Weekend Recap (a.k.a. OMFG!!!!!! I went on the tour bus...)
Friday = blah. I had stayed up until 5 a.m. on Thursday night to get the umpteenth revision of a presentation done for a client and had only gotten 1.5 hours of sleep. I then had two major client presentations on Friday that I needed to be coherent and pleasant for. Not easy to do, but I pulled it off. Then I ended up staying at work until 9:30 p.m. working on more revisions to the same presentation I had stayed up the night before to do. I finally got home around 11 and fell asleep at 11:30 or so, I think.
On Saturday morning, I was supposed to have a tutoring session with a Chem student. I got up, got ready, and headed out for the 10 a.m. session... except that I was not awake enough to realize that I went to the wrong student's house! Thankfully, the student whose house I went to was not home. So that session got rescheduled and I went out to lunch with Brendan from Crazed Weasel (after a trip to one of my favorite game stores). Ran home, showered, changed into clubbing/show-going attire, went off to tutor (and made it to the right house this time). Then it was off to Hartford to see The Cult!!!
It was a last-minute thing. As I was looking for tickets to see the Katatonia/Moonspell show at the Webster, I noticed that The Cult was playing on the 11th (K/M show is this weekend, by the way). I arrived at the Webster about half an hour early. When I got to the corner of the venue, I noted that there was a strangely large proportion of punks hanging around. I didn't figure that The Cult would draw a big punk crowd. In any case, I sat in my car for a few minutes doing my makeup, during which time someone threw a can of beer at my car. That's alcohol abuse and I wasn't about to stand for it! That and I was a little scared for my car. But I couldn't tell if one of the punks had thrown it or if it had been someone in a passing vehicle. I should also take this opportunity to say that I was wearing my new swoopy blue and black mask. :-)
I ran inside to pick up my ticket and then came back out and watched my car for a few minutes. As I was watching, I saw one of the punks heading towards my car... and followed him. He saw me following and diverted from my car to the one he had originally emerged from. I went over to my car and pretended to look for something in the front seat and then in the trunk. I then walked calmly across the street and asked if any of the punks had an extra smoke. I spend about ten minutes talking to them and found out that they were in a band called Copyright Chaos and were opening for The Business right nextdoor.
Having made friends with the punks, I wandered back into the theatre for the show. As is my habit, I stood at the front of the place against the railing waiting for the show. One of the bouncers started talking to me. He was making fun of me a little because he said I looked very unhappy. We got into a length discussion of how fun it can be to make people think you're crazy by laughing aloud at the jokes in your head. Most people who saw me commented on my mask or on my outfit in general. It was really quite flattering. They couldn't tell, but I was blushing under my mask.
The opening band, The Strays, were more of a punk act than I think most people in the place could appreciate. It was unfortunate for them because they got a lot of bad feedback from the crowd. As a punk act, they were pretty good - just not on the right bill. They should have been next door with The Business and Copyright Chaos. I enjoyed them.
Next up was The Bangkok Five. I'd never heard of them before but they totally rocked my socks! They had tremendous energy on stage and some great tunes. I highly recommend checking them out if you get the chance to. Plus, as the lead singer was walking across the theatre he looked at me and flashed me this huge, somewhat scared-looking, smile as if to say, "Allllrighty then. What's with the freak?" Teehee! Mission accomplished.
Between the Bangkok Five and The Cult, the girl standing next to me, Courtney, started to talk to me. She was from NJ and had gone to the show down there earlier in the week. At that one, she had gotten a guest pass and was wearing it to this show. We talked about concerts and music and all sorts of stuff. At one point, The Cult's manager came out with VIP passes for a guy from the fan club who had bought them for $300 a pop. He had commented on my attire earlier, so I tried to swindle a pass by being the chick in the mask, but to no avail. Courtney said it was a valiant effort.
The Cult came on around 10:30 and were OMFG amazing! Courtney and I were standing directly in front of Stage Left... in front of Billy!!! They opened with Lil' Devil, quite possibly my favorite song of theirs ever. Courtney and I were dancing like mad and having a blast. At one point, I got interrupted because someone wanted to get a picture of me. Silly people. During the first song of the encore, a stage crew guy came over and handed Courtney and I guest passes!!!!! That was a first.
When the bands wrapped up and most people left, I stuck around and MET ALL THREE BANDS!!!!! Ian and Billy did not come down to mingle with the rest of us, but I met all the guys in The Strays, Justin from The Bangkok Five, and Chris Wyse and John Tempesta from The Cult. Chris came right over and played with the swoopies of my mask and gave me a big hug. He also told us about his new band, Owl, and gave us stickers for it. It was all a bit surreal, but amazingly fun. While I was standing there, one of the crew guys came over to me and said, "I've been admiring your mask - so here is Billy's set list." Ummmm.... GAH!!!!!!!!!! ~drools~ And... Mistress Bellona becomes mush.
Around 1 a.m. the venue kicked us all out. Courtney and I went outside and hung out with the Stage Manager for a while. I finally took off my mask and put it in the car. The Stage Manager was trying to convince us to come to the show in New York on Monday (that would be yesterday). Since Courtney lives in NJ, it's not much of a stretch for her, but there was no way I could go. Nevertheless, he gave me a blank guest pass so that if I found a way to make it, I could get in and stay late. Then he invited us on to the tour bus. If I thought getting hugged by members of The Cult was surreal, this was nearly reality-defying. We sat there hanging out with them for a little while and I took a bottle of water from the bus (Haha! I have The Cult's water!). They were trying to convince me to stay in Hartford for Sunday as they had a day off and then they wanted to take me with them to New York as the DVD would be filmed at that show. But by this point it was rather late and I had another tutoring session to give at 10 a.m. and I still had to drive back to Boston from Hartford (nevermind that whole job thing and being a responsible adult...). I excused myself, much to the chagrin of some of the people on the bus, and walked back to my car.
On the way to the car, in the maybe-100 feet it was, two gangstas started talking to me. Well, really it was one who started talking to me. The other just made some sort of fake vampire noises in my general direction. The conversation with the other started something like this:
Gangsta: You look like Halloween.
Mistress Bellona: I am Halloween... all year round.
Gangsta: I like your style.
He shook my hand, then wouldn't let go for a little while, and was complimenting me on my attire. Mind you, this was AFTER I took off the mask. It was all a little confusing. He introduced himself and we chatted for about a minute and the he offered to walk me to my car (the remaining 15 feet or so that it was). Incidentally, for those of you who've been following the story from the beginning, the car was perfectly fine parked there for the remainder of the evening.
I drove home gushing over the phone to xany-hellion most of the way and got in just after 3 a.m. Woke up at 8:30 to get ready for my tutoring session, did that, went home, did some work, then went out to dinner at Taste of India in Providence with sergeibadinov and lunacstazia for lunacstazia's birthday. It was a great time - and it looks like I might be able to start up a game of The Black Company, a d20 game I was interested in trying at GenCon and did not have the opportunity to.
And may I just reiterate OMFG!!!!!!!! LAST WEEKEND WAS AMAZING! Hopefully this weekend will be equally cool. I'll be wearing the Vixen mask to the Katatonia/Moonspell show, so we'll see what happens there. Another update likely to come at the beginning of next week, if not sooner.
On Saturday morning, I was supposed to have a tutoring session with a Chem student. I got up, got ready, and headed out for the 10 a.m. session... except that I was not awake enough to realize that I went to the wrong student's house! Thankfully, the student whose house I went to was not home. So that session got rescheduled and I went out to lunch with Brendan from Crazed Weasel (after a trip to one of my favorite game stores). Ran home, showered, changed into clubbing/show-going attire, went off to tutor (and made it to the right house this time). Then it was off to Hartford to see The Cult!!!
It was a last-minute thing. As I was looking for tickets to see the Katatonia/Moonspell show at the Webster, I noticed that The Cult was playing on the 11th (K/M show is this weekend, by the way). I arrived at the Webster about half an hour early. When I got to the corner of the venue, I noted that there was a strangely large proportion of punks hanging around. I didn't figure that The Cult would draw a big punk crowd. In any case, I sat in my car for a few minutes doing my makeup, during which time someone threw a can of beer at my car. That's alcohol abuse and I wasn't about to stand for it! That and I was a little scared for my car. But I couldn't tell if one of the punks had thrown it or if it had been someone in a passing vehicle. I should also take this opportunity to say that I was wearing my new swoopy blue and black mask. :-)
I ran inside to pick up my ticket and then came back out and watched my car for a few minutes. As I was watching, I saw one of the punks heading towards my car... and followed him. He saw me following and diverted from my car to the one he had originally emerged from. I went over to my car and pretended to look for something in the front seat and then in the trunk. I then walked calmly across the street and asked if any of the punks had an extra smoke. I spend about ten minutes talking to them and found out that they were in a band called Copyright Chaos and were opening for The Business right nextdoor.
Having made friends with the punks, I wandered back into the theatre for the show. As is my habit, I stood at the front of the place against the railing waiting for the show. One of the bouncers started talking to me. He was making fun of me a little because he said I looked very unhappy. We got into a length discussion of how fun it can be to make people think you're crazy by laughing aloud at the jokes in your head. Most people who saw me commented on my mask or on my outfit in general. It was really quite flattering. They couldn't tell, but I was blushing under my mask.
The opening band, The Strays, were more of a punk act than I think most people in the place could appreciate. It was unfortunate for them because they got a lot of bad feedback from the crowd. As a punk act, they were pretty good - just not on the right bill. They should have been next door with The Business and Copyright Chaos. I enjoyed them.
Next up was The Bangkok Five. I'd never heard of them before but they totally rocked my socks! They had tremendous energy on stage and some great tunes. I highly recommend checking them out if you get the chance to. Plus, as the lead singer was walking across the theatre he looked at me and flashed me this huge, somewhat scared-looking, smile as if to say, "Allllrighty then. What's with the freak?" Teehee! Mission accomplished.
Between the Bangkok Five and The Cult, the girl standing next to me, Courtney, started to talk to me. She was from NJ and had gone to the show down there earlier in the week. At that one, she had gotten a guest pass and was wearing it to this show. We talked about concerts and music and all sorts of stuff. At one point, The Cult's manager came out with VIP passes for a guy from the fan club who had bought them for $300 a pop. He had commented on my attire earlier, so I tried to swindle a pass by being the chick in the mask, but to no avail. Courtney said it was a valiant effort.
The Cult came on around 10:30 and were OMFG amazing! Courtney and I were standing directly in front of Stage Left... in front of Billy!!! They opened with Lil' Devil, quite possibly my favorite song of theirs ever. Courtney and I were dancing like mad and having a blast. At one point, I got interrupted because someone wanted to get a picture of me. Silly people. During the first song of the encore, a stage crew guy came over and handed Courtney and I guest passes!!!!! That was a first.
When the bands wrapped up and most people left, I stuck around and MET ALL THREE BANDS!!!!! Ian and Billy did not come down to mingle with the rest of us, but I met all the guys in The Strays, Justin from The Bangkok Five, and Chris Wyse and John Tempesta from The Cult. Chris came right over and played with the swoopies of my mask and gave me a big hug. He also told us about his new band, Owl, and gave us stickers for it. It was all a bit surreal, but amazingly fun. While I was standing there, one of the crew guys came over to me and said, "I've been admiring your mask - so here is Billy's set list." Ummmm.... GAH!!!!!!!!!! ~drools~ And... Mistress Bellona becomes mush.
Around 1 a.m. the venue kicked us all out. Courtney and I went outside and hung out with the Stage Manager for a while. I finally took off my mask and put it in the car. The Stage Manager was trying to convince us to come to the show in New York on Monday (that would be yesterday). Since Courtney lives in NJ, it's not much of a stretch for her, but there was no way I could go. Nevertheless, he gave me a blank guest pass so that if I found a way to make it, I could get in and stay late. Then he invited us on to the tour bus. If I thought getting hugged by members of The Cult was surreal, this was nearly reality-defying. We sat there hanging out with them for a little while and I took a bottle of water from the bus (Haha! I have The Cult's water!). They were trying to convince me to stay in Hartford for Sunday as they had a day off and then they wanted to take me with them to New York as the DVD would be filmed at that show. But by this point it was rather late and I had another tutoring session to give at 10 a.m. and I still had to drive back to Boston from Hartford (nevermind that whole job thing and being a responsible adult...). I excused myself, much to the chagrin of some of the people on the bus, and walked back to my car.
On the way to the car, in the maybe-100 feet it was, two gangstas started talking to me. Well, really it was one who started talking to me. The other just made some sort of fake vampire noises in my general direction. The conversation with the other started something like this:
Gangsta: You look like Halloween.
Mistress Bellona: I am Halloween... all year round.
Gangsta: I like your style.
He shook my hand, then wouldn't let go for a little while, and was complimenting me on my attire. Mind you, this was AFTER I took off the mask. It was all a little confusing. He introduced himself and we chatted for about a minute and the he offered to walk me to my car (the remaining 15 feet or so that it was). Incidentally, for those of you who've been following the story from the beginning, the car was perfectly fine parked there for the remainder of the evening.
I drove home gushing over the phone to xany-hellion most of the way and got in just after 3 a.m. Woke up at 8:30 to get ready for my tutoring session, did that, went home, did some work, then went out to dinner at Taste of India in Providence with sergeibadinov and lunacstazia for lunacstazia's birthday. It was a great time - and it looks like I might be able to start up a game of The Black Company, a d20 game I was interested in trying at GenCon and did not have the opportunity to.
And may I just reiterate OMFG!!!!!!!! LAST WEEKEND WAS AMAZING! Hopefully this weekend will be equally cool. I'll be wearing the Vixen mask to the Katatonia/Moonspell show, so we'll see what happens there. Another update likely to come at the beginning of next week, if not sooner.