Front row at American Idol!

Once upon a time, I joined the wait list for tickets to an American Idol taping... and then completely forgot about it. That is, until Friday night when I received an e-mail with tickets to the Top 8 girl's dress rehearsal on Tuesday. Apparently tickets for the live performances in the small theater are mostly for family, friends and other guests, but the tickets said that some seats could become available for people who were at the rehearsal so we crossed our fingers! (I'll save you the suspense: The below picture wasn't at the rehearsal.) Here's how it went down:

My dear friend Carolyn drove out from Vegas to play with me for a couple days and we invited her beautiful sister-in-law Tarrish to come to the rehearsal with us. There were lots of rules for attendance, such as no cell phones or cameras and a very strict dress code. Aside from the obvious "no logo" policy, the dress code also included no white, no heels, and no jeans (that ruled out our plans for dark skinny jeans with cute heels... along with 90% of my closet). The check-in time was 12:30 p.m., but the tickets made it clear that they give out a few extra tickets and thus admittance would still be on a first-come, first-served basis. We arrived around 10 in the morning to be safe and were close to the front of the line, right next to this guy:

Don't recognize him? Yeah, we didn't either. (Told you we weren't hard-core fans!) But his name is Joe Munoz, and he was in the Top 24. Once he said that, we remembered seeing him in a couple episodes and thinking he had a great voice. Joe was really sweet and had come to support his friends. We figured it was probably really rough for him coming back on the other side of things, so we asked if we could take a picture. Everyone likes having fans, right?

12:30 finally rolled around and we were checked in. Someone asked the lady about those potential seats in the live taping and she said they'd let us know after the rehearsal if they were available. Meanwhile, we went through security, they "temporarily confiscated" our cell phones and cameras, and then we waited next to the stage entrance for another hour until they invited us inside.

By the way, this stage is about a 3 times smaller in person than it looks on TV. Crazy! When we walked into the studio, they sort of segregated everyone into the different seating sections around the stage. They then spent about a half hour on our little section alone, making sure that the mix of people, outfits, etc., would look perfect on camera. It was really interesting and--lucky us!--they put the three of us in the front row, right next to where the contestants walk onto the stage.

The dress rehearsal, believe it or not, was our absolute favorite part--by far! It was really interesting to see how much work goes into every little detail that we see on television. Plus, everyone was so laid back and it was fun to see their personalities come out. The girls were all so cute and friendly (and nervous). And may I just say that Ryan Seacrest is a stud? Because he is. He kept coming over to our section and chatting with the three of us... but mainly Tarrish. Do you blame him? She's gorgeous! Meanwhile, he'd be goofing off on his cell phone and hiding it behind the cue card while he practiced his lines. The amazing thing, though, is how professional he was at the same time. He was so knowledgeable about the production and made a lot of little changes so it'd be perfect live. We were impressed.

After the dress rehearsal was over, they began excusing the other sections of the audience. Once everyone was gone, the producers came to our section and invited the 12 of us to stay for the live taping in our current seats. Score! We were so stinking excited. Unfortunately, though, Tarrish wasn't able to find anyone to cover her shift that night and had to leave before the live show. Can you imagine how much of a bummer that'd be? In hindsight, though, she was there for the best part and still got to be on national television. Did you know that the recap clips at the end (where they show everyone's highlights with their phone number) is actually from the dress rehearsal? I sure didn't.

The live taping was fun too; mostly due to the added element of having the judges there (they have stand-ins during rehearsals). I'd heard before that the judges didn't really associate much with each other during commercials back in the Paula days, but they were chumming it up like great friends during our commercial breaks. A few observations? Simon Cowell is really nice, Ellen is incredibly hilarious, and Kara DioGuardi is, in fact, that beautiful in real life. My brother Christian asked me if it was as real as it seems, and I told him it was actually more real. When the contestants didn't do as well, we could almost feel their hearts breaking. And when they rocked it? We were that much more excited for them.

Extremely long story short: it was a great way to spend a day! We seriously had so much fun... and might even watch the rest of the season. :-)