HANSON (atlanta, 10/16/07)
"Welcome to the rollercoaster ride,"
Georgia, Hanson
Firstly, I was supposed to go to the L-Ville show, as I left off last (you know, when I burst into tears when my alarm went off). We were leaving by 730 to get to kentucky for the walk, and then we had to turn around and leave immediately after the show so I could be back for Fall For Greenville the next day.
Well, by 9AM, Jenn wasn't at the house, and she wasn't answering her phone. She texts me finally, 930ish, and says "my phone died, and i just woke up."
They weren't going to be ready to leave until at least 12 pm, meaning we would miss the walk and be at the ASS back for the show. It was pointless to me. So Jenn came by, bought my ticket from me, and they went on wihtout me. I recovered from my THE WALK injuries (walking barefoot down city streets, across traintracks, and through gravel is maybe the dumbest thing ive ever done, hanson or no hanson).
That being said! Atlanta was next.
Atlanta was a completely new & different experience for me. I've never "camped out" for anything - the longest I've ever waited for a show was back in '05, when whitney & i got to the roxy at 9 am to see hanson that night. other than that - the art of sidewalk sleeping, semi-showering in restaurant bathrooms, and having the magnificant glory of receiving the WTF OMG faces when you tell someone you've been waiting for over a day for this show and the victory you feel ... was a mystery to me.
This was what I really wanted, with this tour. I wanted the experience that other Hanson fans have had. To know what its like to roll your sleeping bag out in front of the venue and get hollared at and pestered by every random passerby - "WHO ARE YOU GUYS SEEING?! HANSON?! ARE YOU KIDDING?! DO THEY STILL PLAY?!" - while I still can.
So with Atlanta, I got my wish.
"i'm taking my sandwich and hitting the fucking road"
jenn & i ride down to atl together, w/ becky at the helm in her car
oh, the drama of girls touring together, they will eventually claw each other's eyes out.
anyway we get to ATL sometime around 730 and find NO ONE camping, which is odd.
idk what jenn is doing here, but its the first atl pic therefore remains.
THATS RIGHT GUYS
HANSON HANSON HANSON
how do we deal with this excitement
everyone else went for cigarettes and/or milkshakes, leaving jenn & i to hold down the fort
we may have photoshooted instead
JUMPING FOR JOY
!!!
yeah she went there
before i continue, i have to get up on my soapbox.
the thing about camping out ... idk.
i guess its good & bad.
for one, its so much fun in some ways, and, of course, you get front row.
but the second part is that you are surrounded by the creepiest ppl of life
and i really had a hard time with this. yeah i was there with everyone else but i dont FEEL like a lot of the ppl here. i dont care about taylor's wife or isaac's kid. i dont think that they owe me anything besides an amazing show. i dont think that collecting pictures with hanson does anything besides make me look like a creep. i got my pictures with the band and i was done, you know, simple as that. im not going to try and chase them during the walk just to be able to come back to my friends and say "ISAAC SAID HAY TO ME".
and i dont think that im above anyone else because of the number of shows i've seen.
i love hanson, but i swear to you, i have a hard time sticking through it sometimes because of some of the fans.
i just want to scream sometimes, you know, GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD, GIRLS - THEY ARE COMPLETELY UNATTAINABLE. and if they weren't, i doubt they would hook up with you.
it was just us for a little while.
jenn pulled out the sharpie & numbered our hands, hell yes.
a girl named sarah popped in and said she had been there for awhile, she had a hotel and kept driving by just to check and see if anyone was there yet. she eventually left her hotel and joined us around 9 or 10.
dude it was crazy, we had a running joke about how stuff kept APPEARING on my shirt
i look like britney spears for the love of God, but i hadnt eaten anything or had anything to drink & still.
lucky 3!
oh what fun it is to lay on the sidewalk
WE ARE SO EXCITED
then we remember we have like almost 24 hrs left of waiting
she is a camera stealer and this is what you end up with
me, jenn & becky just hanging out
trying to steal wireless from the geek squad and it isnt working so well
we take a trip to the ihop a little ways down the street to use the restroom
there is actually a nail brush dangling from the wall that employees are expected to share & use after washing their hands
literally could have puked everywhere
hello alleyway, i remember thee well.
we slept probably from 4-9, during which about 20 other ppl showed up
"HAY WHERE DID YOU GUYS PARK" they would freaking wake us up to ask
omg it was so irritating but funny too
the six of us (sarah included, now) were all dead asleep and the line was all chatty kathy.
HAVE SOME RESPECT. everyone around us actually ended up being super nice, which is always good.
anyway, at 9AM, the owner of the furniture store next to the roxy made us all move into the alleyway, which isnt wide enough for you to stretch out horizontally. good times, good times.
this is what sleeping in an alleyway will do to you
NOT CUTE.
we resumed our favorite pastime eventually - PLAYING SPIT
listening to leaked hanson music, bwahaha
looking like shit because we cant sleep due to the INCESSANT GIGGLEFEST NEARBY
that is NOT what my hair should look like
and, of course, giggling deliriously with sarah.
i have to tell you that sometime in the middle of the night, for some reason, i got the keen idea to call taylor's wife, natalie, natterz. I DONT KNOW DUDE but it was fucking funny
not to mention the fact that jenn, after anything remotely vulgar was said, would reply with "THATS WHAT TAYLOR SAID".
as in - "i'm gonna fuck you up"
"THATS WHAT TAYLOR SAID"
seriously the things that you find funny at 5 AM, no lie.
so natterz became NATTERZ IS WHAT MATTERZ because taylor is like, the worst husband ever, and we feel bad for natterz .... lmao so then i said that natterz and i would have a band, it would be the natterz matterz quartet, with just the two of us.
then band merch was discussed, as was the set list for a natterz matterz show, "where's the natterz?" and "natterz & me", sarah chimed in with OMG IM GONNA BE REPORTER FOR NATTERZ MATTERZ! (because hanson gives out m&g for each show and the position of reporter, who gets to take pics during the show) and yeah it was fucking HILARIOUS, natterz matterz lmao. you def had to be there to understand why it was so funny, but it was. it fucking was.
eventually i heard leah say something about a natterz, and anyone who passed us in the alleyway had to stop and give the password.
which was, of course, natterz matterz.
natterz matterz band symbol drawn on starbucks cup!
so many ppl stopped to talk and to ask what we were doing in the alley
others, like this fine gent, perved from above.
hanson tattoos are a dime a dozen!
and this girl doesnt know i took her pic, which is creepy y/y?
LEADING THE WALK with jenn
i walked alone for a little while, then with zac, which creeped me out, and then found my pals again.
hi2u zac
#1 fan
honestly the walk really freaks me out, its so chaotic
what tour really looks like
so many girls everywhere, even the bathroom at johnny rockets!
I HAD TO USE THE MEN'S ROOM.
melissa the australian & me!
natterz matterz aka sarah & i!
FILING IN
whitney isnt this like the biggest deja vu
reveling in the glory that is front row with jenn, leah, & sarah.
"IVE NEVER BEEN HERE BEFORE," I yelled over the music to Leah, as I held on to that magical barrier. "ITS SO GOOD"
locksley. the thing about the roxy is, 1) the lighting is always terrible, and 2) i brought my old cam in because they wouldnt let me have my other one. so boo my pictures all suckkk.
anyway i love locksley. they are so fun. HOT JAMS, HOT BOYS, HOT TIMES. after the show, i ran into kai in the lobby and he took my shoulder and squinted at me and said "don't i know you?" and i was like *stares back in bewilderment* and he was like ... "from the front row ... i saw you dancing!"
jeez louise.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY WILL OPEN WITH?" i asked jenn.
"I DEFINITELY DONT THINK GREAT DIVIDE" she screams back. lmao lmao.
i still cant get over "hole in my life"
or hanson, for that matter
TAYLOR PLAYED LOVE ME
I HAD A HEART ATTACK
THE END
seriously thats all i could say for this post and it would be enough.
"so we played here two years ago to the day" says isaac.
WRONG. it will actually be 2 yrs in 2 days. moron.
anyway he redeemed his dumbness by playing a NEVER BEFORE PLAYED SONG
that shit never happens when im there, so it was really exciting
ON THE ROX
"by the way," taylor says, "happy 10th anniversary"
seriously i cannot stop crying when they play mmmbop, i dont know what the fucking deal is
funny story 001 - jenn & i met at a tyler hilton show, two years ago. she did a lot of eyerolling about my swooning over the t man, because she herself is not a swooner.
however, in atl during "a minute without you" i think, or maybe "if only", jenn reaches behind leah & sarah, grabs my hand, and we literally scream and swoondance. its one of the best moments of my life
funny story 002 - during where's the love & penny & me, jenn, sarah & i would all look at each other and SCREAM along - "WHERE'S THE NATTERZ?! ITS NOT ENOUGGGH" and "ITS ALWAYS NAAAATTERZ AND ME TONIGHT!"
maybe the funniest time ever
shit isaac i love you so much now its scary
even when you are ugly, you are still pretty to me
a little piano dancing, if you will
NOT WORTHY, my oh my do i have the hots for this fella
the piano bird
i think that they played lost without each other this night and i think that taylor told us to shake our asses.
taylor, being blown away by isaac's skillz, i guess.
PLZ HELP AFRICA
edit: how did i forget to tell you all that during "the ugly truth" taylor jumped off the stage and grabbed my hand while he was singing and all i could do was JUMP UP AND DOWN and SCREAM while looking at jenn while he was grabbing my hand lmao lmao lmao
The finale, of course. These boys kill me, I swear, I will never get over them.
And so my journey ends there. I had planned on seeing Hanson Monday, in Birmingham, but when I went to buy my ticket, I found that the show had sold out. I guess it all works out for the best, really, because I had to work at 9am the next day and driving the 5hrs home from Birmingham would have probably not be condusive to my career, where they all want to have my head for being off so much lately.
I'm sad that i didn't get to see Hanson again, but you know what? I kind of like how it ended. In good spirits, you know, I left right after the ATL show, not even bothering to hang around by the buses - when I was walking back to my car after saying see ya later (no goodbyes, only see ya later) to my tour buds, I saw Hanson by the back door of the roxy and it was nice to be able to just walk past them and smile and keep walking. A lot of people can't do that, and I'm glad that I still can.
This whole time during these shows, I have wondered if this is something that will die eventually, if I will grow out of Hanson now that I'm getting older and older, if one day I will find myself in the crowd not caring anymore, if I will see them face to face and find myself numb, like all of these other girls, who tour out of habit and necessity and obsession and the need to hold on to who they were 10 years ago. There is a difference between passion and obsession. Walking past them, keys in hand, I found the difference. I instantly felt that flutter of excitement, the jump in my stomach and the grin spreading across my face before I could stop it - but I kept walking.
So I guess then, I knew for sure how it will always be. The way I feel about that music & those three incredible boys will always be the constant.
This experience, small when compared to others, but giant in my world, was one of the most incredible of my life.