Miles of Smiles~ Philadelphia, Connecticut, Gavin DeGraw (A SummerFun Chapter)

Friday morning.  Two days of roads trips.  More anticipation.  More exhilaration.  The #SummerFun14 tour is hanging around the East Coast for a couple of weeks.

Tonight's show is in Philadelphia.  I can't think when the last time I visited Philly was.  It may have been a Girl Scout trip with my first troop--so maybe twelve years ago.  And we're not really going to see much of the city--or really any at all.  A hotel room and a concert venue on the outskirts of town.  That's all.  But it is enough.

So I drove south to Phyllis's house and she got us the rest of the way to Philadelphia.  We were both still on that proverbial concert high from Wednesday's Central Park show and adventure in the Village that followed.  We checked in, relaxed for a minute and, because this was a seated show (therefore no need to wait in line), went in search of dinner.   Then on to the Mann Center to meet up with lots more friends, this time from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, New York (our Buffalo area girls again!) and Maryland.  Most of us had front row tickets because the concert karma for this show was unprecedented.  Some had meet and greets tonight so I grabbed a beer and found my oh-so-close-to-the-stage seat, silently blessing my friend for inviting me on this trip.

Andrew McMahon was even better the second time.  He doesn't talk much, mostly moving easily from song to song, occasionally telling the audience whether it was a new song (his album is due out in October) or an older song from his earlier bands' days.  I find I can already sing along to Cecilia and the Satellite, the song he wrote for his newborn daughter.  Have you checked him out yet? You really should.

Gavin goes next tonight.  I wonder how that will feel.  He's a little more hard rocking and covers the stage more than Matt Nathanson.  His set feels more like the closer to me.  We were nearer the stage (no fence and gulf tonight) and the stage was lower.  It was a perfect position ... to see everyone in the band, to feel the real impact of the energy as it flowed from the musicians to the audience.  By now we're all familiar with the set list for this tour.  We're hoping he's added one or both of the new songs tonight ... songs that dropped recently without any fanfare but quickly became favorites--they're both that good.  You've Got Me (written by Diane Warren) is from the upcoming film, Dolphin Tale 2 and Fire is an original song that will be a track on his "best of" album, due out in October.  By the time Andrew McMahon had finished his set, my friends who held meet and greet tickets were back from saying hello to Gavin, replete with a special kind of happiness that happens when you have a conversation with him.  I wonder if he knows that he has this affect ... the "Gavin affect" when your heart gets that full.

Cue the fog machine.  I'm so close tonight I feel enveloped in the effect.  We can barely see but are aware of the band hitting their spots and the fog is just barely clearing when the singer we've really come to see appears atop the stairs of his multi level set.  I am mesmerized once again.  From Leading Man through the first few songs to Heartbreak, I can feel my own pulse.  I still love Follow Through, the first song to break through.  We Belong Together is a quintessentially romantic song ... but I miss the ending the recording has.   

Everything Will Change has meant a lot to me over the almost year since I first heard it.  This second year of trying to get healthy has been so difficult, fraught with backsliding and old habits rising again. A few months back, when it was used during an episode of Biggest Loser, I'd tweeted how much the song has meant to me in my own constant battle.  The reply that came later that night meant even more.  I get chills every time I hear it--live or not.

Exciting to be this close.

The set closes without the newly released songs.  It's okay though--it's been another inspiring performance.  I think I floated from my end of the front row to the other side to hang out with friends while the stage was set for Matt Nathanson.  More good times for our collective memory bank.

Having been skeptical about Matt Nathanson I was slowly being won over.  We'd had a "moment" in Central Park--you know, when the artist looks right at you and you know you share a nanosecond of mutual recognition of ... something.  Music appreciation?  Probably.  At any rate, after seeing him at the Mann, I was definitely on my way to being a fan.  Meeting him afterwards helped the process along.  Matt's a trooper ... he's meeting every fan who buys a shirt after the concert.  It must have taken him well over an hour that night.  But his energy was indefatigable and he was very personal and personable.  

We only got a little lost finding the hotel and soon we had drinks before us and spent an hour in the bar reliving the evening.  Then a couple more hours before we'd expended enough of the concert high to fall asleep.  In the morning, we hit the road for home pretty early.  I was home by early afternoon with just enough time to take a shower and change before heading into Manhattan to pick up Kim for tonight's show.  Because if it's Saturday, we must be in Connecticut.  

Living so close to New York is a blessing.  Most artists come through here eventually--many come several times a year.  Sometimes the tours play many of the popular venues within reasonable driving distance for New Yorkers.  This is the case this week.  It's about an hour and a half from Kim's home to Wallingford.  And I'm getting really good at driving to the Upper East Side.

The Toyota Oakdale Center is where Brenda and I had seen Gavin during the Christmas season.  It's not my favorite venue, in the middle of nowhere with security who must be told to be unwelcoming.  Our seats aren't perfect which is what happens when you don't buy in the first ten minutes of ticket sales.  But they weren't the worst either.  I'm surprised to see that Gavin is the second act of the night again.

Andrew McMahon has lots of fans in the house.  They appeared to have garnered much of the front few rows.  He was wonderfully appreciative of their standing, dancing and singing along and I found myself wishing I was with them as my section was rooted to their seats.  I was a little worried.  I cannot sit when Gavin is on stage.  Sometimes I can't sit when he's on the stereo at my house.  But I needn't have worried.  The first waft of fog brought everyone to their feet, including the 7-foot tall guy directly in front of my 5-foot-2-inch self.  Fortunately, I have good friends and Kim (taller than me) rearranged our seats (there were some empty ones next to her) and the view improved markedly.  

The stream of songs in the setlist for this tour are all particular favorites of mine.  The covers he's doing show Gavin's talent at it's best.  His rendition of U2's Where the Streets Have No Name is completely raw and so soulful, at a slower, more dramatic tempo than the original.  When he sings Hall and Oates' Rich Girl, I always think how he has said in the past that generally avoids songs with "a lot of words" and yet this is a song with "a lot of words."

The Gavin fans in the room are experiencing an undercurrent of expectation.  A few hours before showtime, Billy Norris had tweeted that they might have a surprise for us tonight and punctuated it with the "fire" emoji.  And that could only mean one thing: we'd be treated to the first live performance of the newest song.  And so we were.  During the encore between Make A Move and Not Over You, Gavin and the band lit the house on fire with Fire.  Many friends had sent messages entreating me to video the performance.  I don't make videos for a lot of reasons but the main one is that I can't really hold steady enough.  I knew a lot of folks were anxious to see how this song would play out on stage though, so I tried hard to keep the camera even.  I won't be making a habit of this because, for me, it's not the way to enjoy the performance--it's a distraction.  (I'm grateful for all those of you who do record, though; I watch them a lot.)  

So the song--it's brilliant.  I can't think of any other way to describe it.  And it was so much fun for to be there for the first live performance.  It's the second time I've had that privilege.  I was in the crowd the first time Gavin played Everything Will Change last year at Mixfest in Boston.  The band sounds fantastic on the song too.  The backing vocals by Billy Norris and James Cruz are perfect--both fabulous singers and performers in their own right.

We debated whether to stay for Matt Nathanson, having a long drive ahead of us. We did stay for most of his set.  He's so entertaining and really, really funny.  This was the third time I'd heard his "routine" and I still found his jokes and interactions with the audience amusing.  I feel like I'm learning his songs and have begun to have favorites, just as I have with Andrew McMahon's set.  Matt infuses his set with several hints at covers that go with his playful approach to the audience.  One of these, Iggy Ibbott's "I'm so Fancy" is embedded in my head permanently now I think.  I wish I could describe how he uses it, but I wouldn't do it justice.  It's just so funny, so perfectly funny in the moment.  Go see Matt Nathanson.  He will brighten your day ... for days.

We did leave a little early ... I started to fade.  After all, it was my third late night in four days and I still had two and a half hours of driving ahead of me.  But we made it back to Manhattan on that post-concert wave of energy, excitement and reliving of our favorite moments.  For me that was seeing and hearing Fire live.  I dropped Kim at the diner where we'd eaten a few nights back but didn't stay this time.  My bed was calling to me from the far side of the Hudson.

Two days; two concerts; travel in four states.  I would do it every weekend if I could.

~~~~~

Gavin DeGraw, Fire, August 16, at the Toyota Oakdale Center