Erika’s Recap: Danny Gokey at Old Settlers Days

I warn you, it’s looooooong. Start reading at your own risk of falling asleep!

You’ve already seen the pictures but, if you want to see them again, go HERE.

Old Settlers Days, Rockton, IL – July 15, 2010

The fun started even before we got to the Old Settlers Days grounds, as Michelle took us (Jen, Pam, Val and I) on an awesome road trip to Rockton. I could travel with these superb ladies forever! So much fun! Love you all dearly! Lots of good talk, good music (Danny, of course) and plenty of laughs. We stopped at a gas station called Love’s on our way. Too memorable! We had to take pictures!

Although the show wouldn’t start till 9 PM and the doors wouldn’t open till 5:30 PM, we arrived there a bit before 4 PM, as my interview with Danny (!) was scheduled for 4:45 PM.

After some confusion about where to park, we got to the main entrance (and for the life of me, I can’t remember the name of the high school that was being used as parking lot for the festival, just remember that pronouncing it was pretty challenging). And like Summerfest, it was freakin’ hot!

Some familiar faces were already there: Laurie, Jason, as well as his family. They gave us the dress report on Danny during soundcheck, showing pics of him in a white shirt. Swoon…

Although it wasn’t 4:45 PM yet, I called Mike (Childers, road manager and drummer) as Danny’s management had instructed me to. He said that they were still at the hotel, showering and running late so he would give me a call when they got back to the venue. He said he would come and meet me to take me to the tour bus, where the interview would take place. Let me just open a fangirly parenthesis here and squeeeee! OMG, I get to enter the tour bus!!!

We hung out some more near the gates and milgokey fan and Casey25 arrived in the meantime. <3

It was sometime after 5 PM when Mike called and came to meet me and Pam at the fair’s entrance. Pam was coming to record the interview and keep me from fainting… LOL (That’s true, that’s what I wrote when I asked his management if I could bring someone with me! When they answered, the day before the interview, they said that Pam could come. It was sweet, they remembered that I said that I was staying with her. )

Mike showed his backstage pass (with Danny’s picture on it) to the security guard that was controlling the entrance and told him that he was going to take us inside to interview Danny. The guard was cool with it so we entered. Mike led the way to the bus (that was parked behind the stage) while we made small talk about the weather and I asked him if Danny had had a busy day. He said yes, that he had already given a ton of interviews. I felt sorry for Danny, thinking that he was probably exhausted.

Mike asked us to wait for a minute outside the bus while he checked if we could come in. Then, he came out and said that we could enter. There were leather lounges attached on each side of the corridor, with a table/seat on the left side (where Mike sat with his laptop) and a small coffee/tea area on the right. The rest of the bus was separated by a curtain.

Pam and I sat on the right side lounge and I was beyond nervous. Pam was fiddling with her camera so I guess she was nervous as well. Mike said he would call Danny and went through the curtain.

And then, like magic, Danny was in front of us. I didn’t know what to do. I remember that I stood up to hug him and he said something like ‘Hi Erika. How are you doing?’ I might have stepped on his foot when I was hugging him – that’s how nervous and clumsy I was! – and, if I did, sorry Danny!!! He then greeted Pam and she may recall it waaaay better than I do because I was a pile of nerves at that point!

This part is a bit of a blur. I remember Pam saying that Danny and I should sit both on the same side so she could get us both on camera. I don’t remember if she said that before or after Danny came in. So sit on the same lounge we did. Danny looked exhausted. Poor thing.

We thanked him for the interview and said that we had some off-camera questions/requests for him and asked if we could start with those. He said no problem so we did those first. I told him that off-camera was exactly that, that I wouldn’t post what he said during that time so we could have a conversation. As he mentioned some things we discussed off-camera during the recorded interview, I’ll describe what led to that.

I asked him if he could tweet his followers asking them to request ‘I Will Not Say Goodbye’ to country radio. He said something like ‘Do you want me to tweet asking people to request it on the radio?’ and I answered yes, that several other artists tweet asking followers to request. Then he nodded and said ‘Yeah, I can do that. Never thought about it but I can definitely do that.’ If you saw the recorded interview, he mentions this conversation at the end of it.

We also asked him:

- What we at iheart could do for him that we are not doing yet?

- Is there anything that we do that would be better if we didn’t do or that he doesn’t like and would like us to change?

He thought for a moment and said ‘No, nothing, I can’t think of anything!’, that all that he could think of, we did for him and that he loved the site, wouldn’t change anything. He started talking about iheart with such praise and thanked us with such warmth that I wanted to pinch myself to see if I wasn’t dreaming. I wish we had caught it on tape for our ihearties, it was so surreal, to hear him gushing about how much he appreciates the site and the ihearties and talking about the site in a way that made me think ‘OMG, he really visits us!’. He particularly loves the little boxes with tasks on it (’5 minutes for Danny’ / ‘Power Fan’ / ‘Getting Started’ at the time… now we have the ‘Special Short-term Polls’ as well). He said they were perfect. Awwww… <3

We talked about some other things and then went to the recorded part of the interview that, I’m sure, you already watched. If not, go watch it! You can ignore my stuttering and concentrate on Danny and how adorable he is! It was supposed to be 15 minutes in total but just the recorded part ended up being 20 minutes! [and well done, ihearties... I e-mailed his management thanking for the interview and they wrote back saying that we had 'really great questions for Danny'! Awwww, they are soooo sweet!]

And he tweeted what he promised he would, asking people to visit iheart to find ways to support him! Such a sweetie! <3

After we stopped recording, we talked a bit more, serious talk and small talk, he praised iheart again, I don’t remember exactly what but something he said made me mention Amy and Steph. He asked how Amy was doing and I told him that she was good, that she was on vacation with family. During this time, he signed some stuff for me and I gave him Toni’s small gift and mine. When Toni and I went to NYC, we saw magnets that reminded us of Danny so we got them for him.

When he was signing, he asked if I spelled Erika as E-R-I-K-A and I stuttered for a moment before repeating it myself and confirming. Major fail, could not remember how to spell my own name! Danny, don’t ask me to spell in English! LOL! I get confused because, in Portuguese, the sounds for each letter are different. For instance, the ‘E sound’ represents ‘I’, so I always have to think twice before spelling. Same thing with ‘push’ and ‘pull’. In Portuguese, ‘puxe’ (pronounced similar to ‘push’) means ‘pull’ so I’m always pulling doors instead of pushing…

I asked if he would mind taking a picture without his glasses. I said that I love him no matter what, with or without glasses but, as I already had beautiful pics with him from Summerfest with his glasses on, I thought we could have something different. He said he didn’t mind at all but that he wasn’t wearing contacts at that moment so he wouldn’t really know where to look. If I was ok with that, we could take it. So Pam took it and we had a quick look at the pic to see if it had come out ok. I love that pic because it was really cute how he bent down a little to be at the same level as me, since I’m so much shorter than him.

Now, let me say here that I had no intention to disrespect Danny, his contract with the awesome guys at Wisconsin Vision or the fans that think that what makes Danny what he is are his glasses.

I LOVE DANNY, glasses or no glasses, independent of what he’s wearing or which accessories he’s using. My love and support will never depend on how he looks. I loved him from audition, first for his voice and then for his heart, before even paying attention to his appearance. He knows that so I know that he wasn’t offended.

I DMed @WisconsinVision asking if my picture offended him/his contract with Danny. He answered ‘no offense what so ever!’ and said that, in fact, he had just finished spending time with Danny adjusting his glasses!

It never crossed my mind that the simple act of asking for a picture without his glasses could be interpreted as that I think less of him, that I don’t accept him the way he is or that I’d be clearly showing that he’s not good enough for me… If you’re one of the Danny fans appalled and disappointed by the picture, I apologize… not for the picture itself because I don’t see anything wrong with it – in fact, I love it -, but for not foreseeing that this interpretation could possibly happen.

I keep thinking about it, though, and wonder how was I supposed to even entertain this thought? Danny appeared without glasses on his latest music video, on his CD, on American Idol, even took a picture of himself without glasses and tweeted it… and, if you think about his Wisconsin Vision contract, they also sell contact lenses so I really can’t see what I did that was so wrong. And believe me, I’ve been giving this A LOT of thought! I wasn’t rejecting his trademark glasses, I LOVE them! I proudly wear glasses to read things in the distance, don’t have anything against them!

But, anyway, let’s move on and forget about it…

We got another hug, said thanks again, he asked if there was anything else to sign, I said no, we said our ‘goodbyes’ / ‘we love you, Danny!’ and interview time was over as Fox was outside the bus waiting to talk to him next.

He was so candid and sweet. It was such a privilege to talk to him and to feel that he loves and trusts us.

I thanked Mike for organizing the interview and he was a sweetheart saying that he was the one thanking us for doing that and for the site.

When Pam and I made our way back to the main entrance (walking on clouds, obviously), people were coming in. The staff controlling the gates was a bit disorganized, having problems checking the tickets, I guess, as we had to go back there again after getting our “buttons” (proof of admission to the fair), because they had forgot to give us the wristband access to the show grounds.

As we hung around at the front of the stage, I saw other Danny fans that had arrived while Pam and I were with Danny: Jan and Ed (with Melinda and Joe coming later on), Kristie and Yomarie. During the day, also saw Cori and her grandson, Christy, Tracy, MissMegz977 and, later on the day, Steeeeeeeeph! Finally met sweet Steph in person! I might have scared her, she’s so composed and reserved but I had to hug her! Several times! =)

[I'm not posting pictures of the other ihearties as I didn't get their permission to do so. I know that some of them don't want their pictures on the internet.]

At some moment, Laurie came and told me that I should go to the merchandise stand because there was a TV reporter there that wanted to interview me. I thought she was joking. Then, other people started telling me the same thing and, before I knew it, Pam was steering me towards the tent, saying that we were going to get something to eat afterwards (That’s Pam’s mum side speaking… promise a treat after the homework!). Only that, instead of homework, it was a guy with a microphone and another with a camera, saying that I should hang around for some minutes because we were going live. Wait. Live? What?! I don’t even remember what I said when he interviewed me live. I have a vague recollection of looking at him talking to the camera and then of him putting the mic in front of me but I have no idea whatsoever of what he asked or what I answered. I think I didn’t make a fool of myself because after it was finished, he asked if I could stay there for some more minutes because he wanted to interview me to air it on the 10 PM News.

The reporter was really nice. I think he was at the fair to give the weather report, not to interview anyone. Anyway, he asked me several questions and those I remember because I wasn’t as nervous as when it was live on air… When did I start being a fan of Danny? How did I end up in the US, coming to Old Settlers Days? Was it the first show I was attending? Is his show good? How was he in person, everything that I thought he would be?… and then he asked the last question, the one they aired and made me blush a chilli colour… ‘Will you marry him?’

My brain was screaming ‘What kind of question is that?! Where did that come from?!’ and my answer would be ‘No!’ because I’m not delusional to imagine that I’d have any chance and I still think of him as married and totally out of bounds. I said ‘I wish!’, though, as the girls were cheering and making me beetroot red.

The reporter didn’t know Danny and I asked him if he was going to stay for the concert. He said he wished he could because looked like Danny was a really good show but that he was working and had to go back to the station. Maybe some other time.

By the way, the interview is Val’s fault! She’s the one that saw the reporter and told him my story. She’s been wanting to do that since Summerfest, I think! When we saw “Transformers 3″ filming in downtown Milwaukee earlier that week with an old yellow car that, I imagine, would be dear Bumblebee (my favourite Transformers character), she joked: ‘Should we go there and tell them that you meeting Danny is much more interesting than Transformers?’ LOL, she’s a hoot! And “Transformers 3″ was everywhere! When I went to Chicago, the day after the Rockton concert, they were filming in downtown Chicago as well! It was much more flashy, with some destruction scenes, cars wrecked and pavement destroyed, fire and smoke… but I digress… let’s go back to Danny.

Then, we realized that we had to go try and find where the ‘Meets & Greets’ passes were being exchanged so we decided to do that before eating. Pam didn’t have a M&G but Jen and Michelle did. Jen gave me my Rockton M&G, as well as a SHF t-shirt at Summerfest. <3 THANK YOU SO MUCH, JEN!

‘Old Settlers Days’ was lacking organization so badly. They had no idea where the M&G passes were, even though Mike said that M&G had been handed to them half an hour earlier. They let us go backstage to get the M&G passes on our word only, without reading the confirmation paper. Huh?! That doesn’t make sense at all! What if we were crazy? Luckily, we are normal, got our SHF VIP stickers and instructions and left the backstage area (on our own… no one would apparently care if we stuck around!!!).

Then Jen, Michelle and I went to get a bite to eat. Jen said I should get a funnel cake as she did and that Danny loves it. I debated for a while if I should get one or not as it was pretty big and sticky and messy and a bomb of calories. Funnel cake doesn’t really look like a cake but it’s sweet and, like Danny, I don’t say no to sugar! The lady handed mine with a plastic fork. LOL. I must have voiced my concern about the stickiness a lot! It was yummy but I could only eat half of it. Jen tweeted Danny saying she was introducing me to funnel cake. LOL!

We went back to the front of the stage, hung around a bit more (I think Candy Coburn was playing at the time… sorry, lady, couldn’t concentrate on you! The fan effect on your hair was pretty cool, though!) and then it was time to go to the M&G. The day was flying. The meeting point was in front of the merchandise tent so I took the opportunity to buy another Danny t-shirt, the new pink one.

They lined up everyone in front of the tour bus, Mike was there organizing the queue, Brandon, his beautiful Jamie and the other guys were hanging around, coming in and out of the bus. I thanked Mike again for being so sweet and asked if I could take a pic with him afterwards. He’s always so sweet and smiley. Such a nice guy!

I was feeling weird, being at the M&G just hours after the interview. It felt like I was stalking Danny. All the things that I had brought with me, Danny had signed at the interview but, when I met Jan, after the interview, she gave me a picture of Danny and I that she took at Summerfest so I decided to ask him to sign that. Ivan appeared for a brief moment and I quickly met him while in line.

It was just a joy to see Danny posing for pictures with people, especially the big family that was in front of us in line. They had this adorable blonde baby with huuuuuge blue eyes (I’m guessing 2 yo) that kept leaning towards Danny during all the pictures that they took. Danny is such a kid magnet, they just love him! Ok… not only kids… LOL!

When it was my turn, I gave my camera to Mike so he could take a pic. I yelled to Danny when I was walking towards him ‘Danny, I swear, I’m not stalking you!’… He laughed and gave me that beautiful smile, stretched his arms and shook his hands as if saying ‘come here’ while saying ‘Erikaaaaaa!’… While he was hugging me, I told him that I had to see him as many times as I could that day as I was leaving the next day to Brazil. He asked me how long was the flight and I told him 10 hours from Chicago. He was surprised, thought it was really long. Then I told him that it was nothing compared to the time it took to come from Australia (going to airport + flight Brisbane-LA + connection time + flight LA-Chicago + car ride Chicago-MKE took about 24 hours). He said ‘Wow, thank you for travelling all that to come see me!’. I thanked him, told him it was my pleasure, that I was having the time of my life. Then Mike took our picture. I could stay there with my head on his shoulder for all eternity. So comfy!

And then he saw the pic in my hands. He looked at it a bit puzzled (I guess he was thinking ‘Geeez, I thought I had signed them all after the interview!’) and asked ‘Do you want me to sign it?’ while trying to find a spot in the pic where he wouldn’t write over him or me. I was hoping he would sign in the middle, over my belly – on the pic! I know where in the gutter your mind is going! – as it would help hide how fat I looked on that! He didn’t, though, signing at the bottom left corner.

And then he wanted to talk a bit more about what we had discussed off-camera before. Later on, Laurie showed me some pictures that she took and told me that it looked like we were discussing something serious…

(by Laurie)

I hugged him again after we finished talking and went to the side so he could continue the M&Gs. I hung around, taking pics of lovely ihearties during their M&Gs and had my pic taken with Mike.

When our group was finished, we waved goodbye to Danny and Mike and left.

Back to the front of the stage we went, waiting for Danny’s show to start. Near 9 PM, the place was packed, a sea of people as far as I could see. What a show! Danny was as awesome as at Summerfest, and the crowd went absolutely crazy for him! It’s incredible, doesn’t matter how tired he is or how full his day was, he goes up on that stage and just kills it! Soooo good!

There were sooo many bugs flying around the lights on the stage. At some point, Danny said that one of them flew straight into his mouth. That’s why he kept wiping his tongue. It’s so cute the way he said ‘Ewwww’.

This show was like another hometown show for him as he used to sing at Faith Builders in Beloit and used to work in the vicinity. Danny recognized one of his ex-bosses in the crowd!

The set was the same as at Summerfest, sans the ‘Single Ladies’ snippet and the SHF choir: ‘Like That’s A Bad Thing’, ‘Be Somebody’, ‘Life On Ya’, ‘I Still Believe’ (Rockton crowd was as good as Summerfest’s singing back at him, he loved it), ‘Tiny Life’, ‘It’s Only’ (he mentioned singing it with the SHF Choir at Summerfest, asked people to imagine the choir behind him), ‘My Best Days Are Ahead Of Me’, ‘I Will Not Say Goodbye’, ‘Crazy Not To’, ‘Get Away’, ‘What Hurts The Most’, ‘Hard To Handle’, ‘Raining On Sunday’, ‘TROUBLE’, ‘Back At One’ and ‘Life Is A Highway’. He nailed every single one of them and his dancing was beyond adorable!

Jamie, Brandon’s wife, was with them. She’s singing background vocals for Danny when she’s not singing for Carrie Underwood and when schedule permits. She’s stunning and seems to be so sweet. It was so awesome to see Brandon singing the beginning of ‘Raining On Sunday’ to her. They are a beautiful couple, a very talented duo.

I love Danny’s interaction with his band on stage! You can see that they are having sooo much fun, their joy is absolutely contagious! As always, Danny mentioned that he would be signing any merchandise of his that people bought and also mentioned the SHF Cruise. And then the concert was over, waaaaay too soon again!

We hung around at the front of the stage a bit more, waiting for the crowd to dissipate. Then we decided to go to the signing line, one last time for me. It was looooooong! I heard a guy saying that there was more than a thousand people in line! I don’t know if it was accurate. I’m terrible at estimating numbers. We met Jenny and her friend in line too.

I showed my t-shirt when the merchandise guy asked what I was taking to be signed. Truth is that Danny is so sweet that he’ll sign anything you ask him to. When I got to Danny, we said hi again and I told him that I had come for a ‘last stalking time’. He laughed and asked what time my flight was leaving the next day. I told him ’9:30 PM, from Chicago.’ He wished me a good flight and thanked me for coming. It was kinda of a blur again as I was thinking ‘I don’t want it to end!’

Pam, who was right after me in line (and that spoke for me when I was in a daze… Thanks, Pam! <3), thanked Danny for making my time in the US so wonderful and he, sweetheart that he is, said something like ‘No, thank YOU! I loved it!’ as Pam vaguely recollects (he grabbed her hand so her brain obviously stopped functioning! LOL!)

I didn’t want that night to end, it was the last time I’d be seeing Danny and most of the sweet ihearties (my last day would be in Chicago with Jan, her family and Steph)! I looked back one last time, just to keep that image of him on my mind.

Our group was walking back to the high school parking lot but Steph had parked her car some blocks away so I decided to keep her company on the way to her car. I didn’t want her walking alone in the dark. It was a small town but better safe than sorry. Then Steph drove her car to the parking lot where our group was playing Danny’s CD and eating Turkey Cousins Subs – Danny’s favorite (thanks Casey25!). I heard later on that milgokey fan brought cookies as well but I didn’t have the pleasure of eating them! I’m sure they were yummy! [next time we see each other, you'll have to make them again, K! ] What a sweet party! Danny fans are sooo awesome!

It was hard saying goodbye to everyone, I really didn’t want to go… But, people, I took you all with me inside my heart, you are all here with me… I’m so silly, why am I crying? Love you all. As I read in a cute card once, I love you all from the bottom of my pancreas… it’s like the bottom of my heart, but deeper… <3

Erika