“Wait...Who’s from California?” – A Hilaaarious Misunderstanding
27 November 2007
27 November 2007
10 December 2007
true story. Rachel, Christine, and I, sort of on a musical whim, decided to go to a Rooney gig in Birmingham on a Tuesday night. Reasons why we decided to go:
1. it’s Rooney and they’re flippin’ awesome!
2. The ticket was only 8 pounds.
3. They’re from California and that’s flippin’ awesome!
4. We didn’t have to pay for train fare cuz of Christine’s GNER train vouchers.
5. We hadn’t been to Birmingham yet.
Useful information to know:
1. Christine and I are in love with the fictional character, Michael Moscovitz from The Princess Diaries series. Robert Schwartzman, lead singer, was MM in the Princess Diaries movie. So put 2 and 2 together and you get 4, also known as Robert Schwartzman is Michael Moscovitz.
2. I had messaged Rooney as a joke a couple weeks ago asking if they could just, you know, make a quick pit stop on their UK tour in Leeds cuz there are a bunch of Californian students studying here who’d like to see some other Californians. Ned, the drummer, replied suggesting we take a field trip to one of their other shows IE London, Bristol, Birmingham. So we did.
3. According to the all-knowing www.LoveCalculator.com, Robert Schwartzman and I have a 99% shot at true love. Love Calculator doesn’t lie. Naturally, I had to make it to Birmingham to get a glimpse of my 99% true love.
So we train it out to Birmingham [locally pronounced Bir-ming-um] and meet up with our friend Frankie who’s from the area and came down to see the Kaiser Chiefs in a venue down the street [jealous much!]. she was lovely enough to give us the whirlwind tour of the city IE the High Street and Selfridges’ AMAZING food department and bull made out of jelly beans. That’s right, jellybeans. Incidentally, Christine told the bull’s security guard that she’s like to purchase the bull, only to be told that they don’t have enough gift wrap for it. What’s the world coming to…
As we wait in line for Rooney, we encountered a drunkard roaming up and down the queue trying to sell the Big Issue. Basically, all you need to know is that he slowly lunged towards Christine at which point we all grab her and the meeting culminated with the sentence, “I swear I don’t have fleas”. By then, we were pretty, pretty sure he was fibbing. We finally got inside and ending up hanging out near those girls who knew we were from California since we bonded over the encounter with the drunkard. The opener musician was a pretty good acoustic solo act whose name I can’t remember…my apologies. The other opener was a local band [Rooney held a contest for local bands to try out to be openers at each gig] called the Days. They were pretty good also, sort of a typical sound, but solid nonetheless.
At last Rooney came on and played a good mix of old and new and a few covers here and there. While Rachel fended for herself at the front of the crowd to get some sweet photos and videos amongst all the Giant People who decided to go to the gig and stand right at the very front, Christine and I took advantage of our benches by the wall and stood on them to get eye-to-eye with the band. At about halfway through their set, Robert decided to point out to the crowd their flag, which happens to be the California flag with the Rooney emblem at the bottom. The following interaction went like this:
Robert: “hey guys. Uh…check out our flag, isn’t it great?”
[some murmurs, mostly silence]
Me: “CALIFORNIAAAAA!”
[laughter, tangible confusion]
Robert: “..what?”
Me: “CALIFORNIAAAA!”
Robert: “Oh. Uh…I don’t know that song. [Phantom Planet’s California which duhh I know is his brother’s band’s song] You’ll just have to sing it and keep it in here [gestures to his head] and in here [gestures to his chest, heart, whatever].
The girls we met in line: “NO! they’re FROM California!”
Robert: “Wait, who is?”
The girls we met in line: “Them!” [points to Christine and I on our benches under the spotlights]
Robert: “Oh, awesome. What are you guys doing here?”
[most likely a rhetorical question, so we just smiled and gaped at the fact that Christine and I just “talked” to Michael Moscovitz]
some dude in the audience: “they’re lying.”
Robert: “well, [points to us] this one’s for you girls.”
[Christine and I look at each other with a look of what-the-hell-just-happened on our faces]
after that little ditty, Rooney proceeded to play a cover of the Beach Boys’s California Girls. Dedicated to us. AWESOME.
After the gig, I attempted to steal a promo poster from the wall but too many other people had the same idea, blasted. So instead I took a Carina Round poster. ☺
Then, after a failed attempt at waiting outside to hopefully meet Rooney face to face and apologize for the California misunderstanding, the 3 of us went to meet Frankie to take the train back to Shropshire [AKA the Shire, Frankie’s hometown!] to spend the night. Not only was she such a sweetie for letting us crash at her super-awesome farmhouse, she saved us 10 quid for the train fare. So the next morning, she provided croissants and orange juice to our absolute delight and the 4 of us road-tripped back up to Leeds! It was bloody FANTASTIC.
Final thoughts:
I’m still in love with Michael Moscovitz//Robert Schwartzman
I love Rooney even more after seeing them live
I can’t listen to California Girls anymore without a giddy smile
09:52
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