Upon attending what was billed as "An Intimate Evening With Josh Groban", I was admittedly skeptical. Groban was not an artist whose genre I was particularly interested in, or liked at all, really. Little did I know, my decision to attend this seemingly innocuous concert would lead to much, much more than "an intimate evening". Below is a first person account of my experience.
I walk into the beautiful Chicago Theatre and take my seat. I nurse my four-dollar clear plastic solo cup of Pepsi and look around skeptically. Much of the theatre is filled with middle aged women, all wearing Groban shirts and tittering excitedly. So that's why he's so popular. I roll my eyes. Whatever. So a bunch of moms want J-Grobe's D. That's nothing new. But as a expert Sad Moth musical critic, I'm here to parse the fact from fiction -- is Groban all image? We shall see. From what I've seen from my mom's albums, he's not excessively attractive. The show starts. Lots of screams when Josh enters from stage right. He smirks a bit, tells a joke, then opens his mouth. The second the first note reaches my ears, I plunge into a trance.
After the fifth song, I still haven't blinked. I cannot miss a moment of this brilliance. I try to listen harder. I cup my ears to take in more sound waves. I am transfixed. Josh glides across the stage, he is a vision, a modicum of pure divinity. He sways,
staggering under the power of his own brilliance, his coattails billowing
behind him as if he is standing on a jagged outcropping of granite along the
Celtic shore. His booming, vibrant tenor is the single ripple on a motionless lake, the drizzle of honey fresh from the hive, the squawk of an Osprey just as another Nor'easter is blowing in. His voice is the ascension, the rapture, the brutality and beauty of it all, in symbiosis. I plug my ears, and I can still hear the music. I do not need my ears. His music enters me through my heart. His aloof, curly hair frames his face, seeming to rise and fall in slow motion. Josh is a poet, a philosopher, a warrior, a man with needs only I can fulfill. His pianist coaxes more
chords from the keys, the orchestra swells.
I tingle. I look off to see the
guitarist fretting another chord. I look
back at Josh and he is looking directly back at me. Through me.
Into me. Then, the world tumbles away.
I look down
and I am no longer in my seat in the theatre.
I am on a beach of white sand, surrounded by a thick, impenetrable
fog.
But I am not alone.
Josh is there.
Josh and I, me and Josh.
He is wearing a white button down shirt, khaki
pants rolled up to the knee, and his navy-blue tuxedo jacket.
I smile sheepishly.
He runs a hand through his curly hair and
squints a little.
"Uh, hey, you
sing really good," I say.
"Shhhh," he beckons, putting a finger to my lips.
He turns his back to me.
He breathes deeply and a single note escapes
his lips.
The fog pulses and gyrates,
being manipulated by the music.
Josh
continues to sing, and slowly the fog swirls and condenses into a large mass
between us.
It takes the shape of a
noble steed.
We both climb on. "Here, grab my waist." Josh
says. I do. "You have nicely sculpted
forearms," Josh comments. "I
work out," I say. We gallop for
what feels like forever, and also no time at all. At one point, my shoe falls off, and we have
to go back to get it. I hope that Josh
will use his razor-sharp extemporaneous wit to come up with a nickname that
humorously recalls this incident, like "Reebok" or "One-shoe-Noah"
or "Socks". He does not.
Eventually
we slow to a canter, then to a trot.
A
lone tree appears on the horizon.
We
dismount and approach the tree on foot.
There are ripe, juicy pears hanging from its branches, and I'm too short
to pick them, but Josh is way taller and has a better vertical so he picks a
bunch.
We take seats at the base of the
trunk and begin to eat.
The pears are so
juicy they gush moisture with each bite.
I look at Josh and Josh looks back and we both have juice running down
our faces.
Josh smiles and I smile and
before long we are both laughing uncontrollably, rolling on the ground like a
couple of children.
Josh pulls out a
football and we play one-on-one.
Josh is
a lot better than me, and every once in a while I win and I know it's because
he's letting me win but I enjoy the feeling of victory all the same.
After a
while the sun goes down and I get cold, so Josh loans me his dark blue tuxedo
jacket, which is still perfectly cleaned and pressed, even after well over an
hour of playing football. We go back to
the tree, which is uncomfortable to sit against, so I lay down and rest my head
on Josh's thigh. He looks down at me and
I look up at him. We stare into each
other's eyes for some period of time, maybe days, maybe minutes. Then all at once I understand. I understand everything. Why me, why here, why now. Josh nods, because he knows that I know. And I nod back because I know that he knows
that I know. I sit up and a lock of his
hair brushes my nose. I close my
eyes. I lean closer. I can feel his gentle breath on my face. Now nothing but air separates us.
"What
the fuck are you doing?" I open my eyes with a start. Josh's eyes are just inches from mine. The eternal loving that I had seen earlier in
them was gone.
"I...
I... wa.. I thought..."
"Do I
look like some kinda fag to you, Noah?"
"No, I
mean, I..."
"What the fuck, I mean,
what the actual FUCK." Josh was yelling now. He got up and started pacing angrily, raking
his fingers through his hair.
I was in
near hysterics. Everything was falling
down around me. I lost all
orientation. Struggle mode kicked in.
"But...but don't you love me Josh?"
He stopped
pacing and stared at me with eyes filled with blind rage. "Love you? Goddamnit Noah! You cannot
even fathom how much pussy I run through on a normal day."
"Nothing?
I was nothing to you?"
"No!
Goddamnit! I was just about to do the singing
thing again like I did with the horse and turn the mist into two cloud-bitches, and they were gonna suck
our dicks and we were gonna hi-five during it and everything. It was gonna be sweet. I thought you were my BRO."
"But..."
"Get
the fuck outta here."
I tumble
back into the abyss. Before I can process what has happened, I am back in my
seat. Josh is still singing. I haven't missed a second of the concert. I take my bearings, and consider what I just
experienced. Was it all a dream? The extraordinary performance comes to a close. A standing ovation. Josh exits the stage, yet my confusion remains. I continue to ruminate on the train home. It must have been a dream. There's no rational explanation. I watch the brownstones of northern Chicago leak by, and try to shake
these false memories from my mind. Yet they all still felt so
real.
A few days go by, and the memory fades. My rationality takes over, and I find it easier and easier to dismiss my experience at the concert as a dream or some sort of odd hallucination.
Four days later, I am in my room preparing to do laundry. I am checking the pockets of my pants before I throw them in the hamper when I plunge my hand into the pocket of the pair I was wearing the night of the concert. I feel something small and round. A shock runs through my body. I let go of the object and gather myself. I take a deep breath and reach back in. I pull it out and stare at it in awe. A pear seed. Then it must really have...
My head snaps to the left as a rock taps off my dorm room window. Then another. I go to the window and open it. Josh is there, looking up at me. My heart leaps into my throat. He has come back for me. It is all to surreal. I finally know what it's like to be in a movie.
"I have something I want to say," he says nervously. I pine for him. His gorgeous eyes twinkle below me like ethereal nebulae.
We lock eyes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Say it. Then, suddenly, the side of his mouth twitches upwards in a devilish grin. I barely have time to register the movement when...
"Your still a fag!" Josh yells, while David Archuleta and Michael Bublé run out from behind the bushes and pelt me in the face with rotten tomatoes. I collapse on the floor sobbing, tomato stinging my red eyes. I can hear the three singers laughing and chest bumping below.
"I'm not even gay!" I yell out the window as they walk off. I slump back down below the sill and put my head in my hands.
"I'm only gay for you, Josh."
