Hey this is Andy
So, Streetlight Manifesto.
Probably the roughest ska show I've been too. Packed beyond belief, shouldn't have let that many peeps in the arena but I'll tell you this - Streetlight is gettin' big, fellas. First and foremost - Dan has a band now. Dan Potthast, that is. Or whatever his last name is: the guy from the last Streetlight show I saw. So he has a band called The Stitch Up or something. They were pretty good, so far as silly bands go anyway. It was cool to see he's moving up in the world. More or less. It was pretty funny - he had a guy come up from the crowd and play guitar for one of the songs so he could dance around more. Lots of cheering was to be had and the guy had the same name as the bass player. Hmm, coincidence of plant?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0PIuWvFe1M&feature=related
That's what he used to be like, and he was quite comical. Still pretty funny with a band but I miss the older stuff a little, though I hardly can be considered to be following him in any way. Hope success continues for the fellow.
Then it was The Swellers and A Wilhelm Scream or whatever. Both of them punk rock types, but they put on a mosh-oriented show. I actually fell during one of their sets. Well, fell as much as I could in a place packed so thick I was often touching at least two people unintentionally. So, I fell in the fact that I was in a seated position - as if I were on a chair - on perhaps three or four rows of people. Taylor saw this, and me go down with a smile, and said this was his favorite part of the show. Haha.
Sooo, Streetlight came on and it was like five or six songs of just straight pushing. As in, the entire floor became a mosh bit just about - shoving violently forward and then back and so on and so forth. I, and several others, were fighting against the mob in an effort to get the skanking circles going but it was slow going. I almost lost my Hawaiian shirt, too, and that would have been tragic indeed - but it was literally so rough I could not get my hands close enough to pull it back up my shoulders and it kept falling down. Absolutely ridiculous.
So, I got slammed and bumped up against several people - not all of them girls, go figure. I did spend a bit of the show trying to protect some ladies, as I always do 'cause it's not fair to be a small, feeble woman in a crowd full of burly men looking to cause violence. So, while I ('cause I never do) got no numbers or anything I did help a few people not get smushed too bad so that was nice. I got punched in the face! That was a first. More like a hand came down, hard, just below my eye and now it's all bruised. But, still.
Anyway, the pit from Streetlight was so crazy that I got shoved, literally, from the middle to the front to the back throughout the thing. It was nonsensical mayhem. They opened with We Will Fall and it was amazing, as expected. They did the usual fun set, and I did eventually get to skank. We ended up forcing open circles that would hold for a few precious minutes before collapsing under the weight of people and moshing again. And then I and several others banded together, arms around one another, to skank properly. These circles, also, eventually fell prey to the crowd and we were forced to break apart.
Also, despite the craziness, this was probably one of the nicer brands of ska kids. I had some people ask if I was all right after getting shoved back once, so that was funny. Ska kids are so nice. Then, at the end, we were getting shoved out the door basically by the massive amounts of people. It was, again, rather insanity related. But I had a good time, over all.
Streetlight did something that I thought was very cool (aside from being silly with the 'this is our last song' and people booing and Tom was like 'oh, come on, we're going to come back out and do a few more like everyone else just relax' and then a bit later he goes 'okay, so this is our last song before we come back out and do more songs') but he basically played like four or five songs acoustically, staring with Sick and Sad and then doing Somewhere in the Between and one or two others that I can't remember. I only remember Somewhere in the Between 'cause that's what they usually end with, and he played that one last.
Down, Down, Down to Mephisto's Cafe was exceptionally fun. And, as with the last show, everyone was singing. To me, that's just so cool and fun. I really enjoyed that. Plus, Tom would back off the mic sometimes and let us shout the lyrics which was pretty funny. And he did that little game where they stop playing just before the lyrics come in so anyone singing along sings a few lines before realizing the band stopped. It's funny.
And I'm pretty sore, as expected, even though I didn't get to skank around as much as usual. Woe is me (woe is me, no one can save you now!) Lots of fun, can't wait for the next show.. just hope it's at a bigger venue.
edit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItT4ZWAYW1U
There's the encore I was talking about. Sweet, eh?
Probably the roughest ska show I've been too. Packed beyond belief, shouldn't have let that many peeps in the arena but I'll tell you this - Streetlight is gettin' big, fellas. First and foremost - Dan has a band now. Dan Potthast, that is. Or whatever his last name is: the guy from the last Streetlight show I saw. So he has a band called The Stitch Up or something. They were pretty good, so far as silly bands go anyway. It was cool to see he's moving up in the world. More or less. It was pretty funny - he had a guy come up from the crowd and play guitar for one of the songs so he could dance around more. Lots of cheering was to be had and the guy had the same name as the bass player. Hmm, coincidence of plant?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0PIuWvFe1M&feature=related
That's what he used to be like, and he was quite comical. Still pretty funny with a band but I miss the older stuff a little, though I hardly can be considered to be following him in any way. Hope success continues for the fellow.
Then it was The Swellers and A Wilhelm Scream or whatever. Both of them punk rock types, but they put on a mosh-oriented show. I actually fell during one of their sets. Well, fell as much as I could in a place packed so thick I was often touching at least two people unintentionally. So, I fell in the fact that I was in a seated position - as if I were on a chair - on perhaps three or four rows of people. Taylor saw this, and me go down with a smile, and said this was his favorite part of the show. Haha.
Sooo, Streetlight came on and it was like five or six songs of just straight pushing. As in, the entire floor became a mosh bit just about - shoving violently forward and then back and so on and so forth. I, and several others, were fighting against the mob in an effort to get the skanking circles going but it was slow going. I almost lost my Hawaiian shirt, too, and that would have been tragic indeed - but it was literally so rough I could not get my hands close enough to pull it back up my shoulders and it kept falling down. Absolutely ridiculous.
So, I got slammed and bumped up against several people - not all of them girls, go figure. I did spend a bit of the show trying to protect some ladies, as I always do 'cause it's not fair to be a small, feeble woman in a crowd full of burly men looking to cause violence. So, while I ('cause I never do) got no numbers or anything I did help a few people not get smushed too bad so that was nice. I got punched in the face! That was a first. More like a hand came down, hard, just below my eye and now it's all bruised. But, still.
Anyway, the pit from Streetlight was so crazy that I got shoved, literally, from the middle to the front to the back throughout the thing. It was nonsensical mayhem. They opened with We Will Fall and it was amazing, as expected. They did the usual fun set, and I did eventually get to skank. We ended up forcing open circles that would hold for a few precious minutes before collapsing under the weight of people and moshing again. And then I and several others banded together, arms around one another, to skank properly. These circles, also, eventually fell prey to the crowd and we were forced to break apart.
Also, despite the craziness, this was probably one of the nicer brands of ska kids. I had some people ask if I was all right after getting shoved back once, so that was funny. Ska kids are so nice. Then, at the end, we were getting shoved out the door basically by the massive amounts of people. It was, again, rather insanity related. But I had a good time, over all.
Streetlight did something that I thought was very cool (aside from being silly with the 'this is our last song' and people booing and Tom was like 'oh, come on, we're going to come back out and do a few more like everyone else just relax' and then a bit later he goes 'okay, so this is our last song before we come back out and do more songs') but he basically played like four or five songs acoustically, staring with Sick and Sad and then doing Somewhere in the Between and one or two others that I can't remember. I only remember Somewhere in the Between 'cause that's what they usually end with, and he played that one last.
Down, Down, Down to Mephisto's Cafe was exceptionally fun. And, as with the last show, everyone was singing. To me, that's just so cool and fun. I really enjoyed that. Plus, Tom would back off the mic sometimes and let us shout the lyrics which was pretty funny. And he did that little game where they stop playing just before the lyrics come in so anyone singing along sings a few lines before realizing the band stopped. It's funny.
And I'm pretty sore, as expected, even though I didn't get to skank around as much as usual. Woe is me (woe is me, no one can save you now!) Lots of fun, can't wait for the next show.. just hope it's at a bigger venue.
edit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItT4ZWAYW1U
There's the encore I was talking about. Sweet, eh?