Surviving a Tom Sandoval Concert Was Supposed to Be a Joke, but It Kinda Slayed

The first rule of reality television is that it doesn't take talent to be entertaining. It's a special cocktail of shamelessness, toxicity, and the fact that you really have nothing to lose that makes you an amazing reality star. When Tom Sandoval ascended from America's Most Hated to the most compelling character on this most recent season of The Traitors, I wasn't shocked at all. I'm right about everything, always, only this time I couldn't rub it in people's faces. Why's that? Because I paid $46 to see Tom Sandoval and The Most Extras and had an incredible time, and it would be embarrassing to admit that just so people know that, once again, I am right.

Tom Sandoval Embodies the Idea of: Be Uncool, Don't Be All Cool

I've been based in New York City for 13 years and working in media for eight of them. A majority of my career was working for a society website, attending everything from NYFW and Met Gala parties to Tribeca Film Fest and movie premieres. It's no secret that New York media is dissipating and insufferable influencers are now monopolizing the social scene, and braving the cold or the sweltering heat isn't worth it just for an umpteenth free tote bag as a token for the evening. This isn't a humblebrag, it's just to drive the point home that I know cool. I have been in the same room as cool. Cool is now co-opted by algorithims, big tech, and the most annoying people you can conceive of, so you might as well seek out the most uncool thing possible, and that is a Tom Sandoval and the Most Extras concert.

I was in Hudson Valley for the week because I thought it would be restorative. The algorithim must have decided it was high time that I have an existensial crisis to light a fire under my ass instead of partaking in yoga classes and forest bathing and, behold, I happened upon Tom posting that he would be in Bethel at the original Woodstock festival grounds preforming with his band.

I knew I had to go, and I spent a whopping $46 on the ticket before anyone could talk me out of it. I opted not to spend an extra ten bucks on insurance should I chicken out of going, but I just could not be that girl who spent over fifty dollars on Tom Sandoval. I just couldn't debase myself like that.

Cut to that fateful Saturday night at the Woodstock museum. The room was abuzz with both locals that had no idea who he was and people that really wanted to hate him. I even asked a couple of the museum employees if they had met him, and they were enthusiastic about how kind he was and had no idea he was on a reality show. I felt really stupid telling them about the Scandoval of it all because it's a general expectation that people on reality shows cheat on their significant others, so they weren't really surprised or offended by that. There were even a couple of girls younger than I who made their own "worm with a mustache" t-shirts, and I couldn't help but take to them. They were wide-eyed not-so-innocents like myself at that age, and I was really happy to see that they would refuse to spend money on James Kennedy's version of that t-shirt because that guy is much worse than Sandoval and doesn't deserve a dime.

Tom Sandoval is the Greatest Showman

When Tom finally graced the stage, the audience went beserk, and so began the most confounding-but-enjoyable evening of my life. Tom Sandoval knows how to engage a crowd, even though he went overboard by incessantly singing in falsetto. Also, he would not stop swinging the microphone stand around, which is a lawsuit waiting to happen. I don't know, I just thought he would be more mindful considering he's being sued by a ton of people already.

The night was a blur, with the most memorable part being that Tom dedicated a song to his Special Forces costar Tara Reid, which was actually very heartwarming. He regaled their time together on the show to the crowd, saying that she smuggled six packs of cigarettes for a show that only filmed for a week and a half. (By the way, she dropped out by day two or three, perhaps she ran out of cigs.) Tom was electrified by the attention, and the audience was relishing it. Everyone that was there to hate him had an incredible time. He even gave his guitar pick and drumsticks to the girls who wore t-shirts making fun of him.