My Concert Misadventure: Part 2
The venue was packed with thousands of people in pink, but we had front-row seats. I had my soda and a snack and was ready to get my dance on when somebody approached us. It was a man from Jessica’s group chat who we’d never met, who began to talk about not having a place to stay.
“You can come stay with us and sleep on the floor of our hotel!” says Jess, not kidding in the slightest.
I’m ticked; my friend was somehow so naive that she’d invite a complete stranger to stay the night without consulting me. And yet somehow, I wasn’t shocked. Jessica has zero sense of danger, and I knew that going into this adventure but not what a train-wreck she would be while traveling. Constantly on the verge of a meltdown and telling me so, I held her together from falling apart with assurances all through our trip. She’s not on Medium and I’m using a different name for her to protect her identity, but I still feel conflicted writing about what happened next. Am I simply using this platform to vent about my friend drama? Maybe, but even if nobody wants to read this, writing part 1 was a rush of relief. The craziness I experienced at the hands of this person I thought I knew is a heavy burden to carry, and lately I’ve been venting about it to whoever lends me a listening ear. And after hearing what occurred later that night, I bet you’d be shaken up, too.
The animations behind the stage were my favorite part, and I loved the futuristic robot theme. With the rise of AI, it was so relevant. And when I saw Nicki Minaj, my heart flew to my chest and my jaw dropped. Her stage presence was incredible; she was eye-catching and stunningly beautiful. I was suddenly glad I came.
She started with “I Am the Best” and ended with “Everybody”, constantly changing her outfits and hair. I will never say she isn’t problematic (Her husband is a sex offender), but the amount of success she’s had is admirable and I screamed for her with the crowd.
Jessica was at what was called Barricade with another Barb who was really good at twerking. His pink underwear poked out of his shorts, and I felt at home with the amount of people who were so unapologetically themselves.
After the concert, I had agreed beforehand to wait for Nicki Minaj to come out. When the idea came to the group that we should go to her hotel is when I started having anxiety.
“I can’t get arrested. I work in education. My career would be over,” I explained. I didn’t want to be caught on private property or get in trouble for stalking and on top of that, I was exhausted.
“I’ll do anything, Emmy. I’ll buy you anything you want, do anything you want. I NEED to meet Nicki.”
“You don’t ‘need’ to meet her.”
“Yes, I do.”
It was when one of her groupies started talking about faith in God that I calmed down a little, but once 2:30am hit, I made a decision I didn’t regret.
“Jessica, I’m done.”
“You said you’d wait for her, though! If I had known you wouldn’t wait up for her, I would have taken somebody else. You can’t leave me in the city alone!”
“I need to take care of myself,” I said simply, and I walked off. Our hotel was right around the corner and as I walked back, I wept. I cried not only out of fatigue, but out of mourning for my friendship with this person which I knew would never be the same. The city was busy and bustling with life, but I felt alarmingly alone.
If there’s a moral to this story, it’s this: go with your gut, always. Don’t let someone peer pressure you into encouraging their delusion or obsession, even if you know they’ll be mad at you. You can’t save someone from danger who doesn’t want to be rescued.
As Jessica Ubered to the hotel, Nicki Minaj went on Instagram live and revealed she was still at the venue, while Jess and her group bolted down the street to go to a different hotel after their source said they gave them the wrong location by accident. Meanwhile, I was praying for her to stay safe and wiping my smeared makeup off, then catching an hour of sleep. Jessica called me at 5am, and when I asked if she was mad, she said, “Well, yeah. You embarrassed me in front of everyone.”
I didn’t mention that she’d never see these people again and hung up. I let her into the hotel, then had the first meal I’ve had since landing in Boston — it was sausages, bacon, potatoes, orange juice, black coffee and an apple.
After getting home safely, I wrote a text out to Jessica expressing how I felt during that nightmare of a trip, but after I asked her if she was in a good place for me to send it, she said she wanted to meet in person in a few days. I plan on telling her we need to take a long break; crying in our hotel room afraid she’ll be pissed at me triggered a lot of negative memories from college, and I don’t have room in my life for that sort of chaos.
Lately, I’ve been reading the sick man’s prayer. It goes like this:
“God, when a person offends me, help me to remember that this is a sick person. Help me to show the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. Show me how I can help them. Save me from being angry. Amen.”
I am currently working on a review of Halsey’s first album for this publication. These past two articles have been outliers in what I want for this website, but I thank you for reading regardless. Subscribe to Musical Mayhem and Fandom Fanatics so you don’t miss another article. Stay tuned for more!
