Seeing (but not Hearing) Miguel

On Saturday night, January 26th, Miguel performed at Mr. Jones in Miami Beach. A friend who has connections to a promoter invited me to go see him with her a few days beforehand and I immediately accepted. I can practically recite his latest album War & Leisure. Miguel is really one of my all-time favorites.

I had never been to Mr. Jones before – a cool Miami club that famous people are always either performing or hanging out at. Honestly, it doesn’t really match my usual kind of scene. I only knew about it from what others had told me: you have to wear heels and makeup, you pretty much need a promoter or some other connection to get in, and performers never start earlier than 3 a.m. I generally have a hard time making it past midnight. But this was Miguel. I wasn’t going to miss out.

I won’t go into the details of what the night was like just being in club because it’s pretty straight forward. Dancing, singing, and meeting cool, new people. The atmosphere was actually really fun. I can confidently say I danced from 12:45 until 3 with few rest breaks and I was all for it. I just had to make it to Miguel and it wasn’t tough because Mr. Jones is pretty epic. It’s a club to stay at for a long time and a good time.

He emerged into the main room of the club at about 2. He wasn’t doing anything though. He just talked to his group of friends he was with, danced a little, and looked around beyond the parameters of his VIP section. I mean, of course, I still was freaking out.

He could have sneezed and I would have been happy to have witnessed it in person. I tried to take snaps of him without looking like an annoying fan and allowed myself to just take in his presence. He was right there, five feet away, and I didn’t care that he wasn’t singing yet. I figured he would perform soon.

Then 3 a.m. hit. He had changed locations in the club a few times, but he really was there doing what everyone else was doing – clubbing. Yes, it’s cool to be really close to a famous person you love, but just staring at said person for an hour gets old pretty fast. My friends and I were starting to get tired and impatient, so we held out until about 3:30 and called it a night.

Somehow, I wasn’t that disappointed to miss out. It didn’t really feel like he would have been able to put on a great performance so late in the night and after hours of partying. My hunch wasn’t wrong. I watched some of the snaps people who had stayed long enough took and, don’t get me wrong, Miguel is absolutely one of my favorite artists, but it wasn’t incredible. I want the incredible, properly warmed up Miguel to associate with an experience of seeing him live. I can only hope I’ll get an opportunity to go to a concert.

So, yeah, I saw Miguel, but I never actually heard him sing live. I still had a great night and I will be telling anyone and everyone about how I spent a night dancing next to Miguel and when he walked by me and I say hey that he actually looked at me and responded. I was within 10 feet of him for an entire night. I don’t regret a thing.