Long Winded Show Recap.







Warning: I have to stay professional 90% of the time now that I am actually headed toward graduation and to getting a job. This is my time to fangirl, so don’t judge me. Please excuse my typos and I’ll try to make this as short as possible, but I will warn you I ramble occasionally…… or always. :)

We started down to Atlanta late because I was in my field placement (I student teach in a first grade class, this is actually important to a later part in the story) later than I originally thought. Anyhow, we got to the venue around 3:30 and just hung about with other NDP members until Zack came to get us. So, around 5:00 Zack came and got us to take us down to meet the guys. I think total, there were maybe 50 or 60 of us in the meet and greet and it lasted a little less than an hour.

I had to get Zack to okay me getting two things signed, one for me and then one for my first grade class.

The story behind getting this drawing signed for my first grade class is this; My students asked me what I was doing this weekend and I told them that I was going to see my favorite band and that I got to meet them. They were so excited. Several students asked the question: “Are they famous like Justin Bieber?” To which I replied, “Yeah, just like Justin Bieber.” The kids are seriously the sweetest and brightest kids, so I couldn’t deny their request to get something signed for them by the band. I told each of the guys the story about the kids asking if they were famous like Justin Bieber and they thought it was hilarious. All the guys pretty much referred to it as adorable and that it was incredibly cute that I wanted to get something signed for them. It all went by in such a rush that I can’t remember much of what they said. When I finally got to Brendon he laughed when I told him the Bieber story and he was like” Awwww, that is so cute.” He pretty much just kept repeating that it was adorable and cute the whole like 45 seconds we interacted. After he signed his name, he paused for a few seconds then wrote “Just like Bieber” under his signature which made me laugh because I know the kids will just love that!




After we got everything signed, we went back through again to get our pictures taken. I took a few video clips and pictures with my phone when they were taking pictures. I didn’t think it would be a big deal because after my friend got her picture taken I handed her my phone. Apparently, I didn’t do this discretely enough and forgot that my camera was still on and Zack saw it, but was like “Just keep recording”. He was actually much more laid back at this date than any of the precious times I have had meet and greet before on other tours. He didn’t seem concerned that we would really do anything horrendously creepy.







The rest of the videos from meet and greet are here


After meet and greet we finally got to go in. We ended up on barricade in the left side (Ian’s side) of the stage.


I’m going to skip around of my review of the actual performances. Please excuse me if I get them out of order.

Foxy Shazam was fantastic like always. I was a bit sad that they didn’t play “Wanna Be Angel”. I feel like that is a distinctly Foxy song, but you know whatever. There was a tense moment when he called a guy out for yelling “fuck you” to the band for most of the set. He basically said he was going to bash the guy’s face into the ground until he bled to death. So yeah, that was sort of awkward. Overall, I think the only word to describe this band is FABULOUS.


Fun. Fun. Fun. I just cannot say enough good things about this band. I actually had tickets to see them at their sold out show in Atlanta, but ended up not being able to make it to show because of a lack of gas money. I am so glad that I finally got to see them. They are such a high energy band live. SO much dancing. So much Nate Swag going on. I really love how when they perform their songs live you can really see how the speed and tempo of the songs changes to show the mood of the lyrics. Nate is also such an emotional signer that it’s almost like you can see the emotions he’s feeling all over his face on each song. It was nice to see how incredibly humbled the band seemed by the crowd belting their lyrics back to them. The happiness they expressed at just being on stage was contagious and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face for the rest of their set. I just have no idea how to explain why I love this band so much.




This panic show experience was different than any one I have had before. I think that they have carved a new way for themselves and it’s GOOD. The show didn’t feel like Fever!Panic or Pretty.Odd/Panic, it felt like a new panic that was beyond spectacular. I’ll try to keep this short, mainly because I can’t remember much of what happened.
Overall, their set was just fantastic! There was a good vibe from the crowd and the band had such high energy.
Pretty. Odd. Is by far my favorite album, but I’m glad they only played two singles from the album because they just didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the set.
I’m still not sure what was going on, but at the beginning of I Write Sins, Ian sat down in front of where I was on barricade and started heckling me, pointing at me, and giving me shit (in a joking way). I still don’t know what he was giving me shit about, but he was laughing and pretty much having a one way conversation with me because I couldn’t hear whatever he was saying to me. You can sort of see him pointing at me in this video around :45 to 1:00ish in this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbiB3LD4DbA). I also managed to capture this picture on my iPhone, again not the greatest quality, but my actual camera died.





He is seriously the SWEETEST. He had this huge smile on his for most of the night and just loved interacting with the crowd. I mean, I’m not even going to lie, I hope they make him permanent.

Then they played C’mon. I kept hoping that every intro they did would somehow connect and lead into it, but when they finally did it. OH. MY. GOD. It was everything I could have hoped for and more. I have a video of it on my youtube account, but it’s not good quality. There’s a much much better quality video floating around out on the net (http://youtu.be/OQX1z0AL_to) . In that video, I really loved the look on Spencer’s face in the background at like :45. It was a pretty, for lack of a better word, magical experience. I think a few of us were hoping they would play it, but we didn’t expect them to because they hadn’t so far on the tour. We were the first crowd to hear the song live and the energy was just electric in that venue when they played that song, we all went crazy. It’s incredibly hard to accurately describe the total experience when they played it. It just felt special and the combination of Brendon and Nate is just off the chart. They are both such unique and emotional singers that this song live was just… uh, I can’t put it into words.

The obviously closed with the Kansas Cover and Nearly Witches (see attached video, which the quality goes in and out of, fucking iPhone, but I recorded them introducing the song and then all the banter after Carry on Wayward Son). I am a HUGE classis rock fan! I knew they were covering the Kansas song before I got there obviously and I thought I could control myself with they played it, but I don’t know what got into me. I was rocking hard and belting it out. Even the surly security guard was head bobbing and mouthing the lyrics with a smile. I don’t know how many times I can say this, but the crowd was just ON that night and the band was definitely feeding off us.





That was a pretty fantastic end to a great evening!

I feel like everyone knows at least one person from the town I’m from. After the show we ran into Evan Winiker, from fun./Steel Train and chatted with him and their sound guy for a bit. I feel like such a dork, but he said Nate wasn’t coming out so I had to gush about how amazing fun. Is and how it was nice to see a band completely humbled by the crowd’s reaction to their songs. Evan asked where I was from and after telling him Dalton, he was like OHHHH, I know where that is my friend *insert name I forgot here* is from Dalton and he came tonight! This is the part where I get to insert an extremely embarrassing fan moment. He asked us where we had heard of Steel Train when I said that I was a fan and I of course blurted out that I had found them on Sarah’s blog. I know! I KNOW! Feel free to :| face me all day, I was doing it to myself right after I said it. He actually seemed pretty intrigued to find out that she was a fan of theirs and asked several questions about her (I played several off like I had no idea to make myself look a hell of a lot less creepy than I felt in that moment, hence the need to remove myself from the fandom haha!) I thought it was kind of cute that he asked if she had been on tour the past week and described her as the “pretty girl with the black hair”.

Overall, the show was absolutely fabulous and I loved every minute of it! If you haven’t had a chance to check the tour out, please do. All three of the bands are fantastic and hard working!

Even though my pictures aren’t that great, (I didn’t have my D3000 with me because I thought the camera policy was different than it actually was), if you use any of my pictures, please link back to my flickr account! I don’t care where you post them as long as I am given credit. :)


The rest of the set is here @ flickr