Just a humble fan meeting his idol

I can’t remember the last time I felt so much like a 13-year-old girl.

Before you… I can’t remember the last time I felt so much like a 13-year-old girl.

Before you envision me reading Tiger Beat Magazine or having braces and pigtails, let me explain. I consider myself (foolishly) to be able to handle myself pretty well when I meet someone who I admire, adore or totally freakin’ love.

But Thursday night, when I met Ryan Adams, any notion that I was at all professional, mature or able to speak in full sentences went out the window. I was totally star struck.

That said, the following is the tale of how I rediscovered what it means to be a music fan.

It all started back in August, when my girlfriend, having noticed that Ryan Adams had announced a show at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, decided that this would be a proper birthday present for me. Now, my birthday wasn’t until last weekend. Talk about planning ahead.

Nonetheless, she nabbed two tickets no more than five minutes after they had gone on sale, and our Adams-seeing future was no longer in question. But then it was time to wait.

While waiting for most other shows is easy, as I can just, well, do other things, waiting to see Ryan Adams was quite a bit more difficult. You see, Adams is far and away my favorite single musician. From the majestic alt-country songs he played with the now-defunct band Whiskeytown to the mass and variety of music he has pumped out since then, in my humble opinion, nearly everything he writes is gold.

You may remember Adams as the shaggy-haired dude who put out a song called “New York, New York,” featuring a music video of him playing with the Twin Towers in the background, just a few weeks before those towers came crashing down. If that doesn’t ring a bell, then do yourself a favor and download some Ryan Adams. Between his nine all-different and all-beautiful albums from the last seven years, ranging from Dylan-esque folk, jammy hippie-rock, raw garage rock, straight-up country, sob-inducing mope rock and pop tunes, you’re bound to find something you like.

Getting even more press than his music is Adams’ penchant for on-stage freak-outs. He has, in the past, demanded that a fan be taken out by security for requesting the Bryan Adams tune “Summer of ’69,” and when I saw him play on the last day of my senior year of high school, he drank an entire bottle of wine, spat on the audience, yelled at the people at the bar and hollered at a certain gentleman to “stop hitting on that chick, shut up and listen to the music. She’s not going to f-k you anyway!”

At the same time, the man can put on a great show. So when I found out that I’d be seeing my second Adams show (about three minutes after the tickets were bought