SonShine Part 1
Should I start this blog off with a question? Would you believe me if I told you I had the best week of my life at Sonshine last week? Would you think I'm exaggerating? Do you have any idea how awesome I really am? --So this blog's gonna have nothing to do with Rk...pretty much. That'll be the next one.
Last Sunday night I pulled into my parents' driveway, Relient K blasting, and started to unload all the carefully packed luggage I had with me for Sonshine. About 20 minutes later, Kelly from WI and Hannah and Lauren from IL pulled into my driveway (also blasting RK). It was a little surreal for all of us. Kelly and I had been Myspace friends because of RK since October of 05 and I knew Hannah from J-SNAG (Jon Schneck Needs A Group-you should join if you aren't in it already because one day we will have more members that Matthew Arnold Thiessen's group and then we will take over the world). Even though I'd known these girls and had talked to them on Myspace and AIM so many times, the face to face interaction was a little weird at first. I just couldn't believe they were really here; some friends I'd met thanks to Relient K and Myspace were actually at my parents' house about to spend the entire week with me. I just couldn't believe it. Well we spent the night having a RK Slumber party: eating pizza, listening to RK oldies and rarities like "Operation," "B-Rad," and "Vinyl Countdown" and we watched the RK DVD (I still hadn't seen it). *Random awesome moment* After a song or two I said, "Hey…Jon's wearing the Star Wars watch I gave him!" That just made my night. If you have the DVD, go watch it and keep and eye out for the watch on Jon's left hand…I totally gave him that.
So the next morning it was off to the Willmar Civic Center to begin set up for the weekend. We were all on the main stage crew and construction began on the stage roof. Hannah and Lauren were awesome. They were climbing up huge towers, hammering away at pins, getting dirty and working harder than most of the guys there. Our boss man for this project, Phil, was a beyond awesome guy from TN who kept calling Lauren his top girl. The whole week he kept us laughing with all his little sayings. "Cool, cool, cool." "Beautiful, beautiful." "Smooth as a mule's lips." And my personal favorite, "wiggle, wiggle, wiggle."
After spending the day working hard and getting burned, we took off to Green Lake in Spicer to cool down in the "swimmin' hole" as Phil's guy "Snake" called it. Then it was showers and aloe for the sunburns and off to eat at Grizzly's bar and grill where Kelly and I began to understand the full force of our HIVE moments. Kelly and I had only been together for a day and already we were finishing each other's sentences, saying and quoting things at the same time, getting the same songs stuck in our heads and absent mindedly doing things like playing with our hair or sipping soda in sync. Monday night was full of Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution…and I *owned*.
The next day was more work and then Volleyball at Joppa (a group for Christian young adults 19 and up). My friend Heather made the mistake of giving us candy corn which I proceeded to stick in my upper lip as if I had vampire fangs. Problem is, I kept laughing and couldn't keep them in place so I went through about 20 pieces of candy corn in the attempt.
Kelly and I had yet another odd HIVE moment as when Hannah took a picture of Kelly while I was off fetching the volleyball and then a picture of me, we both did the exact same pose without realizing it.
When we got home Hannah and Lauren were pretty bushed and crashed on the couch and floor in the living room while Kelly and I retreated to the den to RocK out to more RK together and to make the signs we were going to have with for the show.
Kelly also dyed the bottom part of my hair (the part that was pink when I went to Atlanta) a funky bluish green color. We only got one of our signs done, the one for Matt T. but it was *so* bomb. We finally crashed at about 4:30 AM…not so great since we had to be at work at 9 and we needed to be there even earlier to set up our tents. Somehow we made it through the day and that night, although we went to bed at around 10:30, we were up til about 1:30 talking. Of course, somewhere between 2:30 and 3:30 in the morning, we got a nasty wake up call in the form of a Security guy poking his head in our tent asking who we were and if we had any drugs or alcohol with us. Understandably out of sorts, Kelly said my name was Hannah and I said, "Hannah's not here. Hannah's tent is down there." This bleary eyed confusion apparently meant Kelly and I were clearly drunk as the Security douchebag announced our tent smelled like alcohol and started asking if we weren't drunk, why was Kelly calling me Hannah? Abbey responded with "You woke her up in the middle of the night, she doesn't know where she is!" After surrounding our campsite with security, searching all our tents and giving breathalyzers, we were left alone.
Thursday was the first day of Sonshine and I woke up to find out I was on the front page of the Willmar paper. There was a huge 4x6 of me helping tighten some nuts and bolts above a story about Willmar preparing for Sonshine. I don't really remember much else about the day other than we had a pretty fun time helping bands out and hanging out at the campsite. I impressed some security guys when a group of us stage crew girls were driving posts into the ground for fencing around main stage. While the girls were complaining about how hard it was and how heavy the fence post driver was, I just went to it and drove about a half dozen posts. It wasn't fun and I got some blisters on my hands that are still healing, but after that I got to eat lunch with my mom so it was all good. That night some of us played "The Sonshine Game" where you draw a card and answer the question on it or do the silly dare it gives you. We spent forever playing and had such a great time doing things like rocking power stances, air guitars and hair flips, racing to the nearest port-a-potty and back…in a skirt, singing and dancing to "It's Peanut Butter and Jelly Time" and the highlight of it all, Abbey crossing her eyes, sticking out her tongue and singing the "I'm a Little Tea-Pot" song with the actions. Wonder of wonders, security surrounded and raided our campsite again, this time because there'd been reports of a funny smoke smell coming from our camping area. They also hassled RJ and his girlfriend who had day passes, warning them that they needed to be out by 10 AM; to which I said, "or they'll come in your tent and drag you out by your hair." The man who thought he was in charge said, "well, if you're not gone by 10 you'll be charged with trespassing" and being the snippy thing I am, I said, "and then they'll come in your tent and drag you out by your hair. They're serious this year." Yet again, nothing contraband was found and as they left a security douche said, "we're not going to have any more trouble with this site are we?" I was getting a little frustrated and told him, "WE HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING!"
As I was preparing to pack it up and go to sleep (around 3 AM) this girl comes running up to our site asking if we know where to find an EMT because her friend had a hole in her foot, didn't know how it got there, and it was bleeding badly. I ran with her up to the first aid tent and they sent out an EMT golf cart for her friend. She'd stepped on a tent stake and drove it pretty deep but they bandaged her up and she was fine.
Friday was the awesome-ness of Thursday X 5. We worked Stage Two and got to see and help out some fun bands. Then Kelly and I stopped by Eleventyseven's merch table where we left with T-shirts, stickers, and Kelly pre-ordered the new CD coming out in September (it's gonna be awesome). We told Matt, the lead singer, we were so excited for their show to which he said, "prove it." Kelly and I looked at each other and burst into the "It's peanut butter and jelly time" song and dance, only getting the first line out before breaking down in laughter. Matt told us he would never ask again and he never wanted us to prove again how excited we were for their show. Kelly and I rocked our "I rocked out with eleventyseven" shirts during the show which was amazing.
Their next CD is called "The Galactic Conquest" and the guys took the stage in blue NASA style jumpers with the sleeves cut off, and Caleb the bassist donned a Spider-man mask. They also had a kid dress up as an astronaut and rock out with them on stage. Their energy was just amazing, they brought kids onstage to dance, they sang "I Want It That Way" like RK used to, and Matt gave a special scream at Kelly and I before kicking me in the face…well, he kicked really close to my face to scare me and it worked-I jumped back and flinched a little. They were so funny. Their onstage banter was just way entertaining, they had SO much energy, and they jumped around like I haven't seen since RK's old days. They really are just like Relient K back in the day (about 5 or 6 years ago) in their behavior and the guitar/bass/drums mix with vocals being a little higher pitched (more like Hawk Nelson, Something Corporate or The Rocket Summer) and they add their own unique twist of techno every so often. They're Christian pop punk at its finest and it is only a matter of time before they firmly secure the place Relient K left when they stopped being the class clowns of teen pop punk and started growing up. Chris doesn't agree with Kelly and I, but it's *so* going to happen. They played 3 songs which will be on the new CD and they were all better than what's on the first CD "And the Land of Fake Believe" (which I also <3).
So after their show, Kelly and I meandered over to their merch table after waiting for the fan rush to die down a bit, and we started talking to Matt (who was first to sign my guitar bag and Kelly's shoes). Matt was so great and kept asking us not to leave yet every time he hopped off the table to sign an autograph or take another picture.
We hung out with Matt for a while, got autographs and a picture with the whole band, and then we were going to head back to work when Matt asked us to stay again, so we chilled with him. We talked about eleventyseven, odd things he'd signed, fans, Harry Potter, RK and other stuff. We all spent a good 15-30 minutes singing RK songs with Matt-- including one particularly great moment where while singing "I So Hate Consequences" Matt said, "wouldn't it be great if, just once, when Thiessen took the stage, instead of singing it the way it's supposed to be he just belted out a note really off key on purpose? Like….HUUUNGH" and he made this incredible horse-like noise that had Kelly and I laughing so hard I was crying. (If you watch Eleventyseven's second "Galactic Conquest" podcast, he makes the noise a few times on there.) So then Matt demonstrates by singing into my ear very slowly and quite nicely "If my heart says I'm sorry can we leave it at that because I just want for all of this to end. And I so hate conseq-HUUUUNGH!" It entertained us…a lot.
So Kelly and I were getting hungry and had been sitting at eleventyseven's merch table for almost 2 hours so we said we were going to forage for some food. Matt said, "hang on, just give me a couple minutes and I'll eat with you guys." Unfortunately, Matt's bandmates had locked the van and left him so he couldn't get to his stuff or his food ticket which he needed to eat backstage. Matt was more than a little miffed about not being able to eat so he went back to the merch table and Kelly and I left to go find some food for ourselves. As we walked past Stage 2 we found Caleb and Jon, Matt's bandmates, who told me KJ-52 needed Jon's drums and they were waiting for his set to finish so they could pack them up and go eat too. They gave me the van keys which I ran back in to Matt, along with an explanation as to where his band had gone. Matt's expression was pretty priceless-those eyes of his just get *so* wide, he was so happy to be able to get his stuff and eat. About 10 minutes later, Kelly and I were eating at a table in the artists' tent behind Main Stage and Matt came up and told us to move our stuff over and sit with him, his band mates, and the band that had played just before them. I said it felt like we were being upgraded to the cool kids' table in the cafeteria or something.
They feed the artists better than the stage crew so while Kelly and I ate our Tacos in a Bag, the guys chowed down on steak, grilled chicken, and cheesy potatoes. But their utensils were plastic forks and knives so it was taking Matt a while to cut his steak and it was kind of funny to watch him sawing away at it. The table conversation focused on sound problems, Stage Crew, the "Man vs. Wild" TV show, and drooling…yes drooling. Jon from eleventyseven asked Kelly and I if we'd done any work that day and we just laughed. We had to go sell RK merch in the Civic Center so we took off, both pretty amped about the fact that we'd just spent 2-6 pm with eleventyseven, our new favorite band, second only to Relient K.
Selling merch for Relient K was pretty much a blast as we got to push their CD and talk about the band with this awesome kid we were working with. Besides the fun we had selling RK stuff, not too long after sitting at the table Matt from Eleventyseven came along and started talking with us again. There were some interesting moments too; this kid was trying to get me to give him one of my RK pics so he shoved a plastic fork all the way up his nose. Matt took pictures on his cell phone and sent them to his girlfriend.
Matt wandered back and forth between RK's merch table and eleventyseven's which Kelly and I got a kick out of. Before eleventyseven packed up their stuff and left, Matt stopped by for a final time to tell us to pinch Thiessen on the butt when we saw him and tell him we thought eleventyseven should tour with RK. We told him we were so glad to have met him and seen their show and he told us he was so glad to have us as friends. We slipped Matt a RK sticker and button pack for his girl (which earned us another wide eyed look of shock and awe from Matt) and he told us "my girlfriend's going to love you guys…I love you guys". He told us to e-mail him and tell him what we thought of the new songs (one of which is up on my profile page right now) and then left to drive to their next show.
That night it rained and Kelly and I made a trip to Wal-Mart for supplies so she could make her "Reliant Què" shirt and we found a small fire extinguisher which we just *had* to buy for RK.
At about 6:30 AM, hey, whaddya know, Security raided us again. I was upset. I said, "We don't have anything! Why won't you leave us alone! We didn't have anything the first 2 times you searched us either, what makes you think we'd have something now?" He let us go back to sleep.
Friday was the day of Relient K...and that blog isn't done yet. So will you stay tuned? ...and should I end this blog off with a question?
Last Sunday night I pulled into my parents' driveway, Relient K blasting, and started to unload all the carefully packed luggage I had with me for Sonshine. About 20 minutes later, Kelly from WI and Hannah and Lauren from IL pulled into my driveway (also blasting RK). It was a little surreal for all of us. Kelly and I had been Myspace friends because of RK since October of 05 and I knew Hannah from J-SNAG (Jon Schneck Needs A Group-you should join if you aren't in it already because one day we will have more members that Matthew Arnold Thiessen's group and then we will take over the world). Even though I'd known these girls and had talked to them on Myspace and AIM so many times, the face to face interaction was a little weird at first. I just couldn't believe they were really here; some friends I'd met thanks to Relient K and Myspace were actually at my parents' house about to spend the entire week with me. I just couldn't believe it. Well we spent the night having a RK Slumber party: eating pizza, listening to RK oldies and rarities like "Operation," "B-Rad," and "Vinyl Countdown" and we watched the RK DVD (I still hadn't seen it). *Random awesome moment* After a song or two I said, "Hey…Jon's wearing the Star Wars watch I gave him!" That just made my night. If you have the DVD, go watch it and keep and eye out for the watch on Jon's left hand…I totally gave him that.
So the next morning it was off to the Willmar Civic Center to begin set up for the weekend. We were all on the main stage crew and construction began on the stage roof. Hannah and Lauren were awesome. They were climbing up huge towers, hammering away at pins, getting dirty and working harder than most of the guys there. Our boss man for this project, Phil, was a beyond awesome guy from TN who kept calling Lauren his top girl. The whole week he kept us laughing with all his little sayings. "Cool, cool, cool." "Beautiful, beautiful." "Smooth as a mule's lips." And my personal favorite, "wiggle, wiggle, wiggle."
After spending the day working hard and getting burned, we took off to Green Lake in Spicer to cool down in the "swimmin' hole" as Phil's guy "Snake" called it. Then it was showers and aloe for the sunburns and off to eat at Grizzly's bar and grill where Kelly and I began to understand the full force of our HIVE moments. Kelly and I had only been together for a day and already we were finishing each other's sentences, saying and quoting things at the same time, getting the same songs stuck in our heads and absent mindedly doing things like playing with our hair or sipping soda in sync. Monday night was full of Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution…and I *owned*.
The next day was more work and then Volleyball at Joppa (a group for Christian young adults 19 and up). My friend Heather made the mistake of giving us candy corn which I proceeded to stick in my upper lip as if I had vampire fangs. Problem is, I kept laughing and couldn't keep them in place so I went through about 20 pieces of candy corn in the attempt.
Kelly and I had yet another odd HIVE moment as when Hannah took a picture of Kelly while I was off fetching the volleyball and then a picture of me, we both did the exact same pose without realizing it.
When we got home Hannah and Lauren were pretty bushed and crashed on the couch and floor in the living room while Kelly and I retreated to the den to RocK out to more RK together and to make the signs we were going to have with for the show.
Kelly also dyed the bottom part of my hair (the part that was pink when I went to Atlanta) a funky bluish green color. We only got one of our signs done, the one for Matt T. but it was *so* bomb. We finally crashed at about 4:30 AM…not so great since we had to be at work at 9 and we needed to be there even earlier to set up our tents. Somehow we made it through the day and that night, although we went to bed at around 10:30, we were up til about 1:30 talking. Of course, somewhere between 2:30 and 3:30 in the morning, we got a nasty wake up call in the form of a Security guy poking his head in our tent asking who we were and if we had any drugs or alcohol with us. Understandably out of sorts, Kelly said my name was Hannah and I said, "Hannah's not here. Hannah's tent is down there." This bleary eyed confusion apparently meant Kelly and I were clearly drunk as the Security douchebag announced our tent smelled like alcohol and started asking if we weren't drunk, why was Kelly calling me Hannah? Abbey responded with "You woke her up in the middle of the night, she doesn't know where she is!" After surrounding our campsite with security, searching all our tents and giving breathalyzers, we were left alone.
Thursday was the first day of Sonshine and I woke up to find out I was on the front page of the Willmar paper. There was a huge 4x6 of me helping tighten some nuts and bolts above a story about Willmar preparing for Sonshine. I don't really remember much else about the day other than we had a pretty fun time helping bands out and hanging out at the campsite. I impressed some security guys when a group of us stage crew girls were driving posts into the ground for fencing around main stage. While the girls were complaining about how hard it was and how heavy the fence post driver was, I just went to it and drove about a half dozen posts. It wasn't fun and I got some blisters on my hands that are still healing, but after that I got to eat lunch with my mom so it was all good. That night some of us played "The Sonshine Game" where you draw a card and answer the question on it or do the silly dare it gives you. We spent forever playing and had such a great time doing things like rocking power stances, air guitars and hair flips, racing to the nearest port-a-potty and back…in a skirt, singing and dancing to "It's Peanut Butter and Jelly Time" and the highlight of it all, Abbey crossing her eyes, sticking out her tongue and singing the "I'm a Little Tea-Pot" song with the actions. Wonder of wonders, security surrounded and raided our campsite again, this time because there'd been reports of a funny smoke smell coming from our camping area. They also hassled RJ and his girlfriend who had day passes, warning them that they needed to be out by 10 AM; to which I said, "or they'll come in your tent and drag you out by your hair." The man who thought he was in charge said, "well, if you're not gone by 10 you'll be charged with trespassing" and being the snippy thing I am, I said, "and then they'll come in your tent and drag you out by your hair. They're serious this year." Yet again, nothing contraband was found and as they left a security douche said, "we're not going to have any more trouble with this site are we?" I was getting a little frustrated and told him, "WE HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING!"
As I was preparing to pack it up and go to sleep (around 3 AM) this girl comes running up to our site asking if we know where to find an EMT because her friend had a hole in her foot, didn't know how it got there, and it was bleeding badly. I ran with her up to the first aid tent and they sent out an EMT golf cart for her friend. She'd stepped on a tent stake and drove it pretty deep but they bandaged her up and she was fine.
Friday was the awesome-ness of Thursday X 5. We worked Stage Two and got to see and help out some fun bands. Then Kelly and I stopped by Eleventyseven's merch table where we left with T-shirts, stickers, and Kelly pre-ordered the new CD coming out in September (it's gonna be awesome). We told Matt, the lead singer, we were so excited for their show to which he said, "prove it." Kelly and I looked at each other and burst into the "It's peanut butter and jelly time" song and dance, only getting the first line out before breaking down in laughter. Matt told us he would never ask again and he never wanted us to prove again how excited we were for their show. Kelly and I rocked our "I rocked out with eleventyseven" shirts during the show which was amazing.
Their next CD is called "The Galactic Conquest" and the guys took the stage in blue NASA style jumpers with the sleeves cut off, and Caleb the bassist donned a Spider-man mask. They also had a kid dress up as an astronaut and rock out with them on stage. Their energy was just amazing, they brought kids onstage to dance, they sang "I Want It That Way" like RK used to, and Matt gave a special scream at Kelly and I before kicking me in the face…well, he kicked really close to my face to scare me and it worked-I jumped back and flinched a little. They were so funny. Their onstage banter was just way entertaining, they had SO much energy, and they jumped around like I haven't seen since RK's old days. They really are just like Relient K back in the day (about 5 or 6 years ago) in their behavior and the guitar/bass/drums mix with vocals being a little higher pitched (more like Hawk Nelson, Something Corporate or The Rocket Summer) and they add their own unique twist of techno every so often. They're Christian pop punk at its finest and it is only a matter of time before they firmly secure the place Relient K left when they stopped being the class clowns of teen pop punk and started growing up. Chris doesn't agree with Kelly and I, but it's *so* going to happen. They played 3 songs which will be on the new CD and they were all better than what's on the first CD "And the Land of Fake Believe" (which I also <3).
So after their show, Kelly and I meandered over to their merch table after waiting for the fan rush to die down a bit, and we started talking to Matt (who was first to sign my guitar bag and Kelly's shoes). Matt was so great and kept asking us not to leave yet every time he hopped off the table to sign an autograph or take another picture.
We hung out with Matt for a while, got autographs and a picture with the whole band, and then we were going to head back to work when Matt asked us to stay again, so we chilled with him. We talked about eleventyseven, odd things he'd signed, fans, Harry Potter, RK and other stuff. We all spent a good 15-30 minutes singing RK songs with Matt-- including one particularly great moment where while singing "I So Hate Consequences" Matt said, "wouldn't it be great if, just once, when Thiessen took the stage, instead of singing it the way it's supposed to be he just belted out a note really off key on purpose? Like….HUUUNGH" and he made this incredible horse-like noise that had Kelly and I laughing so hard I was crying. (If you watch Eleventyseven's second "Galactic Conquest" podcast, he makes the noise a few times on there.) So then Matt demonstrates by singing into my ear very slowly and quite nicely "If my heart says I'm sorry can we leave it at that because I just want for all of this to end. And I so hate conseq-HUUUUNGH!" It entertained us…a lot.
So Kelly and I were getting hungry and had been sitting at eleventyseven's merch table for almost 2 hours so we said we were going to forage for some food. Matt said, "hang on, just give me a couple minutes and I'll eat with you guys." Unfortunately, Matt's bandmates had locked the van and left him so he couldn't get to his stuff or his food ticket which he needed to eat backstage. Matt was more than a little miffed about not being able to eat so he went back to the merch table and Kelly and I left to go find some food for ourselves. As we walked past Stage 2 we found Caleb and Jon, Matt's bandmates, who told me KJ-52 needed Jon's drums and they were waiting for his set to finish so they could pack them up and go eat too. They gave me the van keys which I ran back in to Matt, along with an explanation as to where his band had gone. Matt's expression was pretty priceless-those eyes of his just get *so* wide, he was so happy to be able to get his stuff and eat. About 10 minutes later, Kelly and I were eating at a table in the artists' tent behind Main Stage and Matt came up and told us to move our stuff over and sit with him, his band mates, and the band that had played just before them. I said it felt like we were being upgraded to the cool kids' table in the cafeteria or something.
They feed the artists better than the stage crew so while Kelly and I ate our Tacos in a Bag, the guys chowed down on steak, grilled chicken, and cheesy potatoes. But their utensils were plastic forks and knives so it was taking Matt a while to cut his steak and it was kind of funny to watch him sawing away at it. The table conversation focused on sound problems, Stage Crew, the "Man vs. Wild" TV show, and drooling…yes drooling. Jon from eleventyseven asked Kelly and I if we'd done any work that day and we just laughed. We had to go sell RK merch in the Civic Center so we took off, both pretty amped about the fact that we'd just spent 2-6 pm with eleventyseven, our new favorite band, second only to Relient K.
Selling merch for Relient K was pretty much a blast as we got to push their CD and talk about the band with this awesome kid we were working with. Besides the fun we had selling RK stuff, not too long after sitting at the table Matt from Eleventyseven came along and started talking with us again. There were some interesting moments too; this kid was trying to get me to give him one of my RK pics so he shoved a plastic fork all the way up his nose. Matt took pictures on his cell phone and sent them to his girlfriend.
Matt wandered back and forth between RK's merch table and eleventyseven's which Kelly and I got a kick out of. Before eleventyseven packed up their stuff and left, Matt stopped by for a final time to tell us to pinch Thiessen on the butt when we saw him and tell him we thought eleventyseven should tour with RK. We told him we were so glad to have met him and seen their show and he told us he was so glad to have us as friends. We slipped Matt a RK sticker and button pack for his girl (which earned us another wide eyed look of shock and awe from Matt) and he told us "my girlfriend's going to love you guys…I love you guys". He told us to e-mail him and tell him what we thought of the new songs (one of which is up on my profile page right now) and then left to drive to their next show.
That night it rained and Kelly and I made a trip to Wal-Mart for supplies so she could make her "Reliant Què" shirt and we found a small fire extinguisher which we just *had* to buy for RK.
At about 6:30 AM, hey, whaddya know, Security raided us again. I was upset. I said, "We don't have anything! Why won't you leave us alone! We didn't have anything the first 2 times you searched us either, what makes you think we'd have something now?" He let us go back to sleep.
Friday was the day of Relient K...and that blog isn't done yet. So will you stay tuned? ...and should I end this blog off with a question?