Conan O'Brien in Chicago

Went to see Conan today. He is in town for 4 shows at the Chicago Theatre. Today turned out to be pretty much the worst day possible for this. Here's the deal: even if you have tickets, you still have to go stand in a line (of over 3000 people) to guarantee seats or get in line real early to get good seats. I'd already been dreading standing in line for 3 - 4 hours, which is what many people do, so we'd decided to get there around 1:30 pm (you are supposed to be there before 3:15), so we'll definitely get seats and not too bad ones. 2 hours of waiting still seemed excruciatingly long to me but thought if all these bums can do it so can I. WELL, turns out today was supposed to rain non-stop, and I even asked my husband if he wanted to not go at all. But he insisted, so we went, and yes, it rained non-stop, and the wind was about as bad as it gets. Everyone was soaked and freezing, for hours in line, literally, just a mass of umbrellas spanning several blocks. Got in there finally, FREEZING, because my jeans were wet up to my knees, and I was a little underdressed for the weather (it was about 50 degrees F, and I was in a long-sleeve t-shirt and wool sweater). The whole time I was cold and uncomfortable, but it was worth it.

After sitting for a looong time, "PreparationH Raymond" came out (not as a character) and very graciously thanked us for waiting in the rain, and how in NYC that would've never happened (kissing up), and funnily asked us not to yell out our town names in the middle of the show ("Schaumburg!"), and told us to spend ten seconds to support Cubs or White Sox to get it out of our system so we won't disrupt the show with it. I liked this part of the show.

Then Max Weinberg and the 7 played a few songs, and it was so cool, they were amazing. The bald guy sang craaaazy good, and did some circular breathing with his trumpet, that went on way too long (literally like 3 minutes on one note), but they were so good man...

Then Joel introduces Conan and he comes out. I was really excited. Jokes were funny. He said "shitty of Chicago" by accident once (instead of "city) and everyone "oooh"ed and cheered, and he said "we're on Cinemax" or something, and said if this were PBS, they wouldn't even edit it.

Then there was this pre-taped part that was hilarious, and then John C. Reilly was the guest and then he and Conan suddenly burst into song (pre-planned), really really good... and then John Mayer, dude that guy was GOOD... one woman a few rows ahead was really excited and stood up and starting shaking her butt with the songs, and she was the ONLY one in the whole place, which blocked some people's view, and was totally embarrassing. When they were setting up the stage for John Mayer, it took so long, like 20 minutes maybe, and the audience was so patient and quiet, it was weird. I'd never seen 3,500 people just sitting there with nothing to do.

OH these 3 girls right in front of us, every time they stood up (like to clap and cheer), their pants came off!!! One girl was in sweat pants, and her whole thong would show. 2nd girl was in jeans that were too big or something, but nothing showed. 3rd girl was in jeans and they were too low-rise or something, major "coin slot," as SNL put it. Disturbing.