Wow.
Just…wow.
Eddie has loved No Doubt forever. In particular, he loves Gwen Stefani. Ever since I’ve known him he’s talked about his undying love for her. lol It’s not a sexual thing, he just thinks she’s BEYOND AWESOME.
So when we found out that No Doubt would be the headliners for Tiger Woods’ annual benefit, we knew we would be going. So, last March, we got up very early and grabbed tickets as soon as they went on sale. Even doing it as soon as we did, we still wound up quite far back, in one of the side sections near the back of Mandalay Bay Events Center. Mandalay Bay’s arena is HUGE, so we were pretty far back. (all the photos I took are up on Flickr, if anyone wants to check ‘em out. I was able to get a couple good shots even from as far back as we were.) (I got a set, and Eddie got a set. They were both in the back side sections. We chose mine to keep since they were on row B and sold his row J seats on Craigslist.)
So, last Saturday we get dressed up and go to the show. Eddie played poker for about an hour or so while we waited for the show to start (he did really well…hit all his draws and basically any flop that he played a hand). According to the tickets, the show started at 8pm, so around then we started heading to the Events Center.
We get in there and get seated while The Sounds are playing. I’ve never heard of them before, but they put on a pretty good show and the lead singer has a really nice voice.
After The Sounds, Paramore came on. Now, talk about the lead singer having a good voice! Hayley or whatever is awesome. Her voice is crazy good, and she’s a very good showman. Their set was very good.
After a little bit, Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers came out to read a little thing and introduce Tiger Woods. Well, everyone booed him so bad that he just abandoned his little index card and was like “Oh, forget it. Here’s Tiger Woods.”
I felt bad for him.
Tiger then came out just to thank everyone and to let us know that No Doubt would be coming up in a little bit.
No Doubt put on an AWESOME show. And it was so awesome to hear Eddie have such a great time. He knew the words to every song, screamed them all, and, well, screamed any chance he got.
We really needed a night like that. We had such an awesome time.
(And that was even before the best part.)
The band starts “Just a Girl.” They’re almost done with the song, when Gwen steps down off the main stage onto this little ledge thing, jumps down OFF the ledge, and RUNS down the side of the aisles…toward the back of the arena. Eddie, at this point, has pushed me and him both (we were only on the 2nd row, and on the aisle to begin with, so it wasn’t much pushing) down to the steps where we could, like, hit her hand while she ran past or something. She runs past our section, then COMES BACK and runs up into our section!!
This is her running past us to get up higher in our section:
She stood up there and sang the chorus of “Just a Girl” a few times, getting the crowd involved, etc. I stood near our seats and Eddie stood up there near her to get photos and grin like crazy. I was SO EXCITED for him. He just loves her so much. Some of the photos he took are blurry but I DO NOT CARE. lol
The best one:
I grabbed her while she ran past the first time, and when she ran past the second time.
Was so beyond totally awesome.
So then after a few more songs, the show was over.
We really needed a night like this. It was like the stars aligned to give us the perfect night. Eddie played online before we left and won, he played poker at the casino and destroyed it, we got to see No Doubt, AND Gwen came to OUR section to sing part of a song. I mean, really? Out of ALL the sections in the arena? AND when we sold one of the sets, we sold Eddie’s, not mine.
It was just a perfect night. Absolutely perfect.
