56th Grammy Awards Part 3: After Party

56th Grammy Awards Part 2: The Big Event Gong Hei Fat Choy! From a potentially...

56th Grammy Awards Part 3: After Party

Are you tired out from reading about the Grammys thus far (Part 1 and Part 2 here)? Then that’s the perfect state of mind to get through just one more post, about the After Party. Because even if the clock only said 8:45 pm, we were feeling a little weary as the 56th Grammys came to a close. We’d been sitting up straight in fancy clothes for 8+ hours at that point.

If I were Trent Reznor and mad at CBS for cutting the final performance short, I would have been more pissed at my fellow musicians. When the house lights came up, the first three rows of celebrities were long gone, all to their record labels’ parties. Not, in turns out, to the Official Grammy After Party, held next door at the LA Convention Center, where we were headed once we moved through the milling herd of people trying to leave the Staples Center. They may all have been dressed up, but the experience of leaving a sold-out stadium show is the same: slow going. Good thing I had my weapon purse to goose people along.

(An aside about the weapon purse: if you are looking for a good icebreaker, you cannot go wrong with this bag. Everyone from the Hilton brunch guests to the LAPD guys on the Red Carpet to our seatmates at the show wanted to discuss it. I had the same response for all of them. “I’m from Oakland. I wanted to be ready in case a fight breaks out.” I may set up a Twitter feed just for that bag.)

Once we made our slow way down the metal barriers of the outside security gates we were given big Grammy Party hangtags and directed inside to the biggest single party room I’ve ever seen. It had an art deco theme, and scattered about the giant room were models dressed like ‘20s flappers and gangsters leaning on the hoods of vintage cars, slowly rotating atop big white circular stages. Trapeze artists, trampoline artists, and what seemed like a supremely bored Hula Hooping Artist were scattered here and there.

The room was huge, the party was packed, and the food, beverage, and seating inside seemed to be designed for an event about a third of the size. Maybe it was my high heels talking, but seeing the huge line at every food table and bar plus the no open seats at any table, for acres around us, was a bummer. Oh why oh why can’t everything be as well planned as our elementary school auction?

Still, wishing it hadn’t taken so long for my husband to return with a plate of food is the closest I’ll come to complaining. My time slumped against a column gave me time to survey the crowd, in which the most famous person I saw was comedienne Tig Notaro (I managed to NOT say, “OMG I’ll SEE YOU AT BLOGHER 2014!”) The lovely Grammy-nominated Sarah Jarosz, who we’d seen perform at the Everly Tribute, stopped for a chat. Otherwise it was a whole lot of lesser-famous people looking around for the more-er famous people who were not there.

You know you’re musically satiated – or that your feet hurt – when pregnant Ciara starts performing on the other side of the room with your favorite dancer from last season’s So You Think You Can Dance and you say to yourself, “That’s a real long walk, maybe I’ll just watch from here.” Still, we shuffled over – by now reunited with Carrie and Steven – and caught a few songs. Then we headed to the smaller “Master Card Jazz Lounge” which maintained the exact unequal ration of people to food/drink/chairs as in the big room.

Through the power of attrition, we finally found a table from which to listen to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy play. We ended the evening talking to Macklemore’s session musicians about the weapons purse, which somehow slid into a discussion of the Seahawks, which somehow slid into my husband, a University of Wisconsin grad, screaming, “You can thank me for Russell Wilson, baby!” Seemed like as good a time as any to head for the door. But first! We had to cash in the “Grammy Souvenir” coupon attached to our party passes. Grammy Swag, baby! Will it be jewelry? Beauty products? A watch?

It was a bag full of Take 5 gum. I mean, a shit ton of Take 5 gum, in two flavors, and we got two bags, so our family is fully stocked with gum through the end of the 2014 or maybe, time. It does seem to be reproducing in there.

Thus endeth our Grammy adventure. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride. If there’s one takeaway, let it be: enter contests, and have faith. You never know how it will pay off.