My mother and I are huge American Idol fans, we haven't missed an episode since the second season so we are beyond excited that we have a hometown Idol, Lee DeWyze in the top 3 this year. Lee is very talented and deserves to be there! When Lee's top three homecoming event was being planned and different venues for his concert were being considered, we weren't sure about going to a smaller venue such as Prospect High School for fear it would be chaotic. However when it was announced that the venue would be Arlington Park, I knew it was the perfect choice in our area for the concert because they have enough seating for everyone and they've had concerts there before. I was able to get tickets before the top 3 results were announced because I live in Mount Prospect. The only glitch was it was Mount Prospect garage sale weekend and I had committed to doing an estate sale. Luckily the estate sale was right on Louis St right between my house and the store.I was hoping to close the estate sale a bit early that day, it was scheduled to go until 4:00, thinking then we'd have plenty of time to get to the concert before it started at 6:30. That didn't quite work out as the customers kept coming and I wasn't able to close until 5:15. We had talked about taking the train but I didn't know how long that was going to take so I thought at that point we better drive. Lee's parade near downtown Mount Prospect was still disbursing though, and all the streets in a westerly direction were totally jammed. I tried Northwest Highway, Rand Road and Mount Prospect Road with no luck. My mother wanted to give up and go get some dinner but I said no way! Finally we made our way back to the train station and decided to just take the train. The cashier at the counter was so slow and the people ahead of us let more people into the line. Just as it was our turn a train was coming. My mother was so mad that we didn't make it. Turned out the people ahead of us didn't make it either as the police wouldn't let them cross into the median to board the train. We had to wait about 20 minutes for another train and then we were on our way, just a short ride with one stop in downtown Arlington Heights.
When we got there we saw that it was a shorter walk from the train station than if we would have driven and had to park in one of the far-reaching corners of the parking lot. The crowd was very orderly and we all filed into the park. We didn't have reserved seating but found a seat on one of the benches on the lower level. We were in place by 6:20. We were so surprised to find that we weren't actually going to see Lee, that he was performing off to the side and we were going to watch him on giant screens which were set up for the event. Everyone was so excited to be there, jumping around wearing their neon green "Vote 4 Lee" or bright turquoise "Be-Lee-Ve" T-shirts. There were a lot of teenage girls, my mother commented that she was the oldest person there!
In the background, music from Lee's American Idol performances was playing and the giant screens were alternating between panning the crowd and trying to get the crowd pumped up by flashing signs like "ARE YOU READY?!?" Just before 7:00, the screen focused on Lee trying to get through the crowd trying to make it to the platform where he was going to perform. The crowd went crazy as we saw him surrounded by bodyguards, pushing through. He didn't look happy, I'm not sure why they did that but maybe it was the only way to get him to the platform.
He made it and shortly after that the event started. There were a few speakers such as a school district official, the incoming mayor of Arlington Heights and the mayor of Mount Prospect. In between Lee would say a few words. I could tell he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and got emotional at times. The thing he said most was "I love you guys!" However I expected a more polished event. A lady (I guess from American Idol) kept whispering in Lee's ear. There were a lot of awkward pauses, no one introduced the mayor of Mount Prospect and in the middle of her speech Lee said "Can we hear from my parents now?" She did give him a beautiful key to the city which was handmade out of an ash tree which was felled due to the emerald ash borer which has been a problem infesting ash trees in Mount Prospect.
All along we were told Lee would be performing 3 songs but he was having such a great time he didn't want to leave and ended up performing 10 full songs! He tried to do even more, I don't know if there were some problems with song clearance but he'd start a song and that American Idol lady would whisper in his ear, he'd stop and there would be another awkward pause. I thought the cutest thing Lee said was "What if I won this thing?" The crowd went totally crazy! Lee announced that Simon chose Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen and I'm not thrilled by the song choice. I think the song has been overdone on American Idol and no one can beat Jason Castro's performance of the song two years ago. Tim Urban just did the song a few weeks ago. When I heard that Kara and Randy chose Daughters by John Mayer for Casey, I thought now that would have been a great choice for Lee!
I really appreciated all the extra songs that Lee performed and all his good words. He said that we fans were just as responsible for him being in the top 3 as he was. He was so sincere and sounded great on the guitar. The American Idol people had to practically drag him off the stage because he didn't want to leave and after that the event came to a close. The crowd was very orderly in leaving, we went back to the train station, waited another 20 minutes or so for a train and then it was back home.
We're glad we went, it was interesting to see a bit of how things work on American Idol behind the scenes. I can't wait until tonight to see how they put the package together. I'm not sure how Arlington Park will be portrayed, it's such a beautiful place and the way Lee was set up in the winner's circle, all you could see in the background was the dirt track. We shall see...
