Mr. Sensitive: David’s Firebird is hanging off his shoulders and the opening notes bring me back to reality after Heros. We get good guitar sex early on in Mr. Sensitive. Wow. Love the way he caresses that guitar’s neck, reminiscent of similar encounters with mike stands and the guitar in the past. Half a heart hand too, which just added to the fun, and then more heart thumps near the end of the song. I love the quietness of the verses and then the absolute power of the chorus and bridge. I manage to look over at the guitar god stage left/our right. His concentration fascinates me, and he never looks at the audience. But David makes up for that, crouching, staring, encouraging, and those heart thumps just slay me. He is so born to do this. He just has the audience in his hands. I can tell this from the noise level in the venue, which is already amazing. A quick glance to my left, right and behind me says that everyone in my range is mesmerized already.

David sweetly apologies for ‘finally getting out here’ and we sweetly forgive him for ‘taking damn near long enough’. He can do no wrong here, in our eyes. My brain remembers I should tweet occasionally, especially to remind people just how beautiful he is. I realize I added an adjective in my tweet that rhymes with trucking. Well, he is that beautiful.

We’re Only Honest When We’re Sleeping. The analytical part of my brain says this will be particularly interesting, because as we all know Kyle usually helps with this quite strongly. I watch Neal and Jeremy’s silent communication at the beginning, and then I’m back to David. I happen to love this song and I love how David just throws himself into what he’s doing and lets the rest of the band do their thing. When Neal’s turned up mike brings me more of his voice, I do jump a bit, startled. More of that, I like it. But then the guy in the middle is wailing about lies in lipstick red and well, I forget the rest of the guys again. My face muscles are aching from so much grinning, which is kinda neat. Then David prowls the stage at the end of the song encouraging us to make more noise, so what can we do but acquiesce?

Small interlude and mini-tantrum here. Bossy Dave says, “You guys gonna sing along?!” or “Make some noise!” “How loud can you guys get?” or ‘Give it up for the Doctor!” What you gonna do? You do what Bossy Dave says. We get loud. We give it up for the Doctor. We sing along. We make more noise, mostly at appropriate times. However, to those drunk idiots that keep screaming “I love you David” at every opportunity? He knows that. He's been hearing you scream that for 125+ concerts. He's got it. STFU now, Kplzthks.

Back to the show: It’s time for Lie. It’s wonderful how this song has evolved so organically over the course of the tewer. That a capella chorus is simply amazing and hearing it on a video truly doesn’t do it justice. You have to be in the venue, hear everything go from loud, with people singing along and making noise, to David shushing the audience. And the audience shushing and yes, actually becoming very quiet. (We Canadians are a polite bunch. Well, some of the time). Then that voice rings out like a bell, away from the microphone. ‘Lie to me and tell me that we’re gonna be all right.’ Sighhhh. So. Freaking. Beautiful. A quick look sideways and I see some of those who haven’t seen him perform or see the videos, are totally amazed by this. And enthralled. Cookification is well underway.

David suddenly has his Gibson Hummingbird in his hands. I start to tremble, and break out in goosebumps because I know something special is coming. The intellectual part of my brain comments that he’s doing this to give Jeremy a break from learning all the song set in what, 24 hours? The rest of my brain is just eager to know what he’s going to play. It could be Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or C is for Cookie (which would be all kinds of hilarious) and I’d be fine with it. But the opening chords tell me instantly what it is, because I play it all the time on my Seagull guitar. Avalanche. Freakin’ Avalanche, acoustic. My most bestest pony, one I never expected to hear because we’ve never had it and everytime I play the song in my office, I long to hear how David would manipulate it. Here’s my wish being granted. Oh my gawd. Why yes, those are tears rolling down my face. Sniffles. Breathholding. Bliss. Thankyouthankyouthankyou David.

MITB He can’t possibly top that. Can he? Oh, there’s Nealfingtiemann, with an acoustic guitar in his hands. And AndyPSkib, standing at the microphone sans guitar. Hmmm. What’s coming now? Three strums and those of us who are hardcore let out involuntary squeals of delighted approval. Man in the Box. This song is kinda special for me, for you dawg, because I first heard it in the hospital post-surgery, where my iPhone was my lifeline to the Davidverse. The crowd is so with him on this. I didn’t know the song prior to David bringing it to me, so I quickly scan the crowd. Apparently lots of people, both here in the balcony and on the floor, know the song, because there’s a lot of singing along in the chorus. And lots of headbanging.