Just got back from Orlando, and I'm so sore that I could cry...but it was SO worth it.

Briefly: Good Part - I Got His Pick. Bad Part - No T-shirts or any Stuff - is it going to be like this for the whole tour?

Neil played a terrific concert at the House of Blues tonight. It seemed he wanted to play more songs, but there was some sort of "curfew." I think the HOB's own band was supposed to be on at 11, so we all had to be out of there by around 10:15.

This was, believe it or not, my very first time seeing neil live -- very apropos for his first real concert (i.e., more than 2 songs) in the States, although I did see Tim open for 10,000 Maniacs at Radio City Music Hall almost exactly nine years ago.

I was blown away. We listies were first in line at the door about an hour before it opened. It wasn't really a line in our area -- more like a mass -- which made it very easy for Jeremy Bruske to wander around the HOB to find a door in back with a towel stuck in it, which led to him, a Frenz member but non-listie named Mona and I darting around the back and sneaking in for a few songs in the sound check. Oh My God. It was AMAZING -- and no one even paid attention to us. We didn't get kicked out or anything, but left after about two songs because we were afraid of being barred from the concert.

And even before that, I was sitting on the front porch of the HOB when, you guessed it, they started playing "Don't Dream It's Over" over the HOB's speakers (kinda an ad), and guess who walked onto the porch en route to the music hall.... Of course it was Neil. But my camera was in my bag and I was half on the floor having just fallen off my seat! Great choice of sunglasses, btw.

But as for the concert: We took over the front of the stage -- basically half of the front was listies and Frenz members and people we'd brought, except my husband stayed back by the tables ... if you saw someone reading a bar review book during Ebba's portion, that was my husband aaron : )

Aaron's report from the middle of the room is that there were a lot of couples there, some people who were 40+, and some families who didn't react badly to the small amount of cussing on stage. And they all clapped a lot, and graually a lot more people came onto the floor in front of the stage and left their tables, which means they were getting into it.

Neil sounded terrific -- cute, great rapport with the audience -- which my husband said was even apparent at the tables. And a terrific choice of songs. The singalong in "Sinner" seemed to work well from where we were standing, but then again, we were singing along to anything. We managed to put together a list of requests which we wrote on an ad for Try Whistling This and the concert that I ripped out of the free local paper, and in the last encore handed it to neil who made some jokes about it 0- and proceeded to play something we hadn't requested: "Don't Dream It's Over," which was another great singalong. And I speak for myself only when I say that I didn't mind that he didn't play any of the requests ... we wrote that it was from the Tongue in the Mail list, but he didn't menon that.

One request we had on there was "The Burglar Song." If people keep requesting it, maybe both the co-writers will sing it at some point.

Speaking of Liam, he did a great job -- didn't say much at all, but he kept either singing softly or lip synching all the words to basically every song, including "I Got You," the only song played that was written before he was born, btw. Neil did do one request that was amazingly terrific: his first song on the keyboards was "Message to My Girl." I was practically in tears -- it sounded so lovely!

Towards the last third of the concert, Elroy was hanging around semi-visibly in the wings and brought his dad a bottle of water at one point. I wondered if he showed up late because he was hanging out in the Magic Kingdom.

Hair & Pants Report:

Hair: Outside in the sun it looked a lot blonder than it did inside -- a little floppy but a very good amount of it.

Pants, etc: Grey suit, black shoes, and an aqua Polynesian print shirt for the concert, but before (soundcheck) a solid blue shirt and very dark blue baggy pants (Mona thinks he was wearing sandals).