Love Is A Four Letter Word

Jason Mraz's new album Love Is A Four Letter Word is out today.  I bought the Live Is A Four Letter Word EP when it was released and needless to say I am in love.  I am sure I will feel the same way about Love...  


How can I not with songs like...


I Won't Give Up...which I posted here already.


and


"The Woman I Love"

I may be a little biased because I have been in love with this man's music since my ears heard the first words of the first song I ever heard from him (back when he was promoting Waiting for my Rocket to Come... it was some Pepsi Smash concert on the WB, I think...oh, the WB...those were good times.  Not that the CW doesn't represent it's origins cuz it does...).  It's been a 10 year love affair and it's one that I know will last a lifetime.  I have yet to see Jason Mraz NOT knock it out of the ball park on singing, songwriting, and performing.  


It doesn't hurt that he's sort of adorkable and a very vocal & active humanitarian.  He did break my heart when he broke his engagement to fellow singer/songwriter Tristan Prettyman, but that's another story.  So is his need for a good barbers trip...he's looking a little too granola for me but he does look more like an aged seasoned rocker now and who really cares what he looks like when he can sing and sweet talk a guitar like he does.


He's, of course, touring to promote this new album, so Saturday I procured two tickets for Karie & I to go when he stops in Phoenix on Oct. 2nd.  This will be our 3rd time seeing Mr. A-Z and I think I was just as stressed, nervous and excited buying these tickets as I was the last two times.  Okay, I may have been just a wee bit more excited the very first time, as first times are always just a little bit sweeter.  Karie and I went in 2008 & 2009.  I'm pretty sure there is an unwritten rule that we cannot see Jason Mraz without the other.  The sky may fall or something just as unlikely, weird and tragic.


He's playing at America West Arena US Airways Center (old habits & names die hard).  I haven't been to a concert that large since Tim McGraw or Madonna (Confessions Tour '06).  I'm not a big fan of huge concert halls.  Give me a "small" room where you are standing like sardines any day.  I don't know what it is about small concerts but I love them.  Maybe its the energy you get from being that close to the band and all the other fans who love every note and word just as much as you do.  Maybe it's being able to feel every base hit & cord played from the speakers right in front of you and the vibrations they send out all around you.  Really I don't know.  I just know that it's invigorating and no matter how crowd claustrophobic I am I still am in love with small concerts and the experience of it all.  


Not to say I don't love large concerts.  I've seen several (The Cure, Bush & No Doubt, Smashing Pumpkins...can you tell I was a teen in the mid 90's?!)  and had a great time at each but they just aren't as memorable as the smaller concerts.  Does anyone agree with me on this or am I some masochistic weirdo?  


Anyway, Karie & I are in Section D, Row 3, Seats 4-5...which are floor seats.  I have that memorized.  Yeah, I'm THAT EXCITED!  I wasn't able to buy tickets during the pre-sale(s) so I was sweating that we'd end up with "bad" seats.  I didn't want to spend the highest ticket price for "nose-bleed" seats.  I'm a concert snob...there, I admit it.  It's probably somehow a backwards concert snob but a concert snob non-the-less.  


I loved seeing Madonna (during the Confessions tour '06) but ticket prices were INSANE (I can't remember because I blocked the cash amount out) and we very much had nose bleed tickets.  We weren't the highest ticket price nor were we the lowest ticket price but most of what we could see in detail of Madonna was on the jumbo screens.  It was still an EXPERIENCE and I loved every minute of it... I mean, it's Madonna but I'm going to be more excited about a $20 ticket concert at Martini Ranch to see Live Oak Revue or William Tell.   I would have said Jack's Mannequin or Jimmy Eat World but they are my MOST. FAVORITE. BANDS. EVER. so I'd pay whatever I have to and would watch them where ever I had to.  Which is the same for Jason Mraz so I'm not really sure how I got off on this tangent.  


Brain.  Focus.  Now.  Please.


PS...Concerts are probably the only thing I like smaller better than bigger.  Well, that and jeans.  I think we'd all rather fit in a size 5 than a size 13.  Sigh... I remember those days.  Vaguely.