In a House With Unlocked Doors… Part Eight
By Sharon Mitchell
Back to the USA
By my standards, the 2010 UK and European tour was pretty tame! We caught the band in Manchester, Wembley Stadium, Glasgow, Paris and at Rock Werchter, the first time I had seen them at a festival. We had early entry in Glasgow, got barrier in Manchester and golden circle in Rock Werchter, but the best show of the year was still to come. Just before the show at the LCCC ground, I stole wi-fi from the neighbouring hotel to ours and booked tickets to see Green Day on their home territory.
I was finally going to California!
We (my husband Graham and I) had already planned to exploit my new-found tolerance of flying and visit New York. American Idiot was playing on Broadway, and one of our dear friends offered to let us stay at her beautiful home in Staten island.
Late August came quickly, and we headed for the airport and another adventure.
We saw the musical on the last night of our stay in NYC. We had been told that the mezzanine seats were the best, because the set was so huge and lots goes on at high level, and we were lucky enough to get front row seats. Graham wasn’t really looking forward to it, but after the show, he was very enthusiastic about what he had just seen. We joined the crowds of theatre goers outside the stage door, and waited.
Soon, the cast started trickling out, and they were all more than happy to sign our programmes and chat. We knew that the star of the show, John Gallagher Jr., did not come out, and so, after getting signatures from all but two of the cast (Michael Esper was nowhere to be seen), we walked to the other side of the street to get some photographs of the theater at night. The crowds had gone, and we were going to walk up to Times Square, when I spotted someone standing by a car – John Gallagher! He was talking to a man, but when he had finished speaking, we walked past him and I thanked him for a great show. His immediate response was, “Hey, you’re English” and he was sweet enough to have a brief conversation with us. I wanted Graham to take a photo of me with him, but he said to give my camera to his driver, so that Graham could be in the picture too. My only regret was that I forgot to get him to sign my programme!.
A few weeks later, Billie played the part of St. Jimmy for the first time, but I never got to see him playing the role he created.
We left New York, excited for our very first trip to California.
We had a hotel in the centre of San Francisco for a couple of nights before we moved on to Berkeley to stay at the Marina. We met up with lots of friends, old and new, and had our very first trip to Rudys, taking in lots of the sights that were familiar because of Green Day’s lyrics – Tight Wad Hill, Stuart and The Avenue – but the highlight of our stay was the Homecoming show at Mountain View’s Shoreline amphitheater.
Shoreline is odd – there are two levels of seats and the standing area is behind those. We had level two seats – not good but we had a reasonable view – and when the concert ended, we were going to have to wait for a ride back to the hotel because our driver had VIP aftershow party passes.
As I walked down the steps to the exit in this 22,000 capacity venue, I heard my name being called. It was a friend who actually lives in the next county to me back in England – and she had something for me – an aftershow pass of my own! That was truly magical – how she found me in the crowd I will never know. At the party, I met up with some more friends, and finally had a face to face encounter with the person that had invited me to Las Vegas the previous year and got me back flying after twenty-five years. That was very special.
We loved California, and on the plane home, we decided that we had to come back – and soon.
