The Drop with Mandy Moore
So I hadn’t heard of the Grammy Museum or LA live before. I hadn’t even heard that they where building a huge new entertainment complex next to the Staples center. Now admitingly I don’t make it up that way very often (I think the last time was in 2004!) but I still thought I’d have heard of it.
Anyway, I was there on Thursday (06/11/09) to see Mandy Moore. But before I headed over to the venue, I decided to swing by Disneyland. I only had a couple hours at the parks, so I decided to spend it at DCA. Quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done, for unbeknownst to me, Selena Gomez was at Disneyland that day! In fact, had I simply checked twitter on my phone when I arrived, I’d have seen her tweet about eating a pickle at Disneyland: “I ate a pickle, ice cream, fries, corn dog, and corn at Disneyland. Hmm now what else is there to do here? Oh. I guess I could ride rides…”
But sadly, I did not check my twitter. As I got onto the tram several tween boys where seated right in front of me. And my ears perked up when I heard one of them mention Selena. Another clarified, “Selena Gomez, that girl from Camp Rock” Ar which point I realized that if they couldn’t keep Demi and Selena straight, they where probably idiots and tuned them out. Had I instead corrected them, I might have learned why they where taking about Selena.
I arrived at the Grammy Museum with a good hour to spare. And was the 15th or so person in line. Not too bad if I say so myself. 
As I stood outside the venue I pulled out my blackberry and checked Twitter. Once I saw Selena’s tweet, suddenly everything made sense and I quickly realized I had missed a possibly once in a lifetime opportunity. I mean, how often does one actually get the chance to meet a DC star? Even with SDS resources I had only met Amy.
Needless to say, I was bummed. But then I remembered I was 15th in line to see Mandy Moore. And I realized that this day was still gonna be beyond awesome. As the line grew longer, they took us inside the building, up to the second level, and into the theater. I end up in the front row of seats, which meant that there was both no on in front of me, and because we where sitting, that no one behind me would complain about my height.
The event was called “The Drop” in reference to the familiar phrase that signifies the release of the new album. The idea behind it, was to explore the process of creating the album. So we started with a roughly hour long interview and Q&A with the director of the Grammy Museum and Mandy Moore. Mandy told us a lot about Mike Viola who was in many ways her partner in producing this album. She had many great stories about the little house in Boston, and how they used the different acoustics of just about every room in the house on different parts on the album.
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Following the end of the Q&A, Mandy preformed several songs acoustically, accompanied by Mike who had been hiding in the back the whole time.
Finally, following the end of her performance, Mandy autographed copies of her new CD. Sadly, the no photo rule was still in effect but I did get a moment with her and an autograph. I considered snapping a photo as I left, but decided against trying it.
