I can’t even express to you all how excited I was to MEET TAYLOR MOMSEN. If you had to ask me a semester ago who she was I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you—just because I wasn’t obsessed with Gossip Girl. After a whole semester of watching my roommate’s season 2 and 3 DVDs, I became a dedicated fan. Now, Miss Pretty Reckless is focusing on her singing career and I had the chance to meet the rock star and hangout with her after the Music Unites and Rolling Stone InTune show on April 13 at Dominion NYC!
Music Unites, a NYC-based non-profit, dedicated to providing music education programming and opportunities to students in under-served and under-funded inner-city schools, partnered with Rolling Stone magazine and Garnier Fructis for the second show of their “InTune” series. Special guest Gabe Saporta from Cobra Starship was DJ-ing and then around 9:00PM Taylor Momsen and her band went on stage to perform their set. Their album “Light Me Up” released in the UK previously but was set to drop in the U.S. on the actual day of this show—so, as a dedicated and active Music Unites team member—I’d like to say that Music Unites and Rolling Stone just threw Taylor an album release launch party. So freakin’ cool. When Taylor went on stage, I pushed my way through a crowd of 300+ people to get to the stage—I could have touched her and her set list if I really wanted to. But I kept my hands to myself (or, rather, put them in the air and rocked out!)
But prior to her performance, she came out to take some awesome pictures in front of the step and repeat, and signed a guitar that we had gotten donated from bebe. This guitar will either be donated to a student or will be auctioned off so Music Unites can create even MORE music education programming for students nationwide. And who got to hold the guitar for Miss Momsen? That would be me, ladies! I think I had to hold in my excitement—and at the time I was holding my phone and just gave it to who I thought was a random person. Turns out it was Taylor’s manager. We discussed this later when we all went out (yes, including Taylor!) after the event.
All proceeds from the event went to Music Unites. Want to inspire the next generation of musicians? Check out their website and you could even start a Music Unites on Campus branch if you wanted to bring the mission of Music Unites to your own college! Either way, if you’re interested, get involved with Music Unites. It’s not just a non-profit, it’s a movement and has become my lifestyle.