James Marsters and his band, Ghost of the Robot, at 14 Below 8/10/02

First, some pics: (click for the larger version)

Some friends and I went to see James and his band perform at 14 Below on Aug 10, 2002.   14 Below is a small club in Santa Monica -- here are the highlights from this fan's perspective:

James -- what can I say?  God, he's cute. And sweet. And charming. He looked very Spikey that night -- more so than he looked in June at the "Buffy Behind the Scenes" show, when his hair was all grown out with the dark roots showing. This time it was short, wavy and completely blond. Filming on Buffy episode 2 was ongoing on the set, so we know that Spike is going to be Blondie Bear once again in Season 7.

We went early to the club -- got there around 6 pm and ate at the sports bar that's attached to the place. It was an overwhelmingly female audience, but there were one or two other males there (besides my fiance, who was with me). People were milling about in the poolroom, which adjoins the stage area, and lining up about well in advance of an hour before the show. We stayed at our table, figuring we didn't want to get squished in the very front of the room anyway, particularly since the place is tiny and there are no seats -- you have to stand the whole time. So we hung back and were, therefore, not real close to the stage. Which didn't stop me from taking a lot of pictures.

There was a lot of loud recorded music playing, driving us all out of our heads, for about half an hour before James and the boys came out to play. They did a bunch of songs, some of which sounded better than others. There was a bit of a problem with the sound mixing, for example, there was a violinist who played on a couple of songs, but we couldn't hear her at all. And the bass was too loud, although the bass player is terrific. I thought James sounded better on the heavy rock songs. He did a few ballads, but he tends to get drowned out by the band on those. I think he's better at really belting it out than he is on the quieter songs -- JMO.

Of course, every time James grinned or stuck out his tongue (yep, he was still doing that sexy tongue thing) or even took a drink of water, the place erupted with screams. He seemed to enjoy the reaction, of course, and was wonderful when he flashed that million dollar smile.

The band played for about an hour, and we were all very hot, tired, but still, for some insane reason, having loads of fun!

Afterwards, there was more lining up -- this time to buy the band's new cd (only 2 songs, a single), which of course we all did, since they were autographing it. So we waited in line for another hour and finally got to James. I think I got a great pic of James and me with our heads together (see above). I also chatted with him briefly.  After standing in line so long, by the time I got to finally got to him I wasn't even nervous and had no trouble talking to him. In June at the ATAS, I got totally tongue-tied and couldn't say a word ;)

For anyone wondering, he was wearing a tight red t shirt and dark pants. He didn't look quite as thin as he looked in June -- on the contrary, he looked absolutely fantastic! The hair was a light gold, short, wavy, and real touchable. But I didn't...touch the hair ;) I behaved myself.

Great show, great guy!

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Photos by Linda R. Barlow.  All rights reserved.