Big, Massive, Sonshine Blog
Again, I blog pretty regularly on Myspace so here's my two Sonshine blogs from there smashed into one uber-mc-blog.
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 two weeks ago? Would you think I'm exaggerating? Do you have any idea how awesome I really am?
PRE-SONSHINE
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.
FIRST DAY OF SONSHINE
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.
Eleventyseven....Woot
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 love with every bit of what's left of my high school pop punk heart).
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.
Saturday was the day of Relient K.
Saturday morning Kelly and I had another shift of selling RK merch and their table was insanely busy. I can't even begin to wonder how much we sold that morning-we were just constantly busy. After that we went backstage to await RK.
At about 5:30 a van pulls in back stage and Kelly and I both turn to each other with the same thought in mind, "that looks like Hoopes and Thiessen." And it was. Hoopes was driving the van with Thiessen next to him and the other guys were in the back. The guys hopped out and went to work right away, getting their stuff on stage, tuning and plugging it all in. Like the dorks we are, Kelly and I watched from the driver's food tent and made fun of the tight girl pants Schneck, Dave, and Hoopes were wearing. …yes, Hoopes was wearing girl pants too. When we talked to them later we saw their pants weren't as tight as they seemed, Jon and Dave are just really really skinny.
On my way back to the tent from getting water, Schneck stopped me and we started talking as Kelly, Hannah and Lauren came over. After talking for a bit we went back to the driver's tent where I got M@'s attention by saying, "Matthew Arnold Thiessen." We talked with Matt for a bit as well-he told us RK and Switchfoot would be touring with a band called "Ruth" and the line up is going to be Ruth, RK, and SF each night. We asked if Sloop John B was on the set list for the night because Kelly and I are pretty much in love with that song and Matt told us he'd just cut it because they needed to cut 15 minutes from their set, but he was debating putting it back in. I said how much I loved the song and that I was disappointed about not hearing it in Atlanta. Matt said, "well maybe I'll put it back in then." I told him "Oh you don't have to do that, I mean, it's your band." But Matt insisted, saying, "No, you've made my decision a lot easier."
I gave Matt the Harold and Maude poster I'd gotten for him which I think he liked. He asked where I found it, that he hoped I hadn't spent a lot on it and said, "this is so going up on the wall when I get home." Matt told us he was, "going to find a patch of dirt to dig a hole and curl up and nap in" and asked us what time they were scheduled to play. When we told him that would be in about an hour he sighed and said he guessed he'd just drink a red bull and try to wake up. Before leaving, we told Matt we wanted to get a picture with him, but not just any picture, we wanted it to be the best picture he'd ever taken. We then explained we wanted to rock power stances, air guitars and do a hair flip with him to which he said, "hair flip? How do you do that?" We demonstrated and Matt says, "oh, like this?" and executes a perfect hair flip. It was a 10 out of 10 on the hair flip score card. Then Matt just smirks and says, "I do that?" We laughed and told him that yes, he does…and quite often too.
So we didn't so much pose as we just rocked out our air guitars and Hannah snapped a couple shots of it, but Thiessen looks the best out of the three of us. So after that, Matt agreed it was the best picture he'd ever taken and he gathered up his things to put them in the van. He noticed I'd written a little something on the back of the poster frame (you can see the poster sitting on the table next to Kelly) and he read it, and I couldn't look at him because I was nervous that he'd think it was silly. I wrote " 'I throw up my hands, oh the impossibilities, frustrated and tired where do I go from here?' Matt, I know you lost more than just stuff in the fire. Whatever inspires you, I hope you find it again and that what you create surpasses what was lost." I think he "aww"ed at that but I still felt like a dork.
After this we ran into Schneck again, talked to him, I gave him the J-SNAG bumper sticker and Kelly and I gave him the fire extinguisher-on which we had written "Heard your K-Car had a Breakdown. That must have been a nasty Wake Up Call. But keep Pressing On and Everything Will Be Forward Motion cause we know you're on the Up and Up. We know Christians are all afraid of fire, so keep this close cause we'd hate to see you go Down in Flames." Jon enjoyed that and said M@ would like it. We talked with Jon for a bit longer and then Kelly and I got a picture with him doing his patented peace sign.
After talking to Jon we went and talked to Dave who was finishing programming the click for the show. He demonstrated it for us and told us his other one had been lost in the fire. He had the set list out and asked us, "are you looking at the set list?" Why deny it so Kelly and I both said, "…yes."
"Well, you'll know when it's over then," Dave replied. We talked with Dave for quite a while and got to see the tattoo on his left arm. Dave was just awesome all around. He joked that Lauren (who got to run the spotlight for RK and SF) should just put the spot on him and walk away. He said he tries to get the guys to move but they don't, "they're boring." We talked about why Matt doesn't play longer sets and older songs and I said it was because Matt's afraid people won't know the words and Dave told us "Matt's afraid of everything."
Kelly and I wanted to get a picture with Dave doing the "tongue stuck out and crazy eyes" face Dave gets when he's drumming, but Dave said he didn't know what we were talking about, he didn't do that. We demonstrated again, and Dave (like Matt) executed it perfectly and said, "well we can't do that, it has to come naturally."
So we just took a nice photo with Dave and then finally left him alone to go on our merry way. …right over to talk to Warne.
Warne (being from Minnesota) was chilling with his family and we were not about to interrupt that so we waited until he left them to get ready for the show, stopped him and said, "John, we know you don't have a lot of time before the show but we were wondering if we could get a picture with you." John, being awesome, said of course we could and we told him, "but we don't want just any picture, we want the 'I'm John Warne and I'm awesome' pose." Yet again, John had no idea what we were talking about, said he didn't have such a pose and then executed it perfectly.
As Kelly says, John's hardcore and we just look like posers standing next to him. After John we just had Hoopes to catch before they took the stage and we got one of my favorite pictures ever "shooting Hoopes" with Hoopes being the basketball hoop in the middle. It was awesome. (You can kind of see John and Dave behind Kelly, warming up for the show.)
After all this it was showtime.
Kelly and I felt so bad for the kids pressed up against the barriers. It looked hot and uncomfortable, they were tired, and some of the kids up front had been standing there since that morning just to be front and center for RK. Kelly and I applauded their dedication and gave them high fives and water. (we know what it's like in their shoes)
When RK took the stage, Kelly brandished the "It's Hair Flippin' Time" poster which Thiessen seemed to enjoy-he did a slow, exaggerated hair flip just for us. One of the first things Dave did was rock the tongue out and crazy eyes too. The show was sweet pretty much right away, and we got some fantastic pictures. Jon liked our "RocK those Bells" sign and after waving it and "It's Hair Flippin' Time" around a couple times we stacked them next to the stage and continued to RocK out.
It was truly unbelievable. There's always some banter-that's inevitable, and truly enjoyable for me, but this show was great. Hoopes spoke in sentences longer than one word! He was downright chatty with Thiessen onstage. During one of their first few songs, there was someone parasailing over the festival and Matt called out, "Hey up there Mr. Parachute man…up there parachuting…this goes out to you" or something along those lines.
Warne gave us a demonstration of his Minnesotan accent (which I can never get over, it's just so hilarious) and he and Thiessen talked about Minnesota cuisine- "bars" and "hotdish". (For those of you not from Minnesota, you probably call bars cookies or something-but here, cookies are round, bars are rectangular. And you may call hotdish "casserole"-but here, if it's in a pan you bake in the oven, contains some form of meat, vegetable, and complex carbohydrate like tator tots- it's a dish, and it's hot…hotdish.)
After the accent demonstration, Matt told John he was his favorite person on the planet, "and you're also my favorite person on the planet the transformers come from whose name I can't remember right now."
"Did you like the movie Matt?"
"It was alright."
Anyway, Jon kept looking at me and shrugging. I thought something was wrong with the sound or his guitar but found out later he was just forgetting what chords he was supposed to play. I told him, "see, don't tour for two weeks and you start forgetting your own songs!" and he said that really was true.
I couldn't get over how great the view was. We stood directly in front of Hoopes but had an excellent view of Jon, Dave, and both Matt's. We could see Warne, but he was a little too far over and a bit out of our field of view. Still, I just kept standing back and sweeping my gaze from one end of the stage to another, watching all the guys doing what they do best.
Besides what was going on onstage, there was some great interaction going on between us and the stage as well. Let me pause to clarify something-if, for some crazy reason, you don't know how much I like Relient K's music…let me just say, I like it a lot. I like it so much that when I listen to it, I RocK out. I dance, I shake my hair out, I do hair flips, I bounce my head around so much my glasses usually come off, I throw up a rock fist, and I do little hand motions to some songs. I have fun and don't care how silly I may look. Kelly is the same way. The two of us together was just crazyness asking to happen. As Kelly and I were rocking out in our own unique way, we were a little unaware that Jon, Dave, Matt and Matt were watching us. Oh, we noticed a few times that we'd be going nuts, look up and Thiessen was laughing at us but we were told later by Lauren (who was up in the spotlight booth and had a fantastic view of the whole stage) and by Hannah who watched the guys more closely than we did, that for most of the show, 4 out of the 5 had their attention focused just off stage at a particular part of the front and center at some crazy girls in front of Matt Hoopes' feet.
*Random Awesome Moment* During "Chap Stick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry" there's the line "and I don't need to ask my friends."Schneck came over, sang that out and pointed at me so I just smiled, pointed back and we nodded.
During "Sadie Hawkins Dance" Kelly and I had air guitars a' rockin' and Matt was just laughing at us some more. (Sadie Hawkins Dance was also pretty sweet in that Matt picked a kid out of the crowd and had him brought onstage.
This lucky kid named Max got to play Thiessen's guitar and sing the last chorus of Sadie Hawkins Dance. He was great and it was fantastically fun.) The best though was probably during "In Love With the 80's" where Kelly and I were doing our hand motions for the chorus and Matt was watching us with this odd expression of "oh wow you guys are goofy" and then more smiles and laughter from him.
During "Which to Bury," Matt got even more awesome (if that's possible). I love this song-I love how intense Matt gets when he sings it. After the second chorus, before singing the bridge, "and wisdom always chooses" Matt grabbed his mike stand and just threw it across the stage, walked out onto a little platform that extended from the stage and screamed out the bridge.
Then for the "No I don't hate you" part, he rocked a power stance in our direction and screamed for us. It was great. I mirrored his power stance and screamed back.
Then there was "Let It All Out." Matt talked about the end of the song (the last minute and 20 seconds), how he didn't write anything for it, he just went into the studio and sang what was on his heart. He sang for us what he'd originally recorded-it was longer and it was so intense. If Matt's ever been in the zone, or in his own world, this was it. He was so intent on what he was doing. He stood back and leaned into his piano and rocked his body as he sang. He wasn't really singing into the mike beyond the minute and 20 seconds that everyone knows from the song on the record, but we were so close we could hear him anyway and it was amazing. It was Matt singing like I'd never heard him sing before…and I've been to over a dozen shows. He didn't look at the crowd and I don't even think he had his eyes open. He was just one hundred percent in the moment. I was so wrapped up in it I couldn't see or hear anything else. I guess there were people cheering and screaming out "I love you Matt" and things like that but I honestly heard absolutely nothing but Matt Thiessen and his piano. When the song was over, Kelly and I turned to each other and all we could say was "oh my God"-which is pretty fitting I guess, given what the song's about.
But the top highlight of the show, my favorite moment in that entire hour I haven't even told you yet.
About the middle of the set, Matt says, "So, we weren't going to play this next song. I cut it from the set list but I changed my mind and decided to put it back on just for my two ladyfriends right over there" and Matt points to us and smiles, Kelly and I both "awwww" and I placed a hand over my heart, smiled and pointed back. I didn't see it, but according to Hannah, the three of us were on the jumbo-tron at Sonshine when Matt dedicated the song to us. "This song's called 'Sloop John B,' sing it if you know it." Kelly and I, both understandably in high spirits, sang along with all our hearts.
When the last notes of "I So Hate Consequences" faded into the crowd's cheers and the show was over, Kelly and I slipped under the stage and went off to say hey to the guys one last time before they left (they had to leave about 15 minutes after they finished to get to their hotel for a few hours of sleep before their early flight). We found Jon who told us how much he liked the "RocK those Bells" sign and searched his pockets for a pick for me but alas, had none. "Aww, it's kind of a tradition for us. Oh well, I guess I'll get ya next time," he said. He'd remembered to toss me one just as the show ended but Hannah nabbed it before I could get to it. Jon told me that his odd faces and shrugs were because he'd been screwing up, "I don't think I played a single chord right for all of Devastation and Reform." Then Dave came up and told us that his click was a little too fast on a few songs and he'd had to just shut it off a couple times. Dave told us he'd spotted our Reliant Que shirts.
Then Hoopes came up and when Kelly and I told him he was awesome he responded with, "you're awesome!" Being the incredibly humble people we are, Kelly and I said, "we know." Hoopes also commented on our Reliant Que shirts and said "that's what we were originally going to call the band." Kelly and I just nodded and said again, "we know."
Last but certainly not least, we had one last chat with Matt who also commented on our shirts saying, "that's what the band name was going to be." I told Matt I'd remembered him telling me that the first time I met him and that's what actually inspired the shirts in the first place. Matt told us he enjoyed the sign and that he really hadn't realized how often he did those hair flips. Before I could stop myself, I found myself telling Matt he did them quite often…in every song actually, and that he had 3 distinct hair flips, which Kelly and I demonstrated for him. Silly as it was, I think Matt found it to be funny, so if he was getting a kick out of it I don't mind looking silly. (Besides, he'd already been laughing at me from the stage and we'd rocked air guitars together-I left any chance of not looking like a goofball somewhere way back there.)
Matt was having some difficulty trying to zip his overstuffed bag so I asked him if he needed any help. He said he didn't, but after watching him struggle with it for another minute or so I reached out and held the seam of his bag and whaddya know, it zipped up easy as pie…if pie had a zipper that is. …actually, even if pie had a zipper I don't think it would be an easy thing to zip. So I guess it zipped up as easy as luggage that wasn't overstuffed.
Anyway, I'll leave my zipper fastenings on pastry musings to tell you that we expressed our love of "Let It All Out" and our appreciation for "Sloop John B" one more time before the guys had to go.
Kelly and I went back to the artists' tent which was nearly empty except for the trays of leftover food the caterers were hoping the crew would finish up. Kelly and I recapped the show and our awe at how amazing it had all been. Then we went through Kelly's pictures and found this one.
It took us a moment to see but after we zoomed in about 4 or 5 times and saw Matt really was looking directly at the camera, our night was complete.
The next day Kelly, Hannah and Lauren came to church with me, we ate at Subway, and then packed up our things from Sonshine and made one last stop to see if there was anything they'd missed or forgotten at my parents' house. Hannah went off to check her myspace and begin work on her blog, Lauren bounced off to make more bracelets out of the scraps from pants she'd converted to shorts earlier that week, and Kelly and I curled up on the couch with my computer to listen to Relient K one last time together. I don't know just how long we sat there but eventually we knew we couldn't stall any longer, we all needed to get back on the road and back home because our week really was over. Standing outside was one big estrogen fest because as soon as one of us would stop crying, another would start, we'd hug, and we'd all end up in tears again.
The hardest was saying goodbye to Kelly-she'd been my right hand man the whole week and we'd found something we shared in each other that we hadn't with anyone else. How could we go back to Myspace and AIM after having the best week of our lives?
We got in our cars, and as Hannah backed the van out the driveway I leaned out my window and screamed the special goodbye Kelly and I say every time we sign off on AIM. I listened to "Must Have Done Something Right," "Devastation and Reform" and "I Need You" with tears streaming down my face before deciding I couldn't listen to any Relient K just then. So I popped in Eleventyseven instead and drove home.
It was the best week of my life. The signs have survived and Kelly and I have devious plans of laminating them and taking them to anther show(s)-mostly to see Matt's expression at their recurrence, and the new tour dates have already got me figuring how much money I need to save for gas, food, and concert tickets this October and November.
Moral of the story? It's funny how you find you enjoy your life when you're happy to be alive.
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 two weeks ago? Would you think I'm exaggerating? Do you have any idea how awesome I really am?
PRE-SONSHINE
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.
FIRST DAY OF SONSHINE
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.
Eleventyseven....Woot
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 love with every bit of what's left of my high school pop punk heart).
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.
Saturday was the day of Relient K.
Saturday morning Kelly and I had another shift of selling RK merch and their table was insanely busy. I can't even begin to wonder how much we sold that morning-we were just constantly busy. After that we went backstage to await RK.
At about 5:30 a van pulls in back stage and Kelly and I both turn to each other with the same thought in mind, "that looks like Hoopes and Thiessen." And it was. Hoopes was driving the van with Thiessen next to him and the other guys were in the back. The guys hopped out and went to work right away, getting their stuff on stage, tuning and plugging it all in. Like the dorks we are, Kelly and I watched from the driver's food tent and made fun of the tight girl pants Schneck, Dave, and Hoopes were wearing. …yes, Hoopes was wearing girl pants too. When we talked to them later we saw their pants weren't as tight as they seemed, Jon and Dave are just really really skinny.
On my way back to the tent from getting water, Schneck stopped me and we started talking as Kelly, Hannah and Lauren came over. After talking for a bit we went back to the driver's tent where I got M@'s attention by saying, "Matthew Arnold Thiessen." We talked with Matt for a bit as well-he told us RK and Switchfoot would be touring with a band called "Ruth" and the line up is going to be Ruth, RK, and SF each night. We asked if Sloop John B was on the set list for the night because Kelly and I are pretty much in love with that song and Matt told us he'd just cut it because they needed to cut 15 minutes from their set, but he was debating putting it back in. I said how much I loved the song and that I was disappointed about not hearing it in Atlanta. Matt said, "well maybe I'll put it back in then." I told him "Oh you don't have to do that, I mean, it's your band." But Matt insisted, saying, "No, you've made my decision a lot easier."
I gave Matt the Harold and Maude poster I'd gotten for him which I think he liked. He asked where I found it, that he hoped I hadn't spent a lot on it and said, "this is so going up on the wall when I get home." Matt told us he was, "going to find a patch of dirt to dig a hole and curl up and nap in" and asked us what time they were scheduled to play. When we told him that would be in about an hour he sighed and said he guessed he'd just drink a red bull and try to wake up. Before leaving, we told Matt we wanted to get a picture with him, but not just any picture, we wanted it to be the best picture he'd ever taken. We then explained we wanted to rock power stances, air guitars and do a hair flip with him to which he said, "hair flip? How do you do that?" We demonstrated and Matt says, "oh, like this?" and executes a perfect hair flip. It was a 10 out of 10 on the hair flip score card. Then Matt just smirks and says, "I do that?" We laughed and told him that yes, he does…and quite often too.
So we didn't so much pose as we just rocked out our air guitars and Hannah snapped a couple shots of it, but Thiessen looks the best out of the three of us. So after that, Matt agreed it was the best picture he'd ever taken and he gathered up his things to put them in the van. He noticed I'd written a little something on the back of the poster frame (you can see the poster sitting on the table next to Kelly) and he read it, and I couldn't look at him because I was nervous that he'd think it was silly. I wrote " 'I throw up my hands, oh the impossibilities, frustrated and tired where do I go from here?' Matt, I know you lost more than just stuff in the fire. Whatever inspires you, I hope you find it again and that what you create surpasses what was lost." I think he "aww"ed at that but I still felt like a dork.
After this we ran into Schneck again, talked to him, I gave him the J-SNAG bumper sticker and Kelly and I gave him the fire extinguisher-on which we had written "Heard your K-Car had a Breakdown. That must have been a nasty Wake Up Call. But keep Pressing On and Everything Will Be Forward Motion cause we know you're on the Up and Up. We know Christians are all afraid of fire, so keep this close cause we'd hate to see you go Down in Flames." Jon enjoyed that and said M@ would like it. We talked with Jon for a bit longer and then Kelly and I got a picture with him doing his patented peace sign.
After talking to Jon we went and talked to Dave who was finishing programming the click for the show. He demonstrated it for us and told us his other one had been lost in the fire. He had the set list out and asked us, "are you looking at the set list?" Why deny it so Kelly and I both said, "…yes."
"Well, you'll know when it's over then," Dave replied. We talked with Dave for quite a while and got to see the tattoo on his left arm. Dave was just awesome all around. He joked that Lauren (who got to run the spotlight for RK and SF) should just put the spot on him and walk away. He said he tries to get the guys to move but they don't, "they're boring." We talked about why Matt doesn't play longer sets and older songs and I said it was because Matt's afraid people won't know the words and Dave told us "Matt's afraid of everything."
Kelly and I wanted to get a picture with Dave doing the "tongue stuck out and crazy eyes" face Dave gets when he's drumming, but Dave said he didn't know what we were talking about, he didn't do that. We demonstrated again, and Dave (like Matt) executed it perfectly and said, "well we can't do that, it has to come naturally."
So we just took a nice photo with Dave and then finally left him alone to go on our merry way. …right over to talk to Warne.
Warne (being from Minnesota) was chilling with his family and we were not about to interrupt that so we waited until he left them to get ready for the show, stopped him and said, "John, we know you don't have a lot of time before the show but we were wondering if we could get a picture with you." John, being awesome, said of course we could and we told him, "but we don't want just any picture, we want the 'I'm John Warne and I'm awesome' pose." Yet again, John had no idea what we were talking about, said he didn't have such a pose and then executed it perfectly.
As Kelly says, John's hardcore and we just look like posers standing next to him. After John we just had Hoopes to catch before they took the stage and we got one of my favorite pictures ever "shooting Hoopes" with Hoopes being the basketball hoop in the middle. It was awesome. (You can kind of see John and Dave behind Kelly, warming up for the show.)
After all this it was showtime.
Kelly and I felt so bad for the kids pressed up against the barriers. It looked hot and uncomfortable, they were tired, and some of the kids up front had been standing there since that morning just to be front and center for RK. Kelly and I applauded their dedication and gave them high fives and water. (we know what it's like in their shoes)
When RK took the stage, Kelly brandished the "It's Hair Flippin' Time" poster which Thiessen seemed to enjoy-he did a slow, exaggerated hair flip just for us. One of the first things Dave did was rock the tongue out and crazy eyes too. The show was sweet pretty much right away, and we got some fantastic pictures. Jon liked our "RocK those Bells" sign and after waving it and "It's Hair Flippin' Time" around a couple times we stacked them next to the stage and continued to RocK out.
It was truly unbelievable. There's always some banter-that's inevitable, and truly enjoyable for me, but this show was great. Hoopes spoke in sentences longer than one word! He was downright chatty with Thiessen onstage. During one of their first few songs, there was someone parasailing over the festival and Matt called out, "Hey up there Mr. Parachute man…up there parachuting…this goes out to you" or something along those lines.
Warne gave us a demonstration of his Minnesotan accent (which I can never get over, it's just so hilarious) and he and Thiessen talked about Minnesota cuisine- "bars" and "hotdish". (For those of you not from Minnesota, you probably call bars cookies or something-but here, cookies are round, bars are rectangular. And you may call hotdish "casserole"-but here, if it's in a pan you bake in the oven, contains some form of meat, vegetable, and complex carbohydrate like tator tots- it's a dish, and it's hot…hotdish.)
After the accent demonstration, Matt told John he was his favorite person on the planet, "and you're also my favorite person on the planet the transformers come from whose name I can't remember right now."
"Did you like the movie Matt?"
"It was alright."
Anyway, Jon kept looking at me and shrugging. I thought something was wrong with the sound or his guitar but found out later he was just forgetting what chords he was supposed to play. I told him, "see, don't tour for two weeks and you start forgetting your own songs!" and he said that really was true.
I couldn't get over how great the view was. We stood directly in front of Hoopes but had an excellent view of Jon, Dave, and both Matt's. We could see Warne, but he was a little too far over and a bit out of our field of view. Still, I just kept standing back and sweeping my gaze from one end of the stage to another, watching all the guys doing what they do best.
Besides what was going on onstage, there was some great interaction going on between us and the stage as well. Let me pause to clarify something-if, for some crazy reason, you don't know how much I like Relient K's music…let me just say, I like it a lot. I like it so much that when I listen to it, I RocK out. I dance, I shake my hair out, I do hair flips, I bounce my head around so much my glasses usually come off, I throw up a rock fist, and I do little hand motions to some songs. I have fun and don't care how silly I may look. Kelly is the same way. The two of us together was just crazyness asking to happen. As Kelly and I were rocking out in our own unique way, we were a little unaware that Jon, Dave, Matt and Matt were watching us. Oh, we noticed a few times that we'd be going nuts, look up and Thiessen was laughing at us but we were told later by Lauren (who was up in the spotlight booth and had a fantastic view of the whole stage) and by Hannah who watched the guys more closely than we did, that for most of the show, 4 out of the 5 had their attention focused just off stage at a particular part of the front and center at some crazy girls in front of Matt Hoopes' feet.
*Random Awesome Moment* During "Chap Stick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry" there's the line "and I don't need to ask my friends."Schneck came over, sang that out and pointed at me so I just smiled, pointed back and we nodded.
During "Sadie Hawkins Dance" Kelly and I had air guitars a' rockin' and Matt was just laughing at us some more. (Sadie Hawkins Dance was also pretty sweet in that Matt picked a kid out of the crowd and had him brought onstage.
This lucky kid named Max got to play Thiessen's guitar and sing the last chorus of Sadie Hawkins Dance. He was great and it was fantastically fun.) The best though was probably during "In Love With the 80's" where Kelly and I were doing our hand motions for the chorus and Matt was watching us with this odd expression of "oh wow you guys are goofy" and then more smiles and laughter from him.
During "Which to Bury," Matt got even more awesome (if that's possible). I love this song-I love how intense Matt gets when he sings it. After the second chorus, before singing the bridge, "and wisdom always chooses" Matt grabbed his mike stand and just threw it across the stage, walked out onto a little platform that extended from the stage and screamed out the bridge.
Then for the "No I don't hate you" part, he rocked a power stance in our direction and screamed for us. It was great. I mirrored his power stance and screamed back.
Then there was "Let It All Out." Matt talked about the end of the song (the last minute and 20 seconds), how he didn't write anything for it, he just went into the studio and sang what was on his heart. He sang for us what he'd originally recorded-it was longer and it was so intense. If Matt's ever been in the zone, or in his own world, this was it. He was so intent on what he was doing. He stood back and leaned into his piano and rocked his body as he sang. He wasn't really singing into the mike beyond the minute and 20 seconds that everyone knows from the song on the record, but we were so close we could hear him anyway and it was amazing. It was Matt singing like I'd never heard him sing before…and I've been to over a dozen shows. He didn't look at the crowd and I don't even think he had his eyes open. He was just one hundred percent in the moment. I was so wrapped up in it I couldn't see or hear anything else. I guess there were people cheering and screaming out "I love you Matt" and things like that but I honestly heard absolutely nothing but Matt Thiessen and his piano. When the song was over, Kelly and I turned to each other and all we could say was "oh my God"-which is pretty fitting I guess, given what the song's about.
But the top highlight of the show, my favorite moment in that entire hour I haven't even told you yet.
About the middle of the set, Matt says, "So, we weren't going to play this next song. I cut it from the set list but I changed my mind and decided to put it back on just for my two ladyfriends right over there" and Matt points to us and smiles, Kelly and I both "awwww" and I placed a hand over my heart, smiled and pointed back. I didn't see it, but according to Hannah, the three of us were on the jumbo-tron at Sonshine when Matt dedicated the song to us. "This song's called 'Sloop John B,' sing it if you know it." Kelly and I, both understandably in high spirits, sang along with all our hearts.
When the last notes of "I So Hate Consequences" faded into the crowd's cheers and the show was over, Kelly and I slipped under the stage and went off to say hey to the guys one last time before they left (they had to leave about 15 minutes after they finished to get to their hotel for a few hours of sleep before their early flight). We found Jon who told us how much he liked the "RocK those Bells" sign and searched his pockets for a pick for me but alas, had none. "Aww, it's kind of a tradition for us. Oh well, I guess I'll get ya next time," he said. He'd remembered to toss me one just as the show ended but Hannah nabbed it before I could get to it. Jon told me that his odd faces and shrugs were because he'd been screwing up, "I don't think I played a single chord right for all of Devastation and Reform." Then Dave came up and told us that his click was a little too fast on a few songs and he'd had to just shut it off a couple times. Dave told us he'd spotted our Reliant Que shirts.
Then Hoopes came up and when Kelly and I told him he was awesome he responded with, "you're awesome!" Being the incredibly humble people we are, Kelly and I said, "we know." Hoopes also commented on our Reliant Que shirts and said "that's what we were originally going to call the band." Kelly and I just nodded and said again, "we know."
Last but certainly not least, we had one last chat with Matt who also commented on our shirts saying, "that's what the band name was going to be." I told Matt I'd remembered him telling me that the first time I met him and that's what actually inspired the shirts in the first place. Matt told us he enjoyed the sign and that he really hadn't realized how often he did those hair flips. Before I could stop myself, I found myself telling Matt he did them quite often…in every song actually, and that he had 3 distinct hair flips, which Kelly and I demonstrated for him. Silly as it was, I think Matt found it to be funny, so if he was getting a kick out of it I don't mind looking silly. (Besides, he'd already been laughing at me from the stage and we'd rocked air guitars together-I left any chance of not looking like a goofball somewhere way back there.)
Matt was having some difficulty trying to zip his overstuffed bag so I asked him if he needed any help. He said he didn't, but after watching him struggle with it for another minute or so I reached out and held the seam of his bag and whaddya know, it zipped up easy as pie…if pie had a zipper that is. …actually, even if pie had a zipper I don't think it would be an easy thing to zip. So I guess it zipped up as easy as luggage that wasn't overstuffed.
Anyway, I'll leave my zipper fastenings on pastry musings to tell you that we expressed our love of "Let It All Out" and our appreciation for "Sloop John B" one more time before the guys had to go.
Kelly and I went back to the artists' tent which was nearly empty except for the trays of leftover food the caterers were hoping the crew would finish up. Kelly and I recapped the show and our awe at how amazing it had all been. Then we went through Kelly's pictures and found this one.
It took us a moment to see but after we zoomed in about 4 or 5 times and saw Matt really was looking directly at the camera, our night was complete.
The next day Kelly, Hannah and Lauren came to church with me, we ate at Subway, and then packed up our things from Sonshine and made one last stop to see if there was anything they'd missed or forgotten at my parents' house. Hannah went off to check her myspace and begin work on her blog, Lauren bounced off to make more bracelets out of the scraps from pants she'd converted to shorts earlier that week, and Kelly and I curled up on the couch with my computer to listen to Relient K one last time together. I don't know just how long we sat there but eventually we knew we couldn't stall any longer, we all needed to get back on the road and back home because our week really was over. Standing outside was one big estrogen fest because as soon as one of us would stop crying, another would start, we'd hug, and we'd all end up in tears again.
The hardest was saying goodbye to Kelly-she'd been my right hand man the whole week and we'd found something we shared in each other that we hadn't with anyone else. How could we go back to Myspace and AIM after having the best week of our lives?
We got in our cars, and as Hannah backed the van out the driveway I leaned out my window and screamed the special goodbye Kelly and I say every time we sign off on AIM. I listened to "Must Have Done Something Right," "Devastation and Reform" and "I Need You" with tears streaming down my face before deciding I couldn't listen to any Relient K just then. So I popped in Eleventyseven instead and drove home.
It was the best week of my life. The signs have survived and Kelly and I have devious plans of laminating them and taking them to anther show(s)-mostly to see Matt's expression at their recurrence, and the new tour dates have already got me figuring how much money I need to save for gas, food, and concert tickets this October and November.
Moral of the story? It's funny how you find you enjoy your life when you're happy to be alive.