asimplechord (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
asimplechord) wrote2009-08-19 11:00 pm
asimplechord) wrote2009-08-19 11:00 pm
snarky Spencer is snarky. and pretty. (Blink-182 tour, Chicago, 15Aug09)
Friday was the beginning of Chicago shenanigans! (And Minneapolis, since I decided after winning M&G there to actually ATTEND that concert.)
That afternoon I met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shutyourface, eckerlilas, vic_ramsey, and vic_ramsey's sister at Hobby and we flew to Chicago. There, we met up with fiddleyoumust, ericaplease, and Elissa (sp? LJ name?) and made plans for the next day - activities involving Fall Out Boys and Discos.
Saturday: caffeinated at Sbux and drove out to Tinley Park, which is a bedroom community for Chicago, maybe 30 miles outside the city? IDK, it was a long drive. (FYI, I am never driving a HHR again. The V4 had NO pick-up, and the blind spot on the passenger side was HUGE, made worse when anyone over 5 ft tall sat in the back passenger seat.)
We got to the venue at ~10am, but they didn't allow anyone in to park until 4:30pm. Which was a problem since the M&G was at 3:30. We hung out with people (read: hardcore Blink-182 fans) on the little grassy knoll outside the gates and used the Odyssey Fun House for potty breaks, minus a trip back into town to pick upfiddleyoumust and ericaplease, who had transportation issues.
At 3:15pm, they let those of us with M&G in the gates, and we drove to the venue, then lined up so Zack could check us off on his list-o-fans. He was impressed that most of the people who won M&G were actually present. Apparently a lot of people have been missing the M&Gs? IDK, when I heard I got one for Minneapolis I completely rearranged my plans. Anyway. We waited for someone who was tardy, and in the meantime took a poll: of the 14 people with M&G at Chicago, either 2 or 4 (not a majority in either case) were actually FROM Chicago. Four were our group from Texas. :D
Anyway. Instead of Zack's "don't be creepy" speech, he told us to be respectful of the area we were about to walk through, and then he led us through the gates past Bus Row. (As an aside: during his explanation, Zack called them "Brendon and Spencer, or Brencer" and I had a WTF moment. Then he smushed their names together AGAIN later when directing us.) Andy Hurley was playing football, and tossed a pass at Zack, who caught it but was really faily in tossing it back. There was a brief glimpse of Patrick as we walked up a set of stairs to a porch area, where two of the dudes from Chester French were hanging out. (I did not know it was them at the time; I only recognized them later, when they came on stage.)
Um. Re: M&G. I don't know what to say thatfiddleyoumust, eckerlilas, or shutyourface haven't already said. Brendon and Spencer were really nice and EVEN PRETTIER in person than any photo can capture.
Brendon charmed me because he shook each person's hand and said, "Hi, I'm Brendon" like we didn't know who he was. He was really smiley, and as long as the person he was talking to had a topic to engage his conversation, things went well. I asked about his tattoos, and whether he wanted a sleeve or was content with the design as it is, and then when he signed my copy of A Picture With Books we exchanged a couple of sentences about Shane and how he was always excited to tell him when their fans liked his work. (I really REALLY wanted to ask why there are so many more pictures of Ryan than the other bandmembers, but sort of figured that discussion of Ryan was verboten, so I didn't.)
Spencer Smith almost ALMOST earned a "Spencer is my new favorite" LJ tag. Seriously. He's so personable. He was far better at introducing random conversation than Brendon, who clearly needed cues. I don't remember the first thing we talked about, but then I asked him about Billy Joel b/c he tweeted Big Shot lyrics a few days ago. And we talked about classics - specifically Billy Joel and Paul Simon, if you can believe it - and then he said that the particular lyrics he had quoted were directed at a "certain someone". Which, okay, I didn't even consider, b/c I don't think they'd been exchanging tweets - publicly, anyway. But I was like, "Ah, oh, o-kay." *facepalm*
Our group sort of monopolized Spencer a bit, and we pointed out how Houston's gotten the shaft from Fall Out Boy and Panic lately, and Spencer said that they wanted to be on the whole tour, but that they'd take whatever dates Blink-182 offered. Which, fair enough. (I was QUITE amused by his tweet a day later begging Mark Hoppus to let them stay on the tour, even if it was just to do acoustic sets in the parking lot. We would be FINE with that!) Spencer pinky-swore withshutyourface that they'd come to Houston on their next tour.
Zack made sure to get something signed for the girl who missed the M&G, and there was much ridiculous behavior during the individual photo moments.
After that Zack took a group photo (I still have no idea where this photo was posted; I'll have to skim the weekend's Panic-related posts on my f-list and find it), and when I put my arm aroundfiddleyoumust I thought I was touching shutyourface, but it turns out my hand was resting on Spencer's? Unintentionally. I removed it when I realized. No, really - you guys KNOW how I feel about personal space issues and random touching of band boys without prior agreement or expectation.
Then there were high-fives and we were still clustered around Spencer when someone (it might've been me - I was def. curious about arrangements for their next tour, but I was still in "wow, they're so pretty!" mode and pretty insensible, so it's a blur) asked about doing a small-venue tour, and since the Houston peeps were all there we put in a vote for Warehouse Live over HOB, and again Spencer said it was a done deal. I was like, "I think that deserves another pinky swear" or words to that effect, and he held out his hand forshutyourface to do another one. She did not object, as you might imagine. (She has a little thing for Spencer Smith. I bet you didn't know that, did you? :P)
Then we hauled our butts over to the gate to get in line. Right at the front. :D
I was impressed that it was, indeed, a LINE.
We had barrier between Ian and Brendon (stage right) which was awesome for viewing Ian and okay for Brendon and Spencer but not very good for ogling Dallon. I took a bunch of photos, but some of them were spoiled by the presence of the camera man filming for the big screens. And by my complete lack of artistic talent when it comes to framing shots.
Show highlights:
+ Brendon introduced Lying by saying that they "like to fuck girls... and each other."
+ Ian is amazing. AMAZING. He showed more energy in one show than all the shows Ryan Ross ever did in his life. And I think Brendon fed off that energy. He seemed really happy, both in the M&G and on stage. (Part of that was probably b/c his girlfriend was visiting that day as well, I'm sure.)
+ Brendon dedicated New Perspective to his beautiful girlfriend = most adorkable thing ever.
+ Personally, I think the fact that the only songs they do from Pretty.Odd are Nine In The Afternoon and That Green Gentleman is pretty telling. Things have changed for me, and that's okay.
+ random perv moment: Brendon's ass looks FINE in those dress pants.
(I think we can see here who my favorite still is, yes?)
+ Fall Out Boy was awesome, as usual. They performed only a couple of songs off Folie A Deux, but it was still a good show.
+ Andy Hurley talked more at this show (and the Minneapolis one) than I'd ever heard before.
+ Patrick did his foot-stompy thing. In sparkly black Chucks.
+ the black-on-black bear design for stage dress is pretty cute
+ Pete was... Pete.
+ Brendon joined them for Don't Stop Believing. This night's version was by far the best, in terms of him being on key, of the ones I've seen/heard video for, including the Minneapolis show. He is clearly very excited to be doing this song. And he appears to enjoy slapping Pete's ass every night, too. (Pete is the biggest Brendon-wife EVER; I get it - it's in his best interest for his first baby band to continue to be successful. But still.)
eckerlilas and I bailed when Saturday started and headed out of the pit, only to get to the top of the steps and stare at Ian, who was hanging out with Sisky in a reserved seat. Hi, boys.
Checked out the merch booth, drank a liter of water, headed back to the hotel to shower off other-people-sweat and then to Angels & Kings, wherebloodygoodgirl and pressdbtwnpages joined us. Also present were ditchwitchbitch, inkandchaos and behindthec and their crew.
A&K is really nothing more than a neighborhood bar, except it's Pete Wentz's bar, and it was the afterparty/one-year-anniversary. FYI, Pete is not a good DJ. And whoever he had DJing that night wasn't either.
Bar highlights:
+ random Bill Beckett sighting
+ PWTs debuted an as-yet unrecorded song, Boomerang
+ RyanJ and Al from Empires were there, and in conversation I somehow ended up asking RyanJ if they needed a street team in Houston. IDK, I was tipsy. But he put his contact info in my iPhone, so whatever.
+ would have talked with DeMar to see when/if PWTs will be doing another headlining tour, but didn't want to cockblock
Then we stumbled back to our hotel and collapsed from alcohol and exhaustion.
I have to get some sleep so I can be coherent for work tomorrow, so here are some pics without commentary. They're not particularly awesome pics, but if you take them and use them, let me know. I'm having issues with Photobucket and my camera, which appears to have duplicated EVERY FUCKING PICTURE, so when I get it sorted out, I'll upload more and comment about the Minneapolis show. ♥
Just a note: none of my pictures do Spencer justice. You'd have to go to eckerlilas's or fiddleyoumust's posts for that. Mostly during the M&G when he was all smiley, I was too *__* to think to snap photos.
ETA: photo album is here
That afternoon I met
shutyourface, eckerlilas, vic_ramsey, and vic_ramsey's sister at Hobby and we flew to Chicago. There, we met up with fiddleyoumust, ericaplease, and Elissa (sp? LJ name?) and made plans for the next day - activities involving Fall Out Boys and Discos.Saturday: caffeinated at Sbux and drove out to Tinley Park, which is a bedroom community for Chicago, maybe 30 miles outside the city? IDK, it was a long drive. (FYI, I am never driving a HHR again. The V4 had NO pick-up, and the blind spot on the passenger side was HUGE, made worse when anyone over 5 ft tall sat in the back passenger seat.)
We got to the venue at ~10am, but they didn't allow anyone in to park until 4:30pm. Which was a problem since the M&G was at 3:30. We hung out with people (read: hardcore Blink-182 fans) on the little grassy knoll outside the gates and used the Odyssey Fun House for potty breaks, minus a trip back into town to pick up
fiddleyoumust and ericaplease, who had transportation issues.At 3:15pm, they let those of us with M&G in the gates, and we drove to the venue, then lined up so Zack could check us off on his list-o-fans. He was impressed that most of the people who won M&G were actually present. Apparently a lot of people have been missing the M&Gs? IDK, when I heard I got one for Minneapolis I completely rearranged my plans. Anyway. We waited for someone who was tardy, and in the meantime took a poll: of the 14 people with M&G at Chicago, either 2 or 4 (not a majority in either case) were actually FROM Chicago. Four were our group from Texas. :D
Anyway. Instead of Zack's "don't be creepy" speech, he told us to be respectful of the area we were about to walk through, and then he led us through the gates past Bus Row. (As an aside: during his explanation, Zack called them "Brendon and Spencer, or Brencer" and I had a WTF moment. Then he smushed their names together AGAIN later when directing us.) Andy Hurley was playing football, and tossed a pass at Zack, who caught it but was really faily in tossing it back. There was a brief glimpse of Patrick as we walked up a set of stairs to a porch area, where two of the dudes from Chester French were hanging out. (I did not know it was them at the time; I only recognized them later, when they came on stage.)
Um. Re: M&G. I don't know what to say that
fiddleyoumust, eckerlilas, or shutyourface haven't already said. Brendon and Spencer were really nice and EVEN PRETTIER in person than any photo can capture. Brendon charmed me because he shook each person's hand and said, "Hi, I'm Brendon" like we didn't know who he was. He was really smiley, and as long as the person he was talking to had a topic to engage his conversation, things went well. I asked about his tattoos, and whether he wanted a sleeve or was content with the design as it is, and then when he signed my copy of A Picture With Books we exchanged a couple of sentences about Shane and how he was always excited to tell him when their fans liked his work. (I really REALLY wanted to ask why there are so many more pictures of Ryan than the other bandmembers, but sort of figured that discussion of Ryan was verboten, so I didn't.)
Spencer Smith almost ALMOST earned a "Spencer is my new favorite" LJ tag. Seriously. He's so personable. He was far better at introducing random conversation than Brendon, who clearly needed cues. I don't remember the first thing we talked about, but then I asked him about Billy Joel b/c he tweeted Big Shot lyrics a few days ago. And we talked about classics - specifically Billy Joel and Paul Simon, if you can believe it - and then he said that the particular lyrics he had quoted were directed at a "certain someone". Which, okay, I didn't even consider, b/c I don't think they'd been exchanging tweets - publicly, anyway. But I was like, "Ah, oh, o-kay." *facepalm*
Our group sort of monopolized Spencer a bit, and we pointed out how Houston's gotten the shaft from Fall Out Boy and Panic lately, and Spencer said that they wanted to be on the whole tour, but that they'd take whatever dates Blink-182 offered. Which, fair enough. (I was QUITE amused by his tweet a day later begging Mark Hoppus to let them stay on the tour, even if it was just to do acoustic sets in the parking lot. We would be FINE with that!) Spencer pinky-swore with
shutyourface that they'd come to Houston on their next tour. Zack made sure to get something signed for the girl who missed the M&G, and there was much ridiculous behavior during the individual photo moments.
After that Zack took a group photo (I still have no idea where this photo was posted; I'll have to skim the weekend's Panic-related posts on my f-list and find it), and when I put my arm around
fiddleyoumust I thought I was touching shutyourface, but it turns out my hand was resting on Spencer's? Unintentionally. I removed it when I realized. No, really - you guys KNOW how I feel about personal space issues and random touching of band boys without prior agreement or expectation. Then there were high-fives and we were still clustered around Spencer when someone (it might've been me - I was def. curious about arrangements for their next tour, but I was still in "wow, they're so pretty!" mode and pretty insensible, so it's a blur) asked about doing a small-venue tour, and since the Houston peeps were all there we put in a vote for Warehouse Live over HOB, and again Spencer said it was a done deal. I was like, "I think that deserves another pinky swear" or words to that effect, and he held out his hand for
shutyourface to do another one. She did not object, as you might imagine. (She has a little thing for Spencer Smith. I bet you didn't know that, did you? :P)Then we hauled our butts over to the gate to get in line. Right at the front. :D
I was impressed that it was, indeed, a LINE.
We had barrier between Ian and Brendon (stage right) which was awesome for viewing Ian and okay for Brendon and Spencer but not very good for ogling Dallon. I took a bunch of photos, but some of them were spoiled by the presence of the camera man filming for the big screens. And by my complete lack of artistic talent when it comes to framing shots.
Show highlights:
+ Brendon introduced Lying by saying that they "like to fuck girls... and each other."
+ Ian is amazing. AMAZING. He showed more energy in one show than all the shows Ryan Ross ever did in his life. And I think Brendon fed off that energy. He seemed really happy, both in the M&G and on stage. (Part of that was probably b/c his girlfriend was visiting that day as well, I'm sure.)
+ Brendon dedicated New Perspective to his beautiful girlfriend = most adorkable thing ever.
+ Personally, I think the fact that the only songs they do from Pretty.Odd are Nine In The Afternoon and That Green Gentleman is pretty telling. Things have changed for me, and that's okay.
+ random perv moment: Brendon's ass looks FINE in those dress pants.
(I think we can see here who my favorite still is, yes?)
+ Fall Out Boy was awesome, as usual. They performed only a couple of songs off Folie A Deux, but it was still a good show.
+ Andy Hurley talked more at this show (and the Minneapolis one) than I'd ever heard before.
+ Patrick did his foot-stompy thing. In sparkly black Chucks.
+ the black-on-black bear design for stage dress is pretty cute
+ Pete was... Pete.
+ Brendon joined them for Don't Stop Believing. This night's version was by far the best, in terms of him being on key, of the ones I've seen/heard video for, including the Minneapolis show. He is clearly very excited to be doing this song. And he appears to enjoy slapping Pete's ass every night, too. (Pete is the biggest Brendon-wife EVER; I get it - it's in his best interest for his first baby band to continue to be successful. But still.)
eckerlilas and I bailed when Saturday started and headed out of the pit, only to get to the top of the steps and stare at Ian, who was hanging out with Sisky in a reserved seat. Hi, boys.Checked out the merch booth, drank a liter of water, headed back to the hotel to shower off other-people-sweat and then to Angels & Kings, where
bloodygoodgirl and pressdbtwnpages joined us. Also present were ditchwitchbitch, inkandchaos and behindthec and their crew.A&K is really nothing more than a neighborhood bar, except it's Pete Wentz's bar, and it was the afterparty/one-year-anniversary. FYI, Pete is not a good DJ. And whoever he had DJing that night wasn't either.
Bar highlights:
+ random Bill Beckett sighting
+ PWTs debuted an as-yet unrecorded song, Boomerang
+ RyanJ and Al from Empires were there, and in conversation I somehow ended up asking RyanJ if they needed a street team in Houston. IDK, I was tipsy. But he put his contact info in my iPhone, so whatever.
+ would have talked with DeMar to see when/if PWTs will be doing another headlining tour, but didn't want to cockblock
Then we stumbled back to our hotel and collapsed from alcohol and exhaustion.
I have to get some sleep so I can be coherent for work tomorrow, so here are some pics without commentary. They're not particularly awesome pics, but if you take them and use them, let me know. I'm having issues with Photobucket and my camera, which appears to have duplicated EVERY FUCKING PICTURE, so when I get it sorted out, I'll upload more and comment about the Minneapolis show. ♥
eckerlilas's or fiddleyoumust's posts for that. Mostly during the M&G when he was all smiley, I was too *__* to think to snap photos.
ETA: photo album is here