It’s been a while, again! Part of it is due to travels and studies, but mostly it’s been a matter of gearing myself up to write this post. It’s going to be an emotional one.
This story begins the day before, on the 25th. It was a long day of travelling. For some reason it was cheaper for me to go through an airport outside Stockholm (which is 3 times further away from me than Gothenburg) so that’s what I did. But this also meant I had a lot of time at the train, bus, airport etc. To occupy myself I started writing a letter to Adam. It ended up as more than 14 pages of turmoil. Lots of emotions in there; basically everything that Adam’s done for me and my whole back story to explain it. It was a mess, but it was at least heartfelt, haha!
Finally, that evening, I landed outside Paris and spent the entire bus and metro ride texting with my dear friend Emilie that was going to meet me up by the metro station near my hotel together with Kate, who’d arrived from Italy earlier that day. Some back story here; Emilie is one of my absolute dearest friends, but we’d never met in person before. Thus, there were a lot of emotions and nerves in the air, even if I think we both knew that it was going to be amazing. And it was! My Emilie! First couple of minutes are always weird, but within 30 minutes we were all three a tight gang. After some map reading difficulties we found my hotel, checked me in, and then went to get a drink. We ended up chatting for almost two hours over a typical Parisian outdoor’s café table. I had a good gut feeling about the coming day. We decided on a time to meet up at the venue, and went our separate ways to get a few hours of sleep.
Drink and smokes in a Paris winter’s night – magic!
Turns out, Paris metro information isn’t very reliable. A few curses at 5am in the morning later, I decided to walk to the venue. I thought it was about a 20min walk. Ended up being more than an hour’s speed walk through a totally deserted (apart from a few homeless people and a horny baker) January morning Paris. Not that it took my mood down a second. I was in Paris! About to see Queen and Adam at the smallest venue of the tour. With great friends. What could possibly bring my mood down?
Paris morning
Fast forward a few hours (and meeting up with the incredibly lovely Vero <3) and we were slightly less cheery, haha. It was awfully cold, rained every now and then and we had to sit outside on the ground with no cover what so ever. Blergh! But a lot of cigarettes and happy chatting, and a cup of tea each, and we kept the mood up. The trucks arrived and we flailed like idiots and took a bunch of photos. As you do! We could sneak some peaks through open doors and flailed some more. They were setting up! There was going to be a sound check within a few hours!
Not my pic, but this was our day. It was very cold.
Very, very cold.
By the time they actually did the proper sound check, it was quite late. By that time (in the rain and about 3 degrees celsius and 3 hours to go before we were going to be let in) we were about 60 people or so in queue. Me, Kate, Emilie and Vero sat clutching each other hard and hyperventilated when we first heard the sound check start. And when they started soundchecking The Show Must Go On, a song that hadn’t been played yet on the UK/EU leg of the tour, and also the song Vero had tweeted Brian like crazy about, I think we all went into collective “I’M GOING TO FAINT”-mode. Meanwhile everyone else in queue didn’t really pay attention to the sound check at all. HELLU!? Wtf, people, wtf.
Fast forward another few hours, Emilie flirting with the security guard to get us some advantages during let in and a crazy sprint in feet with no feeling later, and we stared up at the stage in front of us. Perfect spot at the B-stage. We (excluding Vero who stood at the big stage to get as close as possible to Rufus ;)) looked at each other and squealed. It was happening!!
Well, two hours later it was. I have to say, the audience in Paris was NUTS. On all the other gigs, people were of course excited about the gig before and talked to each other etc, but nothing at all like Paris. Here, people were screaming and clapping and chanting an HOUR before they even stepped on stage. It was crazy! And it would keep up like that during the entire gig. Kudos to you, crazy French people.
I remember looking over at Kate and Emilie when Adam first appeared on stage, and especially when his first few notes hit us. Both of them had their jaws at the floor and eyes completely round. Not that I blame them, at all. I was probably sporting a somewhat similar expression throughout the entire gig, hahaha!
Now, to the actual gig. As in previous posts, I’m going to bring up a few special moments. For this gig, they were two pretty fucking major ones. Brace yourself!
Exhibit A, Plaisir d’Amour
Time: 0.40 – 0.44
WIBD (What is Brian Doing?): The audience was cheering and chanting like crazy, myself included. (Jumping up and down like an idiot and making a heart with my hands) and Brian saw me, locked eyes with me, chuckled, and then blew me a kiss and mouthed something (Thank you?) This is one of my dearest Brian-moments of this tour, because it was simply so, so sweet.
Exhibit B, Radio GaGa
Time: 2.19 – 2.23
WILD (What is Lambert Doing?): Okay, oh my fucking god. As I explained in the previous blog post, my first time ever touching Adam was that second night at the O2, and it was just a brief touch, nothing more. In Paris, when Adam went down in Radio GaGa, I thought I was going to have a fucking heart attack. And what does he do? Oh, when he’s still meters away from me, he fucking ZEROES IN ON ME. You can see it quite clearly in the vid, he fixes his eyes on someone (omfg, on me) and basically ignores everyone else for those few seconds. You can also see him give me a little nod as he walks past. What isn’t shown in the video, and maybe that’s good (haha!) is that I completely fucking panicked when he was in front of me. As I wasn’t in any sort of shape to think about anything, I instinctively reached out for him and well… Dragged my hands all over his chest, basically. (On top of clothing, of course, I’m not creepy enough to actually grope him.) (and omfg the jeans fabric of his vest and his firm, firm body underneath, kill me). You can’t see how, during that little nod, he gave me a half smirk and his eyes sparkled. (He likes boys throwing himself at him and DYING in the process? Noted, Lambert) This is, to date, possibly the single best Adam moment I’ve had. HE FUCKING ZEROED IN ON ME!? *hyperventilates 4 months later just from thinking about it* (I’m not a very emotionally stable person, as it turns out)
Another notable moment was in Killer Queen when Adam flirted with us for a few seconds, we screamed that we wanted his cock during the little pause after “guaranteed to blow your…”, and how I got some champagne-spit on my arm and proceeded to lick half of it up (I have absolutely no shame whatsoever) and smear the rest of it in Emilie’s face. I’m such a good friend.
This concert was absolutely everything. The two moments I’ve explained in detail above really made my night. The show was amazing (We got The Show Must Go On!!) and I got to experience it with amazing people. When I got back to my hotel I once again fell into complete chock-mode and had muscle spasms for over 30 minutes while crying like crazy. As said, I’m such a stable and controlled person, huh?
Setlist, pick and confetti. I love you, Dave.
The following day I spent some time around lunch with Emilie and Kate, had a very emotional and sad time saying goodbye to Emilie (we stood clutching in the metro for 10 minutes), did some touristy stuff with Kate before she had to leave, had a walk from the Louvre to the Tower and simply adored Paris and everything it stands for, both as a symbol and for me personally. I got back to the hotel early that evening, packed everything and got ready to leave for Amsterdam the following morning, and spent some time in bed just thinking about everything. Oh, Paris. My Emilie. Jesus fuck, Adam. What an insane life I was living.
Alexander's QAL Adventures 