Check it, yo.
Who scored tickets to see Saturday Night Live yesterday? That would be ME! Actually, I scored them a long time ago – a few months back – but last night was the date I got them for. I ended up taking Chris with me, who is someone I have been dating lately.
So here’s the story on yesterday: I told Chris I’d meet him around 6:45 pm near 30 Rock as what I read on the instructions I had said to get there around 7:00pm. Well, as I’m taking the 6:20 ferry over to Manhattan I reread them and it says to get checked in by 6:45pm because doors close at 7:30pm. Uh, what? Shit. So I text him and tell him just get to the 30 Rock studio entrance asap and I’ll meet you there. Then the realization hits – Manhattan traffic right before 7pm is horrendous, especially on a Saturday with all the people coming in for the damn shows. I wasn’t able to get a taxi so I took the bus and watched as time rapidly ticked away – 6:45 came and went and I was still on the bus and perhaps around 8th and 44th and I needed to be at 6th and 49th (that’s not a trivial distance…). I got off the bus and power-walked from 8th and 49th to the studios and saw the ridiculous amounts of people inside the lobby area. I’ve never been around work/30Rock on a Saturday at this time so it was surprising to see the amount of folks there. I found the right place to check in finally, found Chris, and then saw that we were pretty much at the end of the line….which sucked. The tickets don’t say where you’re sitting so I figured it was pretty much a done deal that we’d be sitting in the assiest seats. So as more and more people get processed through the line, it gets to the point where it’s just us last 8 in the line left. And then the handsome line man comes over to our group and says, ‘Guess what? You guys are going to get put on the ground floor of the studio for the show – you know, where guests of the cast and celebrities sit…’ HELLS YEAH TO BEING LATE, BITCHES!!!!!
So yeah, we got sat in the 3rd row of the wooden swivel chairs on the studio floor. This was the Dress Rehearsal of the show, so what happens is we are the test audience for the show and there’s more skits in so that they can cut skits out and keep in the better ones. So it’s actually kind of cool because you get to see more and the cast is a little bit more relaxed and ad-libby.
It was incredible to get to sit there. First, Don Pardo welcomed us all to the show. Then after a few welcoming words from Jason Sudeikis, we were treated to Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen jamming with the SNL band to “One Way or Another”, with Fred on guitar and Kristen doing her best Debbie Harry. Then it was on to the cold open skit, which was a Democratic National Committee skit with Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Al Gore. It was funny, but eventually dropped in the real show as they went with the Hillary Clinton one that we saw a few skits in during the dress rehearsal. It was crazy to see how reorganized the skits were compared to the dress rehearsal order versus the eventual broadcast. I watched the DVR of it this morning and was a little amazed. Anyways, it was incredible to see how the skits’ sets were so quickly set up and torn down and how one moment you’d see the cast look totally different in their costumes. The host, Shia LeBeouf, was a good host but what cracked me up was that there was an attendant to him that the moment the skit ended, she would grab him by the arm and RUN with him to the changing rooms so he would be ready. He was literally being dragged away and forced to run.
It was definitely a surreal moment, not only to have my lateness trigger an AWESOME lucky break in getting FANTASTIC seats, but just seeing all these famous cast members up close (CLOSE!) and personal. Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig (love her), Seth Meyers, Bill Hader (who was in the hallway where us floor folk walked out through during leaving and saying goodbye to us – AWESOME)….it was definitely an amazing thing to say that we had just seen that. My boss has told me that this type of opportunity is a very rare thing indeed, so be glad I got it. Of course!
So you all can commence being jealous now. I won’t mind. 🙂