So on Friday I was perousing KSM's page in search of these presale tickets that were advertised on the flyer for their show with Bidwell at The Roxy on Sunday. Hey, if there's a chance to save a couple bucks, I'm going to take it! Bryan said they didn't have any presales, so there I was, surrounded by Disney, girly, awfulness, looking for any sign of cheaper tickets.
Then I saw it.
A blog. About the chance to WIN 2 spots on their guestlist. Therefore, a chance to get into the show for FREE!
I like free things.
So I entered from my personal.
and L&L
and Dolores.
The contest was closing at 2, and I had kind of forgotten about it for a while, thinking I probably wouldn't win because these girls are quite popular with America's superficial, sex-crazed, makeup wearing... toddlers. At like 2:15 I remembered about it, only because Laura remembered she wanted to enter too. Although the contest was technically over, she thought she'd message also, just in case. Then the insanity began. I got a message. Then L&L got a message. Then Dolores got a message. And even Laura got a message, saying she was the last to win. DANG! 8 FREE tickets to the freakin ROXY? this is unheard of. We didn't even know what to do with all of those suckers. We had to e-mail our names for the guest list by 6. And clearly sending them Laura Fromm, Laura Fromm, Laura Fromm, and Laura Chiu would have been suspicious. So we went from having 8 tickets, to having 4. A 50% success rate, but hey, still 4 free tickets to the roxy! Not going to complain. One of the extra tickets went to Liam's roommate Mike and the other was for Matty's friend. Funny that Bidwell was playing that show and they came to us to get people in haha.
Play-by-play of Sunday:
TrafFRICK [on a sunday afternoon??]
Pasta Pizza
Avoiding going inside while KSM was playing
Eventually having to go inside. Being able to see over everyone's heads.
Finally Bidwell played.
Lights sucked. Usually taking pictures is so fun at The Roxy.
Scary drunkenness.
Crazy meet-and-greet
Toddlers in MINIskirts and cowboy boots. Yipes!
LAURA! LAURA! who am I talking to??
Culprit. I swear we see them everywhere.
Uncle Fester [several times]
Roses?
really really sad goodbye #3. This time they really left =(
Oh so today was the first day of spring quarter. Ugh. Is it summer yet? So not into this. It was a nice day though so I went for a run. GNSR did a radio interview. I miss them even more now, if that's possible. It hasn't even been a week since I last saw them.
Finally I found a use for GarageBand. Laura couldn't listen because she was at work, so I recorded it.
So we got reusable water bottles. They're pretty big. As a result I think I've been drinking A LOT more water lately. This is probably a good thing.
30 March 2009
26 March 2009
So I found out after my plane landed that Colorado was getting the worst blizzard in like a year. I was really lucky to make it out of Denver. Poor Amanda was fighting her way through the weather to get back to her house. I got back to Orange County before she got back to Boulder. Crazy. And Goodnight has to deal with this too. Snow is pretty, but it sucks. Oh and because I was late getting to the airport by bag didn't make it on the plane. So I had to stand in line at ticketing for Frontier for probably 45 minutes waiting to make a claim while all of the people around me were trying to figure out how to get to Denver. This storm is freakin intense!
Spring Break in Colorado
Monday, March 23
Just when things started calming down after the insanity of last week…time to fly to Colorado for Spring Break with Amanda! I left at 11 or so on Monday morning. Definitely saw some family friends who were on the same flight. Amanda picked me up at the airport and we went to her house in Boulder to drop my stuff and decide what to do for lunch. Dang I can’t remember what we did for lunch. Uhhh. It was good whatever it was. OH!!!! We ate at The Sink and I was reunited with Buffalo Burgers. Those things are BOMB! Definitely need buffalo patties in California. My life would be complete.
Then we headed back to Amanda’s and watched Friends with Lyuba and her brother. It was nice to spend a night in and just veg for once. We were wayyy tired so Amanda and I went to sleep around 11. We needed to gear up for our early morning hike the next day! We wanted to be out of the house because the workers were supposed to be there to finish up a few things. This has been going on for 3 months ever since a pipe unleashed it’s wrath on their poor little house and flooded everything.
Tuesday, March 24
We woke up at about 8:15 and were out the door by 8:30 to get breakfast at Rush. Delicious. It was basically a smoothie with granola on top. YUM! Dang it was a healthy day. Granola for breakfast followed by a brisk morning hike. Ok it was a freezing morning hike. 32 degrees. BRRRRR! But it was really fun nonetheless. We saw a deer! YES wildlife!
Back to Amanda’s to shower and get ready to head to Colorado Springs to see GNSR at The Loft. We met Whitney for lunch at Half Fast where I had the most gigantic sandwich of my entire life. It was delicious.
We got to the springs a little early so we window-shopped then got hot chocolate and coffee at a little French bakery across the street…mostly because we needed a bathroom. Most amazing hot chocolate ever. They coated the glass with chocolate first. It was exciting. Then we decided to figure out how to get to The Loft. Quite confusing. This place was a little tricky to find. It’s on the 3rd floor of a building in downtown Colorado Springs, only accessible through the steepest staircase I’ve seen in my entire life. Warned Dan that they would have to face that as soon as they got there. Oh across the hallway outside of a photography studio I saw some of Jeremy’s artwork and was reallyyyy weirded out. Then Shane told me that they played at the loft and took some pictures at that studio and the girl there asked Jeremy if he could draw something for them.
The Loft is pretty bomb. They have a big screen for movies, video games, a kitchen in which they made spaghetti for anyone who wanted some. The people are really nice too. Josh is hilarious. He made us watch 7 Pounds while we waited. Then more people started showing up so he decided to organize a game called Oatmeal. I was SO confused for the longest time but I think I get how it works now. Then Amanda and I introduced everyone to Black Magic. In the middle of the game Dan called because they weren’t sure how to get inside. Ran out to meet them. Yay reuinion! Then Dan saw the stairs. And immediately recruited me to film the impending insanity. ALL of the guys who were there to see them came outside to help them carry stuff up. It was quite a process. Oh whoaly crap I just remembered how INSANE this group of guys were. They were pretty freakin stoked for “DANNY DONUTZ AND SAMMY SWISS!”. They said that about 25 times. So we got all the stuff up the stairs and it is well-documented. GNSR was pretty much the only band that played, so it was really laid back. Power outage in the beginning of trophy resulted in an interesting new intro complete with an angry black woman. The rest of the set was good. Poor Jud was reallyyyy sick though.
It was hilarious so see them rap for the first time. Twan is hilarious too. Dan had me film that for them too so it should be funny to see how that fits in to the tour video. Then we just hung out for a while after their set. Got called cute countless times by the crazy drunk teenagers. OMG SNOW! I had to run outside to experience it and write my name on a car. Mike thought I was trying to leave without saying goodbye and tackled me. Ooof. Back upstairs though because it was chilly. More drunken teenagers. We all finally had to ambush Dan to get him to stop talking so everyone could leave. I think we finally left around 1 or so. Something like that. Driving in the snow at night is not fun. Fortunately I couldn’t see A THING because my contacts were all cloudy and awful. Asleep around 2:30.
Wednesday, March 25
We thought we would get to sleep in a little more on Wednesday. Ohh no no no. The construction guys decided to show up at 9:15. Wonderful. Haha. Oh well we probably needed to get up anyways to shower and get ready for a day in Denver. Only had 1 working outlet because the guys shut the power of to most of the house while they were working with electrical stuff. I guess not wanting to get electrocuted is a reasonable excuse. Although it made getting out of the door at a reasonable time a little tricky.
Lunch in Denver at Apaloosas. Really good turkey croissant sandwich. Walked around a bit. Went to the Tattered Cover bookstore. That place is pretty cool. Checked out some weird books.
I’m getting hungry but I refuse to pay fortune meager amount of food. I’m trapped in a silver tube with nothing to eat or drink. Prison?
Left for The Gothic at like 5. Saw Dan and Sam promoting outside right away, but we had to get in line so we could get our tickets. The show was freaking $20 dollars and honestly it wasn’t worth it. The only good bands were Meg and Dia and Every Avenue. Anarbor was okay but I see them everywhere and every time they’re just mediocre. Breathe Carolina is AWFUL. NONE of use could understand what the hype is. Sam was legitimately sad to be there. Cute was pretty terrible too. The singer was freaking hammered and could barely hold the microphone. It was kind of embarrassing. We were soooo glad when it was over. Then the confusion began. Whitney told us to meet her and Molly at Leela’s in Denver. Only Carmen the Garmin couldn’t find this place. While Amanda tried to figure it out Dan showed me some problems he was having with Final Cut and we ironed out the kinks. But Megan’s videos won’t play on his computer =[. So then we started driving. Definitely didn’t really know where we were going but we followed Whitney’s directions. Miraculously we found the place. The food was a little pricey and ended up not being that great but there’s not much to choose from at 12am. Read the Onion with Jud after he realized he was looking at a gay magazine. Finally got our food. We decided we should probably leave around 1:30 considering my flight was in 7 hours. It was sad to say goodbye. June is too far away. Hmph. Asleep around 2:30.
WAKE UP! It’s 6:30, have to leave for DIA in 15 minutes. OMG SNOW! It was beautiful. We ended up leaving later than planned, and that coupled with the snowy gloriousness got us to the airport at 7:50. My flight departed in 40 minutes. CRAP. Waited behind a nice guy at check-in who left me go in front of him. My bag probably isn’t going to be there to greet me when I get to John Wayne. Dang I was stressed. I didn’t even care about my bag. I had half an hour to get through security and get to my gate. It’s actually not that bad when you skip the line completely and walk right to the front. Power walk to my gate. I BARELY made it. It was about 8:15 when I walked up and met my fellow stragglers.
So here I am. On the plane. Hungry. Exhausted. Thirsty. And dang chapstick would be great right about now. 40 miles to Orange County.
All in all a pretty awesome 3 days in Colorado. I’m ready to go home though. The Roxy on Sunday! Then Down for the Count at Chain on Tuesday. My life is non-stop action lately.
But I love it.
Just when things started calming down after the insanity of last week…time to fly to Colorado for Spring Break with Amanda! I left at 11 or so on Monday morning. Definitely saw some family friends who were on the same flight. Amanda picked me up at the airport and we went to her house in Boulder to drop my stuff and decide what to do for lunch. Dang I can’t remember what we did for lunch. Uhhh. It was good whatever it was. OH!!!! We ate at The Sink and I was reunited with Buffalo Burgers. Those things are BOMB! Definitely need buffalo patties in California. My life would be complete.
Then we headed back to Amanda’s and watched Friends with Lyuba and her brother. It was nice to spend a night in and just veg for once. We were wayyy tired so Amanda and I went to sleep around 11. We needed to gear up for our early morning hike the next day! We wanted to be out of the house because the workers were supposed to be there to finish up a few things. This has been going on for 3 months ever since a pipe unleashed it’s wrath on their poor little house and flooded everything.
Tuesday, March 24
We woke up at about 8:15 and were out the door by 8:30 to get breakfast at Rush. Delicious. It was basically a smoothie with granola on top. YUM! Dang it was a healthy day. Granola for breakfast followed by a brisk morning hike. Ok it was a freezing morning hike. 32 degrees. BRRRRR! But it was really fun nonetheless. We saw a deer! YES wildlife!
Back to Amanda’s to shower and get ready to head to Colorado Springs to see GNSR at The Loft. We met Whitney for lunch at Half Fast where I had the most gigantic sandwich of my entire life. It was delicious.
We got to the springs a little early so we window-shopped then got hot chocolate and coffee at a little French bakery across the street…mostly because we needed a bathroom. Most amazing hot chocolate ever. They coated the glass with chocolate first. It was exciting. Then we decided to figure out how to get to The Loft. Quite confusing. This place was a little tricky to find. It’s on the 3rd floor of a building in downtown Colorado Springs, only accessible through the steepest staircase I’ve seen in my entire life. Warned Dan that they would have to face that as soon as they got there. Oh across the hallway outside of a photography studio I saw some of Jeremy’s artwork and was reallyyyy weirded out. Then Shane told me that they played at the loft and took some pictures at that studio and the girl there asked Jeremy if he could draw something for them.
The Loft is pretty bomb. They have a big screen for movies, video games, a kitchen in which they made spaghetti for anyone who wanted some. The people are really nice too. Josh is hilarious. He made us watch 7 Pounds while we waited. Then more people started showing up so he decided to organize a game called Oatmeal. I was SO confused for the longest time but I think I get how it works now. Then Amanda and I introduced everyone to Black Magic. In the middle of the game Dan called because they weren’t sure how to get inside. Ran out to meet them. Yay reuinion! Then Dan saw the stairs. And immediately recruited me to film the impending insanity. ALL of the guys who were there to see them came outside to help them carry stuff up. It was quite a process. Oh whoaly crap I just remembered how INSANE this group of guys were. They were pretty freakin stoked for “DANNY DONUTZ AND SAMMY SWISS!”. They said that about 25 times. So we got all the stuff up the stairs and it is well-documented. GNSR was pretty much the only band that played, so it was really laid back. Power outage in the beginning of trophy resulted in an interesting new intro complete with an angry black woman. The rest of the set was good. Poor Jud was reallyyyy sick though.
It was hilarious so see them rap for the first time. Twan is hilarious too. Dan had me film that for them too so it should be funny to see how that fits in to the tour video. Then we just hung out for a while after their set. Got called cute countless times by the crazy drunk teenagers. OMG SNOW! I had to run outside to experience it and write my name on a car. Mike thought I was trying to leave without saying goodbye and tackled me. Ooof. Back upstairs though because it was chilly. More drunken teenagers. We all finally had to ambush Dan to get him to stop talking so everyone could leave. I think we finally left around 1 or so. Something like that. Driving in the snow at night is not fun. Fortunately I couldn’t see A THING because my contacts were all cloudy and awful. Asleep around 2:30.
Wednesday, March 25
We thought we would get to sleep in a little more on Wednesday. Ohh no no no. The construction guys decided to show up at 9:15. Wonderful. Haha. Oh well we probably needed to get up anyways to shower and get ready for a day in Denver. Only had 1 working outlet because the guys shut the power of to most of the house while they were working with electrical stuff. I guess not wanting to get electrocuted is a reasonable excuse. Although it made getting out of the door at a reasonable time a little tricky.
Lunch in Denver at Apaloosas. Really good turkey croissant sandwich. Walked around a bit. Went to the Tattered Cover bookstore. That place is pretty cool. Checked out some weird books.
I’m getting hungry but I refuse to pay fortune meager amount of food. I’m trapped in a silver tube with nothing to eat or drink. Prison?
Left for The Gothic at like 5. Saw Dan and Sam promoting outside right away, but we had to get in line so we could get our tickets. The show was freaking $20 dollars and honestly it wasn’t worth it. The only good bands were Meg and Dia and Every Avenue. Anarbor was okay but I see them everywhere and every time they’re just mediocre. Breathe Carolina is AWFUL. NONE of use could understand what the hype is. Sam was legitimately sad to be there. Cute was pretty terrible too. The singer was freaking hammered and could barely hold the microphone. It was kind of embarrassing. We were soooo glad when it was over. Then the confusion began. Whitney told us to meet her and Molly at Leela’s in Denver. Only Carmen the Garmin couldn’t find this place. While Amanda tried to figure it out Dan showed me some problems he was having with Final Cut and we ironed out the kinks. But Megan’s videos won’t play on his computer =[. So then we started driving. Definitely didn’t really know where we were going but we followed Whitney’s directions. Miraculously we found the place. The food was a little pricey and ended up not being that great but there’s not much to choose from at 12am. Read the Onion with Jud after he realized he was looking at a gay magazine. Finally got our food. We decided we should probably leave around 1:30 considering my flight was in 7 hours. It was sad to say goodbye. June is too far away. Hmph. Asleep around 2:30.
WAKE UP! It’s 6:30, have to leave for DIA in 15 minutes. OMG SNOW! It was beautiful. We ended up leaving later than planned, and that coupled with the snowy gloriousness got us to the airport at 7:50. My flight departed in 40 minutes. CRAP. Waited behind a nice guy at check-in who left me go in front of him. My bag probably isn’t going to be there to greet me when I get to John Wayne. Dang I was stressed. I didn’t even care about my bag. I had half an hour to get through security and get to my gate. It’s actually not that bad when you skip the line completely and walk right to the front. Power walk to my gate. I BARELY made it. It was about 8:15 when I walked up and met my fellow stragglers.
So here I am. On the plane. Hungry. Exhausted. Thirsty. And dang chapstick would be great right about now. 40 miles to Orange County.
All in all a pretty awesome 3 days in Colorado. I’m ready to go home though. The Roxy on Sunday! Then Down for the Count at Chain on Tuesday. My life is non-stop action lately.
But I love it.
A Benefit Show For...Children?
Sunday was Laura’s benefit that she’s been planning since December. Finally got to meet the infamous Thao. Interesting. She pretty much didn’t do ANYTHING and Laura and I were overseeing various merch duties the whole time. I’m pretty positive that all Thao cared about was hanging with the bands. We found out on Wednesday or Thursday that Bidwell was going to be playing at The Glasshouse on the same night. Could we possibly make it if we ditched the benefit?? We’re pretty resourceful. It was definitely in the back of my mind.
The benefit was going pretty smoothly. No major problems or anything, we were actually running a little bit early because the first band only used like half of their set time. Asked Matty what time they were playing. 8:30 or 9. A definite answer would have been helpful. About an hour or so later he told me they were playing at 9:05. This could be a possibility.
Whoaly crap this guy in my row on the plane had to get out and there was nowhere for me to go! I was not prepared for that.
Anyways… We knew it would take about 45 minutes to get from Di Piazzas to The Glasshouse. So at about 7:30 we started brainstorming how this could happen. To break even with the t-shirts we’d have to sell about 3 more and we’d be free to go, leaving the rest of the benefit in Thao’s ever-capable and responsible hands. That was sarcasm, by the way. Hey, she deserved it for being so useless the entire time and pretty much for the entire planning process. We were able to convince a few people to take the shirts off our hands, leave money and instructions with Thao [which she most certainly did not understand], and leave Long Beach at 8:15. No traffic, perfect. We were making really good time. Reallyyyy good time. But then- a minor flaw in Amanda’s directions. A couple of crucial steps were omitted and we ended up on the 60 when we should have stayed on the 57. Whoops. Knew something was wrong when we were seeing signs for Chino and Diamond Bar… Definitely too far.
Ugh now the lady next to me needed to get out. The aisle seat sucks.
Ok so definitely decided to turn around after being on the 60 for about ten minutes. Got new directions from Amanda. Back on the 57. Exit Temple. Right or left? No clue. We chose left. Wrong choice. Turn around. Left on Mission. Wow that is a LONG street. Passed the 71. Flashbacks to the drive to Upland with GNSR. It was about 9 at this point… we were pretty sure we’d miss at least the first one or two songs. Made it to The Glasshouse. Got out of the car to hear If You Wanna Stay. Ahhh run run run to the box office! CRAP. It’s closed. The guy at the door said we missed it by like 5 minutes. UGH! He asked us if we’d been waiting to see them. We lied. Our most pitiful and defeated expressions were a great success though—he ended up letting us in for FREE! FREE! Free shows are the best. After the show everyone told us that they saw us run in during the middle of their set haha. They were surprised to see us because we really didn’t think we’d make it. It was pretty spontaneous.
So I’m convinced that Bidwell is never leaving SoCal because while they were loading the trailer they said they were invited to play at The Roxy in a week. This pretty much nixed our plans to go to Palm Springs on Saturday for Racing Kites/Sparks.
1] LA is closer
2] You can’t stop the Bidwell.
Had to get home. Laura had 8:30AM class and I had to get ready for Coloradoooo.
The benefit was going pretty smoothly. No major problems or anything, we were actually running a little bit early because the first band only used like half of their set time. Asked Matty what time they were playing. 8:30 or 9. A definite answer would have been helpful. About an hour or so later he told me they were playing at 9:05. This could be a possibility.
Whoaly crap this guy in my row on the plane had to get out and there was nowhere for me to go! I was not prepared for that.
Anyways… We knew it would take about 45 minutes to get from Di Piazzas to The Glasshouse. So at about 7:30 we started brainstorming how this could happen. To break even with the t-shirts we’d have to sell about 3 more and we’d be free to go, leaving the rest of the benefit in Thao’s ever-capable and responsible hands. That was sarcasm, by the way. Hey, she deserved it for being so useless the entire time and pretty much for the entire planning process. We were able to convince a few people to take the shirts off our hands, leave money and instructions with Thao [which she most certainly did not understand], and leave Long Beach at 8:15. No traffic, perfect. We were making really good time. Reallyyyy good time. But then- a minor flaw in Amanda’s directions. A couple of crucial steps were omitted and we ended up on the 60 when we should have stayed on the 57. Whoops. Knew something was wrong when we were seeing signs for Chino and Diamond Bar… Definitely too far.
Ugh now the lady next to me needed to get out. The aisle seat sucks.
Ok so definitely decided to turn around after being on the 60 for about ten minutes. Got new directions from Amanda. Back on the 57. Exit Temple. Right or left? No clue. We chose left. Wrong choice. Turn around. Left on Mission. Wow that is a LONG street. Passed the 71. Flashbacks to the drive to Upland with GNSR. It was about 9 at this point… we were pretty sure we’d miss at least the first one or two songs. Made it to The Glasshouse. Got out of the car to hear If You Wanna Stay. Ahhh run run run to the box office! CRAP. It’s closed. The guy at the door said we missed it by like 5 minutes. UGH! He asked us if we’d been waiting to see them. We lied. Our most pitiful and defeated expressions were a great success though—he ended up letting us in for FREE! FREE! Free shows are the best. After the show everyone told us that they saw us run in during the middle of their set haha. They were surprised to see us because we really didn’t think we’d make it. It was pretty spontaneous.
So I’m convinced that Bidwell is never leaving SoCal because while they were loading the trailer they said they were invited to play at The Roxy in a week. This pretty much nixed our plans to go to Palm Springs on Saturday for Racing Kites/Sparks.
1] LA is closer
2] You can’t stop the Bidwell.
Had to get home. Laura had 8:30AM class and I had to get ready for Coloradoooo.
21 March 2009
One of the Craziest Weeks of My Life
This past week has been completely insane. Trying to think of the most logical way to go about explaining this... I think we'll have to break it down to days...
Thursday, March 12:
It took us freaking 2 hours to get to Canoga park. We actually ended up getting there a little early though, and it was pretty much empty inside except for the bands. While one of the opening bands was playing Nate and Steve from Down for the Count walked in. Stalkers. We see them everywere. A little later Siah asked Laura if we drove from Palm Springs, so I get the feeling people are a little confused about where we live because we are at a lot of shows all over Southern California. We are just centrally located =]. GNSR was awesome! It was so good to see them again after such a long time. We didn't film very much at this show A] because the sound sucks and B] because we hadn't talked to anyone about what we were planning really so we felt weird just filming randomly. After the show we were talking to Sam a little bit and brought up Disneyland. He was freaking STOKED. Jud didn't even know about it really, but had heard something and didn't know if it was true or not. Basically everyone was excited. Yay!
Friday, March 13...two shows in one day...sort of:
On Friday Goodnight was going to play first at the Invisible Children benefit show at University High School with Down for the Count, THEN all the way out in Upland at the Wire. A little foresight told me that traffic would suck getting from Irvine to Upland, so I brought an extra FastTrack so GNSR could follow us on the Toll Road and we could get there as fast as possible. But first, the show. Oh, Laura and I got In-N-Out first. Yum. Anyways, the show was a little weird, but I think we got some good HD footage. Sound was eh, crowd was eh, but it was fun nonetheless. We got a lot of random shots of GNSR aside from Trophy and With You, and also filmed a song for D4TC that we may or may not edit based on how the audio turned out. Definitely spent entirely too much time hanging around after Goodnight played, and then at 8 or so they started running around like crazy packing things up. AH! Time to go to Upland! Go go!! We met them around the back to explain the FastTrack and confirm that they were actually going to try to make it to The Wire by like 10. Yep, they were going try. RUN back into the theater, say bye to Nate and Anthony faster than we've ever said bye to ANYONE. RUN some more to the car. So then we explained the Toll Roads in a little more detail and told them to just follow us. They were confused by our fancy freeways haha. At one point we were passed by a semi-truck. It was pretty funny. Ah there was a deceiving C Street in the town next to Upland which resulted in driving in a complete circle..twice actually because there was a round-about involved. Police Encounter #1: Traffic check just before Upland. Crazy bottleneck stressfulness knowing that they needed to be at the venue 5 minutes ago. We pulled up to the Wire as Bidwell was playing their 2nd or 3rd to last song. Jussttt barely made it. Crazy. We actually ended up staying outside the whole time because we didn't want to pay for 2 shows in one night and The Wire was being a butthead about guestlisting because of some problem with Bidwell's street team not selling enough tickets. Talked with Matty, Liam, Bryan a little, Siah a little, whoever else happened to be around. GNSR finished. We saw the inside of the Wire briefly just to use the bathroom. Back outside into the cold. Packing. Packing. Dan almost put GNSR equipment into Bidwell's trailer. More Packing. This may have been about the time we got the nickname Dolores. Not sure. Time for In-N-Out? RUN back around to the front of the venue. Beginning to notice that we were doing a lot of running.
Strangest In-N-Out EVER. It was really just a drive-thru. Laura and I weren't hungry and, uh, we'd just had In-N-Out a few hours earlier. No need to be excessive about it =P. Bidwell left right before us because we had to get directions back to the freeway from them, and as we were getting in the car these really creepy guys pulled up next to us, said God knows what, and needless to say we locked the doors and drove away. Quickly.
Saturday, March 14:
The drive to Epicentre was deceiving: 2 Reagan Streets... sound familiar? What the heck. I guess that street is a big circle. Story of my life. We did end up finding the right Reagan Street though, made it to the venue. Walked to a park. Rode the swings wheee! Walked to Taco Bell / Dell Taco / Some Mexican Fast Food Chain to use the bathroom. Saw Matty and Tim on the way. Saw GNSR driving as we walked back. Jud yelled something at us. Minor dilemma: there was a sign at the front of the venue that said no video cameras. Smuggled them in with GNSR's merch. Problem solved. Ew we had to listen to [dare I say their name?] The Jakes. Shudder... We distracted ourselves with pamphlets about STDs and other riveting information.
Got some good footage of their set. Bidwell's set was weird. The venue inexplicably turned the lights on in the middle of a song. Met Danitza finally. Sam skateboarded for like half an hour or 45 minutes. Nate was entertaining himself by throwing a drumstick into the air so he could make it stick in the ground. Mike and Liam were wrestling. Liam is insane. In-N-Out. Again. Yibish. Have you seen my Irish Wristwatch? Liam is insane. Interesting girls tagged along. Police Encounter #2:Got pulled over right after we left because I forgot to turn my lights on. Ooops. First time being pulled over. Police Encounter #3: Well, sort of the police. Border patrol checkpoint leaving San Diego. Apparently we aren't suspicious because they didn't stop us. Obviously we should go into human trafficking. I hear it's lucrative and clearly we could get away with it. The rest of the drive was uneventful.
Sunday, March 15:
Katie was really excited to see Goodbye Elliott =] I'm glad she came. Told her about them over the summer and she fell in love with them right away. Pasta pizza at Frankie and Jonny's. I love that pizza more than life itself. The show was freakin awesome! GE was so happy to be playing again! Their new song is awesome. We filmed it and should have the video done relatively soon. Bidwell was amazing, GNSR was amazing. It was a great show. We were bummed that we couldn't film in HD, but the videos turned out pretty sweet nonetheless. It was crazy to know so many people at this show. It was cool too because they last time they all played together was at the El Rey in July, which I couldn't go to because I was working. Errg. But I'm pretty sure this show was 9876145 times better than that one.
Monday, March 16:
Frantic essay writing. I wanted to get it donnneee so I could turn it in on Tuesday while I was on campus for a final. SUCCESS!
Tuesday, March 17:
Turned my paper in at 1. French final at 1:30 which I thought I bombed but my professor's grading style proved otherwise haha. On to Palm Sprinkles! This was our 6th trip out there since October. October 1st, to be exact. What a fateful day hah, it was pretty much the genesis of L&L. But back to March 17. Ahhh couldn't leave until after 4 because Laura had work, but with the 91 toll road we have found the best possible way to get out there late in the afternoon, and we made it in like an hour and a half. Miraculously. OT's merch was destroyed. Seriously we're gone for a week and it's in disarray. What the heck. So we had to get that under control. A couple of strange people stopped by to check out their t-shirts. The "Let's Make Out Together" shirt gets a lot of attention. Haha Tim wanted us to give him one. But we can't just GIVE stuff away. Sorry man.
The show was good, filmed, etc. etc. getting a little tired of writing because this is becoming entirely too long. Finalized plans for Disneylannndd =D. Kevin wanted to get to his party. He needed a ride from us, but we weren't ready to leave, and we're not going out of our way to endorse his...habits. Liam wants to hang out. He likes hanging out. Left around 11:30. Right on schedule. Home by 1 and found a hilarious video of GNSR and SD after what could only have been the most epic beer pong tournament in all of recorded history.
Disneyland tomorrow!
Wednesday, March 18:
Studying studying studying until about 2:30. Headed over to Laura's house where GNSR and Megan were meeting us so we could go to DLand in one car and they wouldn't have to worry about van/trailer. Disneyland was sooo much fun. Going with people who've never been / haven't been in like a decade and a half is the way to do it haha. Way more exciting that way. Rides:
California Screamin'
Towerrr of Terrror
Soarin Over California
California Screamin' [ohhhhhh noooooooo! Megan lost her camera! More running [because I hadn't done any of that since Friday night...clearly it was time for more]. Found it! SUCCESS!
Matterhorn--Dolores wedged in a car behind Mike. Squished haha.
Space Mountainn
Pirates
Haunted Mansion--haha Nate on the floor after the guy falls from the ceiling. Wedged [again] in a doooom buggy with Jud.
Walking around Fantasy land as the park is closing. Searching for a shot glass... err, toothpick holder.
Long, exhausting. Awesome day. Ohhh no they were leaving soon =[
Thursday, March 19:
GNSR and Bidwell's last show together at CSUF. This was kind of a mellow day. Sad. Everyone was leaving. I miss them all.
BUT! I am currently packing for Colorado. Amanda and I started planning this trip when I was visiting her in September, thinking it would make for a fun Spring Break. Turns out I'll get to see GNSR again while I'm there =]
We were going to go see Down for the Count / Vogue at Epicentre tonight, but uh, this week has been crazy and we need some downtime I think. Oh, it also happened to be finals week. That was great timing.
Laura and I got together yesterday for an editing party. Trophy Girls turned out pretty insaneeee. I basically edited 3 times [from 3 different venues]. Combined them all. And wow HD makes me happy. It took about 5 hours.
Laura's benefit is tomorrow, should be interesting. We should definitely ditch it for Bidwell at the Glasshouse =P. Haven't been there since Anberlin in October. Such a legit place.
Now that I've written a novel, time to continue packing!!
Thursday, March 12:
It took us freaking 2 hours to get to Canoga park. We actually ended up getting there a little early though, and it was pretty much empty inside except for the bands. While one of the opening bands was playing Nate and Steve from Down for the Count walked in. Stalkers. We see them everywere. A little later Siah asked Laura if we drove from Palm Springs, so I get the feeling people are a little confused about where we live because we are at a lot of shows all over Southern California. We are just centrally located =]. GNSR was awesome! It was so good to see them again after such a long time. We didn't film very much at this show A] because the sound sucks and B] because we hadn't talked to anyone about what we were planning really so we felt weird just filming randomly. After the show we were talking to Sam a little bit and brought up Disneyland. He was freaking STOKED. Jud didn't even know about it really, but had heard something and didn't know if it was true or not. Basically everyone was excited. Yay!
Friday, March 13...two shows in one day...sort of:
On Friday Goodnight was going to play first at the Invisible Children benefit show at University High School with Down for the Count, THEN all the way out in Upland at the Wire. A little foresight told me that traffic would suck getting from Irvine to Upland, so I brought an extra FastTrack so GNSR could follow us on the Toll Road and we could get there as fast as possible. But first, the show. Oh, Laura and I got In-N-Out first. Yum. Anyways, the show was a little weird, but I think we got some good HD footage. Sound was eh, crowd was eh, but it was fun nonetheless. We got a lot of random shots of GNSR aside from Trophy and With You, and also filmed a song for D4TC that we may or may not edit based on how the audio turned out. Definitely spent entirely too much time hanging around after Goodnight played, and then at 8 or so they started running around like crazy packing things up. AH! Time to go to Upland! Go go!! We met them around the back to explain the FastTrack and confirm that they were actually going to try to make it to The Wire by like 10. Yep, they were going try. RUN back into the theater, say bye to Nate and Anthony faster than we've ever said bye to ANYONE. RUN some more to the car. So then we explained the Toll Roads in a little more detail and told them to just follow us. They were confused by our fancy freeways haha. At one point we were passed by a semi-truck. It was pretty funny. Ah there was a deceiving C Street in the town next to Upland which resulted in driving in a complete circle..twice actually because there was a round-about involved. Police Encounter #1: Traffic check just before Upland. Crazy bottleneck stressfulness knowing that they needed to be at the venue 5 minutes ago. We pulled up to the Wire as Bidwell was playing their 2nd or 3rd to last song. Jussttt barely made it. Crazy. We actually ended up staying outside the whole time because we didn't want to pay for 2 shows in one night and The Wire was being a butthead about guestlisting because of some problem with Bidwell's street team not selling enough tickets. Talked with Matty, Liam, Bryan a little, Siah a little, whoever else happened to be around. GNSR finished. We saw the inside of the Wire briefly just to use the bathroom. Back outside into the cold. Packing. Packing. Dan almost put GNSR equipment into Bidwell's trailer. More Packing. This may have been about the time we got the nickname Dolores. Not sure. Time for In-N-Out? RUN back around to the front of the venue. Beginning to notice that we were doing a lot of running.
Strangest In-N-Out EVER. It was really just a drive-thru. Laura and I weren't hungry and, uh, we'd just had In-N-Out a few hours earlier. No need to be excessive about it =P. Bidwell left right before us because we had to get directions back to the freeway from them, and as we were getting in the car these really creepy guys pulled up next to us, said God knows what, and needless to say we locked the doors and drove away. Quickly.
Saturday, March 14:
The drive to Epicentre was deceiving: 2 Reagan Streets... sound familiar? What the heck. I guess that street is a big circle. Story of my life. We did end up finding the right Reagan Street though, made it to the venue. Walked to a park. Rode the swings wheee! Walked to Taco Bell / Dell Taco / Some Mexican Fast Food Chain to use the bathroom. Saw Matty and Tim on the way. Saw GNSR driving as we walked back. Jud yelled something at us. Minor dilemma: there was a sign at the front of the venue that said no video cameras. Smuggled them in with GNSR's merch. Problem solved. Ew we had to listen to [dare I say their name?] The Jakes. Shudder... We distracted ourselves with pamphlets about STDs and other riveting information.
Got some good footage of their set. Bidwell's set was weird. The venue inexplicably turned the lights on in the middle of a song. Met Danitza finally. Sam skateboarded for like half an hour or 45 minutes. Nate was entertaining himself by throwing a drumstick into the air so he could make it stick in the ground. Mike and Liam were wrestling. Liam is insane. In-N-Out. Again. Yibish. Have you seen my Irish Wristwatch? Liam is insane. Interesting girls tagged along. Police Encounter #2:Got pulled over right after we left because I forgot to turn my lights on. Ooops. First time being pulled over. Police Encounter #3: Well, sort of the police. Border patrol checkpoint leaving San Diego. Apparently we aren't suspicious because they didn't stop us. Obviously we should go into human trafficking. I hear it's lucrative and clearly we could get away with it. The rest of the drive was uneventful.Sunday, March 15:
Katie was really excited to see Goodbye Elliott =] I'm glad she came. Told her about them over the summer and she fell in love with them right away. Pasta pizza at Frankie and Jonny's. I love that pizza more than life itself. The show was freakin awesome! GE was so happy to be playing again! Their new song is awesome. We filmed it and should have the video done relatively soon. Bidwell was amazing, GNSR was amazing. It was a great show. We were bummed that we couldn't film in HD, but the videos turned out pretty sweet nonetheless. It was crazy to know so many people at this show. It was cool too because they last time they all played together was at the El Rey in July, which I couldn't go to because I was working. Errg. But I'm pretty sure this show was 9876145 times better than that one.Monday, March 16:
Frantic essay writing. I wanted to get it donnneee so I could turn it in on Tuesday while I was on campus for a final. SUCCESS!
Tuesday, March 17:
Turned my paper in at 1. French final at 1:30 which I thought I bombed but my professor's grading style proved otherwise haha. On to Palm Sprinkles! This was our 6th trip out there since October. October 1st, to be exact. What a fateful day hah, it was pretty much the genesis of L&L. But back to March 17. Ahhh couldn't leave until after 4 because Laura had work, but with the 91 toll road we have found the best possible way to get out there late in the afternoon, and we made it in like an hour and a half. Miraculously. OT's merch was destroyed. Seriously we're gone for a week and it's in disarray. What the heck. So we had to get that under control. A couple of strange people stopped by to check out their t-shirts. The "Let's Make Out Together" shirt gets a lot of attention. Haha Tim wanted us to give him one. But we can't just GIVE stuff away. Sorry man.
The show was good, filmed, etc. etc. getting a little tired of writing because this is becoming entirely too long. Finalized plans for Disneylannndd =D. Kevin wanted to get to his party. He needed a ride from us, but we weren't ready to leave, and we're not going out of our way to endorse his...habits. Liam wants to hang out. He likes hanging out. Left around 11:30. Right on schedule. Home by 1 and found a hilarious video of GNSR and SD after what could only have been the most epic beer pong tournament in all of recorded history.
Disneyland tomorrow!
Wednesday, March 18:
Studying studying studying until about 2:30. Headed over to Laura's house where GNSR and Megan were meeting us so we could go to DLand in one car and they wouldn't have to worry about van/trailer. Disneyland was sooo much fun. Going with people who've never been / haven't been in like a decade and a half is the way to do it haha. Way more exciting that way. Rides:
California Screamin'
Towerrr of Terrror
Soarin Over California
California Screamin' [ohhhhhh noooooooo! Megan lost her camera! More running [because I hadn't done any of that since Friday night...clearly it was time for more]. Found it! SUCCESS!
Matterhorn--Dolores wedged in a car behind Mike. Squished haha.
Space Mountainn
Pirates
Haunted Mansion--haha Nate on the floor after the guy falls from the ceiling. Wedged [again] in a doooom buggy with Jud.
Walking around Fantasy land as the park is closing. Searching for a shot glass... err, toothpick holder.
Long, exhausting. Awesome day. Ohhh no they were leaving soon =[
Thursday, March 19:
GNSR and Bidwell's last show together at CSUF. This was kind of a mellow day. Sad. Everyone was leaving. I miss them all.
BUT! I am currently packing for Colorado. Amanda and I started planning this trip when I was visiting her in September, thinking it would make for a fun Spring Break. Turns out I'll get to see GNSR again while I'm there =]
We were going to go see Down for the Count / Vogue at Epicentre tonight, but uh, this week has been crazy and we need some downtime I think. Oh, it also happened to be finals week. That was great timing.
Laura and I got together yesterday for an editing party. Trophy Girls turned out pretty insaneeee. I basically edited 3 times [from 3 different venues]. Combined them all. And wow HD makes me happy. It took about 5 hours.
Laura's benefit is tomorrow, should be interesting. We should definitely ditch it for Bidwell at the Glasshouse =P. Haven't been there since Anberlin in October. Such a legit place.
Now that I've written a novel, time to continue packing!!
04 March 2009
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