So here’s my experience seeing Darren’s Toys for Tots show yesterday (December 9th) and meeting him afterwards! Warning: it’s long.
I went with my friend Julia who I’ve known since high school. She loves Glee/Klaine and Darren as well. She’s honestly one of the only real life friends I have that loves him/the show as much as I do. We arrived downtown, where the gig was, only about an hour before it started. As we were walking towards the location, we saw a HUGE line wrapped around the block. Turns out, that was the line to get to the front of the stage, which was TINY. I was picturing it being in a small park or something, but nope, it was literally a street corner. There was a small box stage set up for him and barriers blocking the area from traffic. So Julia and I lingered in front of the stage, unsure of what to do because we didn’t want to go to the end of the line because there was no way we’d get any chance of seeing the stage. We kept trying to stay there, under the pretense that we were deciding what to do (well, I mean, we WERE deciding, but we were also hoping to stall and eventually be there when they let the line in). Obviously not everyone who was in line would have been able to get a decent view. But then the workers said we had to move. So we made our way across a side street where some other people were waiting. I actually saw a girl that I’d studied abroad in Spain with three years ago. I knew she was going because I’d written about it on facebook and she commented on it asking for details and said she was going, but I didn’t expect to see her there what with all the people around. But we saw each other and she was in the front of the group of people at the sidewalk on the street. So we stayed there during the show, but there was a stupid wooden cut out Christmas tree near the stage that was blocking my view of Darren. Occasionally he’d move his head or something and I’d get an ok view, but mostly I just saw half of his face (but did that stop me from using my camera to zoom all the way in and taking photos and videos? Nope.). We heard him loud and clear though, and he sounded wonderful. Charlene came out and sang a few songs with him, and then Clark Baxtresser also came out to sing with them too. The show literally was only 30 or 40 minutes long and he sang ONLY Christmas songs, none of his originals, unfortunately. Damn. But he sounded AMAZING. Charlene too. I couldn’t really hear Clark because he didn’t have a solo, I don’t think. Just sang with Darren and Charlene. But from what I could hear, he sounded good too.
At one point, Darren’s microphone cut out, so all we could hear was his guitar, but he tried to sing loudly instead and it was adorable. I heard a little bit of him singing without a mic, which was impressive because that meant he was projecting his voice pretty loudly, loud enough to reach across to the side street where we were standing.
He said something really cute about how he was just in NYC two weeks ago filming part of the Christmas episode in Bryant Park with Chris, and he goes, “I was ice skating through Bryant Park with Chris Colfer, who is Kurt Hummel on the show, and we sang a little duet, as per usual, and I want to introduce – no Chris isn't with me,” and we all make a disappointed noise, “but so you get to see my dear friend Charlene Kaye” and then I couldn’t catch what he said after that. Then they started singing Glee’s version of “White Christmas”, with Charlene singing Chris’ parts.
And then he starts playing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and during the song he stops singing and says while continuing to strum, “So last time I was here was about two weeks ago when we shot the Christmas episode for Glee. Do we have any Glee fans here? (we cheer) and uh, well a lot of people sing the ‘Christmas Song’ and the last half of the script wasn’t done and they were missing a song and Ryan Murphy, who is our overlord of everything we do, he’s like, ‘yeah we need a final song’. I’m not saying this was my idea, Ryan, this is gonna be on Youtube, you’re probably gonna watch this and fans are probably going to tweet at you…this was your idea, but remember when I suggested that this song would be a good idea and it magically made its way into the script? So I don’t know if this has anything to do with me but you have this song to look forward to when you see that episode coming up.” And then he continues the song. I’ll put the video up. It was cute. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is one of my favorite Christmas songs, so I’m excited to see it done on Glee.
Meeting Darren:
Okay so then after the show, we see him walking across the street to our side, but not towards us…farther down the street near the middle of the block (we were standing at the end, near the crosswalk) and a bunch of people shout out his name and he waves but keeps walking. Some people start following him curiously, and Julia and I do so as well. He walks into a hotel, I guess to get his things and also to film an interview (I’m assuming, because we saw videographers with cameras leave the building a little while later). Julia and I (and about 10 or 15 others) decide to wait outside on the sidewalk just in case he came out, even though it was raining and freezing outside. We ended up waiting for nearly an hour. We saw two different car service cars pull up in front of the hotel, and we kept thinking they were his, because during the show he said that he had arrived in the city an hour before the show and would be flying back to LA right after it ended. So we were like “we’ll wait, why not. It‘s not like we’re in a rush to do anything else”. So we waited for an hour, freezing our asses off in the miserable rain. We had no idea if he was even going to come out. Those two car service cars ended up not being his (other people from the hotel got in) and then a third one pulled up, and Julia and I were like “ok if this one isn’t his, we’ll leave”. But then a hotel worker guy came out to talk to the driver, and a girl overheard them or talked to the hotel guy after or something, because she came up to some people near us and said that the driver had said he was indeed waiting for Darren, and the girl advised us not to scream or make a big deal when he came out or else he might not stop to take photos.
So then after ages of waiting he FINALLY comes out, and he waves and says hi to us but at first it looks like he is about to just head right into the car, but then this girl Jessica who Julia and I had talked to and made friends with asks him nicely if he could take some pics, and he seemed to hesitate for a moment and then says okay but only if we do it quickly since there are only about ten other people waiting with us at this point. So he starts taking photos with people, and he seems in a rush to get to the airport, so he keeps saying go quickly, but he’s so nice about it, making sure everyone gets a picture.
Julia took one of Jessica and him, and then of me and him (that turned out slightly blurry), and then a bunch of people cut in and took photos, and then he again asked if everyone got one and I said that Julia didn’t so I took a (really adorable) photo of them. And then I debated with myself, deciding if I should ask him if he got the scrapbook that a friend and I had made for him to give him at stagedoor after H2$ nearly a year ago. I almost didn’t ask, because I didn’t think there was time and I didn't want to make him late for his flight, but then I said to myself, “when will I get this chance again?” so I decided to go for it. Here’s the conversation, more or less:
Me: “Darren, I have a really quick question to ask you.”
Darren: “Sure, yeah!” (bouncing up and down like he did in that video where he had to pee haha it was so cute)
Me: “When you were on Broadway, I made you something but I couldn’t give it to you so I gave it to Neil the security guard…”
Darren: “Oh yeah, Neil!!”
Me: “I made you a scrapbook and I just wanted to know if you got it.”
Darren: “Yeah! I got a few scrapbooks.” (or maybe he said “I got your scrapbook”, I can’t remember)
Me: (Thinking I should be specific about what mine looked like) “It had paper cut outs of Glee and Starkid stuff…” (if you click the tag to see pics of some of the things I put in the scrapbook, make sure the tag also says Darren's name because not everything in this tag is for the scrapbook)
Darren: “Oh!! Paper cut outs!” (I think he kind of pointed at me and raised his eyebrows, and his eyes sort of lit up in recognition) “Yeah, I got it!”
It was amazing because during the entire conversation, he was looking DIRECTLY into my eyes and was leaning towards me and not even paying attention to the other people around us. He was so focused on me and what I was saying, and he kept repeating what I’d said and grinning and bouncing, and it was the cutest thing ever. I still have no idea if he was just saying that he saw my book to be nice…I don’t know if he ACTUALLY saw it or not. If we had more time to talk I would have tried to figure that out, but like I said, he was in a rush and didn’t have time to talk for too long. He also didn’t say anything like, “oh I loved the book” or “thanks for making it for me” or anything. But oh well.
And then Jessica asked him, “Darren, if you had a light saber, what color would it be?”
Darren: “Ooooh. Ummm...” (thinking)
Random people: “Purple!” (other colors)
Me: “Pink!” (thinking of the Starkid sunglasses)
Darren: “You know what? It would be a mood light saber. Because then depending on what mood I’m in, it would change color.” (or something along those lines…)
Me: “That’s actually a really cool idea!”
Then he had to leave, so he said goodbye and we thanked him and he got into the car.
It was the BEST night of my life. I still can’t believe I met him!!! And had a conversation with him! He was the sweetest and nicest guy, so humble and considerate. He didn’t have to stop and take photos with us. Clearly he was in a rush to catch his plane. But he still stopped, and wanted to make sure everyone got what they wanted, and it was so nice of him. I REALLY wish Julia had video taped the conversation I had with him. It didn’t even occur to us until way later, after he’d left. But that’s okay. I kind of remember it, and so does she, and we got photos, and I’m thankful for that because I did not think that we would get the chance to meet him. Not at all. Julia and I even said before the show that the chances of meeting him were slim to none. But we DID meet him, and he now knows we exist (and apparently he never forgets the faces of the people he meets, so as Julia said, “we’re in his mental rolodex now!”), and he saw my scrapbook (well, maybe)!!!
I now truly know what the phrase “I can’t even” means. Because I can’t even. I just…I just can’t. That’s it. I can’t. He is really the SWEETEST guy ever. He was so normal and nice and everything that I felt absolutely calm talking to him. I wasn’t nervous at all. It felt like talking to one of my friends. I didn’t stutter or stumble and I wasn’t awkward (wow, didn’t know I had it in me). He seemed so down to earth, like he really WAS “just some guy” and it didn’t feel like I was talking to a celebrity at all. I just love that about him. So refreshing! I hope that never changes. He’s so humble and nice!!
Oh, and you know how many of the fan encounters say that he looks even more gorgeous in person than he does on TV and photos? Ummm yeah, they’re totally right. He was really, REALLY good looking in person. Like, really, seriously, whoa. I wish I had gotten to see his eyes because I love them…they’re soo pretty…but he was wearing his big glasses so I couldn’t really see them. But yeah, he still looked amazing.
So yeah… last night was AMAZING and the only regret I have is not recording the conversation I had with him. It would be nice to remember exactly what he said and did. I only remember certain parts of it, like how he was bouncing up and down in the beginning and how he was looking at me so intensely (of course I’d remember that, haha). I remember more or less what the dialogue was but it’d be nice to have the video to refer to so I could be sure.
I want to meet him again!! I hope I get another opportunity soon…
I’m honestly an even bigger fan of his now after meeting him because he was just THAT sweet and adorable and perfect in person, sighhhh
