Okay, so here's the fullish story.
I got to my friend Krista's house at about 6:30. Krista, her boyfriend Emory and I hung out there until 7:30, then we headed downtown. When we got there, we found Mike (who had showed up early), so we had a spot near the front of the line. They finally let us in at 8:15 (even though Matt's site said doors were at 6:00, and the tickets said doors were at 7:30).
We stopped by the merch booth on the way in, and I got two kickass t-shirts ($25 each
). Then we all headed in. Since we were near the front of the lineup, we ended up like 3-4 people back, right in the center (though we later ended up being shoved slightly to the right). It's a nice small club, and it was packed.
The opening band, The Ladies and Gentlemen, was all right. They were kind of neat, I guess. One guy in the band was really in to the music, but he didn't do much. He had a handle bar mustache and we named him Francois. As the crowd settled down I yelled "I LOVE YOU FRANCOIS". We all laughed, but no one else knew who the hell Francois was.
RIGHT after they left the stage, someone tried to start the K-I-C-K-A-S-S. It didn't work. It faded out after maybe two lines, and the guy who started it yelled "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? HAVE YOU GUYS NEVER HEARD THAT SONG?!"
About 10 minutes later the club was getting quieter again so I did it. At the top of my lungs I shouted "K I C K A S S! THAT'S THE WAY WE SPELL SUCCESS"
And it worked!
It was amazing. The crowd kept doing it over and over. It couldn't have worked better (then again, it may have just been that the group right around me was really loud lol). But it was great.
A minute or two after it died out, I heard the actual cheerleaders from the track singing it.
That's right.
They opened with Giant.
The first thing that struck me was the absolute ENERGY in the band. Well, everyone but Rich. He just kind of stands there looking bored. (OH MAN! And he's also sporting a handlebar mustache! lol) But Matt, for example, was all over the stage, bobbing around and rocking out. Christian was an amazing presence on stage. He'd be playing calmly for a while, then he'd suddenly jump up on the speakers and play right up in the crowd's face. Pat was a little hard to see because he was raised up and the lights only rarely caught him. But there was one point between songs when he suddenly stood up and leaned over his drums into the light and got a huge cheer from the crowd.
The crowd was pretty good, for the most part. The group around us was great, save for a couple of idiots. Two guys right in front of us were taking bong hits and blowing it right at us for a while. Finally they either ran out or got too high to care and stopped. Some of the moshers got really annoying, but the group in front and to the right of us were great. Energetic without flailing around like idiots.
The setlist was outstanding. I don't remember every song or the order they played them (how the hell do people remember that stuff?), but it was mind blowing. The songs I can recall right at the moment (in no particular order) are: Giant, acoustic Tripoli, Little Terror, Blue Skies Over Band Lands (in the middle of which Matt did a little spiel for Amnesty International, which was cool), Advertising On Police Cars, Near Fantastica, acoustic Apparitions, Hello Time Bomb, Load Me Up, Suburbia, Oh Be Joyful, Carmelina, Everything Is Automatic, Alert Status Red, Weapon.
EDIT: Matt just posted the actual setlist:
Giant
Alert Status Red
Everything Is Automatic
Hello Time Bomb
Suburbia
Blue Skies Over Bad Lands
Load Me Up
Carmelina
Oh Be Joyful
Little Terror
Weapon
Apparitions (Acoustic)
Encore
Near Fantastica
Advertising On Police Cars
Tripoli (Acoustic)
A couple of times Matt jumped up on the speakers right in front of the crowd (my friend, who was right in front of me, only missed reaching out to touch him by inches). Once was when he was getting us to sing the chorus to Everything Is Automatic. The other was when he was playing a kickass solo. It was amazing, and I got a good picture or two out of it.
At one point, right before they played Suburbia, there was a pause in the action. Suddenly Rich turned to Matt and gave an exaggerated shrug. It seemed like he couldn't find the bass he needed. Then Matt kind of laughed and said "Tonight's fuckup brought to you by ... me! Oh well, we can play that during the encore. Rich would probably rather play the keys anyways." and then they went into Suburbia.
After one song, Matt kind of did his thanks for coming, how are you feeling thing. Then he said "I always thought this place was a strip club..."
Later he explained that he and Rich (and presumably the rest of the band) used to play at AJ's (right across the street) a lot. They'd look across at Stages and never see anyone going in or out, so they figured it must be a strip club. "And look at this guy in the front row ... he thinks we should turn it into one!" At which point I and a couple of other people yelled "TAKE IT OFF!"
After the band had left the stage (after their encore), some guy kept yelling "PLAY RICO!" hehe
After the show, we hung around outside for a few minutes and Rich came out of the bus. We talked to him for a bit (he was flirting with the ladies quite a bit ... a man after Josh's heart no doubt). Really funny guy, though. I got him to sign my WLRRR postcard. More on that later.
Then Christian came out. I talked to him a bit too. Got him to sign the card, too. I had a sliver sharpie to do it with. He stood there for a bit before signing it, and I realized that he was trying to get his own sharpie out of his pocket. Then he was about to sign it (dark surface, black marker) and said "Oh... That's not gonna... OH I see! You know what you're doing. And here I was trying to be all cool and looking prepared. hah!" Really nice guy.
Pat came out, chatted and signed stuff. He stuck around for a bit and talked to another group of people. He's pretty cool, but a little whiney ("We need to find a new light guy, 'cause I kept looking over my drums to see where the spotlight was hitting in front of me") lol.
Others kept coming on and off the bus, saying Matt would be out in a bit. One guy finally explained that he was really hot and sweaty from the show, and didn't want to come out until he'd dried off so he wouldn't get sick. Finally he did come to the steps of the bus and talked to fans, took pictures, signed autographs, etc. Matt was extremely nice to everyone. Really great guy. Laughing it up and whatnot. I got him to sign the postcard too (although the marker didn't work very well, probably because I had it out open in the cold). I also got my picture with him. He was great, thanked me for coming, shook my hand and all that. I would have loved to try to strike up a conversation with him but a) I was star-struck and b) there was a lineup of people waiting to meet him.
Then I realized that I didn't get any pictures with the other members. So, my friends and I found Pat and Rich talking to some people, and we got them to do a group picture with us. Rich was looking for Christian to come join the picture, but told us that "Chris is a shape-shifter. One mintue he's here and he's a rockin' guitar player, the next he's a ... uhh ... unicorn." Finally we saw Chris walking up the block (he'd gone wandering off with someone he knew, I guess), so I got my picture with him, too.
All 165 pictures I took are on the hub. Most of them are blurry crap, but some turned out great. I'm going to resize and upload some of the better ones to show off.
