Apocalyptour 2012
Also known as Cheri's Birthday 2012. Shenanigans. And you know me, when there are shenanigans, I tl;dr about them. :D
Something to keep in mind as you read: I didn't sleep Wednesday night probably...at all. I've been sleeping piss-poorly lately, I think connected to my depression, and so that + going to bed too early because I knew I'd have to get up too early + general being too fucking happy!anxious about how excited I was to go on my adventure and I literally did not sleep. So by the time the concert started I'd been awake for roughly thirty-six hours. Just...keep that coloration of my actions at the back of your mind, rofl.
On to the show!!
Part 1: Bus Adventures
But before I can tell you about the show, I have to tell you about the bus.
I'm starting to believe that the combination of me, theeldervag, and any kind of bus is just doomed to failure. Our last Bus Adventure™ took several hours longer than it was meant to and exposed us to all kinds of scary things we were never prepared to see. This go 'round it's actually a little more insane. It might be the most ridiculous shit that has ever happened to me.
After not sleeping all night, I got up around 5:30, made sure I was all packed, and was then given a ride to the bus station by my buddy Peyton. We got there early enough that the station doors weren't even open yet, which was stupid, but we didn't have too long to wait until this nice dude in a baseball cap came and let in me and the one other girl who was waiting, a cute black woman my age or maybe a little bit younger, who was going to New York to visit her sister. Once we were inside we waited and waited and waited, and eventually the guy working there goes, "Your bus is late. It's not even to Roanoke yet, it's over an hour behind schedule."
Cue my first little flutter of panic. I was like, "Am I still going to make my connection in Richmond?" But he assured me that I would, because I had such a long layover - instead of sitting around doing nothing in Richmond, I was just going to be sitting around doing nothing in Lynchburg. Which I was okay with, I guess. Peyton eventually left to get some breakfast and drive her dad to work, and it was just me and the other people in the bus station hangin' out and I got some Pop-Tarts from the vending machine and blew my nose a whole bunch and listened to the station employee and his buddy talking about the guy in Florida who chewed the other guy's face off because he was on drugs. The usual lmao.
Update #2 came when our bus hit Roanoke, and he said it should be about an hour and five minutes. I was still really sleepy so I didn't bother to do much to entertain myself, just texted Cheri and vocalcannibal about the complications in my plans to make sure we were all on target for what was going on, and stuff. More waiting. More bus-station peoplewatching, more bus not coming.
Okay, here's the crazy part:
After about an hour delay of waiting and spacing out, the guy comes over to me and the cute sassy black girl and says, "Bad news, ladies: Your bus isn't coming."
Like.
Literally not coming.
THIS IS WHEN I STARTED TO PANIC IN EARNEST. He goes "You can wait and we can put you on the next bus which is coming at 3:20" and I was like "No, I CAN'T wait till 3:20 actually!!!" and started freaking the fuck out. I had to be in Silver Spring by at least 7! I had Cheri's ticket, so if I didn't make it she wasn't going to be able to get in to the concert! But the bus LITERALLY WAS NOT STOPPING IN LYNCHBURG. He told us that it was completely full and had called ahead to Charlottesville telling them the bus wasn't stopping until it got there. The driver didn't even call the Lynchburg station - he told Charlottesville to call and tell us. Which was bullshit. The bus being totally full was also bullshit. Because isn't that the point of buying a ticket, is to reserve your seat. The guy there said he'd had a problem like this at least once before from the same bus driver and that if he had only called our station directly, he might have been able to contact their HQ or whatever and get clearance to put me and NYC-girl in a cab instead, but all the hoops he was having to jump through and she he was having to figure out was fucking things up.
The other girl decided she could wait until 3:20 but I DID NOT HAVE THAT LUXURY.......so I started calling everyone I could possibly call looking for a ride to Richmond, because he told me that as long as I made it to Richmond in time, I could still get on my transfer bus there. It's 8:00 or later at this point and I'm like I NEED TO LEAVE...NOW..... I called Peyton first - definite no. Called Jesse - no answer. Called Colin - woke him up, whoops idgaf, and he said he would if he weren't sick but that he basically couldn't be away from a bathroom for that long, which was gross but reasonable. Got Peter's number from Colin and called him - no answer. Called Jesse again - no answer, that bastard was asleep. Called Jessica - she was leaving town to go to NC and said no.
Broke down and called my mom.
I explained the situation to her and she was clearly getting frustrated pretty darn quickly. She said she was gonna try some people and get back to me once she'd explored some options. So I called Liz, but she couldn't because she was working. I tried Amanda but she didn't answer. I called Peter again and he answered this time - woke him up, so sorry, he said he would but he wouldn't make it back in time for work so he couldn't. While I was talking to Peter my mom called me back, and it was mostly to tell me she didn't have an answer either but that she was at least going to come and pick me up from the bus station so we could regroup and I Wouldn't just be sitting there all morning. She sounded even more pissed at this point. Okay.
While I was waiting for her I talked some to the guy who worked there and his friend, and they were actually super-nice about the whole thing and did as much as they could to help me. And it wasn't THEIR fault my idiot bus wasn't coming, so I couldn't even get mad at them. (I asked how much a cab to Richmond would cost and it turns out it was like $312. Ahahahahahaha no.) I also called Jesse AGAIN and FINALLY woke him up, to ask him to take me to Richmond, and he gave me the closest to a yes anyone had given me yet - he thought he MIGHT be able to do it but he wasn't sure, and had a lot of extenuating circumstances, and there was something that'd been rattling on his car and making him nervous. I was like NO THAT'S FINE CHECK WHATEVER YOU NEED TO CHECK JESSE YOU ARE A GODDESS or something, and in the meantime my mom showed up.
At this point my mom was p much furious. She was angry at the whole situation and did her best to be polite to the bus station guy because she, too, knew it wasn't his fault, but she didn't really have any other target for her anger except for me. She was almost rude about it and it would've been funny if it weren't so terrifying; she literally said "If we had alternative options for this, we wouldn't be taking the bus!!!!" We got in the car for her to drive me home and she basically resigned herself to taking me to Richmond. She was like, "If I'm taking you, we might as well just start to leave now." She called in to work and canceled a couple of appointments and god I cannot remember the last time I saw her this irate. It was scary, especially in the enclosed space of a car, and I was not looking forward to driving for two+ hours with that. D: I called Jesse back to check with him, but when he didn't answer, I was just like "yeah, Mom, let's just go ahead."
And then Jesse called me back!!! He was going to take his dad's car and he WOULD take me, but only if I had literally no other option. And I was like, Yes, Jesse, YES, I MUST CONFESS OF MY OBSESSION WITH YOUR total niceness and wonderful face ;A; So my fuming mother took me home, dropped me+my luggage+the car, and then walked back to work, and tried to detox from how ridic the morning had been (she hadn't even gotten her coffee first, my poor mommy D:) while I waited for Jesse to get some gas and then show up. (It was actually a good opportunity for me, because I got to pee, grab a belt for my shorts that were pretty much falling off, and snag my StarKid shades which I had totally forgotten.)
Oh, but as we were pulling into the driveway? Right before my mom left? THE BUS STATION CALLED AND TOLD ME THAT MY BUS HAD ARRIVED. I was like, "Are you serious right now???" It ended up not mattering because it was still too full for me to take it anywhere, but it was still ABSOLUTELY FUCKING RIDICULOUS, LIKE I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK GREYHOUND THOUGHT IT WAS DOING ON THURSDAY MORNING. LIKE HOW.
Jesse called back and I was like "bro we need to leave now I need to make it to Richmond by noon" and he was like "!!! It's almost 9:45, we will NEVER make it to Richmond by noon, what the fuck!! I DON'T THINK WE CAN DO THIS" and I was like BULLSHIT, JESSE KNOWLES, MY MOM'S GPS SAID 11:15 IF WE LEFT NOW, GET YOUR ASS HERE AND WE'RE GONNA SPEED AND WE'RE GONNA DO THIS. And he was like "well but technically I'm on call for work and if anyone calls in sick I have to be here to take over wahh waaahhhh WSET" and I was like NO. JESSE. I AM SORRY BUT I NEED YOU RIGHT NOW. MY MOM ALREADY WENT BACK TO WORK AND I NEED YOU MORE THAN TV LAND NEEDS YOU. and when he arrived I gave unto him my only jar of barely-touched nutella and showered him with praises and we LEFT.
WE LITERALLY DID THE CAR VERSION OF RUNNING ALL THE WAY TO RICHMOND. I knew Jesse was a fast driver already which is why I'd secretly been hoping he'd be the one to say yes to my crazy proposal but we broke so much of the law, omg. When we first got in the car the GPS put our estimated arrival time as 12:03. My bus was leaving Richmond at 12:01, so this was clearly not acceptable. By the time we were pretty much arriving, the GPS (and like...the real world) put our arrival time at 11:47. THAT'S HOW MUCH WE WERE SPEEDING. WE SHAVED 16 MINUTES IN TWO HOURS. The GPS took us through 2 tolls and we were furious because NO TIME WHY and we spent all our quarters at the first one, so we got to the second one...and the bar wasn't down...so we just went through without paying YOLO YOLO.
Then we got to "arriving at destination" and COULDN'T FIND THE BUS STATION!!! We had about 3 minutes of wiggle room so we were panicking and trying to beat the GPS into submission when Cheri called. She was like "WHERE ARE YOU. THE BUS IS BOARDING." And I was like "what is the bus station near we are trying so hard???" and she said "a giant stadium" and I was like "NO OMG WE ARE RIGHT THERE" and we scrambled and broke traffic laws and FOUND IT. AND JESSE NOT-QUITE PARKED AT THE STADIUM ACROSS THE STREET. AND I LEAPT OUT OF THE CAR LITERALLY BEFORE IT STOPPED MOVING, GRABBED MY STUFF, RAN ACROSS THE STREET AND INTO THE BUS STATION AND DID NOT STOP RUNNING IN ONE FLUID MOVEMENT UNTIL I WAS AT CHERI'S SIDE AND WE WERE WAITING TO PRESENT OUR TICKETS TO THE BUS DRIVER.
I cannot believe the magic that occurred this day. Please inform Jesse that he is a wizard and TREAT HIM AS SUCH. And in summation: don't do the speed limit, do BETTER THAN THE SPEED LIMIT!!
Once I got on the bus with Cheri we were fine and had no complications and talked about life and fandom and boys and helped this nice woman across the aisle when her fruit rolled away from her and Cheri braved the bus bathroom and I ate a Lunchable.
~
Part 2: Much Less Precarious
We immediately teamed up with KRISCHTEN!! and cruised our asses back to the hotel. The parking garage situation was a little confusing but we worked it out I guess~ lol there was no one in the booth at the front so we just drove straight in. We're staying in the hotel so we park here yes whooo! And we went inside and Cheri checked in and everything was fiiiine. In the room Cheri wanted to take a shower so I set about fixin' up our cupcakes with Kristen as my assistant! I wanted to make Gushers cupcakes for Corey because of Gushering/in honor of World's Worst Musical (go to 33:17 for the full effect ahaha). Gushers, it turns out, are mostly made of pear concentrate (in addition to sugar lol) so I found a recipe for pear cake and made it into cupcakes as well as making (brightly colored!) pear filling to go on the inside for extra Gusherosity. And then icing and Gushers on top. Shit was so cash.
Awww yeeeahh. We also made Cheri put on our Black Swan tiara that we found at Katsucon because BURFDAY. :D But this ate up a lot of time unfortunatelyyyyy and we needed to get some food and then head to the venue QUICK or we were gonna be so so stupidly far back in the massive line that was already forming. So we walked to Panera (carrying the cupcakes - this involved me threatening Cheri that "If you drop those cupcakes, I will drop your FACE into the PAVEMENT") and got some sandwiches and dranks (I tried to pay with my debit card and it was declined; turns out I had TWO DOLLARS AND SOME CHANGE IN MY ACCOUNT LOLOLOL THANKS $50 HAIRCUT so I had to pay with cash) and then ate much faster than was probably healthy. It was fun to people-watch here because the Panera was SO close to the venue that nearly everyone both inside and outside was StarKid people. I watched a frazzled mom deal with at least three kids (her own daughter and her daughter's friends), I watched some friends who looked like they hadn't seen each other in a really long time have a bouncy, huggy reunion right outside the window. KAWAII. We also saw Clark Baxtresser stroll by with like Megan Cox and the other band folks. They were either going to get Chinese or Red Lobster, judging by what else was in the immediate area. Rofl. I was staring out the window trying to get a good look beyond Kristen's head and she and Cheri were like "wtf" and I was like "I AM JUST TRYING TO TELL IF THAT IS CLARK....." and it totes was. Hope they got some yummy food like we did~
Then we skedaddled back up to the venue! And yyeeaaahhhh the line was long and we were p near the end. We followed it all the way back to its butt amid numerous cries of "Cupcakes! -- WAIT ARE THOSE GUSHERS??", past the Batmobile limo that they'd also had at SPACE tour and Gabby way closer to the front than we were, all the way around the block to where the line ended. We were immediately followed by a girl dressed as Robin and her friend, and they became our super-awesome line buddies! We talked with them about StarKid, anime cons, and other fun experiences and fandom stuff, it was gr8. I love making new friends wahh~ Not too long after that the line started moving and we progressed slowly but surely to the front.
We're right outside the venue when a woman stops us all "You can't take food inside the venue >:[" and oh, god, it's that bitch-ass staff lady from last time. FUCK. I was like "But these are FOR them!" and she was like "Well harrumph I can take them from you and get them backstage" and I was like WELL BUT NO BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE YOU but I didn't really have a choice in the matter wahh? So we handed them over and I was all noooooo I wanted to give them to Coreeyyyyyy but it was too late. ;A;
After getting a super-sloppy 21+ handstamp we maneuvered inside~ We were pretty far back, but somehow it was still a better view than at SPACE where we were near the front because we were just surrounded by better people! We decided to stick with our new friends Abby and Marissa for strength in numbers, and we formed a little pod maybe two-thirds of the way back from the stage and off to stage left/audience right near the merch tables. We all wanted merch so we decided to go in turns and Kristen went first. The line was stupid-long and she was over there forever D: so while she was gone we just kind of fucked around, and people cheered for the guy messing with the microphones for no reason (the same guy as SPACE lmao) and tried several miserably-failed times to start singalongs. TYPICAL MASS STARKID FAN BEHAVIOR but honestly I was so cray from not sleeping that it bothered me so much less than usual. And then suddenly this girl standing next to us is shouting back over her shoulder "Jordan!!" and I turn and it was... MY FRIEND JORDAN. COMING TO STAND RIGHT WHERE WE ALREADY WERE. What are the odds!! We had an excited little moment together and wahhh it was so great :3
Kristen finally escaped with a tank top and made it back kind of right as Charlene's set was starting up! Her stuff was way more fun this go 'round than I felt like it was at SPACE. Idk, I'm still not SUPER-into a whole lot of Charlene's music, but you cannot deny she is a kickass performer, so I got p pumped up anyway. (Remember, I hadn't slept.) It didn't hurt that she came out in LITERALLY THE MOST PERFECT OUTFIT EVER...IT WAS...A NEON ORANGE DRESS AND PATTERNED TIGHTS.... in love with her fashion sense tbh. She seemed to have a better rhythm/swing of things going than at SPACE - the whole show did, really, I think all of them as a group are finally getting a better handle on how to do this whole "tour" thing. She played I think Hummingbird Heart, Woman Up, a "new" song of hers...she duped the whole crowd into thinking she and Dylan were doing Dress & Tie when they really did Skin and Bones which I would MUCH RATHER have seen anyway, that was wonderful, and then played KISS BY PRINCE IN HONOR OF PRINCE'S BIRTHDAY (!!!) WHICH IS ONLY LIKE MY FAVORITE PRINCE SONG, SHIT FLIPPED, and at least one other song and then closed on Animal Love 1 with everyone mosh-jumping to the chorus. Pretty sweet. (I still default to singing the high Megan Cox harmony on the Animal Love chorus, whomp whomp.) It was a short set but really well put together and heavy on the Dylan and Clark (literally a bullet point on my list for making this post was just "clark is very attractive" jfc) and I enjoyed it and she is really good at playing the guitar yes good. Here are some pictures of Charlene being fierce&fabulous.
In the lull between her set and StarKid's they...started playing Owl City over the house sound system...?? It was hilarious because pretty much the whole venue started singing along to Fireflies and our whole little group were bagging on how little sense the lyrics make and Kristen was like "OWL CITY IS MY FAVORITE ANIME" and I was all "OWL CITY IS MY FAVORITE STARKID" and rofl rofl. I also ninja'd over to merch at this time! The one closest to us was Lisa's table and I was excited to see her because she is adorable. I got a tank top and the orange silicone bracelet and then she was like, wanna get a couple buttons to make it an even $35 so I was like SURE. Can't say no to kawaii Lisa and buttons. At sort of the last minute, I asked her about the cupcakes - I was all "I couldn't bring them in but I gave them to this woman, they were for Corey, do you know if they made it back to him?" and she didn't really give me an answer-answer but she was all "If they were for Corey, I'm sure everything worked out fine. He's the guy with the plan. :D" And it was just SO ADORBZ because all of the merch team really does love him so, so much and they fangirl him just like I do. Literally perfect.
I got back to our huddle and it still seemed like we had some time, so I shooed Cheri over there too. I was like "go now, while the line is small, before anything sells out" and she was hesitant but she went, and I talked some to Kristen, who'd apparently gotten deathglared by some girl in a ponytail who was standing near us for like, no apparent reason. Kristen has such terrible luck with ponytail bitches ahahaha. And I talked to Jordan some more because yay! waahhh friends. Cheri came back pretty quick, but she opened her sunglasses and discovered a big gouge on them where the green had flaked off to reveal the plain white plastic, and I told her to take them back because I knew Lisa would trade for a better pair, and she did! And by the time Cheri got back from round 2, it was STARKID TIME and oh gosh we were just all so excited.
It's weeeeeeiiiirrrrd, because I loved the set list but at the same time I felt like it was missing...something....? Like I look back on it and I go "no, it was fine," but my FEELINGS are like "but it was weird." IDEC, BECAUSE IT WAS AWESOME. Joey and Walker were awesome and Dylan was awesome and even B-hole was awesome and JAIME....WAS AWESOME...... THERE WAS SO MUCH JAIME I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO VOMIT oh my god I was not ready. The setlist was pretty nifty! They opened with like a Me and My Dick/Ready to Go and kept dodging around actually saying the word "dick" which was pretty comical because the audience would just keep singing along to the line and all say "dick" even though Joey stopped singing ahahaha. Then they worked in a little bit of the tour "plot" with some funny dikrats jokes about Darren and Moses which made me super happy because FRIEENNNDDZZ BAWWW and then they mostly just dove back into the performances. BEST PARTS OF THE SET AS FOLLOWS:
- VILLAIN SONG MEDLEY HOLY SHIT NO NO NO MY BODY WAS NOT READY. Holden did Tyler's part on Not Over Yet and it just kept going and I kind of turned to Cheri and clung to her hands and was like "You know this is about to turn into Kick It Up A Notch. YOU KNOW IT IS." because they have the same fucking Bowser's Airship dundundundun background beat, gg Darren, and then I was TOTALLY RIGHT and it dissolved into Dylan and sexytimes and the Dylan/Joey dynamic was so ON, vocally, probz one of the better times I've seen that song done. And Jaime of course waaahhhh. (And me and Kristen singing it to each other like we did last time where she was Bug and I was Pincer and it was perfect~~) Then KIUAN turned into Rogues Are We + the reprise and Joey was Sweet Tooth and that was nngh pretty hot and of course MORE JAIME, jaime jaime everywhere. I'm pretty sure Liam said they're not doing a DVD of this concert which makes me MAD because I would MUCH rather have this on DVD than SPACE tour which I don't feel like was as good, but I hope we at LEAST get good quality video of the villain medley at some point because it was easily the highlight of the show. Everyone knows that villains are the most fun to play.
- LWL reject song medley!! OMG so unexpected and so wonderful. It was Caught In The Lie/Boy Toy/Fancy Machine/Hold On Tight, and it was clear that virtually no one in the venue was all that familiar with anything but Boy Toy except...for me. I was singing along to Fancy Machine and Hold On Tight (WHICH WAS BRIAN ROSENTHAL, it was so perfect, you are the best Love Grenade) at the frantic top of my lungs because I was so jazzed about knowing what was going on when other people didn't because I'm a bitch like that, and also because I love Love Grenade and because I hadn't slept in nearly 40 hours, remember that and I think I really, REALLY put off this mom I had somehow ended up standing next to, wahahaha. Honestly I don't understand why a mom would want to actually come into the show venue unless she was also at least a little bit of a fan. If you're not into StarKid just turn your kids loose inside the concert venue and come back in three hours. Maybe if this were a ~real band~ or someone that had a different kind of fanbase but it's fucking Team StarKid, everyone else there is either exactly like your children or is roughly old enough to be a reasonable babysitter for your children. Don't get pissy with me, random mom, you could've been at your hotel bar.
- HAVE I MENTIONED JAIME YET? BECAUSE JAIME WAS THE OTHER BEST PART. Seriously I lost track of the number of times I screamed "I LOVE YOU JAIME" in an attempt to have it happen where there was relative silence. So many people were yelling for Joey and Walker and even sometimes Lauren but I just...Jaime. Because seriously okay FIRST OF ALL Dylan came out and started doing Sami and I almost passed out because Sami-Harry is one of my favorite StarKid songs ever and I'm in love with it like, melodically and DYLAN WAS SINGING IT and I was like "Cheri, Cheri I need help I'm gonna puke and cry" and she was like "I AM THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK WHAT ARE YOU DOING" and then I was like "wahh I'mma need Jaime to get out here and start doing Harry along with this" aND THEN...SHE DID..... and I screamed so loud that Cheri legit covered her ears and flinched away from me. I'M SORRY. I JUST HAVE A LOT OF JAIME FEELS AND A LOT OF GINNY WEASLEY FEELS AND THEY JUST SORT OF COMPOUND EACH OTHER AND RUIN ME AND IT IS MY FAVORIIIIITTTE and I kept yelling at everyone to shut up so that I could hear them singing because HARMONIES and PERFECT ANGEL VOICES and oh god kill me where I stand. Then, as if that wasn't ridic enough, FAR TOO SOON AFTER THAT WAS OVER Jaime Lyn came to do Not Alone. And did the whole of Not Alone as a Jaime solo with everyone else just coming in near the end to do backup a la the DJ Paradiddle recorded version. LIKE, THE UNIVERSE WANTED ME TO DIE?? JAIME LYN BEATTY I JUST WANT TO BE YOU AND OR/YOUR BEST FRIEND JUST GIVE ME ALL OF YOUR LOVE AND TALENT IN SOME WAY. cryin. legit cryin.
- The closing medley was really fun too, it was the Days of Summer/Get Back to Hogwarts mash that actually happened in AVPS but then also combined with the MAMD finale Heaven On Earth stuff. It was gr8 because by this time, the audience had gotten used to them trying to censor out/not say the word dick, so they get to the end and Joey just holds so hard and goes "It's me.......And my Dick!" and just drives the nail into the coffin of it and I cheered because yessss. I always get so mad when they feel like they have to censor themselves for fans because their fanbase is babies, since those same people have already just watched their relatively unfiltered shows on YouTube anyway....whatever. ahaha.
The rest of the set list was p great too! They did Get Back Up which was yay (arranged different - I really liked it~) and The Way I Do, they did Guys Like Potter which I usually don't like but the dudebro harmony arrangements were nice AND they added in an extra verse from the original Guys Like Peter to stretch the song out longer without the Pensieve scene to pad it with and that was neat too. BRosenthal and Walker did Different As Can Be + the reprise because of course, and then BRosenthal and Joey did Listen To Your Heart and it was great and they made an AJ joke, and Dark Sad Lonely Knight was in there somewhere and so were Granger Danger and idk some other stuff I'm probably forgetting. (At the end of DSLK when it just cut off with the guys on "I wanna be somebody's buddy~" I managed to nab the split second of silence and get in a good, solid "I VOLUNTEER!!!" that I know most of the audience heard, fuck yeah what is wrong with me. Then again Kristen also shouted "YEAH CLARK!!" at some point so who even cares.) And the little story bits with Jim as the Mayan god and stuff were really funny too and there were some good jokes like him sniping at Walker about bubble tea for some reason lmao and then the encore was To Dance Again, Coolest Girl (Meredith), and Super Friends which I knew they wouldn't leave without doing. IT WAS GREAT BECAUSE instead of "I wanna meet the Dalai Lama" BRosenthal sang "I wanna meet Barack Obama" and they were just making fun of Darren at every possible opportunity and I love them.
During Super Friends the confetti cannons went off too!! A lot of the longer streamers of it got caught in the Fillmore's chandelier and stuff, which was kind of fucking awesome if you ask me. Marissa and I were on a mission for confetti though, because we both have some from SPACE and wanted to continue the tradition, so as the crowd started clearing out we surged upstream to get to the place where confetti had actually fallen and each got a couple of handfuls and it was great. ORANGE AND YELLOW CONFETTI what more do I need out of life. We split from each other with a heartfelt exchange of tumblr URLs and then I went back to Cheri and Kristen so we could venture downstairs to the Land of Ice Water and try to revive ourselves from concert plague heat death. It was niiiiice down there, and we stayed for a few minutes before leaving to go forth into the rest of our evening.
So yeah overall a much better experience than SPACE tour, which makes me really sad for Avery that she couldn't come this time around. D: I'd say the VIP stuff was really not worth the money, and the only thing that could've made this better all things considered was if maybe we'd been a little closer to the stage, or not standing behind an obnoxious dude and his girlfriend for the first third of the show. But if we'd been further up in line we'd never have met Abby and Marissa, and we lost the annoying people eventually anyway. I'm proud of StarKid for making such leaps and bounds in their ability literally every time they do stuff, they improve so exponentially quickly that it blows my mind, it's so awesome. D: And ahaha I went back and read through my Apocalyptour predictions post and how right was I on so many of these?? I win at StarKid, basically. I am really glad that I got to do both this and SPACE though because being able to compare the two, and being able to use my experience from SPACE to improve my Apocalyptour funtiems, was really excellent.
Lol speaking of learning from experience WE BASICALLY WON AT STAGEBUSING.
~
Part 3: Group Picture~
We left the venue and darted back to our hotel right quick so that we could unload our merch purchases/excess crap, grab Kristen's stuff that she wanted to get signed, and pee/freshen up/regroup before heading to the bus area for the win. WE REMEMBERED TO GO ON THE BACK END THIS TIME INSTEAD OF OVER AROUND THE PARKING LOT ENTRANCE. Lots more people were already there than last time, since they weren't kicking people out/making us wait so long. There was still a bit of a wait though because they had to load all the crap onto the buses and trailers, but from where we were this time we got to watch! AND OH, HOW I WATCHED. So much incredible Corey ass so LITTLE TIME....... ahhh shameless, fight me. It was kind of nerve-wracking for a little bit because it was almost hard to tell if they really WERE going to come over and talk to the barricade of fans, because no one was really acknowledging us, there was no kind of "Hey we'll get back to you in a bit when we're done with our important tour stuff!" and we were all just kinda left hanging.
Even so, at that point I would've been content with just seeing them be silly and interact with each other. Walker had a six-pack of beer that he was very excited about, only to drop at least one and have it smash on the ground and turn him into the saddest thing ever. He left soon after that and never really came back, ??? alas. It was also cute to see the tech people all pallin' around together, and the band people doing much of the same, and then I was like OH SHIT IS DAT POMME. He and Joey embraced in a semi-homo fashion and then just stood there kind of...touching each other's faces and shoulders...lol wat. (There was actually a lot of semi-homo stuff involved in this concert, most of it Joey-centric. I think people really missed Joey because he lives in LA like a dumbass, or something.) After Pomme and Joey finished up with their super touching moment, Pomme hugged BRosenthal in a swifter and much more bro-like fashion, and then Jaime Lyn, and then Lauren so hard that he hoisted her off the ground because she is tiny. Adorable. Then I guess the bromance was over because he and the girl who was I guess his date started heading out and he was waving back at them and they were calling out "bye!" and as he walked past where we were I just couldn't help myself and I shouted "BYE POMME!!" and he...actually heard me...... CONVENIENTLY I was behind this other girl and was able to line myself up perfectly behind her so when he turned and started looking, he didn't even see me. He gave up and left and then as soon as he was gone Cheri and Kristen and I FELL APART laughing. Oh, Pomme, one day I will work up the courage to talk to you f'realz.
So everyone's still loading stuff up, and we finally start seeing some people come out of the venue that we hadn't seen yet (Holden mostly, I guess idk memories are blurry) but then finally they seem to have wrapped it up enough to start talking to us! First thing to happen is that Liam crouches down and lets June jump up on him piggyback and just alksdjf ADORABLE. He calls out, kind of jokingly because he assumes we're all there for Joey and the guys and the actual ~actors~ and whatnot, but he's like "Hey hey hey who wants an autograph from the costume designer?" and almost before he's done talking Kristen and I jump and flail and shout "WE DO!!!" because we really really do!!!!! She and I had been talking about it before the show, Kristen goes "I wanna know who does all their costumes and stuff" and I was like "Oh oh that's June! And she's actually on tour with them this time unlike SPACE!" and we had kind of made June a priority, so it was awesome to get to talk to her so early on. Liam carried her over to where we were and she went through a couple of people before signing our stuff and they were so effing cute and silly. I think I mentioned Slamaganza and one of them, June or Liam, seriously went "You were at Slamaganza? I'm sorry." roffllll I seriously didn't know what to think of that. and I kind of asked Liam if he might be signing things too or if it wasn't going to be possible with "all of that," meaning the whole situation of him carrying June, but naturally to be a funny dick he goes "'That'? Did you just call her 'that'?" and ahahaha best. (I also asked about the cupcakes again, and June promised that they had gotten them, hooray~)
Brian Rosenthal had kind of tap-danced his way back over to the group off to our left and was moving down the line in our direction, but I think we got Jim to come over to us first. Or at least, Cheri and I did...idk where Kristen was, but somehow the first time we ran into/talked to Jim, Kristen completely missed him. Which is weird because he is like 7 feet tall but OKAY. And then when we lost Jim we got Jaime next too and I was like lmao, I'm going to get all signatures from people whose names start with J. With Jaime I also got a picture, :3. Jaime is the only one who always recognizes me from show to show and she was like "You were at SPACE tour. I remember you." and I was like "Yeah Slamaganza too" and she goes "Oh yeah! I recognize you, yeah" and she is just askjdlfaksdjf can we please be friends? Like I feel like legit EVERYONE was so nice this go 'round more than they've sometimes been nice to me as a fan in the past and that pattern only continued.
Finally BRosenthal was over by us and we had some nice standard chatting and signing with him and it was all lovely~ and then I was like "Brian. Brian how likely do you think it is that Corey will come over and talk to us" because I could just SEE HIM OVER THERE and it was so hard not to stare and shout and fangirl. And Brian was really nice about it and called him over to talk to us and get him wrapped up in the fan-socializing too and yay! I got so stupid talking to him LIKE USUAL but I was just trying extra hard to be nice and articulate because I didn't want to bother him because he looked like, super tour manager make sure shit gets done mode. He did sign stuff for us and take a picture with me and confirm on the cupcakes yet again, though. I was mostly like "I was so scared that lady was scary I was worried they wouldn't get to you so yay and thank you so much for coming over and talking to us and everything was wonderful and I hope you like the cupcakes and you're so awesome~" and it was just pathetic and I could feel my friends judging me omg guys shut up.
He was also holding this paper plate, and at first Kristen and I were like OMG IS HE BRINGING BACK OUR PLATES THAT THE CUPCAKES WERE ON THAT'S SO NICE??? but naw it was just the one and it was paper. And so I was like, "What's the plate for?" and he goes "Oh, they wanted me to draw the logo on the wall in the basement, so I was just using this for practice, I had to do it freehand..." and I was like "Oh cool cool" and he was like "yeah I...don't really want this..." AND JUST GAVE IT TO ME. GAVE ME HIS PLATE~ and so I have it now as a memento along with my confetti and the packaging tag from my tanktop and just askjdfhaksjdf. coreeeyyyyyyyy. Then he left but he actually kept talking to fans so that was neeeat~ he's the best I can't even
Joey Richter stopped by next! Or was it Julia? All I know is that Kristen called out to Julia to get her to come over and do stuff, and she was really excited because Kristen did not get to talk to Julia at all last time and really wanted to, and then that also Joey came by our end and bounced around and did some dumb stuff and had a bracelet that a fan made him that legit looked like it was made out of Hot Wheels cars and it looked really stupid. Also he was the only person to sign Kristen's graduation cap NOT on the mortarboard but rather on the underside like a fucking moron. A couple of girls asked him for pictures, and he obliged them, but he was like "Hey if you can spread the word I'd much rather take pictures with like whole groups of you because it saves time thanks!" And then he bounced away too. He was kinda cracked out on the exhaustion of the concert + the fan scene, you could tell, ahaha.
Liam came back? I know we got signatures from him. Time is melding into weirdness in my head lmao. Also at some point I sat on the ground because it was easier for me to be close to the barricade that way but also because my feet were killing me in my boots. (Worth it for my kickass outfit though.) I think I was there when Liam came by, and also when Dave Scalia was just kind of cruising around being weird hahaha. The girl who'd given Joey the Hot Wheels bracelet kind of flagged Dave down because apparently there'd been a note with it? But the note had fallen to the ground and she could see it and like pointed it out to Dave and asked him to give it to Joey. And he was being a (justifiable!) funny dick about it with kind of the attitude of MAN IF I HAD A DOLLAR EVERY TIME SOME DUMB FANGIRL ASKED ME TO GIVE SOMETHING TO JOEY RATHER THAN APPRECIATING WHAT I DO....ahahaha. He was a chill bro though and he lingered near our area of junk for a while just hanging out~
and he...left us a bra that had come from some fangirls.....
OMG embarrassing. It was like a B or a small C and the front of the cups said "YOLO! CALL US PLZ" and the insides of them had a number for "Shelby" and a number for "Charlie." I may or may not have saved these numbers to use for prank phonecalling purposes in the future. Like, ladies, this is just dumb. That's a waste of a bra you could be wearing, because you KNOW the StarKids don't care about the bras or want anything to do with them, and you know they're never going to call you. I try to let fans enjoy fandom in whatever way they like and to not police people but SON, JUST DON'T.
By the time the bra shenanigans were up, we'd seen Meredith come and go without coming to our end of the line, and Joey and BRosenthal were well past us in the other direction. A lot of the fans had cleared out behind us and so I stood back up now that I had some breathing room and we just kind of tried to scope things out. We could see...someone...on his phone up near the front of the buses, but from where we were it could've been Dylan and it could've been Tomek, and we'd seen NO SIGN of Dylan thus far, which was kind of bumming Cheri out. Kristen was also like, How the fuck did I miss Jim? so we were looking around kind of checking out the scene of who all was left when I spotted Jim way down at the other end of the line and was like oh, he's down over there, you wanna try? So we worked it out that Cheri was gonna stay where she was and wait for Dylan, and Kristen and I would go down and try to snag Jim again.
We DID snag Jim again and we also found a surprise Clark! BONUS~~ He's so hot, you guys. His hair is literally perfect and I don't even know what to do with his face. We also found Jordan again, who'd apparently been down at that end of the barricade the whole time, cool. She came over and was showing me the shit pictures her brother took of her with some StarKids and was like, if we get a chance to pose with Joey, will YOU do it, because this is ridiculous, and I was like sure lol. So we waited around for Clark to be free and got autographs from him, and then I was like "Should I go get Cheri so she doesn't miss Clark?" and went to get her from the other end. By the time we got back Clark had moved on a little but Joey was there again, and we really wanted a picture with him because my one and only other picture with Joey both he and I look like MORONS. So we asked to do a pic with him and he was like "Group picture! yes! group picture group group picture picture group picture group" and like kept SAYING IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN in this dumb little song that literally didn't stop until we were done taking the photograph. He was so cracked, omg. But in a good mood! I feel like the last couple of times I've seen Joey he's been in a lousy mood/in asshole mode re: the fans and it made me feel better to see he hasn't gone full douchebag. He still needs to put a couple pounds back on and cut his hair, though.
(Somewhere in there we also got a picture with Clark and in the process he apparently like...TOUCHED KRISTEN'S HIP...KRISTEN GOT TO SECOND BASE WITH CLARK BAXTRESSER. So much inappropriate touching this concert. The best. And also I took a picture of Jordan and her group with Joey hooray. :3)
We were finished there, so we decided to go back to where we'd been standing originally for one more round of waiting for Dylan, but who should be there when we arrive but BHoldz. lol. He's trying to take a picture with some other girls and going kinda fast, like "Okay, guys, I'm gonna be out here for like TWO MORE MINUTES and then I have to go" but their camera was on video instead of still photo by accident so we snuck into the downtime while they fixed it. I got autographs for me and for Kristen but whoops not for Cheri before the other group got their shit together, and he was like "Okay!" and I was like "WAIT one more?" and he was like "aahhh yeah yeah okay great thanks I just really have to pee." and signed it for her and then waved and left. ROFL. WE WERE BASICALLY JUST LIKE "ON THAT NOTE" and decided to leave, and we ran into Marissa and Abby one last time and then headed back to the hotel. The nicest Brian has EVER been to me! So awesome ahaha. But as we're walking back Kristen goes "Just think, Brian's touching his dick right now," and Cheri almost fell over and we had to stop walking for a second. THE WORST AHAHAHAHA.
We were bummed about missing Meredith and not getting Dylan or Lauren at all, but it was overall a sweet-ass adventure with Team StarKid! I think Cheri was ultimately happy and that was the most important part because BIRTHDAY GIRL~. Even though I never did manage to buy her a drank what with all the shenanigans. Someday~~~ ilu bb.
Walking back to the hotel this woman stopped us and asked me what my shirt said and I said "It's 'Me and My Dick,' it's a musical" which is my default answer but rather than stink-eyeing me she just laughed. That was a welcome change from the standard reaction.
AND THEN, SHORT SMALL AMOUNTS OF INTERNET DICKING AROUND, AND SREEP. oh so sreep. after not sleeping for yeah probably about 40 hours I was like GIVE ME...THIS BED.....wonderful. And we also ate way too many Gushers, aka "we ate all the gushers that were left after the cupcakes which was like every single orange one and also a lot of blue and even some green and pink still." It was so much sugar, we should've died, omg. Cheri was smart to abstain, Kristen and I were idiots.
It was a great day.
~
Part 4: Post-Apocalyptic
Next morning was p uneventful, though sad, because we had to put Cheri back on her bus to Newport News and say goodbye. D: We DID end up having a bit of an adventure trying to go to this McDonald's that had no real substantial parking lot to speak of. Kristen and I once again demonstrated our ability to order the same thing at food places without ever consulting with one another, which is still funny. SNACK WRAPS, THO. yummmm. I am getting hungry just thinking about them.
Actually it was all sort of an adventure because driving with Kristen is an adventure but it didn't get truly cray until after Cheri left, when we were trying to go to this Starbucks and get some wi-fi. I'd also requested we stop at a BB&T so I could switch some money back into my checking account and AAHH JUST...WHAT IS CITY DRIVING WHAT IS CITY PARKING. Silver Spring you are a clusterfuck. Ultimately everything got resolved though and yes good and we wasted most of the morning and then started the drive to Avery's neck of the woods. Kristen went to fill up on gas and the machine fucked up in a funny way??? She put her PIN in and then hit "yes," but then realized she was supposed to have hit "enter" instead. But the PIN display was showing 5 characters, as if it had counted hitting "yes" as part of her PIN...and it did some other weird stuff, like asking if she wanted a receipt before she had even started pumping...Kristen may have gotten free gas??? Lol this weekend, basically.
We were uh. Listening to a lot of Top 40 in the car because Kristen's mom's car didn't have a way for us to play her iPod. We heard so much Call Me Maybe and What Makes You Beautiful and Starships and Somebody That I Used To Know and fucking WILD ONES, SO MUCH WILD ONES, EVERY DAMN TIME. Gdit Flo Rida. We decide a fun place to waste time would be in the mall right across from Avery's PetSmart and we went all through the TWO-STOREY TARGET and spent most of our time in the section with the food and the section with the toys. We are 12 and what is this. BUT GETTING THERE, driving on craycray highways with Kristen's GPS, god it's such a clusterfuck ahahahahaha best but also worst? Mostly just cray. So much shit was so cray.
We were REALLY excited to see Avery and we sat around and told her about the concert and just randomly talked about shit and then went to get shawarma because Avengers. (We'd decided in the Target that I was Iron Man and Kristen is Spider-Hulk, there are pictures, I will get them someday.) KRISTEN AND I ORDERED THE EXACT SAME THING AGAIN. Chicken shawarma and then we sat and picked all our tomatoes off god bless I love my son. Then we went back to Avery's once we had eaten and we tried to leave but we just...couldn't.... IT'S HARD WHEN YOU ARE TIRED AND YOU HAVE FRIENDS AND THINGS TO TALK ABOUT. LIKE IF PUTTING YOUR DICK INSIDE ELEFUN WOULD COUNT AS A BLOWJOB. ashdkjashdkg my son and my waifu nothing is greater.
We ended up not leaving Avery's till almost nine, which was gonna put us at Molly's house later than anticipated, and Kristen decided not to try driving the extra three hours back to Pennsylvania and just to stay there with me for the night, which was good. EXCEPT MORE DRIVING ADVENTURES...Hagerstown is also a clusterfuck. I am just going to blame Maryland pretty much. And we had to drive (and then eventually walk) past this enormous blubbery redneck dude with no shirt on and we were terrified but we FINALLY managed to get Kristen's car parked in the front and not around back (after running over a can of Febreze that was in the street) and then go upstairs and sleep.
My sleep was interrupted by Kristen's phone dying at around 6:15 the next morning and just...beeping... I tried to find where it was coming from but I couldn't so I guess I gave up. And then when Kristen was awake too we sat around and flailed and did nothing and looked at my Apocalyptour pictures and some other Apocalyptour stuff from Tumblr and basically just TRIED TO PULL OURSELVES APART BUT IT WAS LIKE MAGNETS and when she had to leave I was so, so sad and I didn't know what to do and it was awful.
Then I watched World's Worst Musical episode 3 and MARTY SCANLON WAS GUYBRUSH!!! MY FEELS!!!!!!
and then Donna drove me down to my dad's for my grandpa's 82nd birthday party and that's what I've been doing since. That and getting sick. I got my dad to buy me medicine but he got "nighttime" medicine but I took it anyway and now I am in this braindead sinus pressure state where I can only be 100% conscious of one thing at once and I kind of space on everything else. HELP. I am the biggest baby when I am sick wah wah. But I just ate an orange and it was delicious.
Here are some more concert pictures!! GOD it was hard to get salvageable ones between my camera only focusing on the backs of people's heads and morons throwing their hands in my frame. S2G I HAD THIS BEAUTIFUL SHOT OF JOEY AND THEN SOME BITCH'S BADLY-FORMED HEART HANDS GOT IN MY WAY AND I COULDN'T TAKE IT. heart hands. smh.
I guess these are the ones worth posting. (If these are the ones I DID post, imagine how terrible some were. so many bitches' sunglassed heads to crop out.) OH AND Photobucket might have rotated some of these and that's infuriating lkasjdhg ignore.
Villain medley!!:
Boy Toy:
Sami/Harry:
Granger Danger:
Not Alone *______* all my Jaime Lyn pics turned out the best ksgdhjfkhsdf:
/con report lolololol
Something to keep in mind as you read: I didn't sleep Wednesday night probably...at all. I've been sleeping piss-poorly lately, I think connected to my depression, and so that + going to bed too early because I knew I'd have to get up too early + general being too fucking happy!anxious about how excited I was to go on my adventure and I literally did not sleep. So by the time the concert started I'd been awake for roughly thirty-six hours. Just...keep that coloration of my actions at the back of your mind, rofl.
On to the show!!
Part 1: Bus Adventures
But before I can tell you about the show, I have to tell you about the bus.
I'm starting to believe that the combination of me, theeldervag, and any kind of bus is just doomed to failure. Our last Bus Adventure™ took several hours longer than it was meant to and exposed us to all kinds of scary things we were never prepared to see. This go 'round it's actually a little more insane. It might be the most ridiculous shit that has ever happened to me.
After not sleeping all night, I got up around 5:30, made sure I was all packed, and was then given a ride to the bus station by my buddy Peyton. We got there early enough that the station doors weren't even open yet, which was stupid, but we didn't have too long to wait until this nice dude in a baseball cap came and let in me and the one other girl who was waiting, a cute black woman my age or maybe a little bit younger, who was going to New York to visit her sister. Once we were inside we waited and waited and waited, and eventually the guy working there goes, "Your bus is late. It's not even to Roanoke yet, it's over an hour behind schedule."
Cue my first little flutter of panic. I was like, "Am I still going to make my connection in Richmond?" But he assured me that I would, because I had such a long layover - instead of sitting around doing nothing in Richmond, I was just going to be sitting around doing nothing in Lynchburg. Which I was okay with, I guess. Peyton eventually left to get some breakfast and drive her dad to work, and it was just me and the other people in the bus station hangin' out and I got some Pop-Tarts from the vending machine and blew my nose a whole bunch and listened to the station employee and his buddy talking about the guy in Florida who chewed the other guy's face off because he was on drugs. The usual lmao.
Update #2 came when our bus hit Roanoke, and he said it should be about an hour and five minutes. I was still really sleepy so I didn't bother to do much to entertain myself, just texted Cheri and vocalcannibal about the complications in my plans to make sure we were all on target for what was going on, and stuff. More waiting. More bus-station peoplewatching, more bus not coming.
Okay, here's the crazy part:
After about an hour delay of waiting and spacing out, the guy comes over to me and the cute sassy black girl and says, "Bad news, ladies: Your bus isn't coming."
Like.
Literally not coming.
THIS IS WHEN I STARTED TO PANIC IN EARNEST. He goes "You can wait and we can put you on the next bus which is coming at 3:20" and I was like "No, I CAN'T wait till 3:20 actually!!!" and started freaking the fuck out. I had to be in Silver Spring by at least 7! I had Cheri's ticket, so if I didn't make it she wasn't going to be able to get in to the concert! But the bus LITERALLY WAS NOT STOPPING IN LYNCHBURG. He told us that it was completely full and had called ahead to Charlottesville telling them the bus wasn't stopping until it got there. The driver didn't even call the Lynchburg station - he told Charlottesville to call and tell us. Which was bullshit. The bus being totally full was also bullshit. Because isn't that the point of buying a ticket, is to reserve your seat. The guy there said he'd had a problem like this at least once before from the same bus driver and that if he had only called our station directly, he might have been able to contact their HQ or whatever and get clearance to put me and NYC-girl in a cab instead, but all the hoops he was having to jump through and she he was having to figure out was fucking things up.
The other girl decided she could wait until 3:20 but I DID NOT HAVE THAT LUXURY.......so I started calling everyone I could possibly call looking for a ride to Richmond, because he told me that as long as I made it to Richmond in time, I could still get on my transfer bus there. It's 8:00 or later at this point and I'm like I NEED TO LEAVE...NOW..... I called Peyton first - definite no. Called Jesse - no answer. Called Colin - woke him up, whoops idgaf, and he said he would if he weren't sick but that he basically couldn't be away from a bathroom for that long, which was gross but reasonable. Got Peter's number from Colin and called him - no answer. Called Jesse again - no answer, that bastard was asleep. Called Jessica - she was leaving town to go to NC and said no.
Broke down and called my mom.
I explained the situation to her and she was clearly getting frustrated pretty darn quickly. She said she was gonna try some people and get back to me once she'd explored some options. So I called Liz, but she couldn't because she was working. I tried Amanda but she didn't answer. I called Peter again and he answered this time - woke him up, so sorry, he said he would but he wouldn't make it back in time for work so he couldn't. While I was talking to Peter my mom called me back, and it was mostly to tell me she didn't have an answer either but that she was at least going to come and pick me up from the bus station so we could regroup and I Wouldn't just be sitting there all morning. She sounded even more pissed at this point. Okay.
While I was waiting for her I talked some to the guy who worked there and his friend, and they were actually super-nice about the whole thing and did as much as they could to help me. And it wasn't THEIR fault my idiot bus wasn't coming, so I couldn't even get mad at them. (I asked how much a cab to Richmond would cost and it turns out it was like $312. Ahahahahahaha no.) I also called Jesse AGAIN and FINALLY woke him up, to ask him to take me to Richmond, and he gave me the closest to a yes anyone had given me yet - he thought he MIGHT be able to do it but he wasn't sure, and had a lot of extenuating circumstances, and there was something that'd been rattling on his car and making him nervous. I was like NO THAT'S FINE CHECK WHATEVER YOU NEED TO CHECK JESSE YOU ARE A GODDESS or something, and in the meantime my mom showed up.
At this point my mom was p much furious. She was angry at the whole situation and did her best to be polite to the bus station guy because she, too, knew it wasn't his fault, but she didn't really have any other target for her anger except for me. She was almost rude about it and it would've been funny if it weren't so terrifying; she literally said "If we had alternative options for this, we wouldn't be taking the bus!!!!" We got in the car for her to drive me home and she basically resigned herself to taking me to Richmond. She was like, "If I'm taking you, we might as well just start to leave now." She called in to work and canceled a couple of appointments and god I cannot remember the last time I saw her this irate. It was scary, especially in the enclosed space of a car, and I was not looking forward to driving for two+ hours with that. D: I called Jesse back to check with him, but when he didn't answer, I was just like "yeah, Mom, let's just go ahead."
And then Jesse called me back!!! He was going to take his dad's car and he WOULD take me, but only if I had literally no other option. And I was like, Yes, Jesse, YES, I MUST CONFESS OF MY OBSESSION WITH YOUR total niceness and wonderful face ;A; So my fuming mother took me home, dropped me+my luggage+the car, and then walked back to work, and tried to detox from how ridic the morning had been (she hadn't even gotten her coffee first, my poor mommy D:) while I waited for Jesse to get some gas and then show up. (It was actually a good opportunity for me, because I got to pee, grab a belt for my shorts that were pretty much falling off, and snag my StarKid shades which I had totally forgotten.)
Oh, but as we were pulling into the driveway? Right before my mom left? THE BUS STATION CALLED AND TOLD ME THAT MY BUS HAD ARRIVED. I was like, "Are you serious right now???" It ended up not mattering because it was still too full for me to take it anywhere, but it was still ABSOLUTELY FUCKING RIDICULOUS, LIKE I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK GREYHOUND THOUGHT IT WAS DOING ON THURSDAY MORNING. LIKE HOW.
Jesse called back and I was like "bro we need to leave now I need to make it to Richmond by noon" and he was like "!!! It's almost 9:45, we will NEVER make it to Richmond by noon, what the fuck!! I DON'T THINK WE CAN DO THIS" and I was like BULLSHIT, JESSE KNOWLES, MY MOM'S GPS SAID 11:15 IF WE LEFT NOW, GET YOUR ASS HERE AND WE'RE GONNA SPEED AND WE'RE GONNA DO THIS. And he was like "well but technically I'm on call for work and if anyone calls in sick I have to be here to take over wahh waaahhhh WSET" and I was like NO. JESSE. I AM SORRY BUT I NEED YOU RIGHT NOW. MY MOM ALREADY WENT BACK TO WORK AND I NEED YOU MORE THAN TV LAND NEEDS YOU. and when he arrived I gave unto him my only jar of barely-touched nutella and showered him with praises and we LEFT.
WE LITERALLY DID THE CAR VERSION OF RUNNING ALL THE WAY TO RICHMOND. I knew Jesse was a fast driver already which is why I'd secretly been hoping he'd be the one to say yes to my crazy proposal but we broke so much of the law, omg. When we first got in the car the GPS put our estimated arrival time as 12:03. My bus was leaving Richmond at 12:01, so this was clearly not acceptable. By the time we were pretty much arriving, the GPS (and like...the real world) put our arrival time at 11:47. THAT'S HOW MUCH WE WERE SPEEDING. WE SHAVED 16 MINUTES IN TWO HOURS. The GPS took us through 2 tolls and we were furious because NO TIME WHY and we spent all our quarters at the first one, so we got to the second one...and the bar wasn't down...so we just went through without paying YOLO YOLO.
Then we got to "arriving at destination" and COULDN'T FIND THE BUS STATION!!! We had about 3 minutes of wiggle room so we were panicking and trying to beat the GPS into submission when Cheri called. She was like "WHERE ARE YOU. THE BUS IS BOARDING." And I was like "what is the bus station near we are trying so hard???" and she said "a giant stadium" and I was like "NO OMG WE ARE RIGHT THERE" and we scrambled and broke traffic laws and FOUND IT. AND JESSE NOT-QUITE PARKED AT THE STADIUM ACROSS THE STREET. AND I LEAPT OUT OF THE CAR LITERALLY BEFORE IT STOPPED MOVING, GRABBED MY STUFF, RAN ACROSS THE STREET AND INTO THE BUS STATION AND DID NOT STOP RUNNING IN ONE FLUID MOVEMENT UNTIL I WAS AT CHERI'S SIDE AND WE WERE WAITING TO PRESENT OUR TICKETS TO THE BUS DRIVER.
I cannot believe the magic that occurred this day. Please inform Jesse that he is a wizard and TREAT HIM AS SUCH. And in summation: don't do the speed limit, do BETTER THAN THE SPEED LIMIT!!
Once I got on the bus with Cheri we were fine and had no complications and talked about life and fandom and boys and helped this nice woman across the aisle when her fruit rolled away from her and Cheri braved the bus bathroom and I ate a Lunchable.
~
Part 2: Much Less Precarious
We immediately teamed up with KRISCHTEN!! and cruised our asses back to the hotel. The parking garage situation was a little confusing but we worked it out I guess~ lol there was no one in the booth at the front so we just drove straight in. We're staying in the hotel so we park here yes whooo! And we went inside and Cheri checked in and everything was fiiiine. In the room Cheri wanted to take a shower so I set about fixin' up our cupcakes with Kristen as my assistant! I wanted to make Gushers cupcakes for Corey because of Gushering/in honor of World's Worst Musical (go to 33:17 for the full effect ahaha). Gushers, it turns out, are mostly made of pear concentrate (in addition to sugar lol) so I found a recipe for pear cake and made it into cupcakes as well as making (brightly colored!) pear filling to go on the inside for extra Gusherosity. And then icing and Gushers on top. Shit was so cash.
Awww yeeeahh. We also made Cheri put on our Black Swan tiara that we found at Katsucon because BURFDAY. :D But this ate up a lot of time unfortunatelyyyyy and we needed to get some food and then head to the venue QUICK or we were gonna be so so stupidly far back in the massive line that was already forming. So we walked to Panera (carrying the cupcakes - this involved me threatening Cheri that "If you drop those cupcakes, I will drop your FACE into the PAVEMENT") and got some sandwiches and dranks (I tried to pay with my debit card and it was declined; turns out I had TWO DOLLARS AND SOME CHANGE IN MY ACCOUNT LOLOLOL THANKS $50 HAIRCUT so I had to pay with cash) and then ate much faster than was probably healthy. It was fun to people-watch here because the Panera was SO close to the venue that nearly everyone both inside and outside was StarKid people. I watched a frazzled mom deal with at least three kids (her own daughter and her daughter's friends), I watched some friends who looked like they hadn't seen each other in a really long time have a bouncy, huggy reunion right outside the window. KAWAII. We also saw Clark Baxtresser stroll by with like Megan Cox and the other band folks. They were either going to get Chinese or Red Lobster, judging by what else was in the immediate area. Rofl. I was staring out the window trying to get a good look beyond Kristen's head and she and Cheri were like "wtf" and I was like "I AM JUST TRYING TO TELL IF THAT IS CLARK....." and it totes was. Hope they got some yummy food like we did~
Then we skedaddled back up to the venue! And yyeeaaahhhh the line was long and we were p near the end. We followed it all the way back to its butt amid numerous cries of "Cupcakes! -- WAIT ARE THOSE GUSHERS??", past the Batmobile limo that they'd also had at SPACE tour and Gabby way closer to the front than we were, all the way around the block to where the line ended. We were immediately followed by a girl dressed as Robin and her friend, and they became our super-awesome line buddies! We talked with them about StarKid, anime cons, and other fun experiences and fandom stuff, it was gr8. I love making new friends wahh~ Not too long after that the line started moving and we progressed slowly but surely to the front.
We're right outside the venue when a woman stops us all "You can't take food inside the venue >:[" and oh, god, it's that bitch-ass staff lady from last time. FUCK. I was like "But these are FOR them!" and she was like "Well harrumph I can take them from you and get them backstage" and I was like WELL BUT NO BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE YOU but I didn't really have a choice in the matter wahh? So we handed them over and I was all noooooo I wanted to give them to Coreeyyyyyy but it was too late. ;A;
After getting a super-sloppy 21+ handstamp we maneuvered inside~ We were pretty far back, but somehow it was still a better view than at SPACE where we were near the front because we were just surrounded by better people! We decided to stick with our new friends Abby and Marissa for strength in numbers, and we formed a little pod maybe two-thirds of the way back from the stage and off to stage left/audience right near the merch tables. We all wanted merch so we decided to go in turns and Kristen went first. The line was stupid-long and she was over there forever D: so while she was gone we just kind of fucked around, and people cheered for the guy messing with the microphones for no reason (the same guy as SPACE lmao) and tried several miserably-failed times to start singalongs. TYPICAL MASS STARKID FAN BEHAVIOR but honestly I was so cray from not sleeping that it bothered me so much less than usual. And then suddenly this girl standing next to us is shouting back over her shoulder "Jordan!!" and I turn and it was... MY FRIEND JORDAN. COMING TO STAND RIGHT WHERE WE ALREADY WERE. What are the odds!! We had an excited little moment together and wahhh it was so great :3
Kristen finally escaped with a tank top and made it back kind of right as Charlene's set was starting up! Her stuff was way more fun this go 'round than I felt like it was at SPACE. Idk, I'm still not SUPER-into a whole lot of Charlene's music, but you cannot deny she is a kickass performer, so I got p pumped up anyway. (Remember, I hadn't slept.) It didn't hurt that she came out in LITERALLY THE MOST PERFECT OUTFIT EVER...IT WAS...A NEON ORANGE DRESS AND PATTERNED TIGHTS.... in love with her fashion sense tbh. She seemed to have a better rhythm/swing of things going than at SPACE - the whole show did, really, I think all of them as a group are finally getting a better handle on how to do this whole "tour" thing. She played I think Hummingbird Heart, Woman Up, a "new" song of hers...she duped the whole crowd into thinking she and Dylan were doing Dress & Tie when they really did Skin and Bones which I would MUCH RATHER have seen anyway, that was wonderful, and then played KISS BY PRINCE IN HONOR OF PRINCE'S BIRTHDAY (!!!) WHICH IS ONLY LIKE MY FAVORITE PRINCE SONG, SHIT FLIPPED, and at least one other song and then closed on Animal Love 1 with everyone mosh-jumping to the chorus. Pretty sweet. (I still default to singing the high Megan Cox harmony on the Animal Love chorus, whomp whomp.) It was a short set but really well put together and heavy on the Dylan and Clark (literally a bullet point on my list for making this post was just "clark is very attractive" jfc) and I enjoyed it and she is really good at playing the guitar yes good. Here are some pictures of Charlene being fierce&fabulous.
In the lull between her set and StarKid's they...started playing Owl City over the house sound system...?? It was hilarious because pretty much the whole venue started singing along to Fireflies and our whole little group were bagging on how little sense the lyrics make and Kristen was like "OWL CITY IS MY FAVORITE ANIME" and I was all "OWL CITY IS MY FAVORITE STARKID" and rofl rofl. I also ninja'd over to merch at this time! The one closest to us was Lisa's table and I was excited to see her because she is adorable. I got a tank top and the orange silicone bracelet and then she was like, wanna get a couple buttons to make it an even $35 so I was like SURE. Can't say no to kawaii Lisa and buttons. At sort of the last minute, I asked her about the cupcakes - I was all "I couldn't bring them in but I gave them to this woman, they were for Corey, do you know if they made it back to him?" and she didn't really give me an answer-answer but she was all "If they were for Corey, I'm sure everything worked out fine. He's the guy with the plan. :D" And it was just SO ADORBZ because all of the merch team really does love him so, so much and they fangirl him just like I do. Literally perfect.
I got back to our huddle and it still seemed like we had some time, so I shooed Cheri over there too. I was like "go now, while the line is small, before anything sells out" and she was hesitant but she went, and I talked some to Kristen, who'd apparently gotten deathglared by some girl in a ponytail who was standing near us for like, no apparent reason. Kristen has such terrible luck with ponytail bitches ahahaha. And I talked to Jordan some more because yay! waahhh friends. Cheri came back pretty quick, but she opened her sunglasses and discovered a big gouge on them where the green had flaked off to reveal the plain white plastic, and I told her to take them back because I knew Lisa would trade for a better pair, and she did! And by the time Cheri got back from round 2, it was STARKID TIME and oh gosh we were just all so excited.
It's weeeeeeiiiirrrrd, because I loved the set list but at the same time I felt like it was missing...something....? Like I look back on it and I go "no, it was fine," but my FEELINGS are like "but it was weird." IDEC, BECAUSE IT WAS AWESOME. Joey and Walker were awesome and Dylan was awesome and even B-hole was awesome and JAIME....WAS AWESOME...... THERE WAS SO MUCH JAIME I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO VOMIT oh my god I was not ready. The setlist was pretty nifty! They opened with like a Me and My Dick/Ready to Go and kept dodging around actually saying the word "dick" which was pretty comical because the audience would just keep singing along to the line and all say "dick" even though Joey stopped singing ahahaha. Then they worked in a little bit of the tour "plot" with some funny dikrats jokes about Darren and Moses which made me super happy because FRIEENNNDDZZ BAWWW and then they mostly just dove back into the performances. BEST PARTS OF THE SET AS FOLLOWS:
- VILLAIN SONG MEDLEY HOLY SHIT NO NO NO MY BODY WAS NOT READY. Holden did Tyler's part on Not Over Yet and it just kept going and I kind of turned to Cheri and clung to her hands and was like "You know this is about to turn into Kick It Up A Notch. YOU KNOW IT IS." because they have the same fucking Bowser's Airship dundundundun background beat, gg Darren, and then I was TOTALLY RIGHT and it dissolved into Dylan and sexytimes and the Dylan/Joey dynamic was so ON, vocally, probz one of the better times I've seen that song done. And Jaime of course waaahhhh. (And me and Kristen singing it to each other like we did last time where she was Bug and I was Pincer and it was perfect~~) Then KIUAN turned into Rogues Are We + the reprise and Joey was Sweet Tooth and that was nngh pretty hot and of course MORE JAIME, jaime jaime everywhere. I'm pretty sure Liam said they're not doing a DVD of this concert which makes me MAD because I would MUCH rather have this on DVD than SPACE tour which I don't feel like was as good, but I hope we at LEAST get good quality video of the villain medley at some point because it was easily the highlight of the show. Everyone knows that villains are the most fun to play.
- LWL reject song medley!! OMG so unexpected and so wonderful. It was Caught In The Lie/Boy Toy/Fancy Machine/Hold On Tight, and it was clear that virtually no one in the venue was all that familiar with anything but Boy Toy except...for me. I was singing along to Fancy Machine and Hold On Tight (WHICH WAS BRIAN ROSENTHAL, it was so perfect, you are the best Love Grenade) at the frantic top of my lungs because I was so jazzed about knowing what was going on when other people didn't because I'm a bitch like that, and also because I love Love Grenade and because I hadn't slept in nearly 40 hours, remember that and I think I really, REALLY put off this mom I had somehow ended up standing next to, wahahaha. Honestly I don't understand why a mom would want to actually come into the show venue unless she was also at least a little bit of a fan. If you're not into StarKid just turn your kids loose inside the concert venue and come back in three hours. Maybe if this were a ~real band~ or someone that had a different kind of fanbase but it's fucking Team StarKid, everyone else there is either exactly like your children or is roughly old enough to be a reasonable babysitter for your children. Don't get pissy with me, random mom, you could've been at your hotel bar.
- HAVE I MENTIONED JAIME YET? BECAUSE JAIME WAS THE OTHER BEST PART. Seriously I lost track of the number of times I screamed "I LOVE YOU JAIME" in an attempt to have it happen where there was relative silence. So many people were yelling for Joey and Walker and even sometimes Lauren but I just...Jaime. Because seriously okay FIRST OF ALL Dylan came out and started doing Sami and I almost passed out because Sami-Harry is one of my favorite StarKid songs ever and I'm in love with it like, melodically and DYLAN WAS SINGING IT and I was like "Cheri, Cheri I need help I'm gonna puke and cry" and she was like "I AM THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK WHAT ARE YOU DOING" and then I was like "wahh I'mma need Jaime to get out here and start doing Harry along with this" aND THEN...SHE DID..... and I screamed so loud that Cheri legit covered her ears and flinched away from me. I'M SORRY. I JUST HAVE A LOT OF JAIME FEELS AND A LOT OF GINNY WEASLEY FEELS AND THEY JUST SORT OF COMPOUND EACH OTHER AND RUIN ME AND IT IS MY FAVORIIIIITTTE and I kept yelling at everyone to shut up so that I could hear them singing because HARMONIES and PERFECT ANGEL VOICES and oh god kill me where I stand. Then, as if that wasn't ridic enough, FAR TOO SOON AFTER THAT WAS OVER Jaime Lyn came to do Not Alone. And did the whole of Not Alone as a Jaime solo with everyone else just coming in near the end to do backup a la the DJ Paradiddle recorded version. LIKE, THE UNIVERSE WANTED ME TO DIE?? JAIME LYN BEATTY I JUST WANT TO BE YOU AND OR/YOUR BEST FRIEND JUST GIVE ME ALL OF YOUR LOVE AND TALENT IN SOME WAY. cryin. legit cryin.
- The closing medley was really fun too, it was the Days of Summer/Get Back to Hogwarts mash that actually happened in AVPS but then also combined with the MAMD finale Heaven On Earth stuff. It was gr8 because by this time, the audience had gotten used to them trying to censor out/not say the word dick, so they get to the end and Joey just holds so hard and goes "It's me.......And my Dick!" and just drives the nail into the coffin of it and I cheered because yessss. I always get so mad when they feel like they have to censor themselves for fans because their fanbase is babies, since those same people have already just watched their relatively unfiltered shows on YouTube anyway....whatever. ahaha.
The rest of the set list was p great too! They did Get Back Up which was yay (arranged different - I really liked it~) and The Way I Do, they did Guys Like Potter which I usually don't like but the dudebro harmony arrangements were nice AND they added in an extra verse from the original Guys Like Peter to stretch the song out longer without the Pensieve scene to pad it with and that was neat too. BRosenthal and Walker did Different As Can Be + the reprise because of course, and then BRosenthal and Joey did Listen To Your Heart and it was great and they made an AJ joke, and Dark Sad Lonely Knight was in there somewhere and so were Granger Danger and idk some other stuff I'm probably forgetting. (At the end of DSLK when it just cut off with the guys on "I wanna be somebody's buddy~" I managed to nab the split second of silence and get in a good, solid "I VOLUNTEER!!!" that I know most of the audience heard, fuck yeah what is wrong with me. Then again Kristen also shouted "YEAH CLARK!!" at some point so who even cares.) And the little story bits with Jim as the Mayan god and stuff were really funny too and there were some good jokes like him sniping at Walker about bubble tea for some reason lmao and then the encore was To Dance Again, Coolest Girl (Meredith), and Super Friends which I knew they wouldn't leave without doing. IT WAS GREAT BECAUSE instead of "I wanna meet the Dalai Lama" BRosenthal sang "I wanna meet Barack Obama" and they were just making fun of Darren at every possible opportunity and I love them.
During Super Friends the confetti cannons went off too!! A lot of the longer streamers of it got caught in the Fillmore's chandelier and stuff, which was kind of fucking awesome if you ask me. Marissa and I were on a mission for confetti though, because we both have some from SPACE and wanted to continue the tradition, so as the crowd started clearing out we surged upstream to get to the place where confetti had actually fallen and each got a couple of handfuls and it was great. ORANGE AND YELLOW CONFETTI what more do I need out of life. We split from each other with a heartfelt exchange of tumblr URLs and then I went back to Cheri and Kristen so we could venture downstairs to the Land of Ice Water and try to revive ourselves from concert plague heat death. It was niiiiice down there, and we stayed for a few minutes before leaving to go forth into the rest of our evening.
So yeah overall a much better experience than SPACE tour, which makes me really sad for Avery that she couldn't come this time around. D: I'd say the VIP stuff was really not worth the money, and the only thing that could've made this better all things considered was if maybe we'd been a little closer to the stage, or not standing behind an obnoxious dude and his girlfriend for the first third of the show. But if we'd been further up in line we'd never have met Abby and Marissa, and we lost the annoying people eventually anyway. I'm proud of StarKid for making such leaps and bounds in their ability literally every time they do stuff, they improve so exponentially quickly that it blows my mind, it's so awesome. D: And ahaha I went back and read through my Apocalyptour predictions post and how right was I on so many of these?? I win at StarKid, basically. I am really glad that I got to do both this and SPACE though because being able to compare the two, and being able to use my experience from SPACE to improve my Apocalyptour funtiems, was really excellent.
Lol speaking of learning from experience WE BASICALLY WON AT STAGEBUSING.
~
Part 3: Group Picture~
We left the venue and darted back to our hotel right quick so that we could unload our merch purchases/excess crap, grab Kristen's stuff that she wanted to get signed, and pee/freshen up/regroup before heading to the bus area for the win. WE REMEMBERED TO GO ON THE BACK END THIS TIME INSTEAD OF OVER AROUND THE PARKING LOT ENTRANCE. Lots more people were already there than last time, since they weren't kicking people out/making us wait so long. There was still a bit of a wait though because they had to load all the crap onto the buses and trailers, but from where we were this time we got to watch! AND OH, HOW I WATCHED. So much incredible Corey ass so LITTLE TIME....... ahhh shameless, fight me. It was kind of nerve-wracking for a little bit because it was almost hard to tell if they really WERE going to come over and talk to the barricade of fans, because no one was really acknowledging us, there was no kind of "Hey we'll get back to you in a bit when we're done with our important tour stuff!" and we were all just kinda left hanging.
Even so, at that point I would've been content with just seeing them be silly and interact with each other. Walker had a six-pack of beer that he was very excited about, only to drop at least one and have it smash on the ground and turn him into the saddest thing ever. He left soon after that and never really came back, ??? alas. It was also cute to see the tech people all pallin' around together, and the band people doing much of the same, and then I was like OH SHIT IS DAT POMME. He and Joey embraced in a semi-homo fashion and then just stood there kind of...touching each other's faces and shoulders...lol wat. (There was actually a lot of semi-homo stuff involved in this concert, most of it Joey-centric. I think people really missed Joey because he lives in LA like a dumbass, or something.) After Pomme and Joey finished up with their super touching moment, Pomme hugged BRosenthal in a swifter and much more bro-like fashion, and then Jaime Lyn, and then Lauren so hard that he hoisted her off the ground because she is tiny. Adorable. Then I guess the bromance was over because he and the girl who was I guess his date started heading out and he was waving back at them and they were calling out "bye!" and as he walked past where we were I just couldn't help myself and I shouted "BYE POMME!!" and he...actually heard me...... CONVENIENTLY I was behind this other girl and was able to line myself up perfectly behind her so when he turned and started looking, he didn't even see me. He gave up and left and then as soon as he was gone Cheri and Kristen and I FELL APART laughing. Oh, Pomme, one day I will work up the courage to talk to you f'realz.
So everyone's still loading stuff up, and we finally start seeing some people come out of the venue that we hadn't seen yet (Holden mostly, I guess idk memories are blurry) but then finally they seem to have wrapped it up enough to start talking to us! First thing to happen is that Liam crouches down and lets June jump up on him piggyback and just alksdjf ADORABLE. He calls out, kind of jokingly because he assumes we're all there for Joey and the guys and the actual ~actors~ and whatnot, but he's like "Hey hey hey who wants an autograph from the costume designer?" and almost before he's done talking Kristen and I jump and flail and shout "WE DO!!!" because we really really do!!!!! She and I had been talking about it before the show, Kristen goes "I wanna know who does all their costumes and stuff" and I was like "Oh oh that's June! And she's actually on tour with them this time unlike SPACE!" and we had kind of made June a priority, so it was awesome to get to talk to her so early on. Liam carried her over to where we were and she went through a couple of people before signing our stuff and they were so effing cute and silly. I think I mentioned Slamaganza and one of them, June or Liam, seriously went "You were at Slamaganza? I'm sorry." roffllll I seriously didn't know what to think of that. and I kind of asked Liam if he might be signing things too or if it wasn't going to be possible with "all of that," meaning the whole situation of him carrying June, but naturally to be a funny dick he goes "'That'? Did you just call her 'that'?" and ahahaha best. (I also asked about the cupcakes again, and June promised that they had gotten them, hooray~)
Brian Rosenthal had kind of tap-danced his way back over to the group off to our left and was moving down the line in our direction, but I think we got Jim to come over to us first. Or at least, Cheri and I did...idk where Kristen was, but somehow the first time we ran into/talked to Jim, Kristen completely missed him. Which is weird because he is like 7 feet tall but OKAY. And then when we lost Jim we got Jaime next too and I was like lmao, I'm going to get all signatures from people whose names start with J. With Jaime I also got a picture, :3. Jaime is the only one who always recognizes me from show to show and she was like "You were at SPACE tour. I remember you." and I was like "Yeah Slamaganza too" and she goes "Oh yeah! I recognize you, yeah" and she is just askjdlfaksdjf can we please be friends? Like I feel like legit EVERYONE was so nice this go 'round more than they've sometimes been nice to me as a fan in the past and that pattern only continued.
Finally BRosenthal was over by us and we had some nice standard chatting and signing with him and it was all lovely~ and then I was like "Brian. Brian how likely do you think it is that Corey will come over and talk to us" because I could just SEE HIM OVER THERE and it was so hard not to stare and shout and fangirl. And Brian was really nice about it and called him over to talk to us and get him wrapped up in the fan-socializing too and yay! I got so stupid talking to him LIKE USUAL but I was just trying extra hard to be nice and articulate because I didn't want to bother him because he looked like, super tour manager make sure shit gets done mode. He did sign stuff for us and take a picture with me and confirm on the cupcakes yet again, though. I was mostly like "I was so scared that lady was scary I was worried they wouldn't get to you so yay and thank you so much for coming over and talking to us and everything was wonderful and I hope you like the cupcakes and you're so awesome~" and it was just pathetic and I could feel my friends judging me omg guys shut up.
He was also holding this paper plate, and at first Kristen and I were like OMG IS HE BRINGING BACK OUR PLATES THAT THE CUPCAKES WERE ON THAT'S SO NICE??? but naw it was just the one and it was paper. And so I was like, "What's the plate for?" and he goes "Oh, they wanted me to draw the logo on the wall in the basement, so I was just using this for practice, I had to do it freehand..." and I was like "Oh cool cool" and he was like "yeah I...don't really want this..." AND JUST GAVE IT TO ME. GAVE ME HIS PLATE~ and so I have it now as a memento along with my confetti and the packaging tag from my tanktop and just askjdfhaksjdf. coreeeyyyyyyyy. Then he left but he actually kept talking to fans so that was neeeat~ he's the best I can't even
Joey Richter stopped by next! Or was it Julia? All I know is that Kristen called out to Julia to get her to come over and do stuff, and she was really excited because Kristen did not get to talk to Julia at all last time and really wanted to, and then that also Joey came by our end and bounced around and did some dumb stuff and had a bracelet that a fan made him that legit looked like it was made out of Hot Wheels cars and it looked really stupid. Also he was the only person to sign Kristen's graduation cap NOT on the mortarboard but rather on the underside like a fucking moron. A couple of girls asked him for pictures, and he obliged them, but he was like "Hey if you can spread the word I'd much rather take pictures with like whole groups of you because it saves time thanks!" And then he bounced away too. He was kinda cracked out on the exhaustion of the concert + the fan scene, you could tell, ahaha.
Liam came back? I know we got signatures from him. Time is melding into weirdness in my head lmao. Also at some point I sat on the ground because it was easier for me to be close to the barricade that way but also because my feet were killing me in my boots. (Worth it for my kickass outfit though.) I think I was there when Liam came by, and also when Dave Scalia was just kind of cruising around being weird hahaha. The girl who'd given Joey the Hot Wheels bracelet kind of flagged Dave down because apparently there'd been a note with it? But the note had fallen to the ground and she could see it and like pointed it out to Dave and asked him to give it to Joey. And he was being a (justifiable!) funny dick about it with kind of the attitude of MAN IF I HAD A DOLLAR EVERY TIME SOME DUMB FANGIRL ASKED ME TO GIVE SOMETHING TO JOEY RATHER THAN APPRECIATING WHAT I DO....ahahaha. He was a chill bro though and he lingered near our area of junk for a while just hanging out~
and he...left us a bra that had come from some fangirls.....
OMG embarrassing. It was like a B or a small C and the front of the cups said "YOLO! CALL US PLZ" and the insides of them had a number for "Shelby" and a number for "Charlie." I may or may not have saved these numbers to use for prank phonecalling purposes in the future. Like, ladies, this is just dumb. That's a waste of a bra you could be wearing, because you KNOW the StarKids don't care about the bras or want anything to do with them, and you know they're never going to call you. I try to let fans enjoy fandom in whatever way they like and to not police people but SON, JUST DON'T.
By the time the bra shenanigans were up, we'd seen Meredith come and go without coming to our end of the line, and Joey and BRosenthal were well past us in the other direction. A lot of the fans had cleared out behind us and so I stood back up now that I had some breathing room and we just kind of tried to scope things out. We could see...someone...on his phone up near the front of the buses, but from where we were it could've been Dylan and it could've been Tomek, and we'd seen NO SIGN of Dylan thus far, which was kind of bumming Cheri out. Kristen was also like, How the fuck did I miss Jim? so we were looking around kind of checking out the scene of who all was left when I spotted Jim way down at the other end of the line and was like oh, he's down over there, you wanna try? So we worked it out that Cheri was gonna stay where she was and wait for Dylan, and Kristen and I would go down and try to snag Jim again.
We DID snag Jim again and we also found a surprise Clark! BONUS~~ He's so hot, you guys. His hair is literally perfect and I don't even know what to do with his face. We also found Jordan again, who'd apparently been down at that end of the barricade the whole time, cool. She came over and was showing me the shit pictures her brother took of her with some StarKids and was like, if we get a chance to pose with Joey, will YOU do it, because this is ridiculous, and I was like sure lol. So we waited around for Clark to be free and got autographs from him, and then I was like "Should I go get Cheri so she doesn't miss Clark?" and went to get her from the other end. By the time we got back Clark had moved on a little but Joey was there again, and we really wanted a picture with him because my one and only other picture with Joey both he and I look like MORONS. So we asked to do a pic with him and he was like "Group picture! yes! group picture group group picture picture group picture group" and like kept SAYING IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN in this dumb little song that literally didn't stop until we were done taking the photograph. He was so cracked, omg. But in a good mood! I feel like the last couple of times I've seen Joey he's been in a lousy mood/in asshole mode re: the fans and it made me feel better to see he hasn't gone full douchebag. He still needs to put a couple pounds back on and cut his hair, though.
(Somewhere in there we also got a picture with Clark and in the process he apparently like...TOUCHED KRISTEN'S HIP...KRISTEN GOT TO SECOND BASE WITH CLARK BAXTRESSER. So much inappropriate touching this concert. The best. And also I took a picture of Jordan and her group with Joey hooray. :3)
We were finished there, so we decided to go back to where we'd been standing originally for one more round of waiting for Dylan, but who should be there when we arrive but BHoldz. lol. He's trying to take a picture with some other girls and going kinda fast, like "Okay, guys, I'm gonna be out here for like TWO MORE MINUTES and then I have to go" but their camera was on video instead of still photo by accident so we snuck into the downtime while they fixed it. I got autographs for me and for Kristen but whoops not for Cheri before the other group got their shit together, and he was like "Okay!" and I was like "WAIT one more?" and he was like "aahhh yeah yeah okay great thanks I just really have to pee." and signed it for her and then waved and left. ROFL. WE WERE BASICALLY JUST LIKE "ON THAT NOTE" and decided to leave, and we ran into Marissa and Abby one last time and then headed back to the hotel. The nicest Brian has EVER been to me! So awesome ahaha. But as we're walking back Kristen goes "Just think, Brian's touching his dick right now," and Cheri almost fell over and we had to stop walking for a second. THE WORST AHAHAHAHA.
We were bummed about missing Meredith and not getting Dylan or Lauren at all, but it was overall a sweet-ass adventure with Team StarKid! I think Cheri was ultimately happy and that was the most important part because BIRTHDAY GIRL~. Even though I never did manage to buy her a drank what with all the shenanigans. Someday~~~ ilu bb.
Walking back to the hotel this woman stopped us and asked me what my shirt said and I said "It's 'Me and My Dick,' it's a musical" which is my default answer but rather than stink-eyeing me she just laughed. That was a welcome change from the standard reaction.
AND THEN, SHORT SMALL AMOUNTS OF INTERNET DICKING AROUND, AND SREEP. oh so sreep. after not sleeping for yeah probably about 40 hours I was like GIVE ME...THIS BED.....wonderful. And we also ate way too many Gushers, aka "we ate all the gushers that were left after the cupcakes which was like every single orange one and also a lot of blue and even some green and pink still." It was so much sugar, we should've died, omg. Cheri was smart to abstain, Kristen and I were idiots.
It was a great day.
~
Part 4: Post-Apocalyptic
Next morning was p uneventful, though sad, because we had to put Cheri back on her bus to Newport News and say goodbye. D: We DID end up having a bit of an adventure trying to go to this McDonald's that had no real substantial parking lot to speak of. Kristen and I once again demonstrated our ability to order the same thing at food places without ever consulting with one another, which is still funny. SNACK WRAPS, THO. yummmm. I am getting hungry just thinking about them.
Actually it was all sort of an adventure because driving with Kristen is an adventure but it didn't get truly cray until after Cheri left, when we were trying to go to this Starbucks and get some wi-fi. I'd also requested we stop at a BB&T so I could switch some money back into my checking account and AAHH JUST...WHAT IS CITY DRIVING WHAT IS CITY PARKING. Silver Spring you are a clusterfuck. Ultimately everything got resolved though and yes good and we wasted most of the morning and then started the drive to Avery's neck of the woods. Kristen went to fill up on gas and the machine fucked up in a funny way??? She put her PIN in and then hit "yes," but then realized she was supposed to have hit "enter" instead. But the PIN display was showing 5 characters, as if it had counted hitting "yes" as part of her PIN...and it did some other weird stuff, like asking if she wanted a receipt before she had even started pumping...Kristen may have gotten free gas??? Lol this weekend, basically.
We were uh. Listening to a lot of Top 40 in the car because Kristen's mom's car didn't have a way for us to play her iPod. We heard so much Call Me Maybe and What Makes You Beautiful and Starships and Somebody That I Used To Know and fucking WILD ONES, SO MUCH WILD ONES, EVERY DAMN TIME. Gdit Flo Rida. We decide a fun place to waste time would be in the mall right across from Avery's PetSmart and we went all through the TWO-STOREY TARGET and spent most of our time in the section with the food and the section with the toys. We are 12 and what is this. BUT GETTING THERE, driving on craycray highways with Kristen's GPS, god it's such a clusterfuck ahahahahaha best but also worst? Mostly just cray. So much shit was so cray.
We were REALLY excited to see Avery and we sat around and told her about the concert and just randomly talked about shit and then went to get shawarma because Avengers. (We'd decided in the Target that I was Iron Man and Kristen is Spider-Hulk, there are pictures, I will get them someday.) KRISTEN AND I ORDERED THE EXACT SAME THING AGAIN. Chicken shawarma and then we sat and picked all our tomatoes off god bless I love my son. Then we went back to Avery's once we had eaten and we tried to leave but we just...couldn't.... IT'S HARD WHEN YOU ARE TIRED AND YOU HAVE FRIENDS AND THINGS TO TALK ABOUT. LIKE IF PUTTING YOUR DICK INSIDE ELEFUN WOULD COUNT AS A BLOWJOB. ashdkjashdkg my son and my waifu nothing is greater.
We ended up not leaving Avery's till almost nine, which was gonna put us at Molly's house later than anticipated, and Kristen decided not to try driving the extra three hours back to Pennsylvania and just to stay there with me for the night, which was good. EXCEPT MORE DRIVING ADVENTURES...Hagerstown is also a clusterfuck. I am just going to blame Maryland pretty much. And we had to drive (and then eventually walk) past this enormous blubbery redneck dude with no shirt on and we were terrified but we FINALLY managed to get Kristen's car parked in the front and not around back (after running over a can of Febreze that was in the street) and then go upstairs and sleep.
My sleep was interrupted by Kristen's phone dying at around 6:15 the next morning and just...beeping... I tried to find where it was coming from but I couldn't so I guess I gave up. And then when Kristen was awake too we sat around and flailed and did nothing and looked at my Apocalyptour pictures and some other Apocalyptour stuff from Tumblr and basically just TRIED TO PULL OURSELVES APART BUT IT WAS LIKE MAGNETS and when she had to leave I was so, so sad and I didn't know what to do and it was awful.
Then I watched World's Worst Musical episode 3 and MARTY SCANLON WAS GUYBRUSH!!! MY FEELS!!!!!!
and then Donna drove me down to my dad's for my grandpa's 82nd birthday party and that's what I've been doing since. That and getting sick. I got my dad to buy me medicine but he got "nighttime" medicine but I took it anyway and now I am in this braindead sinus pressure state where I can only be 100% conscious of one thing at once and I kind of space on everything else. HELP. I am the biggest baby when I am sick wah wah. But I just ate an orange and it was delicious.
Here are some more concert pictures!! GOD it was hard to get salvageable ones between my camera only focusing on the backs of people's heads and morons throwing their hands in my frame. S2G I HAD THIS BEAUTIFUL SHOT OF JOEY AND THEN SOME BITCH'S BADLY-FORMED HEART HANDS GOT IN MY WAY AND I COULDN'T TAKE IT. heart hands. smh.
I guess these are the ones worth posting. (If these are the ones I DID post, imagine how terrible some were. so many bitches' sunglassed heads to crop out.) OH AND Photobucket might have rotated some of these and that's infuriating lkasjdhg ignore.
Villain medley!!:
Boy Toy:
Sami/Harry:
Granger Danger:
Not Alone *______* all my Jaime Lyn pics turned out the best ksgdhjfkhsdf:
/con report lolololol