V to the I to the P

On Thursday, Jean Wysocki called me up while I was waiting to pick up the kids at school. So by the way, the station wagon fits me perfectly because I've become a soccer mom. Anyway, she tells me that her daughter Angie was going to bring a friend to the Fray show on Saturday but no longer was and wanted to see if I wanted to go.

Now I'm not the hugest Fray fan there ever was, so I almost felt a little bad taking her up on the offer. But I thought, you know what, how often in life will I have this opportunity? So the next day I told her I was in.

The night went a little something like this...

We drove to Red Rocks, which is a cool place to go in itself, and pull up to the will-call booth where our "guest passes" are waiting for us. Then we get back in the car and drive up to the V.I.P. parking because, you know, we're family of The Fray.

"We." Let's just remember that there is no reason that I should be there other than I was luckily chosen to live with this incredible family. Now I've been on a guest list many other times in life. Once I went to see one of Anthony and Antoine Smith's games (they played for Loyola-Chicago)* at UMKC: Home of the most boring basketball fans in America.

*side note: As I was looking for a picture of Anthony and Antoine (which was unsuccessful, obviously), I came across this weird web site about the city of Kirkwood, and if you go down about halfway you'll notice that these two are mentioned as like famous people from Kirkwood or something. Weird.

And obviously I've been guest listed for numerous Farewell to Ashlyn shows.

But this guest list night was a little different than having my name written on a piece of paper, probably sloppy and mispelled, to get out of paying five bucks for a show at some random church to hear my friends play five or six songs that no one knows because they always change them and don't have a cd...yet.

I love you Farewell to Ashyln, don't get me wrong. I even wore my FTA t-shirt when I met The Fray. This was just a whole new experience. Not that any of them read this anyway.

So after we park, we get to take a little shuttle right up to the back stage doors. Seriously, we're important. At this point I was getting a little overwhelmed. Then we go in to get our seats in our special important people section wearing our important people stickers.

I noticed Alan Keller sitting a few rows in front of us, so I went to talk to him for a little while. And then we saw Alicia too and hung out with her. I guess I thought it would be harder to find people in that huge place, but it was also still light out at that point and only about a quarter of the people were there so far.

So here we are, pumped about the show.

That's mom, grandma, Angie (older daughter), me, Sophie (younger daughter). Gary Wysocki (dad) wasn't with us because--to make us even more important--his video production company was running the video screens for the show.

Ah, nice shot. That's the lead singer guy of one of the opening bands, Meese. All together, they look like this:

They were really good, I liked them.

Oh but I'm getting ahead of myself. Before Meese played was when we actually went to the band's dressing room and met all of them. That was pretty sweet.

So finally the Fray came out and played, and I think I liked their music even better in concert than just listening to their cd. I always dig the piano music.

I realize that's not a very awesome picture, but it's the best we've got.

They did well, and I enjoyed myself a lot. After they played, we obviously went to make our appearance at the "after-party." Although it's probably not the kind-of after-party you're picturing. It was pretty much just the bands and their families hanging out.

But this threw me for a loop.

All day I had heard small mentions of something called "Save a Life" that The Fray was supporting or something. At the party, Jean starts telling me the story about it. It went something like this:

Jean: There was this boy killed in St. Louis and so his family started this foundation.

Me: When was this?

Jean: A few months ago I think?

Me: What was his name?

Jean: Colin Fahrenkamp.

(My eyes get big and my jaw drops.)

Me: Uh...I know him. I know his sister, we did Young Life together in high school.

Jean: Really? She's here.

Me: What???

Bizarre. Don't worry, this wasn't like the first time I heard about Colin. He was actually friends with one of my good friends from high school, Robyn, so she told me about his car accident way back when it happened in January.

So everyone is a little weirded out at this point as we go over to see Megan, this girl I went to Young Life camp with and played soccer against in high school. I vividly remember her dominating on me as she was Ladue's star striker and I was Kirkwood's not-as-star defender. We talk for a few minutes, and then she was like, oh do you know Matt Morrow-Howell? Obviously. His sister was there with Megan too.

Now the reason then I find out of how the Fahrenkamps and the Fray are connected, which Mrs. Fahrenkamp explains to me, is that one of Colin's friends figured out that The Fray's song, "How to Save a Life," was the last song he downloaded before he died. So now his family has started the Save a Life campaign to encourage kids to make wise decisions. And you should click the link because that was probably an awful description. So the Fray has like teamed up with them to help promote and support it I guess. They all wear these Save a Life bracelets, and Mr. Fahrenkamp gave me one right off his wrist too, which was pretty cool.

That whole situation definitely ranks up there as of the more crazy small world/random connections stories of my life.

Overall, it was an awesome night. I didn't know much about The Fray before I moved to Denver and was just kind-of thrown into their world a little when I got here. So to me, going to see them play at Red Rocks was like literally feeling like they got huge overnight. And knowing where they came from and how they started and all, it seriously almost brought tears to my eyes looking up at the thousands of people there to see them play. And they're just good people.

Here's the Wysocki kids altogether. Ben is the drummer of the band, for those of you that haven't heard me explain it 100 times. And actually a funny story is that his friend was actually the original drummer, but right as The Fray was starting out he decided to leave to go to acting school and Ben got his spot. That's a little insider information for you.

Well I'm still feeling the effects of a long night and not much sleep last night, so I'm off to bed. I hope you've enjoyed this little picture into my undeserving VIP world, and sorry that you can't get tickets because this band is sold-out like everywhere. I'm so proud. Even though I just met them.