Situation Normal: All Fucked Up
So. Here be the Big Fat Concert-Thingiedoodle Report. Then I'm going to go crawl into bed and try to pretend I don't exist for awhile.
Yesterday was basically one long unqualified SNAFU (witness the subject line, folks) from beginning to end. The concert itself was amazing - no surprises there. But pretty much everything else....damn, man.
First of all I did NOT get to meet the band. They had some pretty awesome misleading advertising going on, there, but Amy and I did get to sit in on soundcheck, along with some other stuff. More on that down below. But no, there was no discussion of human asses or scarves or anything else with a certain diminutive frontman, so as not to keep you in suspense.
So, like, I started the day off feeling really crappy and underslept (as witnessed by my previous post with...the asses) and as a result was about an hour and a half late getting out the door. Bleargh. Got to Amy (
madame_ophelia)'s house around, god, what, 11? 11:30? Something like that. The drive was awful, even during the day, because it was all these backasswards country roads that weren't even that pretty to make up for the BFE slow-factor, and then later at night...ugh. But anyway, so I get to her house, we primp some more, then take off for Detroit.
Justin? Jo? I love you. But I am never, ever moving to Michigan. God, I hated that drive SO FUCKING MUCH and maybe it was just the part of Michigan that I saw but jesus CHRIST it could not have looked more fugly if you'd steamrolled it and then sprinkled it with Essence of Feces. The roads were awful - we got lost literally about five times, and kept having to call the venue and/or stop at gas stations for directions. My total anticipated driving time for getting there was three and a half hours and it ended up being much closer to almost 6, with the long convoluted road/construction/getting lost/etc. Add this to the fact that I didn't have a car CD player and I wasn't about to be a rude asshole and listen to my headphones with Amy in the car, so we didn't have music, and we were BOTH sick, and it was a pretty miserable drive.
Oh, and I should mention - the Verizon people called up on the way, and we thought for awhile that they had fucked up and we weren't even going to get to participate in this whole thing. Steven, the guy on the phone, said that apparently Amy's name wasn't on the list of winners. OMGWTF?!?! Through multiple phone calls and gnashing of teeth, though, we got it all figured out and we were...kept? I still don't know exactly how they fucked up but the end result was we got to participate so fuck it.
SO. We get to the venue and...they won't let us bring our cars in and park til 4 o'clock, and then they're going to charge us 10 dollars to park. Fuckers. Well, Amy and I are supposed to be AT the front doors at 4, so we're like, fuck y'all, we're gonna park somewhere else and walk back. So we haul it to the Shell station across the street for food, etc, and the fabulous family of gals running the store let us park my car out back of the station for free, and said we could leave it there. Awesome.
I then proceed to lock my keys in my car, because I am made of awesome. *headdesk*
SO, after the police couldn't open it, Triple A was being slow, and the time to get over to the venue was fast approaching - it was like 3:30 at this point - we were ready to leave the fucking car and take our chances on it being there when we got back, when FINALLY the specialist towing agency that the police had called for us got there. He did in fact get my car open for me (after busting off my already-wounded right-hand side mirror, augh) and then charged me for it. To the tune of 60 bucks. We shoved the money at him and ran.
So we get there, and find ourselves at this tent-thingie out back of the Verizon-Green Day bus, to discover that it is not, in fact, a meet and greet, but merely the opportunity to get a lot of free crap and sit in on the pre-show soundcheck. Which, you know, is still pretty cool, but to hear some of the other contest-winners BITCHING and MOANING, you'd think they'd been promised they would get to have sexual intercourse with every member of the band. o_o SERIOUSLY. Some of those wee teenage girls had to have been 12 or 13, and they threw SUCH temper tantrums at their moms. I was ready to kill them with my own bare hands, but Amy and I tried to be polite and show some gratitude to the poor beleagured staff members.
After some paperwork and picture-taking, we all troop inside, clutching our laminated passes, and head into the actual auditorium, down to the front row of seats nearest the stage. And our boys were indeed up on stage in street clothes, being very professional and work-oriented. Billie was wearing that adorably doofy grey cabbie hat that he has on in some pictures, and jeans, and a Detroit...Lions? Shirt. He looked very skinny - I swear that he's lost weight. Mike was wearing that REALLY HOT white button-down with all the black printing on it, ELECTRIC STARS or whatever, and black pants. Tre was just wearing random cargo shorts and a t-shirt and my god, his HAIR looked like he'd just rubbed some pomade in his hair and stuck his finger in an electric socket by way of finishing up. Ahahahah.
Like I said, we didn't get to meet them - they were very focused on what they were doing. Their tour manager came over and passed out autographed pictures, and they were REAL autographs - we compared our pictures and the signatures were somewhat different on each one. Billie came over and waved at us and smiled this big sweet smile before he had to go back to what he was doing; Mike kind of came over, but I think he was more just walking around because he didn't make eye contact or look at us and immediately turned his back. Tre, though - when they were done with soundcheck, Tre came over and yelled, "Hey! Hey you with the weird hair! D'you want a pair of drumsticks?" And got this girl with rainbow-colored hair to come up and get his sticks.
Whereupon Immature Delusional Teen #5 gets up and hollers, "TRE! I LOVE YOU! Will you marry me?!" To which the darling Mr. Cool replies, "No, sorry, I don't do that any more," grinned, and ran off after his bandmates. And dude...she BURST INTO TEARS. *head to desk* Jesus, okay, I know I'm obsessed, but thank god I'm not like THAT.
There were some cool fans, though. Like these two Irish boys (who we found out later were big liars, the brats) who had come all the way from rural Ireland to see Green Day in concert again. *stares* THAT, my friends, is devotion. Of course, now I'm wondering if they were actually FROM Ireland, or if they'd moved here awhile ago and just still had the accents - but they definitely did have Irish accents. Rawr.
Anyway, so we came back out after soundcheck and got all our swag - free shirts, posters, guitar picks, a copy of a big group picture in front of the stage, and free food and water and a shady place to hang out til they let us in for the show.
The tickets we won weren't actually GA, but because Amy is A) a huge sweetheart and B) had a bum knee, she let me have the GA ticket she'd purchased originally while she chilled out up in the audience. I stayed in the pit almost the whole time, but between being sick and not getting enough sleep, plus the fact that I guess I've just been running myself ragged lately, I had to duck out for a bit to get some water and kind of....lean against the wall and try not to die. XD
BUT! In addition to their usual setlist, they also played 2000 Light Years Away "For all the old-school fans." I squeed. Loudly.
Jimmy Eat World rocked, by the way. I love love love watching them play. Jimmy is just so cute and gets so into their music and they're just a GOOD band. <3 Obviously I dun love them as much as I love Green Day, but still.
Um.... yay for my car still being at the Shell station after we got out! I will say, right now, that driving home after that concert is one of the stupidest things I've ever done. I was exhausted and sick and sore, and I am frankly amazed that I didn't crash, but I got Amy home and then drove home myself.
For the record? US-23 is the devil's road. Because when you're driving it late at night, there IS NO LIGHT WHATSOEVER except for your headlights, it's a backass country road, and the only people who use it at that time of night are semi-trucks. I think the only reason I managed to stay awake was because I was so scared one of those semis would flatten me. >.<
In conclusion, I am tired, sick, achy, have a horrible headache, and I'm supposed to work tonight...but the concert was wonderful, Amy is a sweetheart, and I got lots and lotsa pictures. Heh. HOORAY FOR CROTCH-CAM!
*collapses*
Yesterday was basically one long unqualified SNAFU (witness the subject line, folks) from beginning to end. The concert itself was amazing - no surprises there. But pretty much everything else....damn, man.
First of all I did NOT get to meet the band. They had some pretty awesome misleading advertising going on, there, but Amy and I did get to sit in on soundcheck, along with some other stuff. More on that down below. But no, there was no discussion of human asses or scarves or anything else with a certain diminutive frontman, so as not to keep you in suspense.
So, like, I started the day off feeling really crappy and underslept (as witnessed by my previous post with...the asses) and as a result was about an hour and a half late getting out the door. Bleargh. Got to Amy (
madame_ophelia)'s house around, god, what, 11? 11:30? Something like that. The drive was awful, even during the day, because it was all these backasswards country roads that weren't even that pretty to make up for the BFE slow-factor, and then later at night...ugh. But anyway, so I get to her house, we primp some more, then take off for Detroit.Justin? Jo? I love you. But I am never, ever moving to Michigan. God, I hated that drive SO FUCKING MUCH and maybe it was just the part of Michigan that I saw but jesus CHRIST it could not have looked more fugly if you'd steamrolled it and then sprinkled it with Essence of Feces. The roads were awful - we got lost literally about five times, and kept having to call the venue and/or stop at gas stations for directions. My total anticipated driving time for getting there was three and a half hours and it ended up being much closer to almost 6, with the long convoluted road/construction/getting lost/etc. Add this to the fact that I didn't have a car CD player and I wasn't about to be a rude asshole and listen to my headphones with Amy in the car, so we didn't have music, and we were BOTH sick, and it was a pretty miserable drive.
Oh, and I should mention - the Verizon people called up on the way, and we thought for awhile that they had fucked up and we weren't even going to get to participate in this whole thing. Steven, the guy on the phone, said that apparently Amy's name wasn't on the list of winners. OMGWTF?!?! Through multiple phone calls and gnashing of teeth, though, we got it all figured out and we were...kept? I still don't know exactly how they fucked up but the end result was we got to participate so fuck it.
SO. We get to the venue and...they won't let us bring our cars in and park til 4 o'clock, and then they're going to charge us 10 dollars to park. Fuckers. Well, Amy and I are supposed to be AT the front doors at 4, so we're like, fuck y'all, we're gonna park somewhere else and walk back. So we haul it to the Shell station across the street for food, etc, and the fabulous family of gals running the store let us park my car out back of the station for free, and said we could leave it there. Awesome.
I then proceed to lock my keys in my car, because I am made of awesome. *headdesk*
SO, after the police couldn't open it, Triple A was being slow, and the time to get over to the venue was fast approaching - it was like 3:30 at this point - we were ready to leave the fucking car and take our chances on it being there when we got back, when FINALLY the specialist towing agency that the police had called for us got there. He did in fact get my car open for me (after busting off my already-wounded right-hand side mirror, augh) and then charged me for it. To the tune of 60 bucks. We shoved the money at him and ran.
So we get there, and find ourselves at this tent-thingie out back of the Verizon-Green Day bus, to discover that it is not, in fact, a meet and greet, but merely the opportunity to get a lot of free crap and sit in on the pre-show soundcheck. Which, you know, is still pretty cool, but to hear some of the other contest-winners BITCHING and MOANING, you'd think they'd been promised they would get to have sexual intercourse with every member of the band. o_o SERIOUSLY. Some of those wee teenage girls had to have been 12 or 13, and they threw SUCH temper tantrums at their moms. I was ready to kill them with my own bare hands, but Amy and I tried to be polite and show some gratitude to the poor beleagured staff members.
After some paperwork and picture-taking, we all troop inside, clutching our laminated passes, and head into the actual auditorium, down to the front row of seats nearest the stage. And our boys were indeed up on stage in street clothes, being very professional and work-oriented. Billie was wearing that adorably doofy grey cabbie hat that he has on in some pictures, and jeans, and a Detroit...Lions? Shirt. He looked very skinny - I swear that he's lost weight. Mike was wearing that REALLY HOT white button-down with all the black printing on it, ELECTRIC STARS or whatever, and black pants. Tre was just wearing random cargo shorts and a t-shirt and my god, his HAIR looked like he'd just rubbed some pomade in his hair and stuck his finger in an electric socket by way of finishing up. Ahahahah.
Like I said, we didn't get to meet them - they were very focused on what they were doing. Their tour manager came over and passed out autographed pictures, and they were REAL autographs - we compared our pictures and the signatures were somewhat different on each one. Billie came over and waved at us and smiled this big sweet smile before he had to go back to what he was doing; Mike kind of came over, but I think he was more just walking around because he didn't make eye contact or look at us and immediately turned his back. Tre, though - when they were done with soundcheck, Tre came over and yelled, "Hey! Hey you with the weird hair! D'you want a pair of drumsticks?" And got this girl with rainbow-colored hair to come up and get his sticks.
Whereupon Immature Delusional Teen #5 gets up and hollers, "TRE! I LOVE YOU! Will you marry me?!" To which the darling Mr. Cool replies, "No, sorry, I don't do that any more," grinned, and ran off after his bandmates. And dude...she BURST INTO TEARS. *head to desk* Jesus, okay, I know I'm obsessed, but thank god I'm not like THAT.
There were some cool fans, though. Like these two Irish boys (who we found out later were big liars, the brats) who had come all the way from rural Ireland to see Green Day in concert again. *stares* THAT, my friends, is devotion. Of course, now I'm wondering if they were actually FROM Ireland, or if they'd moved here awhile ago and just still had the accents - but they definitely did have Irish accents. Rawr.
Anyway, so we came back out after soundcheck and got all our swag - free shirts, posters, guitar picks, a copy of a big group picture in front of the stage, and free food and water and a shady place to hang out til they let us in for the show.
The tickets we won weren't actually GA, but because Amy is A) a huge sweetheart and B) had a bum knee, she let me have the GA ticket she'd purchased originally while she chilled out up in the audience. I stayed in the pit almost the whole time, but between being sick and not getting enough sleep, plus the fact that I guess I've just been running myself ragged lately, I had to duck out for a bit to get some water and kind of....lean against the wall and try not to die. XD
BUT! In addition to their usual setlist, they also played 2000 Light Years Away "For all the old-school fans." I squeed. Loudly.
Jimmy Eat World rocked, by the way. I love love love watching them play. Jimmy is just so cute and gets so into their music and they're just a GOOD band. <3 Obviously I dun love them as much as I love Green Day, but still.
Um.... yay for my car still being at the Shell station after we got out! I will say, right now, that driving home after that concert is one of the stupidest things I've ever done. I was exhausted and sick and sore, and I am frankly amazed that I didn't crash, but I got Amy home and then drove home myself.
For the record? US-23 is the devil's road. Because when you're driving it late at night, there IS NO LIGHT WHATSOEVER except for your headlights, it's a backass country road, and the only people who use it at that time of night are semi-trucks. I think the only reason I managed to stay awake was because I was so scared one of those semis would flatten me. >.<
In conclusion, I am tired, sick, achy, have a horrible headache, and I'm supposed to work tonight...but the concert was wonderful, Amy is a sweetheart, and I got lots and lotsa pictures. Heh. HOORAY FOR CROTCH-CAM!
*collapses*