panic at the disco @ the norva - 6/2/11
okay!
on wednesday my dad and i made the 2.5 (or so) hour trip to beckley, wv to pick up grapefruits!!! she creepily recognized our car with a sticker on the back with the name of my school on there and came inside and found me loitering around waiting for her. my dad and i got some breakfast (in the middle of the afternoon) and then reese joined us and we headed back to my house. the journey was long and arduous. once we got back my family took naps while she and i watched "forgetting sarah marshall" and then they went to get some chinese food for dinner while we watched "murder by numbers" and i waited for michael pitt and ryan gosling to get it on during the whole entire thing. this was also the day my internet decided not to work properly anymore :|
we were up until 3am discussing various things (i think probably mostly how hilarious breezy weekes is) and then awake even longer while trying to sleep... we got up around 10:30 and got ready to make the drive to norfolk, and this is when i somehow pinched a nerve in my back. some time later in the night i stopped noticing the pain - probably because there was too much pain in other places - but for most of the day that was really, really annoying. we left about noon and drove and drove and drove and drove and hit a 4.75 mile backup just before the tunnel to get into norfolk which had me worrying silently because it was after 4pm and we were supposed to be at the venue at 5 for the m&g.
but we made it there with plenty of time! we stopped at mcdonald's for a bathroom break and so i could grab some food but it was pretty much useless because i could hardly eat any of it. we got to the venue at 4:30 and were shuffled around a ton into different lines in different spots in the middle of the sidewalk. i finally met and got in a brief talk with kinetikatrue before she ran back to her spot in line and we were taken in about... 5:30? we went upstairs to the balcony area of the venue (which is super tiny) and zack had to get everyone on the stage to stop their soundcheck because it was so loud we couldn't hear his Very Important "don't be creepy" speech.
and i'm so late with this review everyone already knows spencer wasn't there. he was apparently too tired from jet skiing the day before. but lucky for me, spencer's not exactly my favorite, so my feelings weren't really hurt...though it would have been nice to meet him too. i had forgotten anything to have the band sign, which was okay with me because i'm not much for signatures. i decided to have them sign my ticket...mostly because i had nothing else on me for them to sign.
dallon was the first one at the tables and let me just say, he is crazy attractive. luckily i could recount my story of forgetting any item for them to sign or else i would have possibly just stared at his beautiful face. i had him sign whichever end of the ticket they usually don't take, said thanks and moved on to ian... and i had nothing to talk about so i bullshitted my way through the usual "how are you" segment and then asked about spencer of all things? really, if you know me this is kind of an out of character thing to ask. i guess it was the only thing i could think of on the fly to say to him other than "HEY TOTALLY GLAD YOU LEFT THE CAB, MAN." brendon was last and after i asked him how he was holding up, i told him about how i did the exact same thing to my ankle and informed him of the good news: it took 8 weeks to heal! he had the decency to look exasperated on my behalf even though his ankle is pretty much already healed a week later and he's hopping around like a goddamn kangaroo. bastard. though he's approximately 1/4 my size and also an alien, i'm pretty sure he's never going to die, so i guess it makes sense.
the pictures were the more awkward part, because dallon seems to have a personal no-touching rule and also gives off a pretty strong "seriously, don't touch me either" vibe, and i was between him and brendon. reese and i tried to determine how rude it would be to bypass ian entirely and stand between dallon and brendon since they're our ~favorites, and the verdict was "not rude" but man, my picture looks a little funny. dallon's just kind of behind me and ian's kind of behind brendon, and i will probably not ever post it anywhere, but we make a very nice decline in terms of height!
after that we went down to the stage and settled into a spot on dallon's side at the barrier, and it was only about 6:30 at that point. i talked a bit to two girls on my right and people started flooding in around 7, and the show didn't start until 7:30 when foxy finally came on. i spent most of my time watching the crazy ass keyboardist right in front of me jumping on his keyboard and sliding it off its stand and just generally being...very distracting. that whole band is distracting. at one point the bassist balanced his bass in his hand for a good while, it was totally impressive! then there was the whole cigarette eating thing, and he also lit $365 (of what i suspect to be fake money) on fire and tossed bits and pieces into the audience after ripping them apart. i only knew one of their songs and my throat was so dry at this point i couldn't sing along to it, but for the most part i enjoyed their set.
fun was on next, and they were so great! i downloaded a copy of their first album as soon as it leaked without knowing what to expect and i've loved it ever since, and even though their live show wasn't really all that interesting or eye-catching like foxy's, the energy was still great. nate ruess is precious. i love that he plays barefoot and he was dripping sweat by the end of the show and he kept jumping around and was so interactive with the audience, it felt kind of like an inside thing - after telling the audience to sing with him at one point, he said "yeah, if you're not fucking in on it you're just gonna have to pick it up" or something like that. basically i just wanted to take him home with me and pet his hair.
the bad part was that during fun's set i started feeling pretty sick. it was hot as fuck in that venue at that point, because most everyone who was going to show up was already there and all those people breathing in that tiny little room and existing with their body heat and shit, man. it was gross. i was shivering and shaking and sweating and debated with myself from the second fun got offstage whether i should leave the barricade or not, cause i had such a good spot...but i was definitely going to pass out if i didn't sit down and get some water, so i decided to leave. the worst part to me was accidentally leaving my debit card with reese and therefore not being able to get any water :| but i drank some from the faucet in the bathroom, found a spot up in the balcony to sit and rest for a while, and felt better after a bit.
i watched the first couple songs of panic's set on the tv they had in the lounge area on the second floor, and once i felt better i walked around a few times to try and find a spot to stand (because i knew i wouldn't be able to find a spot if i went back downstairs). it took a while, but i eventually found a spot in the very back where i could see most of the stage. that's the good part about the norva being so small, if there wasn't a person's head in front of me i could see pretty much everything. i got about 15 minutes of video/audio (i thought i got 50 minutes, but after 15 the picture blacked out and the sound became SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ):< ) from "c'mon" to "always" and the parts i did get on video were pretty good! sometimes the bass was too heavy for the audio, though. most of their songs sounded very tight and well-performed, especially iwsnt, which i expected to eye-roll my way through because i'd been so tired of it...but i really liked the stage and lighting effects they put along with the music. and everyone already knows all of the parts people read these things for: brendon and dallon had a precious little kiss, brendon and ian had many precious little snuggles, spencer wanted pictures of our O-faces. brendon was much more subdued in the sexual innuendo (or outright inappropriate shit) department at this show but from the things i'm seeing on tumblr of the show last night, that was a very short lived hiatus.
after the show i went out to find our car and waited for reese while she got a t-shirt and then we started the long drive back to my house during which we had 2 separate stops for food and bathroom breaks and lots of music and we finally got back at about 3:30am. i expected to get in and go right to sleep...but we were up until 7:30 discussing things such as how the pronunciation of ian's name is ridiculous and how things were in our respective areas of the venue since we had to part ways and how dallon should just be recognized as a greek god.
and then yesterday we had to take reese back home, and that was pretty much an all-day trip. i've got about 1000000 extra hours of riding under my belt which is not exactly something i want. but. i've got it.
and then i slept 11 hours and my thighs hurt.
on wednesday my dad and i made the 2.5 (or so) hour trip to beckley, wv to pick up grapefruits!!! she creepily recognized our car with a sticker on the back with the name of my school on there and came inside and found me loitering around waiting for her. my dad and i got some breakfast (in the middle of the afternoon) and then reese joined us and we headed back to my house. the journey was long and arduous. once we got back my family took naps while she and i watched "forgetting sarah marshall" and then they went to get some chinese food for dinner while we watched "murder by numbers" and i waited for michael pitt and ryan gosling to get it on during the whole entire thing. this was also the day my internet decided not to work properly anymore :|
we were up until 3am discussing various things (i think probably mostly how hilarious breezy weekes is) and then awake even longer while trying to sleep... we got up around 10:30 and got ready to make the drive to norfolk, and this is when i somehow pinched a nerve in my back. some time later in the night i stopped noticing the pain - probably because there was too much pain in other places - but for most of the day that was really, really annoying. we left about noon and drove and drove and drove and drove and hit a 4.75 mile backup just before the tunnel to get into norfolk which had me worrying silently because it was after 4pm and we were supposed to be at the venue at 5 for the m&g.
but we made it there with plenty of time! we stopped at mcdonald's for a bathroom break and so i could grab some food but it was pretty much useless because i could hardly eat any of it. we got to the venue at 4:30 and were shuffled around a ton into different lines in different spots in the middle of the sidewalk. i finally met and got in a brief talk with kinetikatrue before she ran back to her spot in line and we were taken in about... 5:30? we went upstairs to the balcony area of the venue (which is super tiny) and zack had to get everyone on the stage to stop their soundcheck because it was so loud we couldn't hear his Very Important "don't be creepy" speech.
and i'm so late with this review everyone already knows spencer wasn't there. he was apparently too tired from jet skiing the day before. but lucky for me, spencer's not exactly my favorite, so my feelings weren't really hurt...though it would have been nice to meet him too. i had forgotten anything to have the band sign, which was okay with me because i'm not much for signatures. i decided to have them sign my ticket...mostly because i had nothing else on me for them to sign.
dallon was the first one at the tables and let me just say, he is crazy attractive. luckily i could recount my story of forgetting any item for them to sign or else i would have possibly just stared at his beautiful face. i had him sign whichever end of the ticket they usually don't take, said thanks and moved on to ian... and i had nothing to talk about so i bullshitted my way through the usual "how are you" segment and then asked about spencer of all things? really, if you know me this is kind of an out of character thing to ask. i guess it was the only thing i could think of on the fly to say to him other than "HEY TOTALLY GLAD YOU LEFT THE CAB, MAN." brendon was last and after i asked him how he was holding up, i told him about how i did the exact same thing to my ankle and informed him of the good news: it took 8 weeks to heal! he had the decency to look exasperated on my behalf even though his ankle is pretty much already healed a week later and he's hopping around like a goddamn kangaroo. bastard. though he's approximately 1/4 my size and also an alien, i'm pretty sure he's never going to die, so i guess it makes sense.
the pictures were the more awkward part, because dallon seems to have a personal no-touching rule and also gives off a pretty strong "seriously, don't touch me either" vibe, and i was between him and brendon. reese and i tried to determine how rude it would be to bypass ian entirely and stand between dallon and brendon since they're our ~favorites, and the verdict was "not rude" but man, my picture looks a little funny. dallon's just kind of behind me and ian's kind of behind brendon, and i will probably not ever post it anywhere, but we make a very nice decline in terms of height!
after that we went down to the stage and settled into a spot on dallon's side at the barrier, and it was only about 6:30 at that point. i talked a bit to two girls on my right and people started flooding in around 7, and the show didn't start until 7:30 when foxy finally came on. i spent most of my time watching the crazy ass keyboardist right in front of me jumping on his keyboard and sliding it off its stand and just generally being...very distracting. that whole band is distracting. at one point the bassist balanced his bass in his hand for a good while, it was totally impressive! then there was the whole cigarette eating thing, and he also lit $365 (of what i suspect to be fake money) on fire and tossed bits and pieces into the audience after ripping them apart. i only knew one of their songs and my throat was so dry at this point i couldn't sing along to it, but for the most part i enjoyed their set.
fun was on next, and they were so great! i downloaded a copy of their first album as soon as it leaked without knowing what to expect and i've loved it ever since, and even though their live show wasn't really all that interesting or eye-catching like foxy's, the energy was still great. nate ruess is precious. i love that he plays barefoot and he was dripping sweat by the end of the show and he kept jumping around and was so interactive with the audience, it felt kind of like an inside thing - after telling the audience to sing with him at one point, he said "yeah, if you're not fucking in on it you're just gonna have to pick it up" or something like that. basically i just wanted to take him home with me and pet his hair.
the bad part was that during fun's set i started feeling pretty sick. it was hot as fuck in that venue at that point, because most everyone who was going to show up was already there and all those people breathing in that tiny little room and existing with their body heat and shit, man. it was gross. i was shivering and shaking and sweating and debated with myself from the second fun got offstage whether i should leave the barricade or not, cause i had such a good spot...but i was definitely going to pass out if i didn't sit down and get some water, so i decided to leave. the worst part to me was accidentally leaving my debit card with reese and therefore not being able to get any water :| but i drank some from the faucet in the bathroom, found a spot up in the balcony to sit and rest for a while, and felt better after a bit.
i watched the first couple songs of panic's set on the tv they had in the lounge area on the second floor, and once i felt better i walked around a few times to try and find a spot to stand (because i knew i wouldn't be able to find a spot if i went back downstairs). it took a while, but i eventually found a spot in the very back where i could see most of the stage. that's the good part about the norva being so small, if there wasn't a person's head in front of me i could see pretty much everything. i got about 15 minutes of video/audio (i thought i got 50 minutes, but after 15 the picture blacked out and the sound became SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ):< ) from "c'mon" to "always" and the parts i did get on video were pretty good! sometimes the bass was too heavy for the audio, though. most of their songs sounded very tight and well-performed, especially iwsnt, which i expected to eye-roll my way through because i'd been so tired of it...but i really liked the stage and lighting effects they put along with the music. and everyone already knows all of the parts people read these things for: brendon and dallon had a precious little kiss, brendon and ian had many precious little snuggles, spencer wanted pictures of our O-faces. brendon was much more subdued in the sexual innuendo (or outright inappropriate shit) department at this show but from the things i'm seeing on tumblr of the show last night, that was a very short lived hiatus.
after the show i went out to find our car and waited for reese while she got a t-shirt and then we started the long drive back to my house during which we had 2 separate stops for food and bathroom breaks and lots of music and we finally got back at about 3:30am. i expected to get in and go right to sleep...but we were up until 7:30 discussing things such as how the pronunciation of ian's name is ridiculous and how things were in our respective areas of the venue since we had to part ways and how dallon should just be recognized as a greek god.
and then yesterday we had to take reese back home, and that was pretty much an all-day trip. i've got about 1000000 extra hours of riding under my belt which is not exactly something i want. but. i've got it.
and then i slept 11 hours and my thighs hurt.