All Night Long . . .

While I was sitting at work yesterday, bemoaning my existence and the skittery end of my fall, a colleague of mine popped his head in and asked whether i wanted to go to a Lionel Ritchie concert that night for free and go backstage.

Um, OF COURSE? Not that I'm any kind of honest to god Lionel fan, but I respect the man, I like the Fox Theater, and I love me some backstage. I've dated enough musicians to be curious about what the successful ones get to do backstage, right? I've earned this ticket!

Unfortunately we had to drive through a monsoon to Atlanta, but once there, we went backstage with the rather gorgeous member of the band/relative who made the free tickets and backstage passes possible. We drank beer, we played with his guitars, we met the incredible band who tours with Mr. Ritchie.

I had one of those humbling experiences at the show--the man's catalog goes deep. Half his songs I had forgotten completely, but I knew almost all of them. My pals who accompanied me on Operation Hello were similarly stunned at how much he had written and by Lionel's incredible chops. That being said, the man played "ballerina girl" and we all turned to each other and said, "Couple Skate." But he played a LOT of Commodores music--he's from Alabama and so was forced to kowtow to a hometown crowd, god love us--and even his poppier stuff was fun fun fun.

Best part though? We got to follow the relative outside through the stage door and onto the tour bus. You've never seen this many academics completely thunderstruck and geeked out. We all just sat on the plush plush seats saying, "Sweet." "Cool." and "Oh, man, I never should have broken up with that drummer."

So I hereby claim my Lionel Ritchie experience without a trace of shame or regret. I danced on the ceiling, but I sure as hell wasn't alone.