FOB @ Palasharp, Milan (warning! for massive amount of pics)
First and foremost, I'd like to thank the guy who saved my friend P from being trampled by the moshers. She is small and it was her first concert ever so she didn't know how to react to the moving mass of bodies and she could have been seriously injured. I don't know who you are and you probably won't read this post, but I'd like to say this anyway : thank you so much. She was scared and you took her out of the mosh pit and lifted her up on your shoulders to let her breathe. You are the kind of person that makes me keep wanting to go see shows and be in the main area instead of the sidelines. Thank you.
A little "thank you" goes to the girl who was attached to the barrier in front of me, too. You may be not happy with your squishiness, but it saved my ribs from being snapped, so thank you.
That said, this has been one hell of a trip :D
03.13.09
P and K came to sleep at mine because our flight was at 8:30 and I live 15 min from the airport (lucky bastard that I am). We had a little pijama-party introducing P to the wonders of bandom (mainly, K and I showed her the pics from the 2007 MCR concert and tried to teach her names and the like with the aid of my ever-chancing bandom screensaver. She decided that Spencer is her favourite Panic!boy. Smart girl).
03.14.09
We got up at 6 and then went to the airport. Long story short, we arrived in Milan at 11:30, left our luggage in the hotel room and then went to do some shopping for the day after. On the way to the market, we saw these nice murales
We dropped off the groceries and went to stuff our faces at the Burger King in Piazza Duomo
which is where we found this guy :)
and then we looked better and found his good friends, too
(we took a couple of pictures with them, but I don't think they'd be relevant to you)
Anyway, we indulged in a bit of controlled shopping in the centre and then decided that to go home. While we were on the bus we noticed a chinese take-away restaurant and we dashed out at the next stop and bought dinner there.
So, as I twittered at the time, we ended the night "eating chinese take-away, watching cable tv and fangirling" :)
03.15.09 aka The Day of the Show!
We got up fairly early, packed the racksack for the day and went to catch the bus for the venue.
We arrived from the side of the back door which... was a bit of a dumpster, to be quite honest (if this is what Joe referred to in his tweets, I totally agree).
(this is also where I say that this venue is really horrible. I still don't know why people choose to do shows there. The acoustic is terrible and the place was built to host just sport events, not concerts. I really hope next time they'll choose someplace else to play.... A different city would be an educate choise, too. Milan is really not an easy place to reach if you live in South Italy. I guess if they had chosen a more central city, like Florence or Rome, or even Bologna, the number of people attending the show would have been twice over. I know bands have a schedule to stick to, and those 400 km more would have been hard to cover in a short time, but it would be so much easier for a lot of people if they chose a more reacheable city.)
Anyway, we were among the firsts there so we settled and started waiting for gates-opening time (18:30). Some people there were quite nice, others less so.
At around 2 pm we heard some noise from inside the venue, but it was really low.
Fun Fact #1: while we were waiting in line there was a sudden wave of excitement because someone said that Patrick was buying a hot-dog at the food-stand in front of the gates. Turned out it was just a Patrick look-alike but here, look for yourself!
It was quite creepy.
They opened the gates at 18:30 on the dot and they let us go in in groups of 10. We run as fast as we could and managed to get near the barriers :)
Fun Fact #2: while the people were slowly getting inside, the staff put on some music, and at some point "Wake me up when September ends" started playing and everybody started singing it really quietly. It was like hearing the rock version of Kumbaya.
This is what the stage looked like before the show started
(sorry for the heads. I'm a bit short).
At 7:30 pm the lights goes down and these dudes come on stage dressed like tennis players.
When I found out they were going to open the show, I went and checked out their myspace and lol'ed like a loon because, really. Tennis players?
But I have to give credits where it's due: they were really good live! They really got the show started.
The singer had some sort of oldschool!Ryan Ross-ish haircut
This one is here just because I like the lights :)
Hey Hey Radio! left the stage and 15 minutes later The Sounds came out
Lets just say that they were really on :)
They started with "Living In America"
In between songs, some stupid guys started singing lewd things about Maja's backside. Jesper (I think) laughed in the mic and asked us if we were singing Guantanamera.
Have you noticed how I fixated on Maja?
This is why.
Oh look! Someone who is not Maja!
And another one!
A guy behind me screamed his head off to get the setlist. He succeeded!
We waited a bit longer for FOB, but it's not like we could get bored ;)
Lights go down again, crowd explodes and I find myself squished forward till I get plastered on a girl who is glued to the barriers. Sometimes I get really lucky :D
They started with "Disloyal Order of the Water Buffaloes"
followed by "Thriller"
After that I don't remember (I was too busy enjoying the show to keep tab on the setlist). I know what songs they played, just not the actual order. I think it went more or less like this: American boy, Sixteen Candles, I don't care, Beat it, Headfirst Slide, Sugar, This ain't a Scene, America's Suitehearts, I'm like a Lawyer, She's my Winona, Thnks fr th Mmrs, I Slept with someone in FOB, Grand theft Autumn then they went out, Pete changed into a hoodie, they came back and played Dance Dance and Saturday.
Shut up. I like this shot.
I've never been much of an Andy girl, but I'll have to say this: when I listen to their albums, I recognize his talent and say "Ok Andy, you're really good". Now that I've heard him live, all I can say is "Andy, you're a drum God." I've never appreciated the difference between recorded stuff and live music this much :)
After a bit, Pete called Patrick and said "Something somesomesome!" and Patrick was like "Uh?" and Pete replied "Shouldn't you give them something?" to which Patrick said "Something what?". Pete huffed, walked up to Patrick mic stand, grabbed his 3 pics and said "These!" and threw them to the crowd.
At some point someone from the crowd threw a pair of baby jeans on stage and Pete passed them to Patrick, who promptly checked if they'd fit him. He said something like "Uh... where's the other leg?".
Nice shot of the words on the back of Pete's bass
See the water bottle on the right? It went like this: someone in the crowd threw an empty water bottle towards the stage (I'd like to point out that it's possible that it wasn't done with malicious intents. Here we usually throw the emptied bottles in the space between barriers and stage so people don't stumble on them during the concert, but it can be difficult to get the spot you were aiming for); Pete said something about not throwing them at him because he's a bad catcher... playful Italians are playful and gave him a chance to demonstrate that he could be a good catcher. Four more bottles thrown his way and he managed to catch one left handed :D Good job, Pete!
So, BEST SHOW EVER, YES?
After the show was over we went back to the merch booth (we hopped there when we got in and bought a couple of things in a rush) to see if there was something else we wanted to buy.
If you're interested in the merch stuff, I got this two t-shirts (both in M size)
The one with the horse fits like a large on me because I didn't notice it was a man cut, but it has such a nice design
They were also selling a t-shirt with a beaver on the front (in white or hot pink), one with a geometrical design (in red or yellow), two kinds of mugs and a couple of hoodies (black or light blue) with the drunk bear.
We also managed to get Hey Hey Radio's cd. Their merch table was near the FOB one and we saw them packing their things away so we run there and asked them to sign us their cd. They were really nice and gave us some pins for free, too :)
And thus end the recap!
A little "thank you" goes to the girl who was attached to the barrier in front of me, too. You may be not happy with your squishiness, but it saved my ribs from being snapped, so thank you.
That said, this has been one hell of a trip :D
03.13.09
P and K came to sleep at mine because our flight was at 8:30 and I live 15 min from the airport (lucky bastard that I am). We had a little pijama-party introducing P to the wonders of bandom (mainly, K and I showed her the pics from the 2007 MCR concert and tried to teach her names and the like with the aid of my ever-chancing bandom screensaver. She decided that Spencer is her favourite Panic!boy. Smart girl).
03.14.09
We got up at 6 and then went to the airport. Long story short, we arrived in Milan at 11:30, left our luggage in the hotel room and then went to do some shopping for the day after. On the way to the market, we saw these nice murales
We dropped off the groceries and went to stuff our faces at the Burger King in Piazza Duomo
which is where we found this guy :)
and then we looked better and found his good friends, too
(we took a couple of pictures with them, but I don't think they'd be relevant to you)
Anyway, we indulged in a bit of controlled shopping in the centre and then decided that to go home. While we were on the bus we noticed a chinese take-away restaurant and we dashed out at the next stop and bought dinner there.
So, as I twittered at the time, we ended the night "eating chinese take-away, watching cable tv and fangirling" :)
03.15.09 aka The Day of the Show!
We got up fairly early, packed the racksack for the day and went to catch the bus for the venue.
We arrived from the side of the back door which... was a bit of a dumpster, to be quite honest (if this is what Joe referred to in his tweets, I totally agree).
(this is also where I say that this venue is really horrible. I still don't know why people choose to do shows there. The acoustic is terrible and the place was built to host just sport events, not concerts. I really hope next time they'll choose someplace else to play.... A different city would be an educate choise, too. Milan is really not an easy place to reach if you live in South Italy. I guess if they had chosen a more central city, like Florence or Rome, or even Bologna, the number of people attending the show would have been twice over. I know bands have a schedule to stick to, and those 400 km more would have been hard to cover in a short time, but it would be so much easier for a lot of people if they chose a more reacheable city.)
Anyway, we were among the firsts there so we settled and started waiting for gates-opening time (18:30). Some people there were quite nice, others less so.
At around 2 pm we heard some noise from inside the venue, but it was really low.
Fun Fact #1: while we were waiting in line there was a sudden wave of excitement because someone said that Patrick was buying a hot-dog at the food-stand in front of the gates. Turned out it was just a Patrick look-alike but here, look for yourself!
It was quite creepy.
They opened the gates at 18:30 on the dot and they let us go in in groups of 10. We run as fast as we could and managed to get near the barriers :)
Fun Fact #2: while the people were slowly getting inside, the staff put on some music, and at some point "Wake me up when September ends" started playing and everybody started singing it really quietly. It was like hearing the rock version of Kumbaya.
This is what the stage looked like before the show started
(sorry for the heads. I'm a bit short).
At 7:30 pm the lights goes down and these dudes come on stage dressed like tennis players.
When I found out they were going to open the show, I went and checked out their myspace and lol'ed like a loon because, really. Tennis players?
But I have to give credits where it's due: they were really good live! They really got the show started.
The singer had some sort of oldschool!Ryan Ross-ish haircut
This one is here just because I like the lights :)
Hey Hey Radio! left the stage and 15 minutes later The Sounds came out
Lets just say that they were really on :)
They started with "Living In America"
In between songs, some stupid guys started singing lewd things about Maja's backside. Jesper (I think) laughed in the mic and asked us if we were singing Guantanamera.
Have you noticed how I fixated on Maja?
This is why.
Oh look! Someone who is not Maja!
And another one!
A guy behind me screamed his head off to get the setlist. He succeeded!
We waited a bit longer for FOB, but it's not like we could get bored ;)
Lights go down again, crowd explodes and I find myself squished forward till I get plastered on a girl who is glued to the barriers. Sometimes I get really lucky :D
They started with "Disloyal Order of the Water Buffaloes"
followed by "Thriller"
After that I don't remember (I was too busy enjoying the show to keep tab on the setlist). I know what songs they played, just not the actual order. I think it went more or less like this: American boy, Sixteen Candles, I don't care, Beat it, Headfirst Slide, Sugar, This ain't a Scene, America's Suitehearts, I'm like a Lawyer, She's my Winona, Thnks fr th Mmrs, I Slept with someone in FOB, Grand theft Autumn then they went out, Pete changed into a hoodie, they came back and played Dance Dance and Saturday.
Shut up. I like this shot.
I've never been much of an Andy girl, but I'll have to say this: when I listen to their albums, I recognize his talent and say "Ok Andy, you're really good". Now that I've heard him live, all I can say is "Andy, you're a drum God." I've never appreciated the difference between recorded stuff and live music this much :)
After a bit, Pete called Patrick and said "Something somesomesome!" and Patrick was like "Uh?" and Pete replied "Shouldn't you give them something?" to which Patrick said "Something what?". Pete huffed, walked up to Patrick mic stand, grabbed his 3 pics and said "These!" and threw them to the crowd.
At some point someone from the crowd threw a pair of baby jeans on stage and Pete passed them to Patrick, who promptly checked if they'd fit him. He said something like "Uh... where's the other leg?".
Nice shot of the words on the back of Pete's bass
See the water bottle on the right? It went like this: someone in the crowd threw an empty water bottle towards the stage (I'd like to point out that it's possible that it wasn't done with malicious intents. Here we usually throw the emptied bottles in the space between barriers and stage so people don't stumble on them during the concert, but it can be difficult to get the spot you were aiming for); Pete said something about not throwing them at him because he's a bad catcher... playful Italians are playful and gave him a chance to demonstrate that he could be a good catcher. Four more bottles thrown his way and he managed to catch one left handed :D Good job, Pete!
So, BEST SHOW EVER, YES?
After the show was over we went back to the merch booth (we hopped there when we got in and bought a couple of things in a rush) to see if there was something else we wanted to buy.
If you're interested in the merch stuff, I got this two t-shirts (both in M size)
The one with the horse fits like a large on me because I didn't notice it was a man cut, but it has such a nice design
They were also selling a t-shirt with a beaver on the front (in white or hot pink), one with a geometrical design (in red or yellow), two kinds of mugs and a couple of hoodies (black or light blue) with the drunk bear.
We also managed to get Hey Hey Radio's cd. Their merch table was near the FOB one and we saw them packing their things away so we run there and asked them to sign us their cd. They were really nice and gave us some pins for free, too :)
And thus end the recap!