November 3, 2024
Okay, so at least it wasn’t raining for David Foster night. The Santa Ana’s had kicked up so it was windy though. I jettisoned most of the stuff I’d brought for Danny Elfman because I saw no need for rain ponchos and hats. I did bring the warm jacket and some gloves. Once I had the hood up, I was okay – still a little cold but okay.
The bus driver made it to the Bowl in 40 minutes. He honked at other drivers 7 times. The first sign of trouble was the “Sold Out” lettering on the Hollywood Bowl sign. Sold out = 18,000 people trying first to get into the Bowl and find their seats…People tend to kind of spread out on the bench seats and don’t want to move over and make room for everyone when the bench is totally full…And then there’s getting out. Sigh. We’ll get to that.
This was one Julie wanted to go to. I didn’t mind going, but I probably wouldn’t have picked it. Since the bus driver was so speedy, I got there long before Julie. She saw a tow truck speed by on the shoulder followed by a police car with lights and sirens. It took her a lot longer than the usual 12 minutes from the Zoo lot. The entire time I was waiting for her, I was watching the line for the special Amex entry. I could not see the end of the line. It went way down the path toward the bus drop off and disappeared around the corner. There is only one person at the velvet rope who scans Amex cards to admit you to the line, one person scanning tickets, two people checking bags and two people monitoring the metal detector. The line would be moving and then a person would get there who didn’t know how to pull up their tickets on their phone and it came to a grinding stop. Since it was a lease event, people were being divested of all of their prohibited items (in this case mostly drinks).
TIP: When going to the Bowl check to see if your event says, “Special House Rules Apply”. If you could only buy tickets through Ticketmaster, you are at one of these events. Then go to the website and click on the “Special House Rules” to see what you can’t bring in. For non-lease events you can bring in wine and alcohol. For lease events you can only bring in a factory sealed bottle of water.
By the time Julie got there, the line had not gotten any shorter so we went to the other gate where at least there would be more than one ticket taker and two bag checkers. The Main Gate was packed so we walked to the right of it to go to the Side Gate. As we worked our way behind everyone crowding at the side gate to get to the next one up, the Bowl employee was directing people to the entrance on the other side of the Bowl. So behind the Bowl we went. There’s valet parking back there! We scanned in on the other side and the bag check guy made Julie toss her tea. She was very annoyed. No one even noticed my bottle of water, but it was still factory sealed, so I was fine either way. The problem with going in from that gate is that you are on the opposite side of the escalators. It looked like they were directing people across between the Pool Circle and the Box Seats, but instead we made the steep climb all the way up to our seats in section U2. At least by the time we got to our seats I was warm.
The show was pretty good despite the fact that I find David Foster to be so unlikeable. It was definitely an all star line up. David Foster acted as emcee and played piano while a band and orchestra accompanied. They opened the show with Brian McKnight singing Into The Stone which I thought was amusing since I had to wait for the encore to hear it at Earth, Wind and Fire. Then Katharine McPhee came out and sang a song from Westside Story, which was just a little awkward. Matteo Bocelli sang and did a duet with Pia Toscano (Pia Toscano was fantastic, by the way) and the evening progressed pretty much like that: David Foster introduced a song and a singer, the singer came out and sang a song or two and then the next one came out. He brought out Fee Waybill and Steve Lukather to play his only “Rock and Roll” hit. Kristen Chenowith came out, made David Foster sit in a fancy chair and then roasted him in song. They wheeled out a big cake at the end of that and then wheeled it back offstage. We were excited to see Andrea Bocelli, Michael Bublé and Josh Groban and were not disappointed by any of them. Julie mentioned she’d like to see an entire Michael Bublé show after seeing him do his few songs because he seems like he’d be very entertaining. There was a moment when he took out his earpieces and put his mike down then walked downstage and belted a bit. The woman in front of us was super annoyed at that. She was yelling, “He doesn’t have his microphone!! Sound guy!!! Fix This!!!!!” As if the sound guy had any control over Michael Bublé taking out his earpieces and putting down the mic. Good grief. If she had just shut up, we would have all been able to hear him. I mentioned this to Julie after the show and she said there were other problems with the sound and David Foster was making annoyed faces. I told her, “No, that’s just his normal resting face. The sound was fine.”
Everyone came out for the final song. The entire lineup was Andrea Bocelli, Michael Bublé, Josh Groban, Jennifer Hudson, Charlie Puth, Kristen Chenowith, Katharine McPhee, Tory Kelly, Brian McKnight, Chris Botti, Fonseca, El Debarge, Fee Waybill, Steve Lukather, Matteo Bocelli, Pia Toscano, Brandon Goldberg, Sydnie Christmas, and Jasmine Amy Rogers.
So then it was time to make our way back down to the buses. I’m sure Danny Elfman was sold out or close to sold out as well, but getting out was so much easier. It could have been the difference between section M and section U, but I find it hard to believe that one promenade could make it that much worse. We made our way down to promenade 3 before exiting because there was a group of three on crutches that were slowing down promenade 4 to the point that we thought we’d never get out of there. And then the crush of people trying to join into the flow from promenade 3 was just not moving. When we made it to the front gate, we split up because I know it’s faster to get through the purple side from the far left and Julie’s bus is on the green side so she was splitting off to the right.
TIP: At the end of the show, look for the lights to guide you to your bus. The green lights take you to the shuttles, the purple lights take you to Park and Ride. Listen to the instructions when the Bowl worker boards your bus before taking you to the top to drop you off. They redesigned parking for this season so Park and Ride buses pick up in the B2 lot and shuttles pick up in the same place they drop off, but for the two lease events this weekend some of the buses picked up in the old location, which meant going down the stairs behind the Hollywood Bowl sign and up the first set of stairs in the tunnel. I was very surprised on Saturday and confirmed with my bus driver as I was getting off the bus. I think it’s just because there were so many buses for these concerts. Also, there is no need to remember your bus number. The signs all list the location and there are plenty of people to direct you to the right bus.
Overall it was a fun night for me. I’m glad I went. I feel like if this was someone’s first visit to the Hollywood Bowl though, they might not ever want to go back after fighting through the sea of people after the show.