This is Never Going To End.
So I'm going to start writing up Leaky Con and my weekend, so's I don't forget too much. It's gonna be long, so I'ma split it up like I'm doing with the CBeebies, so this is just Wednesday and Thursday. And none of the pictures or videos are mine, the pictures I'm stealing from either Rosa, Steph, or Sara, and the videos I'm just finding on youtube but you can click on them to see whose they are.
So:
Wednesday!
Ok, so Wednesday I went into Boston around 3. I met up with one of my roommates, Sara, at the Borders by the State T stop. We walked around a lot and talked about super nerdy things like Star Trek, Who, Youtube, and of course HP. We walked past Alex Carpenter and Toby and Tyler (aka The Remus Lupins) and their friends in the Public Gardens at Boston Common, which was pretty funny. We stopped at the Pru to get some food, and talked about how awesome Boston was. Sara's from Alabama, so it was a pretty big change for her. But she'd been here before and she liked it a lot. Then we went to check out the hotel we were going to stay in, and ran into ACarp again and felt like stalkers. Which was fun, I guess. He was already kind of drunk, which is apparently the default state of Wrockers at Cons. Which is also fun. We went to see the Star Trek movie (which is AWESOME. OH MAN.) and then I came home and packed a little and slept. Also, Spock and Kirk are totally Merlin and Arthur. It's hilarious.
Thursday!!
Thursday was the official start of Leaky Con. All the tweets and updates from people about being in Boston were making me really happy and excited. Basically, I'm absurdly proud of my little city most of the time, and the HPness was just making it even better. All these people I admired were coming to Boston to have an awesome time, and my city was going to live up to expectations.
So I caught the bus from the top of my hill at 3 again, into Oak Grove and then on the T to the Green Line. I walked from the Arlington stop to the Park Plaza hotel, found Sara in the lobby, and headed towards our hotel room, 1040. Kait and Stephanie hadn't arrived yet, but they came while I was checking out our room.
Our room was really nice. I mean, Park Plaza is ridiculously classy. But we had two bathrooms, which was probably the most amazing thing ever.
So Kait, Stephanie, and I then went down to the Mezzanine to check in and get our swag and nametags and everything. We got that all set, and there were SO many people around that I recognized despite never having been to a Con, which was a mixture of awkward and awesome. When it was Wrockers it was mostly awesome. They were all around the whole Con, which meant I got over my fangirlish nervousness pretty quickly. Except with Adam Dubberly, but he's another story.
Anyways.
So then we went back to our hotel room and got ready for the Opening Feast. Kait and Steph changed into their Hogwarts uniforms, and I did nothing while wishing I had at least a tie. I really need a freaking Ravenclaw tie. Fr srs.
In the lobby of the Park Plaza hotel we ran into the Malfoys. A Lucius, a Draco, and a Narcissa, in full regalia. They looked FABULOUS, and I'd seen pictures of them from previous Cons, but they looked so cool in person. Also, I saw Rosa while we were getting on an elevator, so that was exciting. We ended up not doing much together just because there was so much going on, and we were both there with other friends, but just knowing that there was another Smithie there was pretty rad. I thought we represented the college pretty well ;)
So then we headed towards the Castle for the feast. And let me tell you, the Castle was pretty much gorgeously amazing and perfect. I mean, the fact that it's a legit castle makes it really cool anyways. But then they had decorated the big event hall for Leaky, and it looked so perfectly like the Great Hall. The most impressive thing were the banners hung from the ceiling, with a House animal back-lit on each one.
(both Rosa's pics) The Castle and the stage setup. Gorgeous.
Ok, so after getting over the Castle, we quickly realized that there were no seats left at any of the tables. They had drastically underestimated the number of people attending, or something, so we ended up sitting on the floor while we ate. But it was totally okay, because there were a ton of people on the floor, and everyone was really good-natured about it. Or, as Melissa Anelli said when she was apologizing, very "Hufflepuff-y" about it.
So after Melissa made some opening announcements, and there was a sweet a capella performance welcoming us all to the con, the mic was handed over to Andrew Slack, founder of the Harry Potter Alliance. His speech was a little less inspirational than usual because he had to keep it short and he was clearly reading it off the sheet. Also, he didn't do his awesome rap thing at the end. But you know, he was still amazing. I love Andrew Slack and his amazing/lame jokes, and the HPA is basically the coolest charity ever. The fact that proceeds from Leaky were going to the HPA and BookAid International just made it that much more worth it.
So after we had eaten, and everything was set, it was time for Evil Night. First up was Swish and Flick. They are FANTASTIC. They're like Hip-Hop/Electronica and they have the DIRTIEST lyrics in the Wrock community. Just listen to the wizarding euphemisms in "Cho Chang". SO hilarious. Fr srs. Also, Swish (aka Stacy) has fantastic stage presence. She plays the naughty Slytherin so well, and the scandalous, hilarious lyrics come through really well in her live delivery. They were so much fun.
Cho Chang live.
The most, uh, entertaining thing about their set, though, is that Flick (the guitarist/beats guy behind Swish) seems to have his own crazy fan girls. Someone threw bras on stage at him. It was amazing. They hung them on the mic for the rest of the set.
The Bra Extravaganza.
After Swish and Flick, it was time for Justin Finch-Fletchley. Now, Justin is not only one of the nicest guys I kind of know (though the same could be said for Brian Malfoy), but he also plays the part of JFF, a total Hufflepuff. Basically, the running joke through his set (as told by Brian) was that he had been placed on Evil Night just so they could make fun of him the whole time. His set rocked, though, so it didn't matter whether he was evil or not. His shows are like a sugar ride, basically. Plus he had a full band backing him up (Brad Malfoy on drums, Brian Malfoy on guitar, and Matt/Whompy on bass) and that was really pretty badass. But yeah, his songs get stuck in your head so easily, but it's okay because they all make you so freaking happy. um, "Whompy Stole My Pillow", "Umbridge is Dumbridge", and "Dumbledore is Gay (and that's OK)" all made me really happy. Everyone singing along to "Krum" was hilarious. They played Beastie Boys "Fight for your Right to Party" which was a lot of fun to sing along to. He didn't play Honeydukes, which was kind of sad because that song is the most fun to sing live, but I was on such a concert high at the end of his set that I wasn't too upset. Also, he was the most badass Wrocker up until Saturday, setting the record for broken guitar strings at 3. Alex Carpenter kind of threw that record out of the water, but I'll get to that eventually.
Lovely medley of JFF songs.
Soooo after JFF was The Parselmouths. This was kind of interesting, and I was really nervous for them. Basically, there was a huge lineup change a couple of months ago because Brittany quit due to personal life reasons (aka, being married, which totally makes sense). So Eia, instead of just tapping the percussion, actually sings now. And they had Alex Day aka Nerimon, Kristina's British Youtuber boyfriend, playing guitar for them. So it was a bit nerve-wracking, probably more so for them, but they totally pulled it off. The new post-Brittany songs, Alex and Eia were lovely, and the older songs they did a mix of having Eia sing Brittany's part, having Alex sing Brittany's part (which OMG was kind of hilarious), or having the crowd sing Brittany's part (which was a lot of fun and worked really well, considering.) Oh, and Lauren (Moaning Myrtles) came and sang on the last song, "Voldemort Fangirl", which I had been dying to see live for VoldeMark's dancing.
"What Kind of Name is Hermione?" with Alex singing Brittany's parts. Priceless. He's just so enthusiastic about it.
VoldeMark's dance moves. SO CLASSIC. Also, LOL at Alex on the far side not knowing what to do.
The final act of the night was Draco and the Malfoys. They never cease to amaze me, and this set was no different. So they're usually really straightforward heavy guitar rock, right? They came on stage with Bradley on banjo and Brian on upright bass. They also had their Dad's three-piece bluegrass band up on stage with them, and they played only folk versions of their songs, plus some new " old folk slytherin" songs. I think my favorite of the old material in the folk style was "99 Deatheaters". My favorite of the new material was a hilarious version of "This Land is My Land" that went something like "This land is my land, this land is my land, it is not your land, cause you don't own land. From this high wall here, to that barbed wire, this land was made just for me." and it was so perfectly slytherin.
Anyways, a lot of people were like 'wtf?' about the change, but it took real guts for them to do something like that, and mostly the reaction was completely positive and wonderful. I thought it was an amazing performance, if only because it showed off how musically versatile they really are. Also, they were adorable with their dad. I think he was really proud of them.
DatM Folk Medley.
So after DatM's set, and an encore where they played a Muggle bluesgrass song their Dad had written, they went off to party somewhere and Steph, Kait, Sara and I went off to sleep, because we were up at 8 the next morning to start off our first full day of Leaky. Which, the full re-cap will be posted soon, but it'll be loooong, so I'ma stop here for now.
I'm all squinty and sweaty, but this is me with Kait (on the left) and Stephanie (on the right). They were great roommates. Sara hasn't posted her pics yet, but when she does I'll put some of them up as well so I have some with her in them.
So:
Wednesday!
Ok, so Wednesday I went into Boston around 3. I met up with one of my roommates, Sara, at the Borders by the State T stop. We walked around a lot and talked about super nerdy things like Star Trek, Who, Youtube, and of course HP. We walked past Alex Carpenter and Toby and Tyler (aka The Remus Lupins) and their friends in the Public Gardens at Boston Common, which was pretty funny. We stopped at the Pru to get some food, and talked about how awesome Boston was. Sara's from Alabama, so it was a pretty big change for her. But she'd been here before and she liked it a lot. Then we went to check out the hotel we were going to stay in, and ran into ACarp again and felt like stalkers. Which was fun, I guess. He was already kind of drunk, which is apparently the default state of Wrockers at Cons. Which is also fun. We went to see the Star Trek movie (which is AWESOME. OH MAN.) and then I came home and packed a little and slept. Also, Spock and Kirk are totally Merlin and Arthur. It's hilarious.
Thursday!!
Thursday was the official start of Leaky Con. All the tweets and updates from people about being in Boston were making me really happy and excited. Basically, I'm absurdly proud of my little city most of the time, and the HPness was just making it even better. All these people I admired were coming to Boston to have an awesome time, and my city was going to live up to expectations.
So I caught the bus from the top of my hill at 3 again, into Oak Grove and then on the T to the Green Line. I walked from the Arlington stop to the Park Plaza hotel, found Sara in the lobby, and headed towards our hotel room, 1040. Kait and Stephanie hadn't arrived yet, but they came while I was checking out our room.
Our room was really nice. I mean, Park Plaza is ridiculously classy. But we had two bathrooms, which was probably the most amazing thing ever.
So Kait, Stephanie, and I then went down to the Mezzanine to check in and get our swag and nametags and everything. We got that all set, and there were SO many people around that I recognized despite never having been to a Con, which was a mixture of awkward and awesome. When it was Wrockers it was mostly awesome. They were all around the whole Con, which meant I got over my fangirlish nervousness pretty quickly. Except with Adam Dubberly, but he's another story.
Anyways.
So then we went back to our hotel room and got ready for the Opening Feast. Kait and Steph changed into their Hogwarts uniforms, and I did nothing while wishing I had at least a tie. I really need a freaking Ravenclaw tie. Fr srs.
In the lobby of the Park Plaza hotel we ran into the Malfoys. A Lucius, a Draco, and a Narcissa, in full regalia. They looked FABULOUS, and I'd seen pictures of them from previous Cons, but they looked so cool in person. Also, I saw Rosa while we were getting on an elevator, so that was exciting. We ended up not doing much together just because there was so much going on, and we were both there with other friends, but just knowing that there was another Smithie there was pretty rad. I thought we represented the college pretty well ;)
So then we headed towards the Castle for the feast. And let me tell you, the Castle was pretty much gorgeously amazing and perfect. I mean, the fact that it's a legit castle makes it really cool anyways. But then they had decorated the big event hall for Leaky, and it looked so perfectly like the Great Hall. The most impressive thing were the banners hung from the ceiling, with a House animal back-lit on each one.
(both Rosa's pics) The Castle and the stage setup. Gorgeous.
Ok, so after getting over the Castle, we quickly realized that there were no seats left at any of the tables. They had drastically underestimated the number of people attending, or something, so we ended up sitting on the floor while we ate. But it was totally okay, because there were a ton of people on the floor, and everyone was really good-natured about it. Or, as Melissa Anelli said when she was apologizing, very "Hufflepuff-y" about it.
So after Melissa made some opening announcements, and there was a sweet a capella performance welcoming us all to the con, the mic was handed over to Andrew Slack, founder of the Harry Potter Alliance. His speech was a little less inspirational than usual because he had to keep it short and he was clearly reading it off the sheet. Also, he didn't do his awesome rap thing at the end. But you know, he was still amazing. I love Andrew Slack and his amazing/lame jokes, and the HPA is basically the coolest charity ever. The fact that proceeds from Leaky were going to the HPA and BookAid International just made it that much more worth it.
So after we had eaten, and everything was set, it was time for Evil Night. First up was Swish and Flick. They are FANTASTIC. They're like Hip-Hop/Electronica and they have the DIRTIEST lyrics in the Wrock community. Just listen to the wizarding euphemisms in "Cho Chang". SO hilarious. Fr srs. Also, Swish (aka Stacy) has fantastic stage presence. She plays the naughty Slytherin so well, and the scandalous, hilarious lyrics come through really well in her live delivery. They were so much fun.
Click to viewCho Chang live.
The most, uh, entertaining thing about their set, though, is that Flick (the guitarist/beats guy behind Swish) seems to have his own crazy fan girls. Someone threw bras on stage at him. It was amazing. They hung them on the mic for the rest of the set.
The Bra Extravaganza.
After Swish and Flick, it was time for Justin Finch-Fletchley. Now, Justin is not only one of the nicest guys I kind of know (though the same could be said for Brian Malfoy), but he also plays the part of JFF, a total Hufflepuff. Basically, the running joke through his set (as told by Brian) was that he had been placed on Evil Night just so they could make fun of him the whole time. His set rocked, though, so it didn't matter whether he was evil or not. His shows are like a sugar ride, basically. Plus he had a full band backing him up (Brad Malfoy on drums, Brian Malfoy on guitar, and Matt/Whompy on bass) and that was really pretty badass. But yeah, his songs get stuck in your head so easily, but it's okay because they all make you so freaking happy. um, "Whompy Stole My Pillow", "Umbridge is Dumbridge", and "Dumbledore is Gay (and that's OK)" all made me really happy. Everyone singing along to "Krum" was hilarious. They played Beastie Boys "Fight for your Right to Party" which was a lot of fun to sing along to. He didn't play Honeydukes, which was kind of sad because that song is the most fun to sing live, but I was on such a concert high at the end of his set that I wasn't too upset. Also, he was the most badass Wrocker up until Saturday, setting the record for broken guitar strings at 3. Alex Carpenter kind of threw that record out of the water, but I'll get to that eventually.
Lovely medley of JFF songs.
Soooo after JFF was The Parselmouths. This was kind of interesting, and I was really nervous for them. Basically, there was a huge lineup change a couple of months ago because Brittany quit due to personal life reasons (aka, being married, which totally makes sense). So Eia, instead of just tapping the percussion, actually sings now. And they had Alex Day aka Nerimon, Kristina's British Youtuber boyfriend, playing guitar for them. So it was a bit nerve-wracking, probably more so for them, but they totally pulled it off. The new post-Brittany songs, Alex and Eia were lovely, and the older songs they did a mix of having Eia sing Brittany's part, having Alex sing Brittany's part (which OMG was kind of hilarious), or having the crowd sing Brittany's part (which was a lot of fun and worked really well, considering.) Oh, and Lauren (Moaning Myrtles) came and sang on the last song, "Voldemort Fangirl", which I had been dying to see live for VoldeMark's dancing.
"What Kind of Name is Hermione?" with Alex singing Brittany's parts. Priceless. He's just so enthusiastic about it.
VoldeMark's dance moves. SO CLASSIC. Also, LOL at Alex on the far side not knowing what to do.
The final act of the night was Draco and the Malfoys. They never cease to amaze me, and this set was no different. So they're usually really straightforward heavy guitar rock, right? They came on stage with Bradley on banjo and Brian on upright bass. They also had their Dad's three-piece bluegrass band up on stage with them, and they played only folk versions of their songs, plus some new " old folk slytherin" songs. I think my favorite of the old material in the folk style was "99 Deatheaters". My favorite of the new material was a hilarious version of "This Land is My Land" that went something like "This land is my land, this land is my land, it is not your land, cause you don't own land. From this high wall here, to that barbed wire, this land was made just for me." and it was so perfectly slytherin.
Anyways, a lot of people were like 'wtf?' about the change, but it took real guts for them to do something like that, and mostly the reaction was completely positive and wonderful. I thought it was an amazing performance, if only because it showed off how musically versatile they really are. Also, they were adorable with their dad. I think he was really proud of them.
DatM Folk Medley.
So after DatM's set, and an encore where they played a Muggle bluesgrass song their Dad had written, they went off to party somewhere and Steph, Kait, Sara and I went off to sleep, because we were up at 8 the next morning to start off our first full day of Leaky. Which, the full re-cap will be posted soon, but it'll be loooong, so I'ma stop here for now.
I'm all squinty and sweaty, but this is me with Kait (on the left) and Stephanie (on the right). They were great roommates. Sara hasn't posted her pics yet, but when she does I'll put some of them up as well so I have some with her in them.