The Dark Avalon Scrolls

It was a very fucking lovely early Yule gift that I got last night from amyrayh...

I've known since like August that I would be at the last night of the So You Think You Can Dance Season 5 tour. amyrayh bought the tickets as my Yule gift, just as Jeff Dunham last week was a Christmas present to me and shatterpath, and Wicked was our birthday present [shatterpath"s Yule gift was 2 Seahawks games with amyrayh]. But as time got closer, I've gotten more and more excited about it. Shock, right? *smirks*

So it was fucking raining in Biblical proportions yesterday. I spent the day fucking around on Facebook writing and watching movies. BTW? If you get the chance, watch Secondhand Lions. What a fantastic movie! I was completely and utterly hooked... Anyway, while shatterpath & amyrayh went for a Costco run, I was doing this...

We took the Kingston Ferry over to Edmonds, and hit Central Market since we got in like 90 minutes before the curtain call. We got a Venus flytrap to help with the fly probelm here... only to find out that the plants are dormant from November to February. *rolls eyes*

So afer that, we headed up to Everett and the Comcast Arena for the show. We were actually just a couple minutes late, so missed the beginning of the intro video showing all of the dancers. No problem. Our seats? If you look at the Half House - 270º End Stage section over here, we were in the bottom of section 220. We had absolutely fucking AWESOME seats!

So after the opening number, the dancers all introduced themselves [I didn't realize just how many contemporary dancers there were in that group!] and then commented that since this was the last night of the tour, "Anything goes tonight". And dudes, they weren't kidding. The basic set list is over here, for future reference, tho' some of the numbers were out of order, I think... And this is where I'm gonna go to bullet points...

• Brandon & Janette's disco was fantastic, as was Phillip & Jeanine's Hip Hop piece to "Mad".
  
  
• The first really amusing thing happened in Evan & Randi's "Booty Dance" piece. Randi actually ogled and smacked Evan's ass in the end. amyrayh doesn't remember this happening in the actual routine, but I thought it might have. Not sure.
  
  
• And then came Janette's solo. Of course, I was all ready for this, as she's my favorite from S5, hands down. So it starts out and she's doing her solo to "This Is Miami", which cracks my ass up, but makes sense, since she's from Miami, right? Except it's not just Janette. I recognized Jeanine [also from Miami], but we couldn't figure out at first who the black girl was. And then it dawned on us. It was BRANDON in drag, since he's also from Miami. At that point, we pretty much knew that nothing outside of the "Addiction" and Breast Cancer pieces would be sacred. Booya! And really? Brandon looked GOOD in the dress! WTF?
  
• The top 3 girls "Supergirl" number? Still doing absolutely nothing for me. Tho' it amused me when the other 3 girls came out to steal their capes and pose!
  
• The Pas de Deux for Ade & Melissa was nice...and then made better when Brandon came up onstage in HOT PINK tights and stole Ade away from Melissa for a portion of the number. I'd seen someone walking down to my left near the stage. I could see "bright" pants, and was silently berating the stage hand and/or security/event person who was wearing those pants...until the person walked up onto the stage from the front of the house. That's when we realized it was Brandon. CMFU!
  
• I was thrilled to see Jason & Caitlin's Bollywood piece. It's one of my favorites... Tho' the best part was a little later in the show, when Brandon did the number with Jason, right up to the lift [doing Caitlin's part, tho' he was dressed like Jason], but Randi stopped it before the kiss. I nearly pissed myself laughing at that.
  
• The Calle Ocho group routine that ended the first act? Awesome! amyrayh & I had a bet going that it would be boys up on the water table instead of Janette & Jeanine. And we were right. Brandon & Evan were up on that table. And the other boys were on the other two tables. No girls on the tables at all, which amused me greatly.
  
• I was ever so damned happy that they didn't fuck with Brandon & Janette's "Ruby Blue" piece [choreographed by Wade Robson], as that's my all time, hands down, favorite number from this season. It was THE number I wanted to see performed. In fact, it was this number that cemented me as a SYTYCD fan, to be completely honest.
  
• Evan's solo? With Brandon coming out in the exact oppositely colored outfit? Fucking fantastic!
  
• The Top 3 boys dance? Even fucking better than when originally done. They were really comfortable with it. The kicks were phenomenal and Evan's back flip was much better!
  
• "Addiction" really was even more powerful in person. And I couldn't see their faces from where we were... But it didn't matter, either. [And no, I wasn't watching the monitors for the dancing. I was watching the dancers for the dancing. The monitors were for the introductions and such, AFAIC.]
  
• The recurring running gag of the Russian Folk Dance that culimated in the group version of said dance? Pure fucking brilliance! Srsly, I was laughing every single time that Jeanine & Phillip came out in the costumes. And the flouncing off? Classic!
  
• I wasn't surprised in the least when Evan came out in white dance shorts to do Brandon's solo with him. It made perfect, symmetrical sense. And Evan pulled it off well!
  
• Watching Caitlin come out in her Bollywood costume to take Jason away from Jeanine after the kiss in the "It Kills Me" piece amused me greatly, espcially with him doing the "Call me" motion to Jeanine as he left with Caitlin. It would have been funnier if Janette had come out to claim her boyfriend, but she was getting ready to come out for hte Cha Cha.
  
• And because of that last point, I wasn't the least bit surprised when Ade came out to steal Brandon from Janette for the Cha Cha. Tho' Janette "handled" it better than Melissa had earlier. Then again, the Cha Cha lends itself better to that sort of thing. And honestly? All of the looks and cheek stroking between Ade & Brandon? Jeezus, I wanted to write RPF sooooooooo badly for them after that!
  
• Jeanine's solo was more powerful for me BECAUSE she fumbled and nearly lost it on her second set of turns. That made it even more real for me. And I LOVED how the rest of the dancers came out to pose with her... and then pelt her with their roses. She honestly looked surprised by that!
  
• The Breast Cancer piece actually left me kind of flat, to be honest. It's not that I don't get the story behind it. I totally get the story. amyrayh's mom died from breast cancer. I just HATE the cover of the song that was used. I was hoping that I could get past that for this live performance. I couldn't. At all.
  
• Kupono's ad for the "Get Fit" DVDs? Classic!
  
• Closing with Brandon & Jeanine's Paso Doble was appropriate. And incredible. And thank the gods, it wasn't fucked with.
  
• The final group dance was fun. And wow, did Brandon HAVE to come out in that all pink outfit? Honey, we get that you're gay. You don't need to advertise it, okay? And how fucking AWESOME was it that Janette taught Brandon her signature move from the audtions to do in that finale?

Yeah, the show itself was fucking awesome as hell! Except for the stupid little bitch sitting next to me. She was somewhere between 13-16 and her mom was to her left. Every single time I'd make a comment on a move made [either in a dance, or the funny shit they were doing], she's stare at me with this disgusted look on her face. And practically every time I'd yell, holler, or do a Mary Murphy impersonation, she'd first stare at me, then curl into her mother's side and cover her ear like I was hurting her. I got a few glares from her mom, too. Um, fuck you very much. This is a live performance and I'm going to react. I don't sit quietly, and VERY few people around us were. Hell, the couple to amyrayh's right were doing that piercing, high-pitched whistling. And no, I didn't stop reacting to the show. Tho' I did resist the urge to turn to them and say something to the effect of "I'm sorry that you're offended by my behavior or that you have a problem with it, but I'm not stopping. I'm here to enjoy myself and to show my support/praise for the dancers. If you don't like it, perhaps you should have stayed home." But I didn't do it. Barely.

So the trip home, we drove all the way around. We didn't lose much time, and quite honestly? The rain & wind were worse than the trip over, which meant the ferry would be rocking more. And neither of us wanted that. And we got home around 0100-ish this morning. Hell, the show didn't get out until like 2230. It started at 1930, had an approximately 30 minute intermission, so two and a half hour show or so. And the producer/director came out at the end to say that we saw some stuff that hadn't been seen in ANY other cities. It was awesome!

And I really can't say enough how much I wanted to write RPF for Brandon & Ade... And for Janette & Jeanine, based on comments in the tour program. I won't do it, but I certainly wanted to... *veg*