Shawn Mendes at Bearsville Theater, Woodstock
Katie 
Thursday, August 8, I was lucky enough to be one of the 250 or so fans in attendance to Shawn Mendes’ return to the stage on the ‘For Friends & Family Only’, an intimate tour he is doing to debut his new album coming out in October, Shawn. To get tickets, you had to sign up via Seated and let them know if you wanted floor or balcony seats and 1 or 2. I put in for 1 for either section and was told that I was chosen for the balcony.
I drove the two hours out to Woodstock and was hoping that it would not be raining on the way home as they were all dark, windy, woodsy roads. When I arrived there were already some girls waiting in the rain but I opted to wait to get in line until closer to doors. We were told that we would have to have stickers placed over the cameras on our phones and could not take any photos or videos for the first 7 songs, once we got a double thumbs up from security we could remove the stickers and use our cameras.
At 8pm, when his new music video was set to premiere, they streamed it for us through a projector on the curtain at the back of the stage.
Shawn thanked everyone for sticking around and got a bit emotional after singing his first song. He also warned us that he might cry a lot throughout the show. He seemed to be in a good place, and was very vulnerable in his stage banter and in his lyrics as well. He said they were going to play the album top to bottom, which to me means in track order, but based on the track listings I had found online, it didn’t appear that he did it in order, but he did play all the tracks. I’m really excited for it to come out in October to get a chance to listen to it again – Shawn was impressed we all came out to a show where we wouldn’t know any of the songs, and was even more impressed when during a couple of chorus’ we caught on and sang along. (He said it was because we know him so well and know his writing style)
His parents were in the front row of the balcony and also in attendance was Logan Paul? It also was Shawn’s birthday so an impromptu singing of Happy Birthday happened and he wore a birthday hat from the crowd for a couple of minutes before saying he couldn’t wear it any longer but was going to keep it.
After the show it was drizzling a bit, but that didn’t stop fans from waiting at the stage door! I opted to just get in my car and make the trek home as I had another road trip happening Friday morning!
Also of note – they stamped our hands on the way in and despite attempting to wash it off until I started bleeding, some of the ink is STILL on my hand 5 day later…
