Thursday, May 11, 2006
By Kristina
It had been my dream for about the past 5 years to go to New York and see a live taping of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. I found out that Conan would be coming to Chicago the week of May 9-12. Chicago is only an hour and a half from my home in Milwaukee so I knew I had to get tickets and go!
As soon as Conan announced how to get tickets on his show on March 28th, I sent my email request in. I waited and waited and waited for weeks. Then I read an article about how 70,000 people sent emails requesting to get 2 tickets for themselves for the Chicago show. Before I saw that I was going to try for standby tickets if I didn’t get a confirmation email, but then I decided I wasn’t trying for standby if I didn’t get the email.
As the week got closer and closer I was just about ready to give up and figured I wasn’t going to go. I decided it would be best to save my money and just wait and see him in New York. On April 27th, exactly 2 weeks before the date I would be going, I got the email confirming they had tickets waiting for me for the May 11th show! I couldn’t believe out of thousands of emails I got one! I took off work right away and made my plans. Actually, taking off work was the only plan I had to make. I would be going with my mom who also likes to watch Late Night. We planned to take the Amtrak train from Milwaukee down to Chicago. On the morning of May 11th, our train would be leaving at 8:00 am. My dad was off work that day so we used “Dad’s taxi service” to drive us down to the station. With morning traffic and construction we made it to the station JUST in time - 9 minutes to 8:00. We still had to purchase our tickets and get on the train. I was relieved when we got on the train and it started moving. I was so tired from getting up so early (hey, what do you expect? I’m a Late Night fan!) but I couldn’t sleep on the train because I was too excited.
We arrived in Chicago a little after 9:30 am, got a taxi and went over to the Chicago Theatre. There was a line of about 120 to 150 people in the confirmation email line. I showed my email and got our tickets, and around 10 am we got in line. It was raining, windy, and cold!!! All we brought was our rain coat or poncho, but thank goodness we met a nice lady by us in line who had a huge golf umbrella she shared with us and 2 girls I met who were also from Milwaukee! We all took little breaks during the 5 hour period we were in line, taking turns going over to Marshall Field’s for bathroom and food breaks. After a few hours the crowd was getting restless and cranky! In the last hour it really got to me and I started to get really cold. The whole time we waited outside the only thing they did to entertain us was they had the Masturbating Bear come outside to greet all the fans. I could only see his head because of all the tall people in front of me!
Finally at around 3:15 they began letting us in!! HOORAY!!!!! At this point it wasn’t much that I was excited to get in to see the show, but just to get in and be warm and dry! The line was getting kind of wide and we sort got moved around a little. Then we had our bags checked and got held back a little. Plus, my mom’s not as fast as I am, so we finally got into the theater and got about row 18 on the main floor! I knew I’d at least get seats on the main floor and I was happy about that.
The theater was absolutely gorgeous and so big! I kept looking all around at how it was set up and got all excited when I saw Max and the band’s area set up. They held us prisoner in there the whole time! We weren’t allowed to get up and leave to go to the bathroom or anything- if we did leave, we couldn’t come back. There were tons of producers and stage hands scrambling all around to set up the stage and area before they began taping. Anytime some person came through the curtain the audience cheered for them!
Finally, Brian McCann came out to warm up the crowd. He told us not to yell out crazy things during the show and not to yell out which Chicago sports team was the best. They even filmed the audience in the aisle seats for the Conan Takes the Desk for a ride segment they’d do on Friday night. I was on an aisle seat but it wasn’t the aisle they filmed, unfortunately.
Then Joel came out on stage do start doing the announcing for the show! I got chills when Max started his drum bit at the beginning of the theme song and Joel began announcing the guests. The audience was screaming and yelling so much I could barely hear a thing that Conan was saying up until the scripted monologue.
When Conan was ready to come out, it was a few seconds (which felt like a lot longer) waiting for him to come on stage. Then he walked out and I thought I was going to die! As if the audience couldn’t get anymore louder, we all did when he did the string dance!
His voice sounded so different and almost like it was echoing hearing it in person. It had somewhat to do with it being such a loud theatre, but it was definitely different than hearing his voice on TV at home. When he said “the shitty of Chicago” that was absolutely priceless! We all cheered when Conan thanked us for waiting out in the rain. I definitely took that appreciation to heart after being one of those people waiting in the drenching rain all day. He really does appreciate his fans. He even laughed and made fun of us when we all went nuts and cheered. It was as if we were cheering for the bad weather. He said, “I’d hate to how you act when it’s sunny out!”.
When Conan did his usual introduction of the band after his monologue he noted that LaBamba was dressed as a CTA bus driver! The old clip of Conan doing his so called “performance” at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago was great! When they showed the clip of Conan and Jeff Garlin going to their old apartment in Wrigleyville, it was fun to watch Conan watch the clip himself! He stood on the stage the whole time and watched it with everyone else. We all got to see the FedEx Pope AND be introduced to a brand new character - The Sears Tower Dressed in Sears Clothing! It was so funny watching it walk across the stage. During the first commercial break, the Sears Tower body surfed across the crowd. It never was over by me, but I think I may be on camera for a miniscule bit then!
The whole time during the commercial break Conan talked to all the people on stage, and boy did he drink a lot of water from his mug (or is it water??? lol) The best thing he did during the breaks was how he interacted with the audience. He’d point and wave to fans up in the balcony and shake hands with people who were in the first few rows. This wasn’t scripted, like something during the show. He chose to do this, so once again it shows he cares about his fans.
The John C. Reilly interview was pretty good and the pig story was fun too, but what happened next I was not expecting at all. Suddenly John broke out into song and began singing “The Night Chicago Died”. I was even more surprised when Conan jumped up from his desk with a microphone and sang with him! This was definitely a crowd favorite! I didn’t think I’d be hearing Conan sing at all! I loved it! I was surprised that the Thursday show was the only one they didn’t do The Wheel of Wendt. It was okay though because the rest of the show made up for it!
Vlasta the International Queen of Polka was so funny! I had never heard of her before the show, and boy was she interesting. While she performed Conan danced around with his lanky legs going high up in the air. When they went to the commercial break she started on a second song “Roll Out The Barrel” and she just kept going! Finally, a guy came over to her and said she had to stop. She probably would’ve stayed up there for the rest of the show if she could.
They were beginning to set up now for John Mayer’s performance AND Max Weinberg 7 would be performing with him too. Now, not only did I not know the band would be doing the number with him, but I didn’t even know John Mayer was going to be on the show AT ALL, until that day while I was waiting in line. That sure was a surprise to me. “Sweet Home Chicago” was a great song to hear and I loved seeing Jimmy and John going all out on their guitars! During the commercial break he did another song: “Mary Had A Little Lamb”. Conan talked a bit to John asking about his first instrument, which was the clarinet, and then Conan made fun of nerds who were watching because John said he played the clarinet. I can’t believe I got to see Conan do his nerd voice!
At the end of the show he thanked all the guests and then let everyone play with the big Conan beach balls! Some were so close to me to hit, but they never got to me unfortunately.
After the taping of the show ended he grabbed a microphone and thanked the whole studio audience for being there. He shook more people’s hands and then waved and left. He was gone! *sniff sniff*
After we got out of the theatre we walked down to Marshall Field’s again to find some place to eat, but then after we decided to walk back by the theatre and eat at PotBelly Sandwich works. Before we went into the place to eat, I was looking across the street at the ABC newsroom studio and I thought a guy in there was Conan and they were interviewing him. I ran over and of course it wasn’t. I guess I was on such a Conan high that any guy I saw wearing a suit I thought was him! We took the 8 pm train back from Chicago and while waiting for the train to leave I bought a copy of the Daily Herald with a Conan article on the front. I’m sad that it’s all over, but now I’m even more determined to get to NYC to see Conan in his home studio!