one more miracle

So last night I got to see EMPIRES! \o/ At Frankie's in Toledo! As recounted in last night's post, I had a hell of a time driving there and back in the snowpocalypse, but in the end, I saw EMPIRES, so it was worth it. \o/

The set was phenomenal. Set list: I Want Blood, "Intruder", Damn Thing's Over, Midnight Land, Hello Lover, Spit the Dark, and Bang. The song labeled "Intruder" on the set list may have a logner name - it's one of the ones coming out on Tuesday, and it is AWESOME. \o/ They were super on and high energy even though they all have colds. NB: Sean would like us all to know that he actually gets sick LAST - it's just that everyone knows he's sick because he's the singer. He was hilariously and adorably emphatic about this point before the show. <333

Rewinding: So I arrived at roughly 8 and hung out with angel726 in a convenient room next to the bar/stage room which had the merch table and various Empires boys coming in and out. I said hi to them, and Ryan was all "Hey, you look familiar" and I was like "Well, yes, I have been to three shows before :P". Whatever whatever we'll get on first name basis after I stalk them across the midwest for a year! :D Ryan was charming and lovely as ever. We also talked with Sean briefly, and Tom too. I told Tom that I was the one who tried to set up a show in Ann Arbor, sorry I couldn't, and he smiled and gave me a side armed hug and said it was okay, awww. He was in a really sweet, social mood, it was lovely!

Jennifer and I wandered in to catch a couple songs from the first opener - they were decent, nothing to write home about. We spent the second opener hanging out in the other room because they sounded awful. Then it was EMPIRES TIME WOOOO! As mentioned above, they were amazing. There was giggling and shenaniganating, obviously, because it's Empires. <3 At one point during set up, Ryan came up behind Sean and started nuzzling his shoulder, and Sean tried to dance away so Ryan snagged him with arms around his waist and hugged and nuzzled some more. AHAHA THEM <333333333

As I'm sure most of you know, Al has left the band, so they had a fill-in bassist named Bob. He was very good! I met him after the show and he was sweet - very hipstery yet friendly, which fits in nicely with the theme. Ryan and Sean seem to like him a lot and think he's an awesome bassist, so I'm glad that they were able to find him.

( Photos! )

Afterwards, we lurked until we got an opening to chat to someone. We ended up talking to Ryan for aaaages - he's completely my favorite! He's so accessible and friendly and funny and blunt and, well, hot, obviously. ;) Let's see, what did we talk about... I asked him whose idea it was to release the new music in two song bits, and he said it was originally Tom's thoughtbunny - the band's thinking behind it is to return to the classics like Rolling Stone, who used to release music like every month, because they want to stay in constant touch with the fanbase, keep giving something and staying connected in a really positive way. I thought that was super duper sweet, aw. He also said that the band is really close to setting up a West coast tour! Like, NEXT MONTH! God knows if that will actually happen, but have hope, West coasters! We rambled on about a lot of things, really.

At one point the Lincoln Hall show (in Chicago) came up, and I asked when exactly it is - Ryan said next Friday, and I was like "Oh! When we're seeing Mark Rose". And he raised his eyebrows and was all "Oh! I see how it is. You've made your decision then." and acting all offended, heeee. He decided that he was going to get his revenge on Mark, so he decided to give me a message to pass on. He looked around for something to write on and picked up an empty water bottle and wrote a sad smiley face on it =(, then a message "Go to Mark Rose" (which is either a message to me, or an address for the bottle's destination - I have no idea) and on the other side "I'll get you Mark ~Ryan" Ahahaa what is his FACE. So I have been instructed to deliver that next Friday! I can't wait. :D I Tweeted a photo of the bottle and this sparked a mini-Twitter war, heeee.



Oh boys. <3333

( Photos of the bottle of awesome )

Finally, I've got some great videos! Bang, Intruder (?), and Hello Lover. Hello Lover is particularly a PHENOMENAL song - it doesn't sound like anything they've done before. Super groovy! I was so close that some of these videos point UP at Sean's chin sometimes. And the audio's pretty great for standing right under the speakers. Enjoy!







YAY EMPIRES! When do I get to see them again? :D

I kind of lied when I said I had multiple videos from last night. I only recorded two - The Cruel One and Hurricane, and everyone's seen Hurricane a million times. But do you know how awkward it is to film a band when you're five feet from them and Greta's looking right at you? I just let myself enjoy the show, so this will have to suffice. It's a pretty great video though. :)

You guys, I love my baby band. *______*

(Background: Drive A are a new band out of LA, and I've been listening to them nonstop for 2 months. I've also been following Jason Nott, the guitarist, on Twitter and we've chatted a couple times.)

( How Drive A stole my heart! )

Let me introduce you to Drive A!

Left to right: Taylor who always makes ridic faces in photos, Jason looking at the wrong camera <3333, Cody being GORGEOUS, and Bruno being too cool to smile. UGH I LOVE THEMMMM. Also, you can see that my purse was falling off my shoulder, and JASON HELD IT UP. HEEE WHAT. The hearts in my eyes are truly enormous.

As for video evidence of their awesome, well, the Fillmore is a DICK because it has a STILL PHOTOS ONLY POLICY, what the shit is that. I recorded 3 minutes of the first song before I got shut down. :( :( :( But it's a good video, and you can see them rocking out and being fucking badasses and I love them. ♥___♥



I know some other band might have played, maybe, you know, The Used or some little band like that, but I'll post about that later. :) I just wanted to flail about my new baby band, whom I adore WITH ALL OF MY LITTLE HEART. Suffice to say I had a fucking awesome time, and it was so cool to have candidlily and angel726 with me, and I am a happy happy camper. :D

Oh and LISTEN TO DRIVE A!!!! Their album is only $7 on iTunes! myspace.com/drivea and youtube.com/drivearocks ! GO GO GO! :D

I have arrived home from the AP Fall Ball pretty much intact! My stomach is reeeally unhappy with the no real food + two beers + a cigarette + a lot of jumping and sweating and singing thing, but other than that I'm content.

I got Meet & Greet with the Academy boys! Well, sorta - angel726 bought our tickets and got M&G cause she's in Santi's Little Helpers, but I did not because I am not. We did not realize this in advance. Naomi, Chiz's lovely wife, was giving out the M&G wristbands and we explained our situations, and she said she'd see, so we stood around and looked sad until she gave me a wristband. Score! Second time I have totally mooched off a friend to get into M&G (last time was Panic, hee). Yay!

The boys were SO LOVELY. We talked to Carden first, who I must say is looking damn fine with his short locks. He gave us hugs hello because it was the first day of tour, haha. I told him I was going to grad school in Ann Arbor and he asked what school was there, and when I said UM he said "Wolverines, right?" and when I laughed and said yes he said "It's like a pop quiz!" Hee. Then we found Butcher wandering aorund without anyone to talk to (?!) and he was lovely and sweet and talked about how he spends his free time on tour (painting or not doing anything, generally) and how they were going to play 40 Steps with the full band for the first time (:D!).

Thennn we got ourselves a BILL BECKETT OMG. How is he real? HOW IS HE REAL? I don't really comprehend this beanpole of a person who leans down and gazes intently at you as you speak! He's sort of stoic and pleasant and a little odd and I adore him, sigh sigh sigh. He has the most ridiculous and ridiculously ADORABLE new haircut, please see photo behind the cut. We commented on it and he said something about it being like time travel, and we ran with it like it was back to the 50s or something, and he was like "But it's not like going back in time. It's going forward, to the future. This is what you're gonna see in a few decades." And I was just like lololol Billiam! <333 I mentioned that the first time I saw them play was with Cobras and FOB on the HCT, and that I had no idea who they were but after that they became the soundtrack of my summer, yadda yadda, and then I asked if they were going to tour again with Cobras! And he said, you know, we've toured with them a *lot*, and we kind of needed a break. So I said "Too much Gabe?" And he replied, "You can never have too much Gabe." HEEEEEE. (omgnotsosekritbandomOTPlskdjflskdjf) And then he went on to say that he's got an "itch" to tour with them again so THAT BETTER HAPPEN. Eeeee omg. &hisfaaace;

Then we found ourselves a Sisky, and he liked my shirt because "I like guns!" Oh Siskybiz! <3 His hair is longer than it's been in a while, but apparently it was longer while he was recovering from his tragic hand injury, like he had a full on hobo beard and hair, but he cut it off, sad. I asked if he's going to grow the full on afro back and he said he's thinking about it. He was adorable and everything I expected of Sisky. Then we chatted with Chiz, who is lovely and Aussie and informed me (when I told him I'm getting my PhD basically in medical research) that someone published a vaccine for HIV today? Idk, I have to go look that up! But he, too, was lovely. All of them are excited to be back on tour! It was really nice to get to chat with them one on one in a really relaxed situation, I like that setup a whole lot. That was definitely my favorite part of the evening!

I have photos with all of them, so I'm gonna share them here. You have to look at Bill's haircut, omg. ♥

( The Academy Is adorable! )

So after M&G we got in before doors and got barrier. However, we ended up next to these girls who were bitches before anyone else even arrived. They were shoving and trying to get all of them squeezed onto barrier. You Me At Six started up after a little while and they were British and quite entertaining! Buuut the bitchy girls were being horrible, one in particular, and just SHOVING, really fucking hard. I tried to hang on to the barrier (I had gotten turned so only one arm was on there) but one particularly vicious push dislodged me. It was disconcertingly like being washed out to sea. I ended up 4-5 people back, and it was actually better without that horrible, horrible person leaping on my back. (I actually, trufax hate her. She is a selfish obnoxious tool of the worst kind and I kind of hope she dies in a moshpit one day. Ahem.) I had a good time in there for the rest of that set, but it's just... not my thing to be mushed in a sea of people, *especially* by myself, so I escaped without further ado and hung out at the bar to the side, hilariously between two pairs of parents. The bartender was hot and funny and I had fun flirting with him a little, and also buying beers and bumming a cigarette from him just so he'd light it (yeah, I'm SO SUBTLE), so I passed the time with that and texting with Tabby (♥!). Some other bands played? Idk. The Secret Handshake was energetic but way too electronica for me (I happened to meet the singer guy afterwards - he's REALLY FREAKING HOT, too bad I didn't like your music dude!) and Every Avenue was decent, whatever.

Then it was ACADEMY TIME!!! They opened with Crowded Room, which, random! But then was BLACK MAMBA EEE, and Classifieds and MIDTOWN and BIG MESS OMG and About a Girl and Forever Young and I'm Yours Tonight (which is really good live!) and 40 STEPS (with the WHOLE BAND, I have a video!) and they closed with SLOW DOWN which is William and Gabe's song, omg my heart. <3 It felt really really short, and I didn't have the best view, but I danced my heart out and I adore them.

( Just two photos... )

I'm watching a bit of my videos and they sound MUCH better then they actually did live! My camera magically filters out all the loud vibratey stuff and just carries through the actual music, which is amazing. The sound at this venue suuuucked - you felt the music more than heard it. But yes, I have great videos and will be sure to share!

And I think that's all the recapping I have energy for. I'm exhausted! I'm so behind on my flist AND TV (no spoilers for Supernatural, Dollhouse, Bones, OR Glee please - holy crap, need to catch up) but I am just drained. I also may be getting sick (come on body, fight it off!). So it's bed time, already way too late.

Yay bandboys! *flops*

I come bearing videos from The Used show last night! Like I said, the audio is SUPER DUPER AWESOME, and the video's great too, though better before Youtube smushed it. Make sure you watch in HQ!

( Paralyzed, I Caught Fire, etc, plus a few pictures )

ETA: I've now uploaded ALL of my videos from the concert to my server space. PLEASE right click and save!