. I am so glad I won tickets and that I got to go! It was pretty darn amazing! So on Weds last week I left work at 1:30! The concert was at 7:30 but I didn’t want to take any chances with traffic etc. On my way home from Ventura I stopped in Moorpark and got Carla from work. (She carpools with her husband) and we came to my house. I changed into some jeans and touched up my make-up and hair. We chatted for a few with my folks and hit the road! We drove down to the Staples Center and found a Taco Bell nearby to get some dinner. After we finished eating we headed to the Center. We paid for parking and walked across the street. Once there none of the doors were open yet. We waited about a half an hour. Got inside around 6:30 and hit the bathroom, after the bathroom we paid $4 for bottled water so that we would have it and I hit the souvenir stand. I bought the “program” ( if you can really call it that, it’s mostly all pictures, and the last page is about his charity) and a hat. Then we went to our seats. 
We didn’t have to wait too long before the opening act came out. His name was Elew. He is a solo artist. A pianist. He was a little eccentric but very good! He did not have a bench or any type of seat. He stood or kneeled for all the stuff he played, but he stood in weird stances! A couple of times while playing he stood and had his left arm in the piano playing directly on the strings and the right arm on the keys! Sometimes when he was playing he would jerk his head back and just leave it like that. But it was weird because he was standing kinda like in a lunge workout position, with the forward leg on the pedals and than was looking up! Odd character! But like I said, very talented. He played for half an hour and then was done. He had introduced himself and one song, but the rest of the 30 min he just played. Than there was 30 min for a set change. Mostly removing the piano and bringing in the chairs etc for the mini band Josh had. 
So than around 8:30 there was a violinist and a few other “band” people on stage and they started playing some music…. Than JOSH came out! But he came almost from by where Carla and I were sitting! He ran onto this smaller stage that was set up close to where we were! Of course not expecting that I couldn’t get any clear pictures since I was already focused on the main stage! I started a video. He sat down at the piano and played/sang his song “Changing Colors” (which was one I downloaded the weekend before, so I am glad I did) but of course the piano was facing the other direction so the video is the back of his head. Then he walked around a chatted a bit, I had no idea he was so funny! He made a comment about how we paid a lot of money for the concert and he was going to work his a$$ off to make it worthwhile for us” Than told the people near the stage to be careful it was going to start falling on them. He talked about being born and raised in LA… etc than sang some more. After 2 or 3 songs he went to the main stage. Than he was talking about how they rehearsed in a small studio in LA somewhere and how at the Staples Center it was so much more “technical” because now they had stairs for the stage. So he told us how his security team doesn’t like stairs because they are G.A.P.S (gaps) Groping & Access Points. He than put his hand up like he was a security guy talking through his mini microphone to the other security guys and said something like: “we have a gap at staircase #3, pregnant lady with a homemade quilt, she is going to smother him with love” OMG he was sooo funny! At one point he walked down the other aisle and was talking to this 10 year old girl and when he went back to talk to her again later she hid from him. He talked about how that side of the stage the crowd was much more touchy-feely than the side we were on (he said they were more the handshake type crowd) and how it was “a whole different type of “meet” (meat) on that side.”
The next ? he got was “what was his favorite Yo Momma joke?” He said that ? was going to force him to isolate/lose 90% of his audience/fans from the crowd. He said he didn’t want to offend anyone’s “momma” in the crowd and he could just see the tabloids now. How it would go on and on about him offending people’s momma’s! He kept going on… finally he said “yo momma so stupid when she heard it was chili outside she grabbed a bowl”
The 3rd card/? He got said Josh!!!! He commented on how the !’s definitely caught the crews attn. It said she had just graduated with a musical arts degree and could she sing on stage with him. He asked if she could “bring it?” She said yes, He came downstage grabbed her hand and ran her to the center stage (he commented about how the security team would hate having to chase him there) They got up on stage and he asked what she wanted to sing and she said she hadn’t really thought about it. He asked her if she minored in “awkward silence” He offered her his water bottle and she took it. Than he asked what she sang (soprano) and he found someone near the stage with a birthday and they sang happy birthday. She sang solo the beginning and he joined in later toward the end. They did blend together really well. Then she was kind of standing there after and he told her she could return to her seat if she wanted. She did, than he made a comment about how thirsty he was and how he wished he had some water or something ;-) He also commented on her height and how he was “singing into her bosom” and put his hand up like she was there still and sang “best duet everrrrr” He sang a couple more songs there on the center stage again and of course when he was facing my direction I was changing out my memory card so I couldn’t get any decent shots! UGH Josh, so uncooperative! Eventually he went back to the main stage again.
Then he was asking for a couple in the audience who had been married longer than 15 years. He found a couple who had been married 44 years and invited them to the stage. Than found a single girl (wish it had been me) and took her up on stage. Asked the crew for the inflatable couches from backstage and poured the couple wine, he asked the guy what the secret to 44 years of marriage is and the guy said “ask her” and Josh said “ I think that’s the answer” He than gave the girl milk (even though she said she was 21, he sang to her she was getting milk anyway because “that would be career endingggg” if she wasn’t 21” than found some single guy to sit with the girl, he got milk too… and sang “Broken Vow” (which if you don’t know, and can’t tell from the title is a cheating/break up song) than said that was rude of himself and sang one of the Italian love songs. Than they went back to their seats. 
After nearly 2 hours like that (singing, cracking jokes, and at one point introducing his band, etc) he finished and walked backstage. Than came back out in a different shirt (he just took off his jacket), he came out and was talking about Neil Diamond and sang the song “Play Me” (a Neil Diamond song) and than talked about how one of his most popular songs he didn’t have a gospel choir with him to sing along and so we would have to sing, and he closed with “Raise Me Up” He had performed for 2 hours!
We got home around midnight! I was pretty tired the next day at work… but it was totally worth it! I can’t wait until I know he is coming to town again (or somewhere I can get to, to see him ) because next time I am totally buying tickets and making sure I am in the floor seats near an isle so I can maybe talk to him, get more attn or something!
