American Idol!!!

Well, at least we tried to see the rehearsal showing of American Idol. It's a good story so I must start at the very beginning.


My friend Kristi called me on Monday night asking me if I would like to come with her to the rehearsal performance of American Idol because she had an extra ticket. With the help of great friends, my sisters, and Doug coming home early, I was able to make it happen! So excited.


We left in the morning and after dropping off Joshua with my sister, we headed up to LA. We got in line at 12:30 and were still hopeful we could pull some strings to get into the live taping as well as the rehearsal. Little did we know what "show" we would be in for.


They herded us to the waiting area about 1:15 and there we sat with some very interesting people until after 3:00. Apparently Gwen Stefani was rehearsing for her performance the next night and wouldn't stop singing so our dress rehearsal was running way behind.


We got into the studio and after some negotiating, my friend Bobette and I were able to get seats right behind the judges table. We did NOT want to be in the mosh pit. Yuck. The stage manager comes out and tells us it's about to start and Ryan Seacrest is at the top of the stairs to do the "THIS is American Idol" and then he walks down. Apparently the stage manager was walking down the stairs after him and then the stairs started moving while she was on them! I was focussed on Ryan and could only see her in the corner of my eye. I was told that she fell and was hanging on the top step trying to swing herself back up when she fell to the floor! Ryan heard the thud and rushed back to see what was going on.

There we sat for what seemed like FOREVER. Paramedics, stretchers, and mopping up the bloody mess took quite a bit of time and I told Bobette there's no way we're going to see all the performances because the live show starts at 5:00 and it was now about 4:00. Ryan finally starts back up again and not 1 minute later we hear this crackling, see glass flying, and the big American Idol spinning ball thing in the corner of the set falls of it's axis, hits the arch next to it, and sends glass onto those in the mosh pit in front of us (which had Kristi and her daughter in it)! The set people yell at everybody in the pit to rush to the other side of the studio and then I knew we were done. Bobette and I started laughing because it was totally ridiculous at this point. Were they kidding? Stage manager off on a stretcher, the set falling apart, screaming people......it was insane.


We were ushered out of the studio after 4:00 and told where to walk to exit the studio lot. What??!!??? There was no "We're so sorry!", "We'll get you into the next show!", NOTHING!!! We were pretty bugged, to say the least.


It wasn't a total loss, though. We ran into Tracey Morgan from 30 Rock at The Grove on our way to Cheesecake Factory which was cool. We hit Anthropolgie, which is always a treat. We laughed a lot and were still in awe at our AI experience.


Kristi called this morning to see what they would do for us. They said for her to call back tomorrow for "priority tickets", whatever that means. Maybe I'll get another shot at seeing the show. I'm worried I've used up favors with everybody watching my kids. Guess we'll just have to see what happens. There's never a dull moment around here.