The quick summary is that my trip to San Francisco courtesy of Hallmark (thank you sincerely, Hallmark!) was not only great from a work standpoint in building a stronger relationship with our clients and coming away with a better understanding of their needs, but you know me... I never pass up the opportunity to have an adventure. And the trip was fantastic from that standpoint too, to say the least. I would like to tell more about the work part of my trip, but assume that it should be kept confidential, so don't let the content of my posts give you the impression that I was goofing off. I took that work very seriously. I goof off on my own time. Speaking of that, I hiked 10-12 miles in Muir Woods and felt smallered by the giant Redwoods, biked across the Golden Gate bridge with my buddy Dave, ate some incredible seafood—yes, and sushi—hung out with one of my childhood best friends that I hadn't seen in 12 years, saw a concert, breathed in the fresh sea air, laughed by head off, walked my legs off, ate my own weight in Greek food and ice cream back-to-back in a move that should have killed me, and just generally squeezed every drop of fun out of 3.5 days. It felt longer and shorter than that all at once! And as always, I took tons of photos that I'm still in the process of uploading, so scroll down and hit "older posts," and look out for May 4-8 if you'd like to see my shenanigans. (More coming soon!)
I was really looking forward to seeing Round 2 of Ticketpalooza, Diddy at the Midland tonight, but alas, the show was cancelled due to poor sales. (At least I assume that's why it was cancelled. I posted the question on Diddy's Facebook page and my comment was removed! So I guess it's a sensitive topic...) SO, so glad I had synchronicity on my side and got to see him in SF last week. But I have to admit, I'm a little bummed tonight that my big plans were cancelled. I'd see them again in a heartbeat!
First off, let me just say that I hadn't heard the opening acts until I arrived at the Warfield Theater, and was THRILLED that Lloyd was performing! He has an incredible voice (which I sometimes confuse with Ne-yo; and they both sound a lot like Michael Jackson) and I'm a big fan. Lucky me.
Both Tyga and Lloyd were working it onstage in a way that I haven't witnessed since I saw Ludacris a year ago, when he opened for the Black Eyed Peas. I mean, these guys were ripping their shirts off and pulling their pants down, exposing their six-packs and their tattoos, as well as their boxers or Calvin Klein tighty-whities. And rightfully so, they both looked pretty hot! ;)
Lloyd, workin' it
But the crowd really went wild when Diddy showed up. To the best of my memory, I don't think he performed a single song from the new album in its entirety: the whole show as a bunch of montages as well as excerpts from his other projects, plus a tribute to The Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls. (Whose name always makes me smile because in college, Stew McK & Dave G used to call me The Notorious J.E.N.
Rick Ross, Lil Wayne + others made virtual appearances
And Diddy's son took the stage with Dad!
All in all, it was an incredible show, and I'm SO glad I was able to catch it out here, since the KC show on 5/14 was cancelled. Gotta love serendipity! The only thing that was tough was that I had been hiking all day, and though I felt great when I arrived at the show, standing on concrete floors for 5 hours (yeah—the show was 9 pm 'til 2 am!), my dogs were barking.
The crowd was pretty rowdy, too... not the least of whom being the gaggle of glamorous young women to my left. Their heads exploded in unison as soon as Diddy arrived onstage and they screamed like crazy. I've never been touched, bumped into, and had purses and elbows banged into me like that. I was on the second level, only about 20' in front of and on equal height as the stage, and was so glad I wasn't on the floor. Not only did I have a perfect view of the whole show, I avoided the huge punching match that erupted while the DJ was playing between Lloyd and Diddy. Yikes!
So my photos were taken with my old, tiny, fit-in-my-purse camera rather than my good camera, so they're a bit blurry. But I got some video that has decent sound. Check it:
...And I found out that Usher & Akon are performing together in SF at the end of the month. Seriously tempted to return...
After the show, I wasn't sure of the direction of my hotel and had to pull out a map on the sidewalk. A nice, young (and frankly, really good-looking) guy in a dark denim jacket with large spikes on the shoulders stopped to offer help, expressing concern about me being on the sidewalk with a map in my hands at 2 am. Awesome guy. He walked me back to the hotel for safety. Along the way, he talked about how one of the Dirty Money ladies was staring right at him for the whole show. And he was surprised and impressed when I told him that I was here from KC for the concert. He enjoyed it so much that he was thinking of driving to LA to catch it again. I, unfortunately, needed to get back to work rather than becoming a hip hop groupie. Sigh.
