I had been looking forward to Sunday for several weeks. Alice 97.3 (the radio station in SF) hosts a free concert twice a year - once at the beginning at summer and once at the end (though I didn't know about the early summer ones). The lineup, in order, for Now and Zen 2010 was Ryan Star, Five for Fighting, Natasha Bedingfield, Plain White T's, and Sara Bareilles.
I've noticed that as the show goes on, more and more people become interested in the artists, until the ending act has almost everyone involved. It's really interesting to see.
In any case, I woke up a bit late and just barely managed to make the bus to SF. I was doing a quick jog from my apartment until I could see that the bus was sitting at the bus stop (it takes about a 5-10 minute break at that particular stop), but when I slowed down to take a breather I heard - to my horror - the engine start. Breaking into a run, I climbed aboard the bus and a fellow passenger gave me a high-five and said 'You made it!.' I guess he had noticed me jogging/running for awhile.
While I was supposed to go with some Berkeley friends and meet up with Fremont and Oakland friends at the concert, my Berkeley friends still hadn't awoken by the time I left. Since I had a bit more freedom with my time because no one was rushing me to do anything besides myself, I decided to go to the farmer's market at the Civic Center BART to grab some snacks for the concert.
That station is about half-way between where I was and where I wanted to be, so I decided that I would walk along Market until I saw and could hop on the MUNI (bus). Not knowing the buses that well, I thought I would ask the 5 driver whether he passed by the Civic Center BART. He said 'No' when I was at Powell BART, so I kept walking. Oddly enough, I was walking just as fast as he was driving the bus...and he lied to me! I saw the bus at the corner of Market and 8th! In any case, I made it to the concert 15 minutes late.
My Oakland friends (and their friends) were in line for the McDonalds bathroom when I got there, so I decided to stick with them - and wash my fruit too. They had been waiting for the restroom for half-an-hour! By the time we made it into the park, Five for Fighting was just finishing up their set. In the half-hour we missed, two groups had come and gone - really short sets.
The friends of my friends really aren't concert-goers. They wanted to set up 'camp' at the very end of the park, where nothing could be seen, just heard. My friends and I, however, were adamant that we not be stuck at the back the entire time. You can't tell people that you've seen singers in concert, when you can't see them!
So we set out to find good seats, luckily we managed to snag some awesome seats because a group was just leaving to meet up with other people.
It was really good timing - two people were right behind us, asking if we needed all that space, so it's a good thing I also brought two picnic blankets to cover the area. Then, those friends of friends didn't stand up when artists came on (even when a lot of people in front were standing, so they couldn't see a thing). The only good thing about that was that they watched our things when we went closer to the stage; they didn't want to come because they were scared of people possibly pushing/shoving them (it's not a rock/metal show, there's no mosh pit). Also they decided to leave about 20 minutes before the concert ended, to 'beat the rush of the crowd.' *sighh*
The concert was awesome - what I saw of it anyways. Having never heard of Ryan Star before the promotion for this concert, I didn't care if I missed him - and I did. Though I'm disappointed that I missed most of Five for Fighting, at least I heard their Superman song. Natasha Bedingfield was good and had really awesome vocals live, but the crowd wasn't super into her. I've heard her new single Strip Me before, but it's wayyy catchier when she keeps repeating that la-la-la part live.
Plain White T's were sooo good and apparently this was their first concert in 2010! They were busy writing songs for their new album and premiered some of their songs today. After they sang '1,2,3,4', I predicted that they would end their set with 'Hey There, Delilah' and I was right. By then, people were much more into the concert, and a lot more people sang along.
Then Sara Bareilles came on and she was amazing, which I didn't really expect her to be. Since she's more of a slow song-person, I expected her to not do much (like Colbie Caillat last year who kinda bombed in my opinion). I was wrong. Her vocal chops are ridiculous, like Natasha, and it probably helped that she was either drunk/high because she kept swearing and saying things like 'I'm drinking straight vodka.' The crowd totally loved her, and in one part of 'Love Song' she had the crowd sing and it was LOUD!
I met up with my Fremont friends after the concert ended; they managed to arrive just as Sara Bareilles started her set. Since the weather was a rare sunny day, we decided to hang out in SF for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, my Oakland friends had to leave to meet up with their other friends who skipped out early >.<. I'm lucky I managed to meet up with them though, I hadn't seen them in several months because they're always busy with family events.
. At first our game plan was to hang out at the Piers, watch the bridge light up when it gets dark, then walk to Japantown to eat dinner, then go home...but that all changed. Though we went to the Piers just near Embarcadero BART, and hung around as the sky was darkening, we got really hungry about 7-ish and couldn't wait for the bridge to light up. After consulting the map, my Fremont friends weren't willing to walk the 2 miles to Japantown just for food, especially since the restaurants probably closed early, so we headed over to Chinatown instead.
People on the corners in Chinatown kept trying to get us to go into their restaurants, but I realized that if those restaurants had enough money to pay people to direct customers to go in, their food was probably expensive. We managed to find a little hole in the wall restaurant (those are almost always the best) that apparently won some food award in a SF magazine. The dishes were decent tasting, piled high, and cheap.
Afterwards, we headed down to Union Square to just chill and talk for awhile. I lost track of time while we did all these things, but we started heading home at about 11. I unfortunately missed the bus by 1- minutes, so I ended up arriving home about 12:30. A very tiring, but fun day.
Pics to come when I get them from my friends.
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