Simply stunning!!

This Providence and The Academy Is sing Jimmy Eat World acoustic. They performed this in Boise and it was even better than this. It gave me goosebumps. I love great
harmonies.

Fun Times and Exciting News

Should I post the exciting news first, or the fun times...
Fun times or exciting news? ;)

O.K. I have to spill the beans. Relient K is coming to Salt Lake City!! I was so excited that it took me hours to calm down and get some sleep. But it was a good thing, really. It's just that I saw Thiessen's blog about tour dates, and was preparing myself for disappointment. Instead, I saw June 4, Salt Lake City and did a happy dance (well, in my mind I did a happy dance, anyway.) Murray Theater is not a terribly huge venue. I have only been there one time before to see Secondhand Serenade, My American Dream, Play Radio Play and Rookie of the year show. It is an old theater made into a concert venue, and it's actually kind of a fun place. Tickets go on sale Saturday, and now I just have to figure out for certain which promoter so I know where to get them. LOL

As for the fun times, Saturday was fun - really fun. I started off the day on the right foot, by getting a whopping 2 hours of sleep before heading for Boise. I am quite sure I was barely coherent most of the day. We did have a nice drive and arrived in Boise at 2:30 p.m.

I had hoped for a wee bit of early check in and hoped to be to the venue by 3 p.m., but instead we had to wait until 3:20 for the room to be ready. I probably arrived at the venue around 3:30 p.m., so you know I didn't waste a lot of time at the hotel. It was a nice room, though, at a pretty reasonable price and only .9 of a mile from the venue.


Even with the short distance, I saw a tour bus outside a nearby hotel and a sign that said, Joan Baez, 8 p.m. SOLD OUT! I didn't even know she was touring. I would have loved that show!! LOL Down the street, David Archuleta was playing. I heard there was a long line.

When I arrived at the venue, my husband pulled into the lot and I saw the tour bus, and a red car with two young ladies, so I asked them if they knew anything about the venue. As it turned out, they were from Utah. They said I could hang out with them for the evening. They were pretty big TAI fans. They said they had talked to one of the This Providence guys earlier and I gathered from the description that they had talked to Gavin. They told me the tour manager's name so I could ask him about my camera. He said it had to go through the publicist, so I said I just wanted to take pics of This Providence, and he said he'd put something together for me. So my husband left me with cameras. As it turned out the venue pretty much nixed any hope of getting my dslr in and didn't even want to let in ANY cameras, but I mentioned to the security guard what the tour manager had said. Anyway, he finally went in and checked and I was able to bring my point and shoot in. Phew!! I would have been heartbroken otherwise. My new concert friends let me leave my dslr in their trunk and told me where they were staying in case anything happened and we lost track of each other.

After a long wait, lots of conversations, and having a few buckets of rain pouring down on us, it was almost time for the doors to open. The venue staff came out and wrist banded people before the doors opened which made my day since I had will call. I managed to get to the stage, barely on the right. The stage wasn't really huge. It was a small place, but lots of fun.

First to play was Evan Taubenfeld. Apparently he used to be a lead guitarist/back up vocalist for Avril Lavigne. He was a lot of fun and had an amazing voice. I was able to meet him and talk a bit after the concert was over, and he really was nice. I couldn't bring myself to buy his "Cheater of the Year" tee (name of his song.) I just felt funny wearing it. He said I could put an "X" over "Cheater of the Year." I seriously considered it. LOL

This Providence followed Evan, with a great acoustic set. The concert was acoustic, so both TAI and This Providence only played with two of their band members. Dan and Gavin sounded incredible. The very first song, "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" is not what I would expect to hear as an acoustic song, but they did an amazing job of it. They played "Letdown" acoustic and it was great. I'd been singing that one all day. My favorite though, is the "sappy love song" (Dan's words, not mine) "Sand in Your Shoes." It's just beautiful. The gals behind me knew every word to all of the songs. I could hear them well. I'm sure they have some video of me singing badly (I could not hear myself at all) along with Dan and Gavin. The only bad thing, as usual, is that it had to come to an end.



After a bit of time for a stage set up, it was time for The Academy Is. All of the vocals were a pleasure to hear. William has an great voice. He also takes good care of it (at least before the show. lol) I could hear him warming up during sound check earlier in the day. I've seen TAI about 3 or 4 times, but I still don't have one of their cd's. I will remedy that soon. I would have bought one there, but they didn't have any available.




Afterwards, all of the artists hung out with us concertgoers, signed autographs, took photos, etc. I talked to Gavin a while, talked to Dan some, talked to Evan, and had a photo taken, and had a photo taken with Adam Siska. I waited for things to die down so I could get a pic with Dan and Gavin. Then I waited for the line to die down for William. Finally I got in line and the venue wanted to kick everyone out. So, William said we could just go outside and finish. Oh, and I did meet up with my concert friends who were in the lot with me. The three of us, and a few others stayed outside in the lot and talked to William for quite a long while. He was very gracious.





Finally, my new concert friends, drove me back to my hotel (which was pretty cool as I had planned to walk as I didn't want to wake Ed up.)

As it turned out, Ed was awake. Neither of us had dinner, so he ate some brownies he bought earlier at a stop, and I ate the banana I bought. Great meals. LOL Then at around 12:30 a.m. I crashed as I was completely exhausted. At 5 a.m. I had to get up, take a quick shower, and check out. I wanted to be back in time for church at 10 a.m. Things went well, but there was a hang up at the desk and it took 20 minutes to check out. Ed was less than happy that we were rushing back, so that made me feel a little bad, but I made it to church at 10:30. It was late, but they were still in the middle of the worship part of the service, so things went well overall.

Needless to say, it was an exhausting weekend, but a fun one! I can't wait for the next big adventure. I think that will be this Thursday for Big Daddy Weave. I am working, starting at 8 a.m. Who needs sleep? ;)

Peace out,
Melanie

Being "Warped" in Boise

I originally posted this on a private family site on Aug. 11, but thought why reinvent the wheel. LOL I will add notes and photos, too. I neglected to mention that when Lauralee and I arrived at the hotel at 5 mins. to 6 one of the first things we did was figure out our World Wide Moment photos. We took a pic of each other, simultaneously. It seemed appropriate. Here is my pic of Lauralee:

On with the show...




"Thursday night, I left for Warped Tour in Boise. Initially, I had a room at the Hampton Inn in Nampa, ID booked. IT sits practically in the venue parking lot - at least they are adjacent. I found out Brittany and Ann were going to the Boise Warped tour and asked if they had a room yet. Ann said, "no", so I offered to share mine. Then a friend I meet here at concerts a lot said she was planning to go, so there were four of us. When Ann and Brittany got to the hotel around 9:15 p.m., Ann tells me they are picking Kara up at 11:16 at the airport, and that she is staying in the room with us. Needless to say, we didn't sleep a whole lot. We also terrorized Wal Mart at least three times. LOL Mostly just with silliness. Lauralee (the friend I went with from UT) and I had gone to Wal Mart earlier, and the gal at the front couldn't seem to figure out that Lauralee's Glaceau vitamin water, and the smart water were both on the receipt and from the same company. Yea.. now we're water thieves. Sigh...

SO, we did finally sleep a little. In the morning we ran into John Warne in the hotel lobby. He went to do his laundry and we "accosted" him later in the laundry room. Brittany was too chicken, and I wasn't going to bother him, so Ann did. LOL We all followed, of course. He said it was o.k. I left my Smart Water and he caught me later to make sure I had it. Lauralee was working at the show for ecogreen (which got her in free, basically) and Kara was working for RK's merch table and she took the road manager a cup of coffee with messages from Relient K boardies written all over the cup. I was trying to figure out how she would get a cup of hot coffee into the venue, but apparently one of the crew she knew arranged it. She also was able to be on the side of the stage when RK played. I was front and center, but left because I had a photo pass. The stage was extremely tall, so photos were difficult. Then instead of the usual 3 songs to shoot, I was only told I could shoot for 2 songs. But I was able to take pics from the side of the stage. I really didn't think I had much, but I ended up with some decent photos after all. When RK was done, Matty came over to where I was and gave me a big hug. Then he was mobbed by 50 other people all wanting hugs. It was kinda silly. Afterwards, I went to the Kia tent for a Relient K signing, and I had some things for them. I found a really adorable Spiderman pj set - 12 mos, and Jon is a big marvel comics fan who has a 6 month old son. He loved it. We were able to hang around a little after the signing, and Matty showed me his iPhone and scrabble game. The graphics are really amazing.
Really bad pic at the Kia tent, but it was fun:


Then I met Fred of The Color Fred really briefly, hung out at the RK merch tent, watched a few other bands, and left a little early after hearing about a song and a half of Reel Big Fish. They weren't bad, but I was beat. Ann and Brittany were back at the hotel since Ann wasn't feeling well. So, I left early so as to be able to say goodbye to them. The hotel was booked, but Ann managed to get one due to a cancellation so we stayed at the Hampton again. I was lucky enough to get Motel 6 in Twin Falls to cancel my reservation at 8 p.m. at no charge. I think it ended up cheaper in the long run. The only downside was that it was a smoking room, so I just bought some claritin to be safe. WE all went to get food. They all ended up at Taco Del Mar, except Brittany who went to Walmart to get something to eat. I went to a sandwich shop. Two of the guys from All Time Low came in and we chatted a bit.

Ann, Brittany & Kara left really early (like 4:30 a.m.) since they were headed for Warped Tour at the Gorge in WA. Lauralee and I slept in a little bit longer, had breakfast in the lobby, then headed for home. We stopped at Jack in the Box at Twin Falls for lunch, and I took her to Perrine bridge to see the Gorge and to Centennial Park to see the snake river a little closer, and the waterfall there.



Then we made it home around 6:10 p.m. It may take me a bit to recover. IT was fun, though. The only downside is that my 50 mm lens came apart. Those things are great low light lenses, but they are too darned fragile!

I think my "mini tour" is over for now. I saw The Fold on the 21st of July and the 22nd, then on 23-26 I was at the Gorge in WA for Creation NW, on the 30th to see Switchfoot in Rock Springs, WY (not really as far away as it might sound), to USANA in West Valley to see James Taylor on the 2nd, and Warped Tour on the 8th. Jerome of Switchfoot said I had my own "mini tour" and I said, "Yea, I don't know how you guys do it!"

Anyway, it's kept me pretty busy and in trouble of late. I'm tired though. LOL "

Now for my addendums:

I don't mention the "Pizza Party". Not sure how I left that one out. LOL Kara and Brittany bought frozen pizza at Wal Mart, and I bought the Dreyer's fruit popsicles. Almost all of the popsicles had multiple sticks. It was really odd. The other thing I didn't mention was that I got into a conversation with a guy from a band called "Allura" in the elevator, and when he got off on the second floor, I started to follow him out. I was on the 4th floor. Pretty embarassing. hahaha
And, I knew All Time Low's merch guy. He's a good guy, even if I keep wanting to call him Alex instead of Andrew, which is pretty funny since the lead singer of All Time Low is Alex.

Anyway, Ann put together a video here for our pizza party:


It's what happens when you put a bunch of silly RK fans in a hotel on the same night.
Did we really sleep at all?

Girls just wanna have fun:


Yes, I did see other bands besides Relient K: