EMPIRESEMPIRESEMPIRES!!!!!11!!111!!!!!
So, yeah, I had a boring time last night. Saw this band, think they were called 'Conquering Nation' or something stupid like that. Met some really uninteresting people. Meh.
OMFG I love this band. It's ridiculous, really. I've seen them twice. I've heard, like, five of their songs not-at-concerts. I've known they existed for about a month. (Month and a half, whatever.) It took me ages to get into the actual music for the other bandom bands, y'know? I'm still not sure if I actually like FOB, or I just get happy when I hear their songs because of association. Empires, though...right away, the first time I ever heard them, it was just, "YES." The number of times I've looped the few songs I've got on my iPod is shameful.
Had dinner before the show with
tygrestick and, once the CTA stopped being a cunt and got her there,
strobelighted. We got to the Metro relatively early; in the lobby, got so distracted by Tom Conrad being right there that we pretty much almost missed Hot Drummer Ryan right in front of us. (After last night, that will never be true again, but. That's later.)
Went upstairs and met...whew, okay, let's see. Met up with
shoemaster, and
rain206, both of whom I'd met at the last Empires show, plus a bunch of people who introduced themselves with real-person names. They included
etben and
provetheworst (both of them people for whom I can now connect lj name to face to real name! This is a source of serious pride for me, okay), and also other people including, according to Allison's livejournal,
pre_emptive and shrift. (Aside: I totally introduced myself to Shrift as, "Hi, I used to fangirl you in high school." *facepalm* She was really cool about it, though. Also, I have it on good authority that later in the night I called Tom Conrad 'Sean', repeatedly, to his face. Well, I'd had a taste for my own foot lately. Or something like that.)
Since none of us were too cool to show up before 9 when it was free (like all the little emo kids), we got insanely awesome spots right near the front of the stage in the middle. Last time, we had a pretty good view of Tomrad, Alfred the hot bassist, and SeanVanVleet, but didn't see much of Ryan or Max, but this time we were right in front of Sean and had a really good line of sight to Ryan. Which came in very handy.
So, people have posted about Ryan the Falling Drummer? But I'm ashamed of fandom that nobody has properly described how he fell. Because, okay, he's up there playing like a madman for the first few songs (I was actually spending a lot of time watching him, because he was just so into it, fucking beaming, it was awesome), sweating like crazy, right. And he's wearing this plaid shirt and this dark heavy Ryan Ross vest for the show, okay, and when they get to a song that has an interlude without drum bits, the reason he stands up is to strip off the vest. Which he does with great force. Like, I'd never seen somebody remove outerwear quite so emphatically before. It was a little bit 'I'm sexy, look at me', and much more 'I am a badass motherfucker, working this hard at these drums that I'm so overheated, I'm going to remove my vest.' At the same point, their pair of techs were checking something over near Max, one of the speakers or some such, and Ryan's looking over at them to see what's up? At which point, in his forceful vest removal, he jumped up on his stool and toppled sideways, taking the (stage) right side of his drum kit down with him.
And then, yes, he popped back up and Paul Gross Arms'ed at us, and quickly set to trying to make his drums playable again. All of the audience is laughing, we've totally stopped paying attention to Sean, and you can see that he knows something is going on right behind him, but he doesn't know what? So he asks, at the end of the song (Ryan got his drums back together with help from the pair of techs), "What, did Ryan do a flip or something?" And we all laughed and it was good. Ryan, I have decided, is the Frank Iero of drummers. (This, says
tygrestick, obviously means that they need to have sex. I back this idea utterly.)
I remain so fucking in love with 'Midnight Land'. Also, I remain convinced that the line is not "to the great heights of vanity" in 'Valmont', though I don't know what it is aside from 'vanity', either.
So after they played, there was sort of a general pull down towards the merch rooms, which was where I think I met
provetheworst? Who wanted to know me because I've been to Bruges. I duly warned her that it was only for a day and I got drunk at lunch, but she seemed willing to be okay with that, so yay, then. She seems cool. Then I made an ass out of myself in front of Tom Conrad (but I think we were just a vast, undifferentiated mass of fangirls to him? So that's okay, then), and turned around and we all ran into Falling Drummer Ryan.
We got him to sign last night's free EP's (I really hope this one doesn't crash my computer), which is cool b/c he's the only one
rain206 and I didn't get to meet/sign for us last time. He signed like eight CD cases, most of them 'Falling Drummer Ryan', and was generally really awesome. He declined to recite lyrics for us so as to clarify wording, which is his prerogative, and claimed to have a fever, which as hard as he was playing last night? Damn. And then a picture was taken, by someone who wasn't one of us at all, of Ryan and the entire group of us who were mobbing him, all of us fangirls. Fucking hilarious. We all remain somewhat hopeful that it will end up online at some point, so that we can link it around and laugh.
(I have this mental image about the boys teasing him about his mob of fangirls later on last night. "Ryan's the man," they'll say, in between mocking him for the drum crash, and Tom will say, "You know they're all going home to write gay porn about you, right?" And they'll laugh, and shrug it off as a joke that's actually probably not at all true, and never know that yes, yes, yes we are.)
Ended up at an all-night diner after that with
tygrestick,
strobelighted,
shoemaster, and
etben, where we discussed fandom, shitty roommates, shows that are coming up (they are ALL GOING to the Chicago MCR shows, but on the other hand, Philly yay!), anon memes, and the inherent hotness of Alicia Way/Giles. Pause for a moment to think on that one. We all did.
And then we split off and went home the end.
So in conclusion:
--Next time I go to a show on the north side and I leave my stuff at Lizzy's, I should put my camera in the bag I'm bringing with me to the show instead of leaving it in my backpack on her floor.
--I haven't been home since I stopped by Tuesday afternoon to pack a bag, and I'm not getting back until tomorrow night after work.
--Part of me kind of wants to have Sean Van Vleet's babies.
--Being a TA means never having to pay attention in lecture.
ETA: FUCKING SHITFUCK TOM MOTHERFUCKING CONRAD, KILLING MY COMPUTER WITH YOUR EP WILL NOT PREVENT ME FROM WRITING GAY PORN ABOUT YOU. Anybody care to hook a sister up? I've got everything but the new song from the CD they handed out last night.
ETA 2: No, putting html tags into rich text mode in LJ will not actually get you html in your entry. It will get you html tags in your entry. Genius.
OMFG I love this band. It's ridiculous, really. I've seen them twice. I've heard, like, five of their songs not-at-concerts. I've known they existed for about a month. (Month and a half, whatever.) It took me ages to get into the actual music for the other bandom bands, y'know? I'm still not sure if I actually like FOB, or I just get happy when I hear their songs because of association. Empires, though...right away, the first time I ever heard them, it was just, "YES." The number of times I've looped the few songs I've got on my iPod is shameful.
Had dinner before the show with
tygrestick and, once the CTA stopped being a cunt and got her there,
strobelighted. We got to the Metro relatively early; in the lobby, got so distracted by Tom Conrad being right there that we pretty much almost missed Hot Drummer Ryan right in front of us. (After last night, that will never be true again, but. That's later.)
Went upstairs and met...whew, okay, let's see. Met up with
shoemaster, and
rain206, both of whom I'd met at the last Empires show, plus a bunch of people who introduced themselves with real-person names. They included
etben and
provetheworst (both of them people for whom I can now connect lj name to face to real name! This is a source of serious pride for me, okay), and also other people including, according to Allison's livejournal,
pre_emptive and shrift. (Aside: I totally introduced myself to Shrift as, "Hi, I used to fangirl you in high school." *facepalm* She was really cool about it, though. Also, I have it on good authority that later in the night I called Tom Conrad 'Sean', repeatedly, to his face. Well, I'd had a taste for my own foot lately. Or something like that.)
Since none of us were too cool to show up before 9 when it was free (like all the little emo kids), we got insanely awesome spots right near the front of the stage in the middle. Last time, we had a pretty good view of Tomrad, Alfred the hot bassist, and SeanVanVleet, but didn't see much of Ryan or Max, but this time we were right in front of Sean and had a really good line of sight to Ryan. Which came in very handy.
So, people have posted about Ryan the Falling Drummer? But I'm ashamed of fandom that nobody has properly described how he fell. Because, okay, he's up there playing like a madman for the first few songs (I was actually spending a lot of time watching him, because he was just so into it, fucking beaming, it was awesome), sweating like crazy, right. And he's wearing this plaid shirt and this dark heavy Ryan Ross vest for the show, okay, and when they get to a song that has an interlude without drum bits, the reason he stands up is to strip off the vest. Which he does with great force. Like, I'd never seen somebody remove outerwear quite so emphatically before. It was a little bit 'I'm sexy, look at me', and much more 'I am a badass motherfucker, working this hard at these drums that I'm so overheated, I'm going to remove my vest.' At the same point, their pair of techs were checking something over near Max, one of the speakers or some such, and Ryan's looking over at them to see what's up? At which point, in his forceful vest removal, he jumped up on his stool and toppled sideways, taking the (stage) right side of his drum kit down with him.
And then, yes, he popped back up and Paul Gross Arms'ed at us, and quickly set to trying to make his drums playable again. All of the audience is laughing, we've totally stopped paying attention to Sean, and you can see that he knows something is going on right behind him, but he doesn't know what? So he asks, at the end of the song (Ryan got his drums back together with help from the pair of techs), "What, did Ryan do a flip or something?" And we all laughed and it was good. Ryan, I have decided, is the Frank Iero of drummers. (This, says
tygrestick, obviously means that they need to have sex. I back this idea utterly.)
I remain so fucking in love with 'Midnight Land'. Also, I remain convinced that the line is not "to the great heights of vanity" in 'Valmont', though I don't know what it is aside from 'vanity', either.
So after they played, there was sort of a general pull down towards the merch rooms, which was where I think I met
provetheworst? Who wanted to know me because I've been to Bruges. I duly warned her that it was only for a day and I got drunk at lunch, but she seemed willing to be okay with that, so yay, then. She seems cool. Then I made an ass out of myself in front of Tom Conrad (but I think we were just a vast, undifferentiated mass of fangirls to him? So that's okay, then), and turned around and we all ran into Falling Drummer Ryan.
We got him to sign last night's free EP's (I really hope this one doesn't crash my computer), which is cool b/c he's the only one
rain206 and I didn't get to meet/sign for us last time. He signed like eight CD cases, most of them 'Falling Drummer Ryan', and was generally really awesome. He declined to recite lyrics for us so as to clarify wording, which is his prerogative, and claimed to have a fever, which as hard as he was playing last night? Damn. And then a picture was taken, by someone who wasn't one of us at all, of Ryan and the entire group of us who were mobbing him, all of us fangirls. Fucking hilarious. We all remain somewhat hopeful that it will end up online at some point, so that we can link it around and laugh.
(I have this mental image about the boys teasing him about his mob of fangirls later on last night. "Ryan's the man," they'll say, in between mocking him for the drum crash, and Tom will say, "You know they're all going home to write gay porn about you, right?" And they'll laugh, and shrug it off as a joke that's actually probably not at all true, and never know that yes, yes, yes we are.)
Ended up at an all-night diner after that with
tygrestick,
strobelighted,
shoemaster, and
etben, where we discussed fandom, shitty roommates, shows that are coming up (they are ALL GOING to the Chicago MCR shows, but on the other hand, Philly yay!), anon memes, and the inherent hotness of Alicia Way/Giles. Pause for a moment to think on that one. We all did.
And then we split off and went home the end.
So in conclusion:
--Next time I go to a show on the north side and I leave my stuff at Lizzy's, I should put my camera in the bag I'm bringing with me to the show instead of leaving it in my backpack on her floor.
--I haven't been home since I stopped by Tuesday afternoon to pack a bag, and I'm not getting back until tomorrow night after work.
--Part of me kind of wants to have Sean Van Vleet's babies.
--Being a TA means never having to pay attention in lecture.
ETA: FUCKING SHITFUCK TOM MOTHERFUCKING CONRAD, KILLING MY COMPUTER WITH YOUR EP WILL NOT PREVENT ME FROM WRITING GAY PORN ABOUT YOU. Anybody care to hook a sister up? I've got everything but the new song from the CD they handed out last night.
ETA 2: No, putting html tags into rich text mode in LJ will not actually get you html in your entry. It will get you html tags in your entry. Genius.