Blather, rinse, repeat

For those of you who are just here to see pics and watch videos, please don't feel obliged to mind my rambling account. I write from personal experience (and keep a journal for myself) and much of this is for me to remember. I don't expect everyone to care about it.

The short story this: Leathermouth is as intense as could be, a huge revelation playing live, so much more than I expected. Fangirls are annoying. Please stop shrieking at Frank when he asks you to. He doesn't want to get you pregnant, he wants to play a show. Warship is really cool. MC Chris is not my thing, but he was kind of amusing and he seemed to have a great time. Reggie and The Full Effect are really tight, I like their music, James is hilarious and really fun. Pictures and videos are below.

You may feel free to skim the rest. ^_^

I got to the Crazy Donkey at 6 and sat on my car sending messages to my friends and watching band members and crew go by and bring their stuff inside. It was colder than I thought it would be and the hood of my car was the warmest place. The sunset was gorgeous and so the wait was not too bad.

( A really pretty young man. My cool hat. Do we really need such a primal mammalian display? )

( Some people actually scurry. )

Then Warship came on and I was pleasantly surprised, as I always am when an opening act is really good. I never expect to be into music that I don't know, but I do like to give them a chance and they are up there working so hard and I like to support that. But to my delight, I was getting into it.

I'm going to go out of order and get to MC Chris before Leathermouth, because Leathermouth was who I went to see. MC Chris wasn't really my thing, like I mentioned, but he had fun with the audience. And I did kinda like his song about Reeses Pieces.

( Frank does not want to get you pregnant. No, really. )

I won't list the entire setlist because they play the same ones every night and you guys all know what they are.

Frank said, "You probably have heard some of our songs, but you probably don't know the words. That's okay, sing along anyway. Just make words up, that's what I'm doing up here." And he introduced their song "This Song Is About Being Attacked By Monsters" as "This Is A Song About Monsters Breaking Into My House And I Just Don't Know What To Do" or something equally long-winded and crazy. I LOLed.

Between songs, some girl yet again screamed "I LOVE YOU FRANKIE" and he said, "We don't even know each other. That's so weird. You love the people you don't know. And you end up hating the ones you do know." Then he said, "this song is about realizing that no one has got your back." Immediately I was like, "Oh yeah, I know that feeling to hell and back, s'up ex-boss / ex-coworkers?" (Most, not all.) Anyway, that made me thrash about self-righteously and get into it.

Also, Frank went into the audience and sang, which was massively cool.

The highlight of the night for me, what I was waiting to hear, was "I'm Going To Kill The President Of The United States Of America." I have always maintained that the Secret Service is going to pop up during one of these shows and take them out for this. Nevertheless I have waited a long time to hear this song. Frank introduced it by saying, "This song is about killing the president. It's easy to say that, but..." There was a very pregnant pause here in which I held my breath. He did not finish the though. Instead he said, "I'm just waiting for the FBI to take me away."

You and me both!

( I AM GOING TO KILL THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. )

Of note: Frank sang one line into a safety pylon and then put the damn thing down on top of the speaker, effectively blocking much of the view from the right.

Oh, and Frank spits a lot. A LOT. I thought people were joking or exaggerating when they said, "Stand up front and get spit on by Frank, he can spit really far!" There was no hyperbole involved. Luckily he didn't get me, but he did get the girl in front of me. Way to spread MONO, Frank!

I would so see Leathermouth again. I never expected that when Frank hits the floor and randomly screams that it would mean so much. I feel pissed off like that a lot, too, and there's sadly really no other venue in life where one can just, well you know, hit the floor and scream about it.

( Anyway, pictures: )

Too soon, Leathermouth's set was over and I made my way back out to the patio. (The DJ played MCR right after Leathermouth's set. I was like, "Come on. Really?") I talked briefly to the singer from Warship and he was real nice. He said "Welcome to the patio party!" and that the patio was the place to be. ^_^ I minded my business and listened to Pretty Warship Bassist talk to his friend (who was complaining that he had jury duty, aww, I felt his pain keenly, seriously!) about what it's like to make music. I felt lucky just then.

( All kinds of happenings on the patio, good and bad. )

And then Reggie and the Full Effect came on! At first it was just James and he was playing the keyboard / computer and doing things that I had no clue how he was making music come out. I'm sorry that I can't give you guys a full report because this is my first time hearing this band and I don't know song titles and stuff. I will just tell you what I took away from it.

Okay, first of all, again with the girls being way too fannish. The rest of the band finally joined James onstage, and of course Frank plays bass for Reggie. One girl standing next to me with her friend shrieked for him, and he physically cringed again and mouthed the words, "Stop, please." But instead of being embarrassed, the girl next to me laughed at him, nudged her friend and said, "I got his attention!" I could not believe what I was seeing. James actually said that a bunch of girls had stopped him outside and asked for Frank. They told him that they had to be gone by ten and could they please see Frankie before then. James said, "but as you can see, Frank is up here with me" and it was well after ten. Heh. I got a video of that:

( Video of that! )

In fact, James's between song banter was hilarious and so refreshing. I get so damn tired of rock stars yelling at me to put my fists in the air and other cliche junk like that.

As you can gather from the above video, James lives on Long Island. This I knew. James loves Long Island like crazy. This I did not know. He basically said so many things about the Island that I always say: How beautiful it is, how weird a place it is, how lucky we are to have a whole ocean to the south of us. "It's not a lake!" he said, "It's an ocean!" Then he and the rest of the band went into a parody of that Everclear song about "we could live beside the ocean..."

( OlderClear. )

Of note: James is massively talented! He totally owns the keyboard, he is an awesome drummer and he also sings really well. I was sad that I caught this band on the tail end of their existence, but glad that I caught them at all. Good times.

And as far as Frank playing the bass, well I won't give the usual line about him being underrated. He plays the guitar for goodness sakes and so most of us know that he's a fantastic musician. Yet still, seeing him with the bass is really impressive. I am always impressed when bassists actually play the instrument rather than just going "plonk plonk" on it.

( Here are two more videos. This is for anyone who doesn't know Reggie and the Full Effect and wants an idea of what they sound like: )

At the end of the set, they all came out in wigs, dressed as a 90's grunge-era type band, all except for James who had on a mullet wig (he called it the Kenny Loggins wig,) and was dressed for the 80's at their worst. It was hilarious.

( Here are some pics of the whole set: )

After the show, I was going to my car and some girl with pink hair said "High fives for Jesus!" I told her, "I'm not Christian, but whatever blows your hair back." We ended up having a really bizarre conversation about Jesus and it occurred to me that the last time before I met Frank, some girl was telling me strange things about Jesus, too. Then, some drunk guys came up to me. One guy asked me to take a picture of him. I told him that I didn't have a camera. He shook my hand and told me that my hands were really cold, and then we had a strange conversation about metabolism. He was really, really drunk as he was going to his car. I told him "Get home safe," and he said, "I won't." I was really nervous about getting on the road knowing that all these drunk people were going to be driving.

James came out and signed a bunch of things, then he got into his car and went home; probably not too long of a ride for him. ^_^

By now most of the obnoxious teenagers had left, leaving a few excited ones. A few of them actually were obnoxious, demanding that Frank come out, pestering other band members: "Bring me Frankieeee! Please make him come out!" One girl said she was just going to go on the bus and get him. I would not have been surprised if he just locked himself away, but he didn't.

( Don't worry. Everyone knows Frank is nice. Or: How nice is too nice? )

It was a lovely, strange, intense night of rocking out.

The only thing that sucked was that on my way home at 12:30 AM on the LIE, my eyes were itching from that guy smoking at me and I went to rub my right eye, and shanked my own eyeball with my fingernail. It hurt ridiculously and made it very difficult to drive home. I had to include that not only because it was a part of the night, but because it's so hilariously me that it's impossible to leave it out.

So that's the story, folks, of the Warship/MC Chris/Leathermouth/Reggie show! Sorry for the length and rambling perspective, but, well, there you go.

DO NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR THE RUDEST OF ALL RUDE AND DISGUSTING WORDS REPEATED. REPEATEDLY!





That out of the way, it is nearly time for LEATHERMOUTH. ^_^

Someday my great great grandchildren will read this and look at these pictures and say, "Holy crap, great great grandma spent Halloween with 30 Seconds To Mars?!" (Because I'm pretty sure that people will still know of the band then. Or at least I hope so.) Anyway, let me preface this with a few disclaimers: Those of you who know me, who have heard me talk, know that when I get most urple and crazy and effusive, I'm usually being tongue in cheek and self-mocking. (At least I hope you know.) Keep that in mind when I go on at length about Jerrod and Shannon Frito Layto and whoever the hell the other two guys are. ;) Also, because I'm me, I have to write down every detail. I have some kind of weird neurosis that unless I write things down, they didn't happen. So this promises to be long. Also, because I was listening to some music while I was mentally writing this out, there are quoted song lyrics throughout that seemed to go with what was on my mind. It might read like a song-fic. O_o Bearing all that in mind, off we go.

It seems that The Train Gods either hate me or really don't like when I go to see 30 Seconds to Mars. Recall last Friday, when all of a sudden there was "rail work" as they said and they cancelled all the trains home and would have stranded Meghan and I in the city if not for my Dad. Well, Tuesday came around and I got up bright and early, all packed and ready, dressed in my finest black pants and 30STm shirt that was a gift from Jeremy, my "concert kit", and the gifts I had made for the band with help from my beautiful and awesome friend Kim. I had asked my Da to drive me to Ronkonkoma station because I didn't fancy leaving my car there overnight. There I was, all excited and with my leftover ticket from Friday, and I went to the desk to ask which track to take, only to be told by the vaguely discourteous teller that all the trains were cancelled. Yes, all of them, to everywhere. Because of sudden "rail work." So I called my Dad, who had only just turned the corner. I had a train to catch from Penn Station to 30th st. station in PA and I didn't have a lot of time between trains, only 25 minutes. He came back and ended up driving me all the way into the city. Again. With time to spare.

Until he couldn't find the perfect spot to let me off at the station. I swear we passed the entrance 3 times but he kept going around for like 40 minutes while I kept saying, "right here is fine, I can walk!" But that's not how Dads do things. Finally he did let me off a few yards from the entrance and I booked out of there like my butt was on fire and my head was catching. I wasn't feeling too zen when I got to the teller to get the tickets, and she must have sensed that because she gave me a lollipop. I needn't have worried about being late, though, because my train to Philly ended up being delayed.

But I still got there in plenty of time, and my cab driver to the hotel was very nice, unlike the NY cab drivers. He was a big black guy and we got into the subject of racial profiling, and from there he mentioned that he was into martial arts. I always feel, when men say that, that they expect women to change the subject. Because they always seem surprised when I say, "Really? I do martial arts, too. What kind do you do?" and then hold a conversation about it. He told me about his son, who was 11 and had that natural zen state that most martial artists study years to master. It seemed like "zen" was the order of the day, so when I got to the hotel I unpacked my bathroom stuff, laid out my costume, and because I had a few hours before dinner and the concert, decided to zen walk. Zen walking is when I just start walking with no destination and I just look at things. I ended up going into a "world culture" store and buying some trinkets that I thought I'd work into my costume. But then I ended up not using them anyway. I didn't really see or do much on my zen walk. Then I stopped for a slice of pizza and went back to the hotel. I was too nervous to finish the entire pizza (and I'm still not sure exactly why--I'm nervous now just writing about it,) and then got into my costume, all a-jitter. I think I thought I was going to be late.

( This was my costume, the escaped wild-woman: )
The front there reads, "Surrender To Nothing" which is a lyric from the song "Attack", which the first time I heard it I thought, "God, this song isn't about violence, it's about freedom." Much to my self-satisfaction, whenever Jared introduces this song he says, "This is a song about freedom." See, the gist of this costume is the wild woman who has escaped the prospect of confining marriage. And because this costume party was a blood ball, she obviously escaped it violently. One was supposed to think, "You should see the other guy!" The hand print was supposed to look like part war paint, part would-be groom's bloody handprint like, "OMG, somebody get her away from me!" The broken ropes, the blood, the feathers, all of that, was all supposed to mean freedom. But I knew that most people were going to take a look and say, "Hey, Bloody Bride!" I thought I'd correct them, "Escaped bride!" But, uhh, you'll see that I didn't.

The cab ride to the venue was sort of fun, everyone was looking in the window and I'd give them this cheesy "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" grin. One other cab driver who pulled up beside me cracked up when I did that.

I needn't have worried about getting there late, because I got there at 4:30 and doors weren't until 7. There were maybe 30 people on line by then and I felt like there was enough time to wander around. Except there was really nowhere to wander. The Electric Factory (the club where they played) was the only business on the street, it seemed like, aside fromthe Red Cross blood donation place across the street. (Appropriate, no?) I wandered around the back of the building and was stopped by three guys before I got to the other side. They asked where I was going and I told them that I wanted to see how big the place was. I refrained from saying, "I'm so totally not looking for the band's tour bus. Really!" One of the guys said, "Oh, it's pretty big. It goes from back here all the way to the front." The other two guys snickered. "Really big," they said. "Huh huh. Heh heh. Really big. Goes all the way to the street. Huh huh." I rolled my eyes and walked away from Beavis and Butthead and Beavis.

On my way back I passed a group of Echelon pouring fake blood (hereto referred to as just "blood" and you'll all gather that I mean fake blood,) all over themselves and each other. "'Surrender to nothing,'" one of them quoted to me. "Awesome, girl. You look beautiful. Great job on the costume." I thought, Here's someone who gets it. ^_^ Then as I was getting back on line another group of girls passed and said, "What a great custome!" and "YOU'RE LOVELY." Which made me think they had to be from the bulletin board, because "JULES YOU'RE LOVELY" is kind of an inside joke over there.

Also on line was this couple all in white, splattered liberally with blood. The guy had on a floor length, hooded robe with hand-painted Echelon X, glyphics, red arrow, and "PROVEHITO IN ALTUM" written across the bottom. They were having a marvelous time with their bottle of blood, up until security came out and told everyone that they couldn't do any more blood splattering in the parking lot. (I wonder if this was because the Red Cross was across the street. ;D )

I got on line behind a girl whose forum screen name is She'sMorbid. I sat down and whined, "I'M BORED!" She asked me, "How long have you been here?" "Five minutes," I told her, and she laughed. Then three other folks got behind me and sat down. It was only 5 PM and we had a loooong wait. I decided to talk to the nice people behind me which ended up being one of the best ideas I'd had all night. I whipped out the necklaces I had made with the help of Kim and said that I really wanted to get the chance to meet the band tonight and give them these. By the way, ( these are the necklaces I made: )
For those not in the know who might be reading, I've already explained the glyphics in a previous post, and the phoenix is another one of their symbols.

( The waiting adventures of She's Morbid, Blender Girl, and Hilarious Girl... )

Once inside, I lost Blender Girl and Hilarious Girl, but was right beside Pretty Goth Girl and her Cute Boyfriend who looked very very much like Sehing Tristan from Green Cloud.) I also met up with Katie and her Mom, who were the two awesome Echelon I mentioned after the last show. Behind me came two young girls (maybe in their late teens to very early 20's) who were both shorter than I am. I repeatedly offered them my spot but they would insist that they could see just fine. For a short while, they did.

I think I can safely say that I was not the only person there whose back was aching like mad after about fifteen minutes of standing around. I think it had something to do with the uneven floors. You kept having to shift your weight and you could never get comfortable. I was leaning on the railing, thinking, My God, I have hours of this. The two girls behind me started chatting with me to pass the time, and thank god, because there was a lot of time to pass.

( Onto the opening bands and THE BROS: )

It's also worth noting that there was a girl of around 14 behind Janna who had a scream so high and piercing that it felt like a shiny steel spike going through my head. It was so bad that everytime any of the bands said, "MAKE SOME NOISE!!!" as bands are wont to do, I'd put my hands over my ears. And the scream would go right through my palms and into my ears anyway. Why can't all 14 year olds be like Meghan? Eventually Janna turned around and said, "Look, you know, you don't have to make that noise. It's not going to accomplish anything." I'm surprised dogs weren't howling all over Philly.

They finished around 11:40, and the club didn't even bring the house lights up before O Fortuna started to play at around 11:45. ^_^

( Scraping the skylines with hypnotic observations Swooping and surfing over lyrical substations Embrace the flame again and again Like passion and pain hand in hand with each other. )

( What do you do when someone falls...? )

( I'm just a crazy mixed up kid Out comes the truth when you take off the lid And whats it all gonna mean When audio psychosis spills from the speakers cones And I can hear the music tear Tearin through my bones... )

( Why Jared calls his brother Shanimal: )
What was next, The Mission, I think? I tried to tape this, too, because I knew it was going to be fabulous. It was. I only discovered a little while ago, however, that I must have been right underneath the speakers for Matt's bass, because on the playback all you hear is a fuzzy, steady, "FOOMFOOMFOOMFOOM".

( Matticus )
Let me take a moment to address the various personnae of these guys in their fake blood. Tomo, okay, Tomo looks like he's covered in fake blood. His face is too sweet and unassuming; I think he'd have to work at it to look threatening. He's just boyish like that. Jared's blood-splatter looks like he freaked out momentarily and whacked someone with an axe. He's like the mercurial killer, like he could have just as easily not killed you, but hell, he was jumping around like a cracked out monkey and you and the aze happened to be there, oh well. Matt, on the other hand, for as nice a person as he is, comes across as a methodical serial killer. Here's a guy who takes his time, maybe even a few months. I don't know, it was Halloween, they were covered in blood, my mind wandered. Shannon didn't have any blood on him, WTF was that all about? Get with the program, Shannon!

( I'm the silver surfer hearin' lucifer Lay on the ground and nobody dies... )
I'm so bad at remembering the set list. Jared asked for requests and then did what he wanted to do anyway, which was Echelon. He did this one by himself ("Hang on, this was a long time ago. Let me see if I can remember it.") They did The Story (it used to be people would light their lighters when the slow songs came on, now it's cell phones.) What else? Of course they did The Kill, duh. I tried to tape this, too, like I always do. Once again, terrible sound, me getting jostled around, the audience singing most of it for Jared. Nice crowd walk in this one, too. He prefaced this song with, "Shhhh! This song is called The Kill!" I just had to giggle at how serious he was about it.
( The Kill )

To my annoyance, The Bros knew a few words to this song. The rest of the time they just stood there like big square blockheads being in everyone's way and falling drunkenly over each other. When The Kill came on, they vaguely mouthed some of the words like, "Oh yeah, this was on the radio." MOVE, DOUCHBAGS, BEFORE I PUNCH YOU IN THE VAGINA! God, I hated those guys.

Then, of course, they did Attack, and The Bros, surprisingly, knew even a few more words to this one. At the end of this song about five tons of orange and black confetti started to come down. It was actually a beautiful visual. I was recording already because I was getting some really cool shots of the crowd surfers and stagedivers, so the confetti thing was a nice surprise. ( Check it out: )

They closed with something I didn't recognize but felt like I should have. It was just all too hectic. After the four of them gathered together around Shannon's drums:

they disappeared before the confetti stopped blowing around.

And then, my dears, it was time to line up to get crap signed.
( Hey, Bloody Bride! Go and wait by the tour bus. )
So off I went to wait for the guys by their tour bus, in an alley between the club and a warehouse, with huge garbage bins and a loading dock about four feet high that we were all sitting on. There were at least thirty other people there, and I managed to find Janna and Megan again, as well as Katie and her Mom. We decided to wait by the end of the line (we were actually at what we thought was the beginning,) because we figured the crowd would thin out and we could actually say Hi and get some pictures.

Tomo came out first and very quietly said, "I'm sorry guys, but I have somewhere to be. If you'd like to take a picture, I have to do it now." And then he very patiently went down the line saying Hi to everyone and taking a picture with anyone who wanted one. Janna and Megan didn't have a camera, so I got pictures of them. Then Janna took one of me with Tomo. As I went to step up to him I fell into a huge hole in the pavement and almost took him down with me. The picture is blurry--my fault for not telling Janna to hold the button down for a second to let it autofocus.
( Blurry but nice. )
I thought about handing him the package of necklaces, but he was in such a rush and I didn't want to hold him up. I figured I'd probably catch Matt, because I know that Jared has been going into the bus to work on their video and stuff, and I wasn't sure if Shannon was in the habit of hanging around for too long, either. Jared actually did come out of the bus for a second, got mobbed, and went back in. After a few minutes, Janna nudged me, laughing, and said, "No one knows that's Jared. He's got a mask on." Now, the entire time we was walking by in the bloodied white tux and stupid furry mask, I was staring at the huge garbage bin thinking something along the lines of, "That's a really huge garbage bin. It sure has a lot of garbage in it. I wonder how much. There's probably, like, chairs and tables in there. Jeez, my feet hurt."

Echelonic Lord and Lady showed up, too. We watched Jared get mobbed for a while and I asked, "Should we be, like, mobbing him too? Because it doesn't seem polite." Echelonic Lord said, "Nahh, he'll come over here. He wants to see us." So we waited. And eventually, Jared did come over, and he jumped up onto the loading dock and started giving directions. Unfortunately I was still pretty deaf, but I got the gist of it.
( Everyone dressed in white and covered in blood, come up here and stand against the wall. )

'Round about this time, Shannon was milling around all the contestants. Echelonic Lord asked me, "Did you get to give them their gifts yet?" I told him I hadn't; they were busy and everyone else was sort of mobbing them and I didn't want to be rude. Echelonic Lord just went, "Okay, hold on." Then he hooked Shannon by the shirt and said, "Excuse me, this girl has something for you."
( BZZZZZT! )
After Shannon's effusive and sincere thanks, I saw Jared still milling around on the makeshift stage, still sort of getting mobbed. As this was going on, some girl came running down the street screaming at the top of her lungs in very much the same manner that Meghan and I were making fun of on Friday: "BLBLBLBLBAAAAAAA!!!" ANd then--I kid you not, people--"JARED LAYTO! JARED LAYTO!" I saw her doing something with her shirt, so I think she flashed him, but I could be wrong.

Jared turned around and, dude, without missing a beat, said, "Oh, yeah, hey, go have another drink." Rumor has it that Jared can be just slightly straight edge when it comes to stuff like drinking and smoking and whatnot, which is what makes all the comments like "Jared's on crack!" that much more ironic. The comment was a perfectly timed barb and everyone around him busted out laughing. However, I'm pretty sure that was the comment that started all the trouble for him. Because that drunk girl was a package deal, and the other parts were a handful of very aggressive Drunken Retarded Fratboys.

Which is, in fact, why Jared looks so paranoid in the picture he took with me.

( Strip-tease traffic lights Cut throat beer fights Poison friends/fakers and takers Stoic spectators And youre all cold, cold heartbreakers... )
After a few minutes of this, and while the security guards were trying to get rid of that group, Jared made his way back to his bus. Around then, Janna and Megan had to leave. "Those guys ruined it for everyone," Janna said. I told her that they might still be hanging around, and I'd walk with them back to the parking lot instead of going down the street where they'd left. Just as we got to the fence by the lot, I was a few steps behind and I turned around and saw Missy and Echelonic Lord and Lady by the bus and I thought, "They never got their prize." I called out to Janna to tell her I was going back to see those guys, and I guess she didn't hear me because they went back to their car.

I went back to the bus and found that the party was still going on. Jared leaned out of the bus, now in a blue T shirt and a silly hat with a red pompom on the top,(but whatever, he could put dead swer rats on his head and he'd still look good,) and said, ( Are those c---s gone yet? )
Dude and then Matt came out with two white, autographed Fender Strats.
( I think Echelon Lord and Missy were a little overwhelmed. )
*Sigh!* Le Jared. I took a bunch of pictures to send to the winners. I also did manage to tap Jared on the shoulder and say, "I left a gift for all of you guys with Shannon; I hope you get a chance to see it tonight." He said, "Oh, hey, thanks!" Then some girl very cutely tried to give him a balloon animal, much to her friend's chagrin ("No! Don't give him that, it's stupid!") and Jared said with a smile, "Um, you can keep that if you want." And then Shannon came back out. I smiled and he waved, then came over again and said, "Thank you so much." BZZZZT! "Uhhh ... you're welcome. There are four of those. Three more for, you know, three other guys..." And then he just grabbed me and hugged me, probably so that I would shut up. And again I got to say, "Thank you for such an awesome show and party." "No, thank YOU," Shannon said. Now when we do this at work, it could go on for minutes until everyone is giggling, but I have to remind myself that these are not my friends at work, just a band being nice to the people who are nice to them, so I just let him go and said, "You're welcome. I'll be sure to come out and see you guys next time."

Okay, it was a little hairy trying to get a cab at 3:30 in the morning. In the end it was down to me, Missy, Emma, and two other ladies I didn't know. I think their ride home bailed on them. I was starting to get slightly worried, because when I called the cab company the guy asked where I was and when I said, "Electric Factory, 7th Avenue," he said, "But I need an address. See, this is what happens on Halloween, you people go walking around at night and then you don't know where you are." I was digging around in my purse for the address when we got disconnected, and I had to try again. Finally I got through and he said, "We'll send someone out if we have someone in the area." IF?! It's 3:30 AM, I'm on a street corner in the middle of freaking nowhere, there is no if! I tried all different cab companies and no one picked up. Emma and the others had gone off to try to make calls of their own. The other tour buses had all pulled out (the guy from Men, Women and Children hanging off the outside of one of the windows,) and only the 30 Seconds to Mars bus was still there. Basically I just stood out there with the bodyguards, who were still outside by the door, and waited. Emma and the rest came back, and then my cab came around. I said goodnight to them and they asked the cabbie to come back and pick them up afterwards, which he said he would do. He freaking RACED back to the hotel and I thought we were going to die.

When I got in the lobby, 3:45 AM, covered in fake blood and probably with my eyes standing out from my head, the woman behind the counter looked up and "TSK"ed at me. "Uh," I said, "Happy Halloween." She "TSK"ed again and said, "I don't celebrate Halloween. Thanks anyway."

I just had to laugh. Her loss. I celebrate the crap out of that holiday.

WHEW! What a concert. I could easily say: band was great, crowd was dangerous and stupid, CD signing was not worth the wait, Roseland staff was mostly stupid with a few exceptions, and 30 Seconds To Mars are as polite as they could possibly be in the space of ten seconds, but hey, thi sis me. Is anything ever a short story? Some parts of it were exciting and wonderful and fun, some parts were scary, some annoying (one so annoying that I'm still fuming over it,) and some parts were disappointing, but in a way that was inevitable, so there's no reason to be sad over it or anything.

( On the way into the city: No, it's not Rocky Horror. )
( Waiting on line: Stop looking at my money or I'll cut you. )

( Inside the Roseland pre- 30STM: Almost time for me to smack a ho. )

End rant.

So then, after all of that, the tech guys lowered the lighting rigs with the huge (and creepy) 30STM / mass mask-wearing backdrop attached to it, and when they raised it back up, it had four long, red 30 Seconds to Mars banners hanging from it. Just as soon as they started raising that, the entire crowd cheered and I actually got chicken skin over that. Soon after, they dimmed the lights and the drum corps people came on. They were pretty decent, and I'm a fan of percussion. They reminded me vaguely of this band I used to love when I was in Seattle, !TchKung! (Anyone else ever heard of them?) They were pretty good, but they played for a bit too long: everyone was itching for the band to come out. I had heard that this was how they opened the show, with Shannon coming out to drum with them and start the concert, but instead the drum corps left and they started to play O Fortuna. Some of you may remember me saying the last time I saw them that I think that's a cliche way to start the show, and I still think so. But damned if it doesn't still give me the all overs anyway. The only complaint I have is that they played it so low you could hardly hear it over the screaming. I grabbed Meghan by the shoulder and said (in a low voice, and she could still hear me,) "Jo-chan, listen to what's playing!" And she couldn't hear it either. She just knew that people had started to move towards the stage. Meanwhile I was also trying to get my camera focussed at the same time. "It's O Fortuna!" I told her. "This is it!" And although the music was still too low, eventually it clicked that this was the entrance. The human wave started to surge. ( Meghan started to surge with them. )

And then after a few phrases, Jared stopped the show.

( Take one big step back. )

( On with the show: ON HIS FACE IS A MAP OF YOUR MOM! )

( Everyone hates me. It's over. I'm going to kill myself. )

Among the other crazies in the audience was the Bra-wearing Crowdsurfer (you're a class act, lady,) and the Crazy Hopping guy. The Bra-wearing Crowdsurfer was just that: some half naked chick groping her way over the heads of the audience towards zOMGs JARRED! And Crazy Hopping Guy was this older fellow (and by older I don't mean old, just older than me,) who started to go berserk when the band played what I believe was a Jane's Addiction song. I knew that I knew the silly thing and had heard it at least a handful of times before, but I couldn't make out a word of it. For as great as the band themselves sounded, the sound itself was baffled and almost staticky. Anyway, this guy was just bouncing and thrashing in a small mosh pit consisting of just himself, a few feet away from us. He kept turning back to us and saying, "AWESOME! THIS IS AWESOME! BEST SONG! OH MY GOD!" And when the song was over he said, "YES! DUDE! This is why I FRIKKING LOVE THIS BAND!" And then he made his way to the back of the crowd like nothing had happened.

And for all the craziness, there was this one moment when I looked out into the crowd and saw this one girl crowdsurfing--fully clothed, thank you--looking up at the lights playing across the ceiling with such a look of joy on her face that I had to laugh out loud. I don't think she was drunk or stoned or anything like that. Maybe, but that wasn't my impression. She just looked happy. I wish I'd gotten a picture of that.

( And then The Kill almost turned literal. )

They did Attack, and we had a huge amount of fun singing along with that one, too. I remember at one point the entire little section I was standing in started singing the wrong verse so loudly that when Jared started singing the right verse, it almost sounded like a correction. It was pretty funny.

Then they played some other song I didn't recognize, but it sounded really cool and bouncy. Tomo and Jared started bouncing like Tigger, just BOING, BOING, BOING in time with the music. Meghan and I looked at each other, shrugged, and started bouncing, too. I had to stop sooner than I wanted to, because my pants (which were my tight, SKINNY pants a few months ago,) were down around my hips and almost to my crack, for godsakes. (WTH?) While I was yanking them back up, the band left the stage and I didn't even see them go. I looked at my watch. It read 11PM and I said to Meghan, "Oh, they're not done. They've got an encore." And then the houselights came up. My face must have just said, "WT?!"

( How'd that metal barricade to the ass feel? Any good? )

After about twenty minutes of being moved along like cattle, we were at the top of the stairs, and the first person I saw there was Shannon, looking down the long line of people being bullied by the staff. I don't presume to know what he was thinking or feeling, but he sure did look distracted. I saw him sign a few things before we got to their table; he didn't even look up. He was just looking all around and didn't seem entirely pleased. Tomo was next to him, and I didn't see him look up from whatever he was signing.

For that matter, though, no one looked at the guys or spoke to them much as the staff was all with the "MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!" before the guys even finished signing. I put Meghan in front of me and she very shyly put her CD in front of Shannon, who signed it quickly while the staff was still yelling at us to get going. (Allow me my hormonal female moment to say, dude, I know all the talk is always about Jared's pretty blue eyes, but it makes one wonder if those people have ever really looked at Shannon. His eyes are this weird green-gold hazel. Okay, done for now.) I gave Shannon Spencer's CD to sign and when he did, I said, "Thank you, Shannon." Then, he did look up, and he seemed kind of surprised. "Oh, you're welcome," he said with a smile. Tomo did not look up. I'm telling you, the whole thing was so hectic for everyone involved. I made myself be determined not to be intimidated by the yelling security guys. While Meghan was being too shy to murmur "thank you" to Jared, who was last, I handed Spencer's CD to Matt and said, "Hi, Matt!" He looked up, took a long look at my T shirt and then totally made my entire night. "Hi. Oh! Hey! I love your T shirt!" "Finally!" I said. "Thank you!" My T shirt is ( this design: )
And no one outside of my geeky little social circle has ever gotten the joke. I think this may be part of why everyone is just quietly in fannish love with Matt: he takes the time that he doesn't actually have to be sweet to people.

Jared quickly signed the CD for Spencer and I said, "Thank you, Jared," above the constant barking of the security folks. As I was walking away he said, "Hey!" I turned back around and he said, "See you next time, huh?" For one horrible second I toyed with the idea of being my usual smartass self and going, "OMG, how did you know?! ARE YOU STALKING ME?!" Then I decided, thankfully, that no one was in the mood for jokes, especially my special, doofy brand, so I just smiled and nodded. Of note: as I'd heard from a few concert-goers, Jared does look you dead in the eye for what it's worth for all three seconds he's got to say something to you. Of course he does, what has he got to lose? Everyone is always talking about Jared's eyes for a reason: they are intense.

Outside, it was raining like mad. I wondered aloud if Meghan wanted to hang around the tour busses to see if the band would come out for a picture or two, but I pretty much knew that they would not want to hang around in the pouring rain. Neither did Meghan. It was midnight and she was totally wrung out. (She'd gotten up at 6 AM for school that day anyway.) I was disappointed that we would not get our picture, (and I stalled a while, milling around anyway,) but it was clear that she wanted to go home. ( And then my cell phone rang, and my Mom told me that the trains were not running back to Ronkonkoma. )

The ride home was slick and dangerous and we almost hydroplaned into the cement guardrail at one point. My Dad and I talked about the show and other stuff, and Meghan slept the whole way. We got in at 3 AM.

Hold up, I am doing this again on Tuesday? O_o

Okay, you knew this was coming: PICTURES!

( Ghostly Jared in a sea of hands: )

( Ghostly Shannon: )

( Hair flip! )

( Happy, singing Meghan: )
Why, yes, I do see the resemblance. She's much prettier and more symmetrical, though, the lucky.

( Backlit: )

( Tomo mid-bounce behind the amp: ) Boing! Boing! Boing!

( The only pic that came out not blurry: )

( Attempted crowdwalk: )

That's about it. Today we just chatted about the show, played with the dogs in the yard, played Dirge of Cerberus for a few hours etc. Had dinner, then I went to the store to buy some cookie dough which we baked at Mom and Dad's house and then watched Lost Boys.

Good times.