Kelsey Brown is, in the words of Eric Vos, "the fantastic RA of Beckett Hall." She is also, we think, reversing her trend of self-described bad luck.
Not only did the adoring Taylor Swift fan nab a winning ticket in CMC's lottery to see the singer on Oct. 15 at Bridges Auditorium, she then won a ticket to see the Grammy Award-winning singer perform three days later on The Ellen DeGeneres (n?e DeGenerous?) Show.
"I have been a huge fan of Taylor Swift since her first song, Tim McGraw, came out eight years ago," Brown wrote from San Francisco, where she was visiting CMC pal Emily Meinhardt '10, on the heels of her Swift successes.
As the CMC senior rushed to make her flight home, she squeezed in a few minutes to tell us, in her own words, how it all came to be. (The performance at Bridges was recorded for VH1 Storytellers and airs at 6 and 11 p.m. on Sunday., Nov. 11.)
Directly from the newly-lucky Kelsey Brown, we share with you:
I have never been to one of Taylor's official concerts beforehopefully this next tour!
I am the most unlucky person in the world, so I was 100 percent sure I wasn't going to win the lottery to get tickets to see Taylor in Claremont. That's why I randomly entered the other contest. And somehow last week turned out to be the luckiest week of my life!
Ellen DeGeneres tweeted that if we sent e-mails to an address, we could enter a chance to see Taylor perform on her show at Warner Brother Studios on Thursday, Oct. 18, at the "Red" album release party (the name of Swift's fourth studio album). So I did, and I woke up on Saturday morning with an e-mail saying I had won. I took a screen shot of the two e-mails I got because I couldn't believe it.
I didn't get to actually go into the studio to see the whole show, but Taylor (and Ellen!) performed on a stage outside. That segment is airing on TV this upcoming Thursday, Oct. 25.(Ed. Note to CMC Currents readersyes, that means TODAY.)
I brought my friend Riley Thomlison '13 with me to the Ellen Show because she also loves Taylor, but didn't win tickets to see her at Bridges.
For the Ellen Show, we had to wait in line for a really long time before the performance, and everything was extremely scheduled.
I was much, much closer to Taylor for her performance on Ellen, but I think I preferred the experience seeing her in Bridges because the atmosphere was much more mellow, and I really enjoyed hearing her stories and personal anecdotes. She was much more personal at Bridges than she was on Ellen. (Example: At Bridges she was talking about how her song Mean is directed at a critic who is particularly critical of her music, and people in the crowd started booing (about the critic) and she said something like, "...Guys... When you do that, I think you're doing that to me because I'm really insecure..." which I thought was a very honest thing to say to an auditorium full of people her own age. You could tell that she was somewhat nervous to be playing in front of "her peers" because she is used to playing in front of thousands of screaming girls who are dying to see her, while many of the people in Bridges were there for the opportunity not because they are her biggest fans.
It was also just really fun to go to see Taylor at Bridges because all my friends were there, and it was hilarious to see my male classmates become Taylor Swift super-fans for one night.
For more on the Oct. 15 concert, Harvey Mudd Collegewhich won the concert at Bridges in an online voting competition, has a write-up and pictures of the event online.