thenewno2 + cousins = awesome weekend
So, I met Dhani Harrison Friday night.
[note: to all of you my friends who don't care: sorry about the fangirlishness. some of you do care :) so this is for you.]
:D :D :D :D
I didn't end up getting a picture with him, which is a little sad, but I'm okay with it. It was mostly because there were lots of people stopping him [lots of older people... I feel like they were probably saying things like “Your father was just so amazing...”], and asking him to take pictures, and I didn't want to be One Of Them. And also because both times I talked to him, my timing was just... a bit off. I was kind of awkward the whole time, actually, and I sort of hate myself for it, haha. Also there was this one dude who kept shoving his camera in people's faces, and he TOTALLY threw off my first chance to talk to Dhani, but OH WELL.
The concert was awesome! They started out with So Vain, and my other favorite that they played was Yomp. Yomp is awesome live! I can't remember the rest of the set list... a few of the songs I wasn't even sure which they were, hehe, because I haven't learned all of their songs that well yet. And honestly, they sound really different live! There's a lot more energy and... they're kind of more hard core. Great fun. I wanted to hear “Give You Love”, cause I love that one, but [I'm 95% sure that] they didn't play it. [EDIT: wrong, they totally did. silly me! I blame being distracted by the fact that DHANI was right there.] I guess it's not really high energy enough for an opening set. Dhani talked a little between songs; not a ton, but I like how they interacted with the crowd. Introducing Yomp, he was like “Next we're gonna play a song called something that sounds like Stomp... but it's Yomp.” Their last song (forget which one it was) was awesome! They really rocked out.
Near the end of one song, it looked like Dhani was having trouble with his footboard thing (I am not a musician). Then after the song, he was messing with it, and said something like “That's the tenth one of those I've broken this tour, sweet!” haha.
SPEAKING OF FOOTBOARDS, Dhani's shoes were awesome. They were bright shiney silver Nike kicks. Rock. Also, I loved the band's commitment to awesome hats (more on that later).
It was cool seeing them in Chicago! I think a good bit of people were there just for them; they played at Lollapalooza this year, so people in Chicago know them a bit. I've got a video of something Dhani said between songs about being at Lollapalooza in the summer, and how Chicago felt like a second home to them. I hope he meant it, that's awesome! :)
Video:
(I have more videos, will be uploading them soon... ps. does anyone think they would be upset for me taking videos/putting them on the internet? if so, I'd rather not put them up... but, it's kind of like free publicity, right?)
They played for about 45 minutes I think. It went by way too fast! I really want them to headline sometime... that'd be so sweet.
The crowd felt a little weird to me. People were into it, and cheering, but just... not that energetic. I'm used to getting into it, and jumping around, and throwing your arms in the air like you just don't care! That wasn't really happening, even in the mosh pit. I think Dhani noticed it too, cause when I finally did talk to him [:) eee] I was like:
“Hey Dhani! We came just for you guys; you were so great!” And he was like: “Thanks so much, so glad you guys came out!"
"I hope we weren't too boring, people didn't seem that into it...”
and I was like “No!” and then the random dude shoved a camera in my face, and Dhani kind of skipped off again.
SPEAKING OF MEETING DHANI. I was in the pit enjoying Heartless Bastards' set, and texting back and forth with captainxamanda (who I finally realized was standing right in front of me about ¾ the way through Thenewno2's set :)). All of a sudden she called me, but I couldn't hear a thing so I didn't answer it, but then she texted me and was all: “He's by the bar!” And I basically abandoned my friends and went out there to SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.
I talked to Nick Fyffe for a while, he was really nice. [Note: they're all adorable.] I complimented him on his fine bowler hat, and he was like: “Thank you! Yeah, we like hats.” Which is awesome. Most of them were wearing some type of hat, the drummer had a fedora... Nick said that they were having a great time, and that all the people in the bands got along great. He said that he'd actually played in The Riviera Theatre 10 years ago! He had totally forgotten about it, but when they drove up, he recognized it. He's from the south side of London. His eyes are also really cool... his left pupil is white, I have no idea why, and it looks really neat... As you can tell, I talked to him a lot more than Dhani.
So after a little while, we were still hanging around trying to talk to Dhani, and I said something along those lines; Nick was like: “yeah, go ahead.” but just then Dhani darted away again, and Nick was like “You just have to catch him...he's hyper.” :D
Eventually I did grab him (see above), and it was nice! But then he left, and the other guys were talking to these two girls who were WAY better at being groupies than I was, and so I was just like... awkwardly standing there.
Then we walked back down and waited for Wolfmother... and then I went back upstairs, and ended up talking to the other girls who had been hanging out with Thenewno2 guys, and they were really nice. Like I said, they got to hang out with the guys a lot more than us.... anyway, after a while we found the guys again but I figured I'd spent enough time awkwardly hanging around, and to just leave it to the other girls. Around about that time, Dhani was like: “You wanna go listen to the Mothers?” to the other guys, and they wandered away.
All in all, really fun concert. I got beer spilled on me, met Dhani, got an awesome Thenewno2 hoodie, met Dhani, hung out with friends, got hit on by an older guy twice (hmm, not the nice part), met Dhani... it was a good night.
The whole ~meeting celebrities~ thing (heck, just meeting "The Band") was a new experience for me, all around. I will do much better the next time this happens. I have a lot of "oh dang! Why did I say that? Why didn't I do that?"'s from the night... but overall, it was a great night.
Some things I learned:
- Dhani has tons of energy! Or at least, a short attention span. After Nick called him hyper :) I noticed that he dashed around everywhere, doing things...
- He seemed really used to people wanting to talk to him, not minding it, but not really wanting it.
- Dhani is short :) haha. I mean, I say this knowing that I am a very tall person. I'm 5'11, which is super tall for a girl... but he was shorter than I was expecting :). They were all pretty much the same height, it seemed...
- Oliver Hecks is no longer with Thenewno2. I asked Nick about the other guys in the band, because I only really knew Dhani and Oliver, and he was like: “Well, Oliver hasn't been around for a while now...” Did you guys know that? It was news to me. EDIT: Now that I've looked at their wikipedia site, I see that: “As of mid 2009, the live band changed its formation, and currently features Harrison, Jon Sadoff, Jeremy Faccone, Nick Fyffe, and Frank Zummo. Hecks did not leave the band to be replaced, according to Dhani Harrison in an interview for fender.com; he is doing film work. ” Eeks, it's been a while, bad me. Although, I don't feel so bad, because NPR has this photo
tagged as that being Oliver Hecks on the right, but that's Nick Fyffe... I can't blame NPR too much though, because during the show I was watching him, and I was all “Wow, Oliver is a lot hotter in real life!” oops :) it was actually a different guy....
- They definitely nicknamed their tour bus the Black Pearl :) as a pirate thing. I asked Nick about it, and he goes: “It's because *we're* like pirates.”
- Last but not least, I realized: Dhani is... well, Dhani's a hipster. Not a lame one, of course! But... after the concert he was wearing a plaid shirt, tight black jeans, and his awesome shiny kicks. He's got long hair, and facial hair, and he's in a band. He's not a F*cking Hipster, but... he's kind of a hipster, haha. I love it.
Did you guys know that you can sign up to be a member of their site, and be involved with interactive fan chats with the band, and stuff like that? I totally didn't, I just found it on their site. I think that means I'm a bad fan, haha. I'd like to support them; I really like how they're doing it on their own. [I mean, it kind of helps that Dhani is basically a record company in himself, but still - it's indie and it's awesome.]
TIME FOR PICTURES.
lol, this one actually turned out pretty cool....
Dhani's supafly shoes!
me failing at getting a picture of Dhani when we were all hanging in the same general vicinity. those guys are all in the band, Nick on the left, Dhani's nose on the right behind RANDOM CAMERA GUY.
L-R: the two girls we met, who were also there for Thenewno2, captainxamanda, me (with CRAZY EYES, what the face)
This was in the bathroom, and I thought it was cute. Wish I'd been there for Mika! I really liked The Riviera, I want to go to more concerts there.
Me, happy cause it was a fun night.
Sorry Greg and John! I totally didn't get any pictures of you, haha... sad.
UPDATE: more videos :) again, sorry about the audio quality.
OK I was gonna talk about hanging out with Greg, and then spending the night/morning with the cousins, but this became VERY LONG, so I'll do that in another post. :)
[note: to all of you my friends who don't care: sorry about the fangirlishness. some of you do care :) so this is for you.]
:D :D :D :D
I didn't end up getting a picture with him, which is a little sad, but I'm okay with it. It was mostly because there were lots of people stopping him [lots of older people... I feel like they were probably saying things like “Your father was just so amazing...”], and asking him to take pictures, and I didn't want to be One Of Them. And also because both times I talked to him, my timing was just... a bit off. I was kind of awkward the whole time, actually, and I sort of hate myself for it, haha. Also there was this one dude who kept shoving his camera in people's faces, and he TOTALLY threw off my first chance to talk to Dhani, but OH WELL.
The concert was awesome! They started out with So Vain, and my other favorite that they played was Yomp. Yomp is awesome live! I can't remember the rest of the set list... a few of the songs I wasn't even sure which they were, hehe, because I haven't learned all of their songs that well yet. And honestly, they sound really different live! There's a lot more energy and... they're kind of more hard core. Great fun. I wanted to hear “Give You Love”, cause I love that one, but [I'm 95% sure that] they didn't play it. [EDIT: wrong, they totally did. silly me! I blame being distracted by the fact that DHANI was right there.] I guess it's not really high energy enough for an opening set. Dhani talked a little between songs; not a ton, but I like how they interacted with the crowd. Introducing Yomp, he was like “Next we're gonna play a song called something that sounds like Stomp... but it's Yomp.” Their last song (forget which one it was) was awesome! They really rocked out.
Near the end of one song, it looked like Dhani was having trouble with his footboard thing (I am not a musician). Then after the song, he was messing with it, and said something like “That's the tenth one of those I've broken this tour, sweet!” haha.
SPEAKING OF FOOTBOARDS, Dhani's shoes were awesome. They were bright shiney silver Nike kicks. Rock. Also, I loved the band's commitment to awesome hats (more on that later).
It was cool seeing them in Chicago! I think a good bit of people were there just for them; they played at Lollapalooza this year, so people in Chicago know them a bit. I've got a video of something Dhani said between songs about being at Lollapalooza in the summer, and how Chicago felt like a second home to them. I hope he meant it, that's awesome! :)
Video:
Click to view(I have more videos, will be uploading them soon... ps. does anyone think they would be upset for me taking videos/putting them on the internet? if so, I'd rather not put them up... but, it's kind of like free publicity, right?)
They played for about 45 minutes I think. It went by way too fast! I really want them to headline sometime... that'd be so sweet.
The crowd felt a little weird to me. People were into it, and cheering, but just... not that energetic. I'm used to getting into it, and jumping around, and throwing your arms in the air like you just don't care! That wasn't really happening, even in the mosh pit. I think Dhani noticed it too, cause when I finally did talk to him [:) eee] I was like:
“Hey Dhani! We came just for you guys; you were so great!” And he was like: “Thanks so much, so glad you guys came out!"
"I hope we weren't too boring, people didn't seem that into it...”
and I was like “No!” and then the random dude shoved a camera in my face, and Dhani kind of skipped off again.
SPEAKING OF MEETING DHANI. I was in the pit enjoying Heartless Bastards' set, and texting back and forth with captainxamanda (who I finally realized was standing right in front of me about ¾ the way through Thenewno2's set :)). All of a sudden she called me, but I couldn't hear a thing so I didn't answer it, but then she texted me and was all: “He's by the bar!” And I basically abandoned my friends and went out there to SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.
I talked to Nick Fyffe for a while, he was really nice. [Note: they're all adorable.] I complimented him on his fine bowler hat, and he was like: “Thank you! Yeah, we like hats.” Which is awesome. Most of them were wearing some type of hat, the drummer had a fedora... Nick said that they were having a great time, and that all the people in the bands got along great. He said that he'd actually played in The Riviera Theatre 10 years ago! He had totally forgotten about it, but when they drove up, he recognized it. He's from the south side of London. His eyes are also really cool... his left pupil is white, I have no idea why, and it looks really neat... As you can tell, I talked to him a lot more than Dhani.
So after a little while, we were still hanging around trying to talk to Dhani, and I said something along those lines; Nick was like: “yeah, go ahead.” but just then Dhani darted away again, and Nick was like “You just have to catch him...he's hyper.” :D
Eventually I did grab him (see above), and it was nice! But then he left, and the other guys were talking to these two girls who were WAY better at being groupies than I was, and so I was just like... awkwardly standing there.
Then we walked back down and waited for Wolfmother... and then I went back upstairs, and ended up talking to the other girls who had been hanging out with Thenewno2 guys, and they were really nice. Like I said, they got to hang out with the guys a lot more than us.... anyway, after a while we found the guys again but I figured I'd spent enough time awkwardly hanging around, and to just leave it to the other girls. Around about that time, Dhani was like: “You wanna go listen to the Mothers?” to the other guys, and they wandered away.
All in all, really fun concert. I got beer spilled on me, met Dhani, got an awesome Thenewno2 hoodie, met Dhani, hung out with friends, got hit on by an older guy twice (hmm, not the nice part), met Dhani... it was a good night.
The whole ~meeting celebrities~ thing (heck, just meeting "The Band") was a new experience for me, all around. I will do much better the next time this happens. I have a lot of "oh dang! Why did I say that? Why didn't I do that?"'s from the night... but overall, it was a great night.
Some things I learned:
- Dhani has tons of energy! Or at least, a short attention span. After Nick called him hyper :) I noticed that he dashed around everywhere, doing things...
- He seemed really used to people wanting to talk to him, not minding it, but not really wanting it.
- Dhani is short :) haha. I mean, I say this knowing that I am a very tall person. I'm 5'11, which is super tall for a girl... but he was shorter than I was expecting :). They were all pretty much the same height, it seemed...
- Oliver Hecks is no longer with Thenewno2. I asked Nick about the other guys in the band, because I only really knew Dhani and Oliver, and he was like: “Well, Oliver hasn't been around for a while now...” Did you guys know that? It was news to me. EDIT: Now that I've looked at their wikipedia site, I see that: “As of mid 2009, the live band changed its formation, and currently features Harrison, Jon Sadoff, Jeremy Faccone, Nick Fyffe, and Frank Zummo. Hecks did not leave the band to be replaced, according to Dhani Harrison in an interview for fender.com; he is doing film work. ” Eeks, it's been a while, bad me. Although, I don't feel so bad, because NPR has this photo
tagged as that being Oliver Hecks on the right, but that's Nick Fyffe... I can't blame NPR too much though, because during the show I was watching him, and I was all “Wow, Oliver is a lot hotter in real life!” oops :) it was actually a different guy....
- They definitely nicknamed their tour bus the Black Pearl :) as a pirate thing. I asked Nick about it, and he goes: “It's because *we're* like pirates.”
- Last but not least, I realized: Dhani is... well, Dhani's a hipster. Not a lame one, of course! But... after the concert he was wearing a plaid shirt, tight black jeans, and his awesome shiny kicks. He's got long hair, and facial hair, and he's in a band. He's not a F*cking Hipster, but... he's kind of a hipster, haha. I love it.
Did you guys know that you can sign up to be a member of their site, and be involved with interactive fan chats with the band, and stuff like that? I totally didn't, I just found it on their site. I think that means I'm a bad fan, haha. I'd like to support them; I really like how they're doing it on their own. [I mean, it kind of helps that Dhani is basically a record company in himself, but still - it's indie and it's awesome.]
TIME FOR PICTURES.
lol, this one actually turned out pretty cool....
Dhani's supafly shoes!
me failing at getting a picture of Dhani when we were all hanging in the same general vicinity. those guys are all in the band, Nick on the left, Dhani's nose on the right behind RANDOM CAMERA GUY.
L-R: the two girls we met, who were also there for Thenewno2, captainxamanda, me (with CRAZY EYES, what the face)
This was in the bathroom, and I thought it was cute. Wish I'd been there for Mika! I really liked The Riviera, I want to go to more concerts there.
Me, happy cause it was a fun night.
Sorry Greg and John! I totally didn't get any pictures of you, haha... sad.
UPDATE: more videos :) again, sorry about the audio quality.
OK I was gonna talk about hanging out with Greg, and then spending the night/morning with the cousins, but this became VERY LONG, so I'll do that in another post. :)