Ok, so where to begin? I arrived @ the metro station closest to the 930 club by 4pm (half an hour later than I wanted to) and was concerned that I missed my opportunity to attend the sound check. As I walk up to the club, I’m relieved to see three other ladies standing outside the club, cause I knew they were Etrainers – nobody else would have gotten there that early ;). The Etrainers there were Emmy4e, Posttime, and Carol (I feel like there was one more that I’m missing, if so, I’m sorry). We exchange real names and talk about how hard it is to explain to friends and family that you are meeting up with some internet friends to go to a concert, lol. Then Russell comes out for a smoke and we all talk little bit about what was next on their schedule, then he heads back to the bus. A few minutes later Aaron comes out flashes his million dollar smile says hello and heads to the bus. And next up was Brandon… (I LOVE BRANDON) he walks over, and greets us all with hugs =). He asks if the sound check has happened yet, and we all say we haven’t heard anything. He stays outside and talks with us for a while before running in to talk to Elliott about letting us in for the sound check. Shortly after Brandon leaves, Joonie and Sway come walking up, smiles and hugs all around. They talk to us for a while, take pics, and run in for the sound check. If Elliott and crew are not an example of “birds of a feather flock together”, I don’t know what is…Hands down, they are all some of the most genuinely nice guys I’ve ever met. Brandon comes back outside and chats with us some more then escorts us into the club :). There are a few people inside the club including Josh who is sitting on the bar, we make eye contact and he says “Heeey!” I respond with the same and then we both focus our attention on Elliott. Once Elliott finishes singing, we make eye contact again and He smiles and asks “How have you been?”, I tell him good, and ask him the same while walking over to him he says “Good!” then he says “So you made it to the first (Birchmere) and last stops huh?” I was so touched that he made the effort to let me know that he remembered me =). Then Elliott walks over (all smiles) and extended his hand, so I gave him mine and tell him my real name (Avril), and my screen name to which he replies “Yes it is”. He asked me how I was, and I said, “I’m good, thanks. How are you?” (really calm, I was so proud of myself, cause I really never know what the heck I’m gonna do or say) he replied “I’m great!” I told him I had gifts for him and gave him the two of the 3 CD’s I had purchased for him (Anthony David – 3 Chords and The Truth and this guy named Donnie (not Hathaway) – The Colored Section), Josh mentions that he had heard of Anthony David before and both Elliott and Josh had heard of Donnie before.. I mentioned to Elliott that Donnie had a couple of “pro-black” cuts on his album, and before I could say “but they aren’t anti-any other race”, Josh chimes in and says “its ok, cause he’s (Elliott) anti-white”, then Elliott, chuckles and says “Yeah, we’re both anti-white”, and we all laugh. I also tell Elliott that I had a third CD for him but ended up not being able to bring it with me cause I had to leave… (looking for it was the cause of me arriving half an hour later than I wanted to) I asked him if he had ever heard of Emily King, which he hadn’t, so I told him I’d try to see if I could get one to him after the concert. He thanked me, opened his arms and gave me a hug =). Emmy4e offered to take our pic (Thank you emmy! I was bumpin my gums so much, taking a pic never crossed my mind, lol).. After the pic, I thought that would be the end of my moment, but he turns to me and asks questions about the styles of the three artists =), so we chat about that for a little while. In my peripheral I see Carol unwrapping her Sounds of the Season CD and I am immediately reminded that I brought mine with me for him to sign… Once again, I was so busy yappin that it slipped my mind, lol…. so I then ask him if he’d sign my CD, and he graciously says “of course”. So now I am the proud owner of an autographed SOTS CD signed “Dear Avril, Thx so much for the CD’s! God bless you sweetie” :awe: . Emmy, Carol, and Posttime, join the circle, We all chat a little longer, and they all get their time, autographs and photos with Elliott. He apologizes, tells us that he has to go and asks if we were staying for the show. We all respond with some form of “of course” and head back outside to play the waiting game. While waiting I meet some more etrainers: JJM8721, elliottsamazing, luvthatelliott (who by the way, gave me the warmest greeting :) ), lindagt, wholefamilyloveselliott, luvinelliott23 (who is adorable as can be) and her father. I really want to try to get Elliott that Emily King cd, so I decide to take a walk. I figure that since we were walking distance away from a college campus (Howard University), there had to be a CD store somewhere nearby. After about 7 mins of walking in the rain, I decide to ask people if they knew of a CD store anywhere close. All of the students I ask, tell me “no”, so I accept defeat and turn around :bawl: . On my walk back to the club I remember that my friend Janell who will be meeting me for the concert has my Emily King sampler CD. I call her up and ask her to bring it with her. Crisis averted!! :dance:

More to come later... gotta go to bed...

Awww thanks for letting me relive the moments again through your eyes!! I am so happy that your pictures turned out so great! You REALLY do have a beautiful smile that just lights up the room. I hope we get to spend concert waiting time together again.
emmy

Dying 4 more!!! Good start though!

Try and be a little more descriptive with the rest of it...I am having a hard time visualizing!!!

Bumpin my gums.... :rotfl: (definitely gonna steal that!!!)

Damn, I should have gone to DC!!

Rick - I soo wish you had come! Avril - this is a great recap! Can't wait for the rest!

Thanks Avril, I can't wait for the rest, and your picture of you and Elliott :grin:

Can't wait to hear more Gr8!!!! It was so nice meeting you at the show. Can't wait for the next one! :)

WONDERFUL recap so far gr8!! OMG, the bumpin my gums line made me laugh out loud!! :rotfl:

Bring on the rest of it darlin, we are waiting!!

Enjoying the recap so far, Gr8! Thanks for all the details! Waiting patiently for the rest...

So glad for you that Elliott loved your gifts! Btw, I also love Anthony David's RCC CD! A couple of my faves: "Kin Folk", nice little reggae beat-old school feel, and I love the jazziness of "Smoke One w/ Earl". Great call on that one :)!

Sorry for the delay guys!!!

OK, so part II,

I won’t rehash the details about the concert since Harley did such a great job, but I will say… There are a handful of artist out there that really sing with emotion, but Elliott sings from the tips of his TOES!!!!!! He honestly throws every inch of his body into his performances, and it’s so great to watch =) Oh! And I'm not sure if harley mentioned it, but from what I could see the majority of the crowd was in the 18-35 range.

Once the concert was over, I say goodnight to my non E-trainer friends, and met up with E-FanWendy (who was supposed to be with us, but ended up having some minor setbacks). We head to the back, so I can make my donation to the diabetes cause, pick up a copy of Josh’s EP, and then make our way over to him so I could get it signed. He tells me that he’ll only sign my CD for me because my last name is not Lavigne, and we share a chuckle. I got my pic, he gives me a really warm hug :awe: , and then Wendy gets her time with him. Afterwards, we wander around the club and we see Aaron so we stop and take pics with him, (I know without a doubt that his smile gets him in trouble, lol) When we finished up, one of the employees comes over and diplomatically tells us “Ya’ll ain’t got to go home, but you got ta get the “bleep” up outta here!”, so we make our way towards the door where Lindgt, HW, Luvthatelliott, Luvinelliott23 and a couple other etrainers are wrapping up their convos with Josh. There was quite a crowd at the door, so we figured, why wade through it? We’ll just wait it out… so we join in on the goodbyes and Josh sends us each off with a hug and kiss =)! I LOVE that guy.

As soon as I step foot out of the club, I remember that I have to get Elliott the Emily King CD, and that I could have given it to Josh :headsmack:! I wasn’t about to go back in the club when we were asked to leave, so that pretty much helped me with my decision to stick around in case Elliott came out… really didn’t take much.
While we are waiting outside with all the rest of the gang, Sway comes out so we talk to him for a little bit and take more pics. Since it wasn’t confirmed that Elliott was going to come out, I asked him to give the Emily King cd to Elliott for me. More waiting… Joonie comes out. He’s obviously with some friends who came to see him, and he STILL makes his way over to us and gives us hugs, and takes pics :). If you guys don’t know… Joonie sings!, and he’s really good. He has a couple of his songs up on myspace, definitely worth checking out! I ask him if he plans on doing anything with his music and he says he’s having such a great time playing for Elliott and maybe one day he’ll do something.. they all really do love Elliott… it's so sweet
Brandon lets us know that E would be coming out, so we decide to hang in there. While we were waiting Sway passes Wendy and I like 3 times, and hugs us each time he walks by, lol…
After about an hour Elliott comes out. A number of people had given up by then (including the Richmond E-trainers) so there were only about 20 or so folks lined up. Wendy and I were close to the end of the line (2nd to last to be exact- that detail was just for you Rick ;) :grouphug:)… When it’s our turn, Elliott walks over with a big smile, grabs my hand and says “ I got the CD! Emily King!”, then he thanks me and gives me a hug :awe:, yup, in that exact order, lol….. I didn’t see it coming at all, he’s so endearing, I :heartbeat: him for real. I get one last pic for the road. Wendy gets her autograph, pic and hug – they had a cute exchange as well, but I will let her share that with you guys. I had already gotten all the love I needed that night to last me a lifetime, so I was all set to go once Wendy got her time in, but after hugging her, he turns in my direction, opens his arms….. AND GIVES ME ANOTHER HUG!!!! Can you say :cloud9: ?? In fact, I was so far gone that I walked in the wrong direction to get to my car, lol! I tell Wendy that my car is the other direction and offer her a ride to her car since she’s parked farther away then I am. We turn around and Russell is there! I realize he’s like the only one I hadn’t gotten a pic with yet, so Wendy does the honors :).

Elliott hadn’t gone back on the bus yet so we end up walking past him one more time. He spots us, tells us to be safe and gives us big waves goodnight.

Then I float to my car…..

Definitely a night I will never forget!

Wonderful, wonderful recap!

Aww - what a wonderful recap - so glad you stuck around after the show until he came out!

aaawwww, GR8, I LOVE your recap :) Elliott is so generous with the hugs and so sweet and thoughtful. I know he will enjoy your gifts :)

Awesome recap GR8. :rocker:

Now THAT was part 2 of a recap worth waiting for! Thanks so much for sharing your emazing experience with us!! :glomp:

aawww, thank you so much emmy :blush:. I had a great time with you all too and look forward to doing it again soon! :)

I have that one too! Those are also my 2 fav tracks on that CD =)

Oh that is such an exciting night! I'm so happy for you! Luvs him, luvs him. luvs him!

Great recap. Loved reading it. I loved the details also. Seems like a fun night.

Those hugs would have put me on :cloud9: too. Glad you had such a good time.

I will check out the artists that you mentioned in your recap. I probably should already know them but I don't. *Hangs head in shame.*

So OSM!!!! Thanks!!

Thanks for the very enjoyable write up -- saying that "Elliott sings from the tip of his toes!" is---perfect!

MUCH BETTER!!!

The details made all the difference!!!

When did you say you were coming to NYC????

lol, glad I could help U visualize ;)

Hopefully I'll make it to the big apple soon =)! Wether Im there for an E concert or not, I'm looking u up!

You should know, I was so bummed when I saw that you weren't gonna be able to come. I was really looking forward to meeting you. So we will have to make that happen!! :)

Glad you all enjoyed the recap!!

you are so sweet! Someone up thread said something about your smile lighting up the room....I can believe that...it lights up these pages! I was very dissapointed, not only about not hearing Elliott one last time, but also meeting you and other etrainers I haven't had the privlege to meet yet. Yes, we gottta make it happen !! :grin:

Loved your recap!!! You are so right, they really are "birds of a feather" you can't help but love and support them all.

OMG girl, that night was a blast!!! And I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOO SORRY I haven't been able to get those pics out to you yet. Some friends and I had a little concert of our own to prepare for ... we ended up playing for a small crowd of about 1,200 on Saturday, so .... I will get those to you sometime tonight or tomorrow ok??

I was smiling when I read your recap (which was dead on, by the way! :cheerleader1: ) - the whole Josh experience after the show, SWAY cruisin back and forth and staying to hang out with us FOR REAL (he did linger around for a while, didn't he? :) ) ... my "cute exchange" = Elliott saying Hi and knowing that I've been there everytime he's come to the area (including the White House, where I caught him red-handed trying to get in! lol). Last time at the Birchmere, he was like "Wendy from Washington ... I'm just going to call you 'Washington Wendy'" so this time around, I told him "Welcome to my town!" and he laughed. I was bugging him that he didn't remember me and he kept insisting he did, so he signed my CD like this: (see below).

Thanks for the recap, Avril. I'm FINALLY going to type my recap tonight.