Oldfag complains about newfags, news at 11.
So, I meant to do this days ago, fffff.
MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE! IT WAS FUN! Despite the awkwardness of being nearly ten years older than most of the fanbase. Bleh, teenagers. We showed up around 1 and the line was already the entire length of the block (fffffff what even, fankids). We had a spot right on the corner which was kinda nice... we had a stoop to sit on, and a great view up and down both streets for some prime people watching. When we arrived some busker across the streetcar tracks was playing "Friday" on his guitar... this led to some Droid phone YouTube time, as regonym had somehow missed Rebecca Black entirely. Also, look_alive was joking about how she should've brought her guitar, and I was like, you could've put a hat down, seen if you could get any money, and she was like, "YEAH, I KNOW SOME... CHORDS," and I was like, "Well, apparently all you need to learn is 'Pachelbel's Canon in D', and then you'll be able to play every song ever," and she had no idea what I was talking about, so I was forced to play the Pachelbel Rant for her. (Warning: viewing this video may cause you to die of laughter. And if you survive, you will have "Pachelbel's Canon in D" stuck in your head for the rest of your life.)
So we settled in comfortably and made public nuisances of ourselves and read comics (I brought all of "The Umbrella Academy" with me, obvsly) and tried not to associate ourselves with the other fans (DO YOUR PARENTS KNOW WHERE YOU ARE? DO THEY KNOW YOU ARE SMOKING? DO THEY KNOW THAT YOUR VAGINA IS VISIBLE AND THAT YOUR BRA COVERS MORE SKIN THAN YOUR DRESS DOES?) and had, actually, a quite enjoyable time people-watching. Dar started keeping a tally of Converse (110), Vans (76), and plaid shirts (63) spotted, the hipsters judged us and we judged them back, and we put up with a billion people asking stupid questions about why we're in line ("My Chemical Romance? They're a band? ...Are they live?") before we started telling them we were here to see Justin Bieber. We took turns getting up to go pay for parking or pee or grab food from The People's Sandwich of Portland, and at some point aquidis showed up, and SIX HOURS LATER they shuffled us inside. We snagged a spot slightly stage left of center, four or five rows back from the front and settled in to wait some more, sharing around the water bottle I bought.
The first opening band was The Architects, and they were cool, actually. Good stage presence, they looked like they were having fun, and really excellent work on their guitars, hot damn. And they were just really endearing. (Notable quotes: "We're from Kansas City and we write songs about two things: drugs, and law enforcement!" and "This song is about my dad, and it's kinda about his dad, and it's kinda about his dad too, and so by extension it's also about his dad....") Meanwhile the crowd closed in and we learned to be very affectionate with our neighbors, and spent the next few hours trying not to fall over and die. *eyeroll* I mean, this is nothing new, but. Punk shows. Wtf even, people need to learn to calm down.
Next opening band was Neon Trees, who are, apparently, really popular, for no reason that any of us could understand. The music was bleh, completely dull and boring and vapid, and the lead singer Tyler Glenn was basically the douchiest douchebag to ever have douched. HE THREW HIS SOCKS INTO THE CROWD. I couldn't decide if his raptor-hand dancing was horrifying or the most entertaining thing I'd ever seen. And let's not even talk about his hair. All the fangirls around us kept screaming and flipping out and it was EXTREMELY AWKWARD.
The crowd started shuffling me slowly towards stage right, away from my compatriots. Shortly after MCR came on I lost sight of them entirely. But that was okay, because MCR. ...Guys, fuck the crowd, basically, but the show itself was awesome. They had the most amazing set list, and they played from all four albums. By the end of the show I'd been shuffled over to stage right of center and like four rows back... I generally had a pretty excellent view of the Way brothers the whole time, and usually a good view of Frank. And after a few songs the crowd actually calmed down out of pure exhaustion and I was able to enjoy myself... although I sort of wish everyone else had as much energy as me, because I came to dance and it's hard to be the only one. "Mama" was probably my favorite part of the show, their live rendition was really interesting and motherfucking INTENSE... "The Black Parade" was another highlight, ohmigod the drrruuuuuuuuummmss!! And they played "Vampires Will Never Hurt You", which was AWESOME~! And Frank kept spitting, and Gerard is a tiny adorable precious person and cuddled his brother and came and stood right in front of me during "Teenagers" and put his foot on the amp and gyrated his hips in a really lewd fashion (XD ♥!) and Ray's guitar shredding just about melted my face off, and Pedicone is fantastic on the drums. And they did their best to take care of the crowd, asking us to look out for each other and tossing water into the mob periodically (I actually got some of the water Frank tossed in near the end, thank you very much Frank, honey, I needed that). Frank didn't turn into a pretzel or do a stage-dive, but oh well.
The show ended and I managed to find the others... regonym had been shuffled stage left and back, aquidis had dragged look_alive out of the crowd and they escaped to the balcony. We were all soaked with sweat and dying of thirst, so we went for a walk through the rain to the Roxy, where I drank an entire pitcher of iced tea and a glass of water, a serving of corned beef hash, and most of a delicious salad. We dispersed, went home, and caught a few Zs. And then we woke up and did it all over again.
THE SGT. SCHLEPPER'S WHO NEEDS HEARTS CLUB BAND TOUR! IT WAS FUN! We didn't head downtown until a little later in the afternoon, and when we did a drive-by of Hawthorne Theater there were only a few Pete Wentz fangirls hanging around, so that was okay. look_alive and I took regonym to the Portland Saturday Market and got DELICIOUS lamb gyros and samples from the Cajun Spice tent (♥s always) and iced tea, and we shuffled looking at crafts and little boys dressed as Batman and photos of stoned-out cats and gorgeous gorgeous blooming cherry trees, and then we were REALLY FUCKING COLD so we acquired an aquidis and headed for Cacao. We sat inside where it was WARM and drank their oh-so-fucking-delicious spiced drinking chocolates and people-watched out the big picture window. Then it was time to head over to the concert, so we left regonym to find her own way back to the apartment and the stack of comics I'd left for her to read and drove over to Hawthorne.
The line outside the theater was entertaining... a solid chunk of Pete Wentz fangirls at the front who had clearly been in line for hours, followed by the bros of Portland, looking faintly confused. That's... kind of how the concert went. Screaming Pete Wentz fangirls in the front, confused-looking bros. Again making sure to make as much of a public nuisance of ourselves as possible while in the line, once inside we headed straight for the safety of the 21 and over section. I got myself a couple of drinks over the course of the first couple of bands... Blueberry Stoli with soda (tastes like a blueberry muffin) and Orange Stoli with cranberry (tastes like homemade cranberry sauce/Thanksgiving/a popsicle) and gave myself a pleasant buzz.
So we were mostly there to see Black Cards and Travie McCoy, but one of the highlights of the show turned out to be the first opening act, Bad Rabbits. Oh my god, you guys, they are my new favorites. Such an amazing live show. They are so full of happiness and energy and enthusiasm, and they do these synchronized slide dances across the stage, and jump about a mile into the air, and the lead singer Dua has a great voice, and... yeah. These guys, like Travie, are the kind of hip hop/R&B I can get into. They are honest and real, and they bring a REAL BAND with them and play REAL INSTRUMENTS.
XV was... *shrug*. Mostly he said his own name a lot, and it was... your pretty standard hip hop, so mostly I was just bored. But the bros were happy, and XV had a green backpack which, while baffling, was cool, somehow, and I had my Droid so I just drank my drink and fucked around on Livejournal. My feet were really sore from the night before so I ended up sitting down on the floor between the acts, until this drunk girl started stepping on me.
Black Cards came on, and Pete Wentz was adorable, and Bebe was adorable, and the music was fun, and aquidis, look_alive, and I danced like maniacs. I skanked, haha. It felt necessary. The bros were Confused, and because this is fucking Portland NO ONE WAS DANCING EXCEPT US, and Pete and Bebe were working so hard and we felt bad for them, so we left the safety of our drinking section and dove into the crowd to dance like crazy people and hopefully make them feel better. It was fun, although frankly I thought Bad Rabbits had a better stage show. An unexpected highlight was Bebe doing a cover of "Bang Bang" by Nancy Sinatra... omg I cannot tell you how happy that made me.
Pete Wentz promised to hang out at the merch table between Donnis and Travie, but he is a Lying Liar and scarpered off somewhere else, lol. The flood of fangirls to that side of the floor worked well in our favor because they are much shorter than the bros... we ended up standing behind them and had a freaking excellent view of the stage over their heads, haha. And it put us in a good position to fist-bump XV and high-five Dua when they came through the crowd.
Donnis was, much like XV, your standard hip hop act, which thrilled the bros but bored me. I read gyzym fic, lol.
And then Travie came on. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥!!! Ohmigod, he is exactly how you would imagine him to be live, only BETTER. Seriously, this man is the most precious adorable thing on this earth, he made the most amazing faces, and his REAL band with their REAL instruments was awesome (that drummer!), and he was supremely friendly and outgoing and interactive with the crowd, winking and making kissy faces and touching hands and checking in with the bros to make sure they were having a good time too. I am not ashamed to say I let out a squeal like a Beatles' fangirl when he came out on the stage, and my rapture basically did not diminish at any point. I am in love with this man. The lead-ins to his songs were really funny, too... he would go into these big rambly stories that would eventually segue into the song. My favorite was when he started out with a shout-out to everyone born in the 80's (REPRESENT! TAKE THAT TEENAGERS!), and talking about how his favorite movie was "Gremlins", and how he wanted a mogwai for a pet (prop: actual mogwai plushie), and all he got was this stinking lunchbox (prop: actual Gremlins lunchbox), and his dad tried to tell him Gremlins weren't real, but wee!Travie could not distinguish between fact and fiction so he knew, he just knew, that somewhere out there a little Chinese man was selling mogwais, and he went into the rules for caring for mogwai, you know: don't get them wet, and don't feed them after midnight... he got us shouting, "After midnight!" a few times... segue into the song, "After Midnight". Like that. Anyway, he is amazing and I adore him. And look_alive waved at him, and he waved back. Damn her. Also, kids don't know what they were doing, so a bunch of people left before the encore, so we got to go waaaaay up close to the stage for "Cupid's Chokehold", FUCK YES.
So then we were hungry and thirsty, so we went to the late-night food carts on Hawthorne, and I got me a black cherry soda, a shrimp po' boy, and PB&J FRIES. Guys, this is one of the best things I have ever eaten, okay, we were at Potato Champion and they had PB&J FRIES and I was like, there's just no way I can resist that, and THEY WERE THE BEST THINGS EVER. To clarify... the "peanut butter" was satay sauce, and the "jelly" was this chipotle raspberry goo... all over these amazing french fries, ohmigod you guys, I am in love. So tasty. We talked forever to this slightly weirdo but nice, harmless guy, and then we skedaddled and got a wee bit of sleep before I had to take look_alive to the airport.
...So at the end of the weekend I was way way underslept, and my feet hurt like a bitch, and I felt like an 80 year old cripple with a sore throat who had been beaten by sticks, but it was FUN. And I got to see regonym, which was supremely excellent since I don't know when the next time is that I will see her again (;_;), and I threw comics at her, and I got her into "Hawaii Five-0", we watched five episodes, bwaha~. So that was awesome.
Bright Eyes concert this weekend, whoo!
MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE! IT WAS FUN! Despite the awkwardness of being nearly ten years older than most of the fanbase. Bleh, teenagers. We showed up around 1 and the line was already the entire length of the block (fffffff what even, fankids). We had a spot right on the corner which was kinda nice... we had a stoop to sit on, and a great view up and down both streets for some prime people watching. When we arrived some busker across the streetcar tracks was playing "Friday" on his guitar... this led to some Droid phone YouTube time, as regonym had somehow missed Rebecca Black entirely. Also, look_alive was joking about how she should've brought her guitar, and I was like, you could've put a hat down, seen if you could get any money, and she was like, "YEAH, I KNOW SOME... CHORDS," and I was like, "Well, apparently all you need to learn is 'Pachelbel's Canon in D', and then you'll be able to play every song ever," and she had no idea what I was talking about, so I was forced to play the Pachelbel Rant for her. (Warning: viewing this video may cause you to die of laughter. And if you survive, you will have "Pachelbel's Canon in D" stuck in your head for the rest of your life.)
So we settled in comfortably and made public nuisances of ourselves and read comics (I brought all of "The Umbrella Academy" with me, obvsly) and tried not to associate ourselves with the other fans (DO YOUR PARENTS KNOW WHERE YOU ARE? DO THEY KNOW YOU ARE SMOKING? DO THEY KNOW THAT YOUR VAGINA IS VISIBLE AND THAT YOUR BRA COVERS MORE SKIN THAN YOUR DRESS DOES?) and had, actually, a quite enjoyable time people-watching. Dar started keeping a tally of Converse (110), Vans (76), and plaid shirts (63) spotted, the hipsters judged us and we judged them back, and we put up with a billion people asking stupid questions about why we're in line ("My Chemical Romance? They're a band? ...Are they live?") before we started telling them we were here to see Justin Bieber. We took turns getting up to go pay for parking or pee or grab food from The People's Sandwich of Portland, and at some point aquidis showed up, and SIX HOURS LATER they shuffled us inside. We snagged a spot slightly stage left of center, four or five rows back from the front and settled in to wait some more, sharing around the water bottle I bought.
The first opening band was The Architects, and they were cool, actually. Good stage presence, they looked like they were having fun, and really excellent work on their guitars, hot damn. And they were just really endearing. (Notable quotes: "We're from Kansas City and we write songs about two things: drugs, and law enforcement!" and "This song is about my dad, and it's kinda about his dad, and it's kinda about his dad too, and so by extension it's also about his dad....") Meanwhile the crowd closed in and we learned to be very affectionate with our neighbors, and spent the next few hours trying not to fall over and die. *eyeroll* I mean, this is nothing new, but. Punk shows. Wtf even, people need to learn to calm down.
Next opening band was Neon Trees, who are, apparently, really popular, for no reason that any of us could understand. The music was bleh, completely dull and boring and vapid, and the lead singer Tyler Glenn was basically the douchiest douchebag to ever have douched. HE THREW HIS SOCKS INTO THE CROWD. I couldn't decide if his raptor-hand dancing was horrifying or the most entertaining thing I'd ever seen. And let's not even talk about his hair. All the fangirls around us kept screaming and flipping out and it was EXTREMELY AWKWARD.
The crowd started shuffling me slowly towards stage right, away from my compatriots. Shortly after MCR came on I lost sight of them entirely. But that was okay, because MCR. ...Guys, fuck the crowd, basically, but the show itself was awesome. They had the most amazing set list, and they played from all four albums. By the end of the show I'd been shuffled over to stage right of center and like four rows back... I generally had a pretty excellent view of the Way brothers the whole time, and usually a good view of Frank. And after a few songs the crowd actually calmed down out of pure exhaustion and I was able to enjoy myself... although I sort of wish everyone else had as much energy as me, because I came to dance and it's hard to be the only one. "Mama" was probably my favorite part of the show, their live rendition was really interesting and motherfucking INTENSE... "The Black Parade" was another highlight, ohmigod the drrruuuuuuuuummmss!! And they played "Vampires Will Never Hurt You", which was AWESOME~! And Frank kept spitting, and Gerard is a tiny adorable precious person and cuddled his brother and came and stood right in front of me during "Teenagers" and put his foot on the amp and gyrated his hips in a really lewd fashion (XD ♥!) and Ray's guitar shredding just about melted my face off, and Pedicone is fantastic on the drums. And they did their best to take care of the crowd, asking us to look out for each other and tossing water into the mob periodically (I actually got some of the water Frank tossed in near the end, thank you very much Frank, honey, I needed that). Frank didn't turn into a pretzel or do a stage-dive, but oh well.
The show ended and I managed to find the others... regonym had been shuffled stage left and back, aquidis had dragged look_alive out of the crowd and they escaped to the balcony. We were all soaked with sweat and dying of thirst, so we went for a walk through the rain to the Roxy, where I drank an entire pitcher of iced tea and a glass of water, a serving of corned beef hash, and most of a delicious salad. We dispersed, went home, and caught a few Zs. And then we woke up and did it all over again.
THE SGT. SCHLEPPER'S WHO NEEDS HEARTS CLUB BAND TOUR! IT WAS FUN! We didn't head downtown until a little later in the afternoon, and when we did a drive-by of Hawthorne Theater there were only a few Pete Wentz fangirls hanging around, so that was okay. look_alive and I took regonym to the Portland Saturday Market and got DELICIOUS lamb gyros and samples from the Cajun Spice tent (♥s always) and iced tea, and we shuffled looking at crafts and little boys dressed as Batman and photos of stoned-out cats and gorgeous gorgeous blooming cherry trees, and then we were REALLY FUCKING COLD so we acquired an aquidis and headed for Cacao. We sat inside where it was WARM and drank their oh-so-fucking-delicious spiced drinking chocolates and people-watched out the big picture window. Then it was time to head over to the concert, so we left regonym to find her own way back to the apartment and the stack of comics I'd left for her to read and drove over to Hawthorne.
The line outside the theater was entertaining... a solid chunk of Pete Wentz fangirls at the front who had clearly been in line for hours, followed by the bros of Portland, looking faintly confused. That's... kind of how the concert went. Screaming Pete Wentz fangirls in the front, confused-looking bros. Again making sure to make as much of a public nuisance of ourselves as possible while in the line, once inside we headed straight for the safety of the 21 and over section. I got myself a couple of drinks over the course of the first couple of bands... Blueberry Stoli with soda (tastes like a blueberry muffin) and Orange Stoli with cranberry (tastes like homemade cranberry sauce/Thanksgiving/a popsicle) and gave myself a pleasant buzz.
So we were mostly there to see Black Cards and Travie McCoy, but one of the highlights of the show turned out to be the first opening act, Bad Rabbits. Oh my god, you guys, they are my new favorites. Such an amazing live show. They are so full of happiness and energy and enthusiasm, and they do these synchronized slide dances across the stage, and jump about a mile into the air, and the lead singer Dua has a great voice, and... yeah. These guys, like Travie, are the kind of hip hop/R&B I can get into. They are honest and real, and they bring a REAL BAND with them and play REAL INSTRUMENTS.
XV was... *shrug*. Mostly he said his own name a lot, and it was... your pretty standard hip hop, so mostly I was just bored. But the bros were happy, and XV had a green backpack which, while baffling, was cool, somehow, and I had my Droid so I just drank my drink and fucked around on Livejournal. My feet were really sore from the night before so I ended up sitting down on the floor between the acts, until this drunk girl started stepping on me.
Black Cards came on, and Pete Wentz was adorable, and Bebe was adorable, and the music was fun, and aquidis, look_alive, and I danced like maniacs. I skanked, haha. It felt necessary. The bros were Confused, and because this is fucking Portland NO ONE WAS DANCING EXCEPT US, and Pete and Bebe were working so hard and we felt bad for them, so we left the safety of our drinking section and dove into the crowd to dance like crazy people and hopefully make them feel better. It was fun, although frankly I thought Bad Rabbits had a better stage show. An unexpected highlight was Bebe doing a cover of "Bang Bang" by Nancy Sinatra... omg I cannot tell you how happy that made me.
Pete Wentz promised to hang out at the merch table between Donnis and Travie, but he is a Lying Liar and scarpered off somewhere else, lol. The flood of fangirls to that side of the floor worked well in our favor because they are much shorter than the bros... we ended up standing behind them and had a freaking excellent view of the stage over their heads, haha. And it put us in a good position to fist-bump XV and high-five Dua when they came through the crowd.
Donnis was, much like XV, your standard hip hop act, which thrilled the bros but bored me. I read gyzym fic, lol.
And then Travie came on. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥!!! Ohmigod, he is exactly how you would imagine him to be live, only BETTER. Seriously, this man is the most precious adorable thing on this earth, he made the most amazing faces, and his REAL band with their REAL instruments was awesome (that drummer!), and he was supremely friendly and outgoing and interactive with the crowd, winking and making kissy faces and touching hands and checking in with the bros to make sure they were having a good time too. I am not ashamed to say I let out a squeal like a Beatles' fangirl when he came out on the stage, and my rapture basically did not diminish at any point. I am in love with this man. The lead-ins to his songs were really funny, too... he would go into these big rambly stories that would eventually segue into the song. My favorite was when he started out with a shout-out to everyone born in the 80's (REPRESENT! TAKE THAT TEENAGERS!), and talking about how his favorite movie was "Gremlins", and how he wanted a mogwai for a pet (prop: actual mogwai plushie), and all he got was this stinking lunchbox (prop: actual Gremlins lunchbox), and his dad tried to tell him Gremlins weren't real, but wee!Travie could not distinguish between fact and fiction so he knew, he just knew, that somewhere out there a little Chinese man was selling mogwais, and he went into the rules for caring for mogwai, you know: don't get them wet, and don't feed them after midnight... he got us shouting, "After midnight!" a few times... segue into the song, "After Midnight". Like that. Anyway, he is amazing and I adore him. And look_alive waved at him, and he waved back. Damn her. Also, kids don't know what they were doing, so a bunch of people left before the encore, so we got to go waaaaay up close to the stage for "Cupid's Chokehold", FUCK YES.
So then we were hungry and thirsty, so we went to the late-night food carts on Hawthorne, and I got me a black cherry soda, a shrimp po' boy, and PB&J FRIES. Guys, this is one of the best things I have ever eaten, okay, we were at Potato Champion and they had PB&J FRIES and I was like, there's just no way I can resist that, and THEY WERE THE BEST THINGS EVER. To clarify... the "peanut butter" was satay sauce, and the "jelly" was this chipotle raspberry goo... all over these amazing french fries, ohmigod you guys, I am in love. So tasty. We talked forever to this slightly weirdo but nice, harmless guy, and then we skedaddled and got a wee bit of sleep before I had to take look_alive to the airport.
...So at the end of the weekend I was way way underslept, and my feet hurt like a bitch, and I felt like an 80 year old cripple with a sore throat who had been beaten by sticks, but it was FUN. And I got to see regonym, which was supremely excellent since I don't know when the next time is that I will see her again (;_;), and I threw comics at her, and I got her into "Hawaii Five-0", we watched five episodes, bwaha~. So that was awesome.
Bright Eyes concert this weekend, whoo!