot!)....but my night was made even more unbelievable with something I never thought could happen to me. Thanks to everyone's tips, I waited outside near the tour bus along with about 20 other people. Nathan came out first and I snapped a couple of pictures of him and I got a few shots of the tour bus too! I had my DUTG cd insert and pen ready in my hand and....oh my god, Johnny comes running out to the bus! A couple of us caught up to him (despite the darn security guards) and I got his autograph! Then Robby comes out and I got him to sign it too!!!! I almost got Mike's but he only signed a couple and didn't get to mine. I just couldn't believe it! I actually got their autographs and they were right in front of me!!! I'm staring at their beautiful calligraphy right now and I feel sooo lucky. What a night, what a night, what a night!