I posted my enormous review on the 311 board, so I'll now bore you all with it...so I don't lose it
I have a whole shitload to say, so I will try to make it possible for you skip around and find the parts of the trip you want to hear about. Don't get your hopes up though. Ehooh.
__________________________________________________________________
The flights to NOLA:
I left Sacramento early on the 10th, and I had to be up at 2:30 am, PST. I thought I'd try to get some sleep on the plane rides, but that was evidently NOT going to happen. I ended up with an 84 year old woman telling me about how she was from Estonia, how she feels sick when she flies, and anything under the sun to wake me up every two minutes. I never realized why people get sick on planes until I was about 40 miles from Minneapolis. There was only one landing strip open, so we were held in what us called a "holding pattern". I believe a better phrase for this would be a 'We're going to make you extremely nauseous pattern".
We literally did loops for 30 minutes, before actually landing in Minnesota. The ride from Minneapolis to New Orleans was pretty tedious, but pretty complaint-free.
_______________________________________________________________
Met the roomies: Sharon ( Dolphincubus), Christi (IncuvenDoll), Shannon ( awwthatstoobad),Anesha (Incubustedchick), Jonas, and the visiting George (skratchaholik)...Then we were off to the...
_______________________________________________________________
FAN PARTY
Due to my roommates love for excessive primping before getting extremely intoxicated, we showed up at the party a little late. As we strolled up to Club 735, it was obvious that the line was at least 600 people deep. A lot of old friends from around the states recognized me, and exchanged greetings with me while my roomies headed to the front. I walked up to the front to see people I knew, and ran smack dab into Christina Sampson ( FLOWING MINDSPIN ). She did her best to get all of the bbers who post here regularly in to the party faster than 311 fans that just wanted to party.
I think everyone on this board owes her, Chris Sins, and everyone else who made that party work a HUMONGOUS 'Thank You'. I'll be the first to admit that it's a definite honor to have someone thoughtful enough to get people you've wanted to meet in one building, all at the same time. For the record guys, I'm definitely honored to have you guys as friends.
I met so many people that I've been dying to meet for so long. Some I talk to more than others, some I didn't even know what they looked like. Even though I was wearing a nametag that said ' That Guy SB', I also had the one that everyone could recognize ( almost ): 'H$J'. Shoestring Rob and I spent about 20 minutes outside of the party, calling home and trying to figure out where the Bourbon webcams were. If you've seen one of the pics already, you'd know that our mission was successful.
...................................................................
Some of the people I was ecstatic to shake hands with, hug, rub elbows with, or just have a beer with were :
Shoestring Rob and his cocaine nose
Amber
ATL Holly
Bennywise
Indiana Tim
Jes412
HexumLover Lisa
Vallon
Mandie
GLIbeatz Brian
Davis (faaded420)
Chris, aka Perry Farrell Jr. ( Nyquil4All..Just kidding)
ap311
RubaDub Angela
NATE
Jared
Masshole Mark
GGGJ Gene
.................. and those are just SOME of the people I haven't met. I don't have to go on for days about the people I have met, because it's always a pleasure to see them anyways. For all of you people I met for the first time, I hope we get to do it again. I am humbled to finally meet y'all.
....................................................................
POST-FAN PARTY
Amberrocks David and I carried our party host back to her hotel room, being the gntlemen that we are. Once passed out, I continued my tradition of vandalizing the first drunk that passes out. Christina makes a lovely mummy, and I'll leave it at that.
David told me that he forgot where his hotel was, and we were both pretty much obliterated. As a solution, his roomate showed up to get us to our hotels, or so we thought. As we left the hotel, David's buddy's first words: "LET'S GO TO THE STRIP CLUB!"..........This was about 7 am, the next day. We were already drunk. THE SUN WAS OUT. Next thing I know, we're sitting on the first open bar on Bourbon St. , one Club Utopia.
The three of us sat around, drinking 'til around 8am. The main point of interest in this club was a group of drunk asses across the bar, ( notice the quotation marks coming up) " learning Akido" from a guy that looked like a doppelganger for Pootie Tang (see picture).
Seriously, we may have been drunk. But it doesn't take a genius to see this guy telling these kids a scripted attack plan, so he could demonstrate ' the magic of Akido'. Way to demonstrate street fighting, Pootie. Eheeh.
Time of unconsciousness? 9 am, March 11th.
_____________________________________________________________________
PRE-CONCERT, 311 DAY
After I woke up to hangover that would make Ripley's Believe It or Not take notice, my wonderful roommate Christi had already prepared breakfast for me:
2 Tylenol, and a glass of water.
needless to say I felt like hammered fecal matter when I arose before the show, but it's safe to say that I was the last dog to die from the night before ( David too), and there was no way in H-E-double hockey sticks I was going to do that two nights in a row...Or was I?
..........
After a nutritious lunch at the chic Southern restaraunt Wendy's , I got a call from two people I have waited 5 years to meet. Tony ( Kudzu66) and his fiance' Dawn. Old school bbers will recognize the names. We stopped by HexumLover's hotel to pick up my ticket, then we took a nice healthy stroll to the Ramada to meet up with Tim (danknugz), HIS beautiful fiance' ( you're welcome, sassy ass), Tony & Dawn. For those of you who talk with Tony on here, he's a lot shorter than you'd expect.
We hung for a bit, had a few pre-show drinks, then I headed off to the 3/11 day show in a cab with FLOWING MINDSPIN and Masshole Mark. On the way to the show we called the man, the myth, the legend..Mark Holt. Even though Mark couldn't make it, we felt it was important to call him and let him know that we wished he was there, and he deserved to be there more than we did. I am sure he was there in spirit, because , well damn.. He's one spiritual motherf***er.
As we got to the show, the NorCal-Boston trio of 311 freaks went to Will Call, where Christina (Ms. Sampson if you're nasty) was angelic enough to get us floor wristbands at Will Call. After a 'traumatic' wristband incident that lasted about ten minutes, things were fixed and we made our way into the UNO Lakefront Arena.
Which leads me to my review of the actual:
_______________________________________________________________
311 DAY CONCERT :
You've heard the stories. 69 songs. 5+ hours. What you haven't heard is that I represented all my NorCal bretheren by sporting my white, #81 Tim Brown Raiders jersey. We made our way to P-nuts side of the stage, where we took up residence for the duration of the show.
As many of you know, I had to scramble heavily just to make it to New Orleans. I hate to sound like a pansy, but just hearing songs like ' Life's Not a Race', OSOT, and BTGS almost brought me to tears. All the stress, fiery hoops, and roadblocks I've gone through in the past year just seemed to melt away as the concert progressed. some of MY personal highlights from the show:
Sometimes Jacks - For never playing it live, they sure fooled the thousands of people in attendance. It was absolutely flawless, and I think should be a mainstay on some of their longer shows.
Outside ( w/ Zack Hex ) - Zack's intro solo lasted what seemed like a beautiful eternity. Jazzy, funky, and totally original. What more do you need? I'm a sucker for a great sax solo.
Life's Not a Race - One of my personal 311 faves, Tim's solos weren't exactly like the cd version... they were BETTER. By the time the song was over, my jaw was on the floor. Fuckin' rawk on, miT.
Cali Soca - Hearing it live is something just to see, let alone hear. I think it's probably one of the neatest songs to watch every member of the band go for broke, and "let it all hang out". There's not one second of the song where one of the boys aren't doing something.
Freeze Time - I've been to numerous shows where the whole crowd gets to interact with the big 'HEY" during the pauses....I think the band was pretty shocked at how loud the crowd was every time P-nut pumped his fist. You couldn't help but smile and look around at all the fists pumping in unison. T'was a thing of beauty.
D'yer Ma'ker One fascination I've always wondered about as a 311 fan: Could 311 legitimately cover Zeppelin? When we were between takes at the 'Creatures' video shoot, Tim jokingly jumped in to a little bit of ' The Ocean". I always wondered if Nick and/or SA could actually do the vocals. Once I fgured out they were playing D'yer Ma'ker, I practically shat myself on the arena floor. I hope they do it more often, as it was pretty damn spectacular.
Juan Bond - I got to hear it! Hahahahaha. It was about damn time, too.
Gap - I just thought it was funny to see thousands of lips singing ' Eat Smoked Fish". Eheeh.
Don't Dwell For a song that relies on P-nut to go apeshit on his bass, it was played torwards the end of the show. Watching P-nut bust it out like it was effortless was proof enough for me that the dude is not from this planet. Unfuckingbelieveable.
...............................................................
After the show ended, we made our tired asses back to the hotel. I was too tired to go to the Zack Hex show, unfortunately. I showered up and lay still for almost an hour, my ears still ringing from the show.
_____________________________________________________________________
I finally made my way to Bourbon St. with Jonas, where we met a bunch of highly intoxicated bbers sitting on the steps of some African Culture Center place. i ran out of cigarettes, so Jonas and I started backtracking down Bourbon St. where I ran into David ( AmberRocks).
The three of us went into a bar where Tony ( Kudzu), Dawn, Tim, Jess, and a few old school bber friends were lurking. As I walked into the bar, I ran ibto two guys you may have heard of ; some drummer guy named Chad and a guitar player named Tim. (!)
Tim approached me and thanked me for coming out to the show. He asked where I came from, and I told him I came from NorCal. His eyes sorta bugged out for a second, then asked me 'Can I give you a hug?". he gave me a nice buddy hug, chatted with me, David, and Jonas for a good 15-20 minutes. Then it kinda got funny.
Dawn from Atlanta was celebrating her bachelorette party (with a white veil on her head) in this EXTREMELY tiny bar. Tim asked to see her ring, then started asking questions about the ring. As he held her hand looking at the ring, I stood up on my stool and yelled "SHE SAID YES!!!! SHE SAID YES!!". The whole bar turned to see Tim, holding Dawn's hand, complete with her veil. Tim stepped back with a shocked look on his face, his eyes spaced out , then he pumped his fists triumphantly in the air like he was actually proposing to her. he talked with us for a few more minutes, then was getting bugged by one of the tour guys to go home. Chad also came up to us and thanked us for the good laugh, and for coming out.
David, Jonas and I ended up staying up 'til about 8 am.. AGAIN. I think David and I spent more hours collectively logged on Boubon St. than anyone else. it showed by the way him and I showed up at the show green in the face, and still have bags under our eyes today.
That's about it. I'll make another post to thank everyone I saw that I know, or just met on Thursday. I hope we can all get together and leave our troubles behind like this more often. it was worth it, and was the best two days of my life.
________________________________________________________________________
And to all the guys in 311 : Thank you, most of all. If it weren't for you guys busting your balls for us year in and year out, none of us would have been able to partake in this experience. I think I can safely say that as long as you keep 'being there' for us fans, all of us that have travelled from across the states ( and overseas) to see you will keep showing you guys the love and respect you so righteously deserve. It's hard to put in to words how much you mean to your fans, especially those who show up here on a regular basis, but that's the best I could do.
__________________________________________________________________
The flights to NOLA:
I left Sacramento early on the 10th, and I had to be up at 2:30 am, PST. I thought I'd try to get some sleep on the plane rides, but that was evidently NOT going to happen. I ended up with an 84 year old woman telling me about how she was from Estonia, how she feels sick when she flies, and anything under the sun to wake me up every two minutes. I never realized why people get sick on planes until I was about 40 miles from Minneapolis. There was only one landing strip open, so we were held in what us called a "holding pattern". I believe a better phrase for this would be a 'We're going to make you extremely nauseous pattern".
We literally did loops for 30 minutes, before actually landing in Minnesota. The ride from Minneapolis to New Orleans was pretty tedious, but pretty complaint-free.
_______________________________________________________________
Met the roomies: Sharon ( Dolphincubus), Christi (IncuvenDoll), Shannon ( awwthatstoobad),Anesha (Incubustedchick), Jonas, and the visiting George (skratchaholik)...Then we were off to the...
_______________________________________________________________
FAN PARTY
Due to my roommates love for excessive primping before getting extremely intoxicated, we showed up at the party a little late. As we strolled up to Club 735, it was obvious that the line was at least 600 people deep. A lot of old friends from around the states recognized me, and exchanged greetings with me while my roomies headed to the front. I walked up to the front to see people I knew, and ran smack dab into Christina Sampson ( FLOWING MINDSPIN ). She did her best to get all of the bbers who post here regularly in to the party faster than 311 fans that just wanted to party.
I think everyone on this board owes her, Chris Sins, and everyone else who made that party work a HUMONGOUS 'Thank You'. I'll be the first to admit that it's a definite honor to have someone thoughtful enough to get people you've wanted to meet in one building, all at the same time. For the record guys, I'm definitely honored to have you guys as friends.
I met so many people that I've been dying to meet for so long. Some I talk to more than others, some I didn't even know what they looked like. Even though I was wearing a nametag that said ' That Guy SB', I also had the one that everyone could recognize ( almost ): 'H$J'. Shoestring Rob and I spent about 20 minutes outside of the party, calling home and trying to figure out where the Bourbon webcams were. If you've seen one of the pics already, you'd know that our mission was successful.
...................................................................
Some of the people I was ecstatic to shake hands with, hug, rub elbows with, or just have a beer with were :
Shoestring Rob and his cocaine nose
Amber
ATL Holly
Bennywise
Indiana Tim
Jes412
HexumLover Lisa
Vallon
Mandie
GLIbeatz Brian
Davis (faaded420)
Chris, aka Perry Farrell Jr. ( Nyquil4All..Just kidding)
ap311
RubaDub Angela
NATE
Jared
Masshole Mark
GGGJ Gene
.................. and those are just SOME of the people I haven't met. I don't have to go on for days about the people I have met, because it's always a pleasure to see them anyways. For all of you people I met for the first time, I hope we get to do it again. I am humbled to finally meet y'all.
....................................................................
POST-FAN PARTY
Amberrocks David and I carried our party host back to her hotel room, being the gntlemen that we are. Once passed out, I continued my tradition of vandalizing the first drunk that passes out. Christina makes a lovely mummy, and I'll leave it at that.
David told me that he forgot where his hotel was, and we were both pretty much obliterated. As a solution, his roomate showed up to get us to our hotels, or so we thought. As we left the hotel, David's buddy's first words: "LET'S GO TO THE STRIP CLUB!"..........This was about 7 am, the next day. We were already drunk. THE SUN WAS OUT. Next thing I know, we're sitting on the first open bar on Bourbon St. , one Club Utopia.
The three of us sat around, drinking 'til around 8am. The main point of interest in this club was a group of drunk asses across the bar, ( notice the quotation marks coming up) " learning Akido" from a guy that looked like a doppelganger for Pootie Tang (see picture).
Seriously, we may have been drunk. But it doesn't take a genius to see this guy telling these kids a scripted attack plan, so he could demonstrate ' the magic of Akido'. Way to demonstrate street fighting, Pootie. Eheeh.
Time of unconsciousness? 9 am, March 11th.
_____________________________________________________________________
PRE-CONCERT, 311 DAY
After I woke up to hangover that would make Ripley's Believe It or Not take notice, my wonderful roommate Christi had already prepared breakfast for me:
2 Tylenol, and a glass of water.
needless to say I felt like hammered fecal matter when I arose before the show, but it's safe to say that I was the last dog to die from the night before ( David too), and there was no way in H-E-double hockey sticks I was going to do that two nights in a row...Or was I?
..........
After a nutritious lunch at the chic Southern restaraunt Wendy's , I got a call from two people I have waited 5 years to meet. Tony ( Kudzu66) and his fiance' Dawn. Old school bbers will recognize the names. We stopped by HexumLover's hotel to pick up my ticket, then we took a nice healthy stroll to the Ramada to meet up with Tim (danknugz), HIS beautiful fiance' ( you're welcome, sassy ass), Tony & Dawn. For those of you who talk with Tony on here, he's a lot shorter than you'd expect.
We hung for a bit, had a few pre-show drinks, then I headed off to the 3/11 day show in a cab with FLOWING MINDSPIN and Masshole Mark. On the way to the show we called the man, the myth, the legend..Mark Holt. Even though Mark couldn't make it, we felt it was important to call him and let him know that we wished he was there, and he deserved to be there more than we did. I am sure he was there in spirit, because , well damn.. He's one spiritual motherf***er.
As we got to the show, the NorCal-Boston trio of 311 freaks went to Will Call, where Christina (Ms. Sampson if you're nasty) was angelic enough to get us floor wristbands at Will Call. After a 'traumatic' wristband incident that lasted about ten minutes, things were fixed and we made our way into the UNO Lakefront Arena.
Which leads me to my review of the actual:
_______________________________________________________________
311 DAY CONCERT :
You've heard the stories. 69 songs. 5+ hours. What you haven't heard is that I represented all my NorCal bretheren by sporting my white, #81 Tim Brown Raiders jersey. We made our way to P-nuts side of the stage, where we took up residence for the duration of the show.
As many of you know, I had to scramble heavily just to make it to New Orleans. I hate to sound like a pansy, but just hearing songs like ' Life's Not a Race', OSOT, and BTGS almost brought me to tears. All the stress, fiery hoops, and roadblocks I've gone through in the past year just seemed to melt away as the concert progressed. some of MY personal highlights from the show:
Sometimes Jacks - For never playing it live, they sure fooled the thousands of people in attendance. It was absolutely flawless, and I think should be a mainstay on some of their longer shows.
Outside ( w/ Zack Hex ) - Zack's intro solo lasted what seemed like a beautiful eternity. Jazzy, funky, and totally original. What more do you need? I'm a sucker for a great sax solo.
Life's Not a Race - One of my personal 311 faves, Tim's solos weren't exactly like the cd version... they were BETTER. By the time the song was over, my jaw was on the floor. Fuckin' rawk on, miT.
Cali Soca - Hearing it live is something just to see, let alone hear. I think it's probably one of the neatest songs to watch every member of the band go for broke, and "let it all hang out". There's not one second of the song where one of the boys aren't doing something.
Freeze Time - I've been to numerous shows where the whole crowd gets to interact with the big 'HEY" during the pauses....I think the band was pretty shocked at how loud the crowd was every time P-nut pumped his fist. You couldn't help but smile and look around at all the fists pumping in unison. T'was a thing of beauty.
D'yer Ma'ker One fascination I've always wondered about as a 311 fan: Could 311 legitimately cover Zeppelin? When we were between takes at the 'Creatures' video shoot, Tim jokingly jumped in to a little bit of ' The Ocean". I always wondered if Nick and/or SA could actually do the vocals. Once I fgured out they were playing D'yer Ma'ker, I practically shat myself on the arena floor. I hope they do it more often, as it was pretty damn spectacular.
Juan Bond - I got to hear it! Hahahahaha. It was about damn time, too.
Gap - I just thought it was funny to see thousands of lips singing ' Eat Smoked Fish". Eheeh.
Don't Dwell For a song that relies on P-nut to go apeshit on his bass, it was played torwards the end of the show. Watching P-nut bust it out like it was effortless was proof enough for me that the dude is not from this planet. Unfuckingbelieveable.
...............................................................
After the show ended, we made our tired asses back to the hotel. I was too tired to go to the Zack Hex show, unfortunately. I showered up and lay still for almost an hour, my ears still ringing from the show.
_____________________________________________________________________
I finally made my way to Bourbon St. with Jonas, where we met a bunch of highly intoxicated bbers sitting on the steps of some African Culture Center place. i ran out of cigarettes, so Jonas and I started backtracking down Bourbon St. where I ran into David ( AmberRocks).
The three of us went into a bar where Tony ( Kudzu), Dawn, Tim, Jess, and a few old school bber friends were lurking. As I walked into the bar, I ran ibto two guys you may have heard of ; some drummer guy named Chad and a guitar player named Tim. (!)
Tim approached me and thanked me for coming out to the show. He asked where I came from, and I told him I came from NorCal. His eyes sorta bugged out for a second, then asked me 'Can I give you a hug?". he gave me a nice buddy hug, chatted with me, David, and Jonas for a good 15-20 minutes. Then it kinda got funny.
Dawn from Atlanta was celebrating her bachelorette party (with a white veil on her head) in this EXTREMELY tiny bar. Tim asked to see her ring, then started asking questions about the ring. As he held her hand looking at the ring, I stood up on my stool and yelled "SHE SAID YES!!!! SHE SAID YES!!". The whole bar turned to see Tim, holding Dawn's hand, complete with her veil. Tim stepped back with a shocked look on his face, his eyes spaced out , then he pumped his fists triumphantly in the air like he was actually proposing to her. he talked with us for a few more minutes, then was getting bugged by one of the tour guys to go home. Chad also came up to us and thanked us for the good laugh, and for coming out.
David, Jonas and I ended up staying up 'til about 8 am.. AGAIN. I think David and I spent more hours collectively logged on Boubon St. than anyone else. it showed by the way him and I showed up at the show green in the face, and still have bags under our eyes today.
That's about it. I'll make another post to thank everyone I saw that I know, or just met on Thursday. I hope we can all get together and leave our troubles behind like this more often. it was worth it, and was the best two days of my life.
________________________________________________________________________
And to all the guys in 311 : Thank you, most of all. If it weren't for you guys busting your balls for us year in and year out, none of us would have been able to partake in this experience. I think I can safely say that as long as you keep 'being there' for us fans, all of us that have travelled from across the states ( and overseas) to see you will keep showing you guys the love and respect you so righteously deserve. It's hard to put in to words how much you mean to your fans, especially those who show up here on a regular basis, but that's the best I could do.