2: Chain Reaction. 11.10.08
1+2=
Make sense? No? Lemme explain...
I'll back up a few months... 8, to be exact. Laura and I went to Chain on October 8 of last year to see Out Together, and Kris Roe happened to be headlining that night with an acoustic set. Pretty meaningless to me considering I have never listened to the Ataris and I had no clue who the heck this guy was. The night ended relatively uneventfully [though I do seem to remember Kevin/Nate/Cody left without saying goodbye...minor side-note].
Flash forward 1 month [almost exactly] to another night at Chain. This time we were seeing The Scenic for the first time. They had friended me on Myspace over the summer and after listening to them for a while I bought their CD on iTunes. I was hooked. Got Laura even more hooked. But they were from PA and we had no clue if we'd ever have a chance to see them live. Well that chance came in November. As soon as we saw their show at Chain listed in their tour dates we exchanged messages with them to see if they'd be interested in an L&L video [I just went through said messages, and now that we actually know them "We can get you on the guest list in exchange for your services but thats about it" has a whole new meaning... hah yeah they've corrupted my brain]. November 10 came around and we found ourselves at Chain somewhat confused because we had to figure out the guest list situation and weren't really sure which one of them to talk to because, well, we didn't really know who any of them were. We ended up talking to the drummer because we were pretty sure he was the one who had been responding to us. We did end up learning all of their names, and they convinced us to come to their show at the Knitting Factory later that week [how could we turn down the Laura discount?]. That night we began the tradition of In-N-Out with Shane and Jake. After the show we parted ways and planned to see them again when they flew out for the Warped Tour Battle of the Bands at the Key Club in December.
After their show in December we spent well over an hour saying goodbye to them at their hotel room across the street from In-N-Out on Sunset despite the fact that this was only the third time we'd seen them. We left with marriage proposals from Frank and a signed, special edition Rock Band 2 which was intended to be given away at a later date as part of a contest prize.
6 months later: They were finally headed back to California. Laura and I started planning a road trip in early to mid-May and we thought, with some luck, we might be able to match the end of it with The Scenic's potential NorCal show listed in their tour dates. It was all up in the air really...just a thought. Well it actually worked out and we saw them in Oakland. Before we could even say hi to them ourselves Jake ran over to us and we all partook in a beautiful reunion. It was poetic really. Ok maybe I'm exaggerating. Anyways, it was so good to see them again after far too much time separated by the US of A. We also got to meet their awesome new addition, Zach, from Arizona, who is equally spectacular and fantastic and quite dashing, in fact [in case he's reading this I am attempting to score myself some Zach points at the moment...did it work?]. We also met Margot, who in my opinion is a superwoman for braving a nation-wide tour with 5 boys. The day after that show we all [Lauras and Scenic] drove back down to SoCal for their show at Chain Reaction. Saw them again Friday at The Wire, went to Huntington on Saturday, and saw them one last time [...or so we thought] on Sunday at the Knitting Factory. We ended the evening at In-N-Out obviously [could I get a 4x4 animal style with fries and a MELK please?!]. Megan was able to meet up with us for that show, which was fortunate because it resulted in the founding of the United Kneetions- I truly sense great things for that organization. But we eventually had to say goodbye. And it was sad.
SYKE! Saw them again 5 days later. They were stinky and hungry after braving the sun and masses at Warped Tour in Pomona, so they wound up at Laura's house for showers and French toast. Shane had mentioned before that he might be able to get us on the guest list for Warped in Ventura on Sunday. Wait? What? Didn't catch that? I'll say it again...
Yeah, that's right. Didn't really think it was tooooooo great of a possibility though. But it was in the back of my mind. Well he brought it up again on Friday as they were leaving, and basically we said that if he could get us in, we'd be there. Umm. Hi. My name is Laura and at this point I had never been to Warped Tour before. Wellllll, Saturday he called to get my last name...and shortly thereafter we were guest listed. For Warped Tour. Oh, also, we were on The Ataris' guest list. Ah hahhhhhh... the circle is now complete. Remember this?
Yeah, it all makes sense now.
So basically this was quite an amazing first experience at Warped Tour. It was free, The Scenic was there, we saw some really great bands and ran into a bunch of other friends, got to stand on main stage with Shane, Jake, Frank, and Zach during The Ataris' set...oh and as icing on the cake it was NOT hot. The end of the day was bittersweet though because we had to say goodbye for reals. There's a chance I might sink into a depression until they once again traverse the nation in their little trooper of a red GMC van with a trailer clad in Jonas Brothers.
Moral of the story: Scenic, I love you. And Shane, I owe you BIG TIME. Back massages times infinity probably. You guys are such awesome people and you're wayyyyy too good to us. Come back soon please! I miss you already!
No comments:
Post a Comment