AAR OMG (concert report)
So. For those of you who don't know, I went to the Blink-182 concert yesterday, and guess who was opening? That;s right, our very own All-American Rejects! :D
This, obviously, means CONCERT REPORT. Because who else is going to squee with me? :)
I wasn't actually planning on getting tickets to this concert. They were too expensive and it was an arena concert, which isn't the best ever. But then R texted me on the day I finished exams, asking me if I wanted to go because a friend was selling her tickets cheap, and what do you say, under those circumstances?
I went down on the train from Oxford and then got the tube out to Greenwich to meet up with R, who was coming up from where he lives near Plym. That tube station looks like something from Nero's ship in Star Trek, I absolutely swear. It's so ugly. Anyway, I bought a notebook and pen in the station and sat down in Starbucks to wait for R and wrote some fic. He suprised me by coming up behind me, so I slammed my notebook shut as fast as I could. We had dinner at a lovely Japanese place, but the portions were HUGE, so I couldn't finish it all.
The queue to get in was BIG, and they searched everyone as they went in - the ridiculous rule about the bottle caps, in particular - but it was fairly easy to get past. I was challenged over my hayfever medicine bottle, but said it was medicine and they waved it through.
Here's the stadium as people came in:
First up were a band called Twin Atlantic. The name sounds familiar, but I haven't heard their music before. I'll be looking it up, it was good.
Here they are:
Their background was AWESOME.
Then it was the turn of AAR! They played a lot of songs in their 40 minute set, and it was way to short for my liking. Tyson was an amazing frontman. I was promised amazing things, and even though I could barely see them at the front and had to figure out who was who by mannerisms and Nicks guitar solos (see below, that's Nick playing to the crowd in the pit at the front, Ty in the middle and Mike in the red top), it's easy to be drawn into them.
Unfortunately, they were opening, and so not many people were interested in what they were doing (this is entirely predictable). Ty worked wonders with the crowd - at one point at least half of them were payng attention to the stage. He's wonderfully charismatic! :D And how did I not know how much of a whirlwind Mike is on stage? It is truly amazing to behold.
Have a setlist! :D
Dirty Little Secret
I Wanna
Swing, Swing
Beekeeper's Daughter
Walk Over Me
It Ends Tonight
Move Along
Kids in the Street
Gives You Hell
This seems like an appropriate place to talk about the slashy things, right? Just here he was singing at Mike. During 'I For You', he sung the 'It's I For You' line at Nick. Very obviously at Nick. You guys, we really don't need that tin hat order that we made the other day.
Cute Things That Tyson Did: There was one moment when Tyson was unbelieveably cute in the middle of a song. It was in the very last one, Gives You Hell, and he substituted 'you can take back your memories or have a cuppa tea' in. It made me giggle. Then there was the time that he picked one girl from the pit and made the crowd crowdsurf her to the front and then pulled her up on stage, flirted with her, called himself a pervert and then dedicated a song to her. I just about would have died laughing.
Youtube videos! Now, my videos are fairly awful and I give you fair warning that you can hear me and/or R in the background of some of them, but I thought I'd put them up anyway, cos you might like them, right? No? Not even a little bit? Ah well, scroll on past, then!
Click to view(Ironically, It Ends Tonight actually ends halfway through. Sorry. My card got full and I had to replace it.)
Others will be uploaded tomorrow. Its taking forever and I CBA tonight.
All done! Enjoy!
As Blink-182 were headlining, it only seems fair to say a little about them. I don't know a huge number of their songs, but the ones I do are fairly catchy. There are only three of them, and I;m still not sure what their setup is, but the music was nice.
Here's their setlist:
Feeling This
Up All Night
The Rock Show
What's My Age Again?
Down
I Miss You
Wishing Well
Happy Holidays, You Bastard (Performed with all the lights off)
Dumpweed
Always
Violence
After Midnight
First Date
Heart's All Gone
Man Overboard
Ghost On The Dance Floor
All The Small Things
Josie
Encore:
Reckless Abandon
Can a Drummer Get Some (Travis Barker Solo)
Carousel
Dammit
Family Reunion
The only other comment I have is that I thought the guy on the left looked like a young Chris Pike (Bruce Greenwood). IDEK why. I doubt anyone else would see it. :D
So, yes, it was a good concert, but the venue was too big, the music wasn't loud enough and I would have preferred to be in the pit. On the other hand, ALL AMERICAN REJECTS. THE OTHER ARGUMENTS ARE INVALID. And R enjoyed it, which was good.
Thoughts, people?