Black Cards and Travie San Francisco 2011
Ahahaha, this trip. THIS TRIP WAS THE GREATEST FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLE THING EVER.
For those unaware of this madness, I took all of my savings at the time to buy a plane ticket to san francisco and my ticket for Black Cards & Travie. it was going to be my epic adventure since I would leave Anchorage at 1 AM Thursday morning to spend the day in SF, and then fly out Friday morning at 7 AM. No hotel room or anything, just pure adventure
I got at the venue at about 5 It was 4 really, but the girls in line were so clique that I got nervous and hid in the pizzaria for an hour, before showing back at five. Will-Call was going to be at 6:30 with the doors opening at 7:30.
The bus was parked right in front of the venue. For real. Where I was sitting on the sidewalk with the girls, if I leaned a couple inches, I could touch the bus door. IT WAS AWESOME. We had some fun conversations before the door, and I think I may have made a friend for life in sleepherealone. We kind of have the same opinions on bandom bands and the same fierce quiet love for Black Cards. We even have the same policy on TAI vs. Empires (both are awesome, let us not dwell on Mike Carden and Tomrad sadness). They tried to get us to line up at 7:30 which worked about as well as you can imagine.
Oh, somewhere in there, somebody walked Travie's dog Stitch and I got to pet him. :D YAY DOGS! He was so cute, and it was hilarious when they opened the bus door for him and he flat out refused to get back in after his potty break. He stood his ground and gave the girls these sad, longing looks before he finally climbed in. Stitch was adorable.
When we walked in, I staggered towards the bar and sat down in my exhaustion. I had to walk a pretty awful distance to get to the venue (From the west end of Golden Gate to Slims via park, then Haight, then Castro, then Market, then 11th). It was then that this really nice pair of girls (engaged to be married in June!) decided I would hang with them and we all went upstairs to the balcony for an awesome view. It took a few seconds to finish up soundcheck but when that went through, Bad Rabbits opened up!
I was totally mesmerized by their dancing and performances and...I mean, you can see forgot I was recording and ended up pointing my Flip camera at the wall. At one point, one of the guitar players put down his guitar and did this synchronized dance with the singer where they mirrored each other in this like, IDEK, funk dance groove. They were so awesome, SO HIGH ENERGY!!!!
XV was um, well, he did have a slightly cringe-worthy opening, but he got better. He did pretty good and he was really determined to get the audience rived up and he was pretty good at catching everyone's attention. Nice kid.
Then they lowered a big white screen for black cards to set up behind. And they were amazing.
All the people chattering on the balcony drove me crazy.
I finally talked the girls into dashing into the pit with me and had a mad dance time. Pete got all pleased about it. "You guys look so cute right now, you don't even know. I only stopped dancing to record these little tidbit. At one Point in between songs Pete pointed to this one guy and was like, "What do I have to do to get you to uncross your arms and smile. You've been glaring the whole time man." and everyone near the guy gave him a gentle ribbing. Although, right after that, BeBe turned to Pete and said, "So are you gonna help me sing this or what?" "Oh, so now I'm supposed to sing?"
And right there I started yelling, "CURTAIN CALL! CURTAIN CALL" like those assholes who yell Freebird. The yell was louder than I thought (BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WAS YELLING SONG DEMANDS. I AM A BAD FAN) When I realized they could probably hear me I stopped. BeBe on the other hand, did like a double take in my direction and said, "Well, they pretty clearly want to hear you,. How about if I sing Domino and you go Oh oh." and then they did the, get the crowd to sing along thing, which was awesome. My new friend for life, sleepherealone, was right up against the stage so when Bebe saw her singing the words, Bebe would sing right at my friend. It made her so happy. Oh, it was SUCH a good set.
There was some weird mix up with the OCK meet and greet so it never happened, and the usual meet and greet got moved to backstage because the merch girl was sick so I missed the signing.
Donnis was fun! I don't really go for that style, but he was SO GREAT at audience involvement that I didn't even notice the time go by. So much fun!
And then Travie went up. Oh man oh man oh man. His backing band were really good musicians. They each got a little solo section for themselves that was AMAZING. Like, they played bebop solos. \o/ YEAH. FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT MEANS, it means playing as many notes as possible in a constantly evolving progression that is innovating and methodical without ever repeating a previous section. TL;DR THEY PLAYED REALLY DIFFICULT SOLOS.
Travie was amazing. So amazing. I got footage of the Carlton:
Part way during one of the songs, PETE came out WEARING THAT STUPID MASK LOOKING SO HAPPY! LOOK AT HIS STUPID FACE :DDDD
OH, and I got all of Travie's "BREAKING UP SUCKS BUT YOU SUCK IF YOU DO IT VIA TEXT MESSAGE OR EMAIL >:(" speech and the end song of the night, I Need You. Although, he really closed the night with "Cupid's Chokehold"
I know it wasn't last, but I want to put "Billionaire" as last, because BeBe came out to sing the chorus and Travie was so pleased by San Francisco that he demanded an encore from the audience for the chorus. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
And there was a bunch of crazy San Francisco hijinks which I'm going to leave out, unless someone has any questions, like WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, DID YOU LIKE IT, WERE YOU THE ONE WITH THE ENORMOUS SATCHEL, DID YOU MEET ANYONE? or even, DOES STITCH SMELL LIKE SUNSHINE which yes, despite being on a bus and surrounded by bandom boys, that dog smells like sunshine. <3
For those unaware of this madness, I took all of my savings at the time to buy a plane ticket to san francisco and my ticket for Black Cards & Travie. it was going to be my epic adventure since I would leave Anchorage at 1 AM Thursday morning to spend the day in SF, and then fly out Friday morning at 7 AM. No hotel room or anything, just pure adventure
I got at the venue at about 5 It was 4 really, but the girls in line were so clique that I got nervous and hid in the pizzaria for an hour, before showing back at five. Will-Call was going to be at 6:30 with the doors opening at 7:30.
The bus was parked right in front of the venue. For real. Where I was sitting on the sidewalk with the girls, if I leaned a couple inches, I could touch the bus door. IT WAS AWESOME. We had some fun conversations before the door, and I think I may have made a friend for life in sleepherealone. We kind of have the same opinions on bandom bands and the same fierce quiet love for Black Cards. We even have the same policy on TAI vs. Empires (both are awesome, let us not dwell on Mike Carden and Tomrad sadness). They tried to get us to line up at 7:30 which worked about as well as you can imagine.
Oh, somewhere in there, somebody walked Travie's dog Stitch and I got to pet him. :D YAY DOGS! He was so cute, and it was hilarious when they opened the bus door for him and he flat out refused to get back in after his potty break. He stood his ground and gave the girls these sad, longing looks before he finally climbed in. Stitch was adorable.
When we walked in, I staggered towards the bar and sat down in my exhaustion. I had to walk a pretty awful distance to get to the venue (From the west end of Golden Gate to Slims via park, then Haight, then Castro, then Market, then 11th). It was then that this really nice pair of girls (engaged to be married in June!) decided I would hang with them and we all went upstairs to the balcony for an awesome view. It took a few seconds to finish up soundcheck but when that went through, Bad Rabbits opened up!
Click to viewI was totally mesmerized by their dancing and performances and...I mean, you can see forgot I was recording and ended up pointing my Flip camera at the wall. At one point, one of the guitar players put down his guitar and did this synchronized dance with the singer where they mirrored each other in this like, IDEK, funk dance groove. They were so awesome, SO HIGH ENERGY!!!!
XV was um, well, he did have a slightly cringe-worthy opening, but he got better. He did pretty good and he was really determined to get the audience rived up and he was pretty good at catching everyone's attention. Nice kid.
Then they lowered a big white screen for black cards to set up behind. And they were amazing.
All the people chattering on the balcony drove me crazy.
I finally talked the girls into dashing into the pit with me and had a mad dance time. Pete got all pleased about it. "You guys look so cute right now, you don't even know. I only stopped dancing to record these little tidbit. At one Point in between songs Pete pointed to this one guy and was like, "What do I have to do to get you to uncross your arms and smile. You've been glaring the whole time man." and everyone near the guy gave him a gentle ribbing. Although, right after that, BeBe turned to Pete and said, "So are you gonna help me sing this or what?" "Oh, so now I'm supposed to sing?"
And right there I started yelling, "CURTAIN CALL! CURTAIN CALL" like those assholes who yell Freebird. The yell was louder than I thought (BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WAS YELLING SONG DEMANDS. I AM A BAD FAN) When I realized they could probably hear me I stopped. BeBe on the other hand, did like a double take in my direction and said, "Well, they pretty clearly want to hear you,. How about if I sing Domino and you go Oh oh." and then they did the, get the crowd to sing along thing, which was awesome. My new friend for life, sleepherealone, was right up against the stage so when Bebe saw her singing the words, Bebe would sing right at my friend. It made her so happy. Oh, it was SUCH a good set.
There was some weird mix up with the OCK meet and greet so it never happened, and the usual meet and greet got moved to backstage because the merch girl was sick so I missed the signing.
Donnis was fun! I don't really go for that style, but he was SO GREAT at audience involvement that I didn't even notice the time go by. So much fun!
And then Travie went up. Oh man oh man oh man. His backing band were really good musicians. They each got a little solo section for themselves that was AMAZING. Like, they played bebop solos. \o/ YEAH. FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT MEANS, it means playing as many notes as possible in a constantly evolving progression that is innovating and methodical without ever repeating a previous section. TL;DR THEY PLAYED REALLY DIFFICULT SOLOS.
Travie was amazing. So amazing. I got footage of the Carlton:
Part way during one of the songs, PETE came out WEARING THAT STUPID MASK LOOKING SO HAPPY! LOOK AT HIS STUPID FACE :DDDD
OH, and I got all of Travie's "BREAKING UP SUCKS BUT YOU SUCK IF YOU DO IT VIA TEXT MESSAGE OR EMAIL >:(" speech and the end song of the night, I Need You. Although, he really closed the night with "Cupid's Chokehold"
I know it wasn't last, but I want to put "Billionaire" as last, because BeBe came out to sing the chorus and Travie was so pleased by San Francisco that he demanded an encore from the audience for the chorus. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
And there was a bunch of crazy San Francisco hijinks which I'm going to leave out, unless someone has any questions, like WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, DID YOU LIKE IT, WERE YOU THE ONE WITH THE ENORMOUS SATCHEL, DID YOU MEET ANYONE? or even, DOES STITCH SMELL LIKE SUNSHINE which yes, despite being on a bus and surrounded by bandom boys, that dog smells like sunshine. <3